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THE QUARTERLY 


JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 


EDITED BY 


JAMES SAMUELSON 


AND 


WILLIAM CROOKES, E.R. 


VOLUME I. 


ith Allustrations ow Copper, Wood, and Stone. 


LONDON: 
JOHN CHURCHILL AND SONS, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. 


Paris: Leipzig: 
VICTOR MASSON ET FILS. LUDWIG DENICKE. 


——— 
\~) 


MDCCCLXIYV. 


HY teas 


THE QUARTERLY 


JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 


JANUARY, 1864. 


INTRODUCTION. 


Tux readers of a new Periodical are fairly entitled to receive at the 
hands of its projectors, not only a statement of the grounds upon which 
it has been established, but also some exposition of its intended scope 
and objects. 

The word “some” is here designedly used, for it is not improbable 
that a work of this description, professing to keep pace with the ad- 
vancing intelligence of mankind, and even, should opportunities pre- 
sent themselves, to serve as a pioneer of progress, may in the course of 
time become so modified as materially to change its character. And 
as we are fortunately not trammelled by those conditions which in the 
commercial world frequently place limits upon a project when it is 
first set on foot, we shall reserve to ourselves the right of introducing 
amendments, or of supplying deficiencies as our work proceeds, adopt- 
ing the old proverb that “ Times change, and with them we shall change 
also.” As this may appear a somewhat vague announcement of our 
plans, we will shortly conduct our readers to a standpoint from whence 
they may obtain a survey of the field of our intended labours, and in 
the meantime we would invite them to follow us in a few reflections 
which have been the cause of our venturing, at this particular period, 
into the ranks of literature. 

How does it happen that from the earliest ages of the historic record, 
Art has been a favoured offspring of the human intellect, the spoiled 
child of man, whilst to Science he has been but a sorry stepfather ? 
In his rudest stages, he wooed her favour, painting his own skin if he 
could paint nought else, and in the palmy days of his early civilization 
he raised her upon a pedestal from which she never descended, although 
in the dark ages that followed, her figure was for the time obscured. 
Not so with Science. Her youthful steps have always been watched 
with jealousy and suspicion, and instead of guidance and support, every 
obstacle has been thrown in her path, her grandest revelations being 

VOL. I. B 


2, Introduction. [Jan. 


frequently held up to scorn and obloquy, and twisted and tortured 
until they were made to appear the teachings of the Evil One. 

We have but to place side by side the artist whose employment has 
been to copy the works of nature, and the student who has enunciated 
her laws; or the modeller in stone, and the teacher of those truths 
which even stones reveal; and what a contrast do they afford! The 
labours of the one have been rewarded with a wreath of laurel, whilst 
a crown of thorns has ever fallen to the other’s lot. 

How is this phenomenon to be explained? Can it be—and we 
make the inquiry with due appreciation of her elevating tendencies— 
can it be that the ways of Art are elastic and accommodating, and that 
without distinction of sect or creed, she has always been the servant 
of Theology, doing duty alike for Hebrew and Greek, Mahommedan 
and Christian, whilst Science has held aloof from all these denomina- 
tions and has walked only with the religion taught by nature? Or is 
it that the truths of Science can only be understood and appreciated 
by the cultivated intellect, whilst the beauties of Art impress them- 
selyes upon the unaided sense ? 

We refrain from pressing the inquiry further, lest it be imagined 
that we would seek to elevate our mistress at the expense of a sister, 
or that we are assuming a petulant tone and an attitude of hostility 
towards one with whom we desire to walk hand in hand, and to whom 
also our co-operation is daily becoming more indispensable. 

Leaving our readers, then, to work out the problem for themselves 
as regards the past, we proceed to inquire whether the existing state of 
things holds out a more hopeful prospect to Science and her votaries ; 
and here the replies are sufficiently plain and satisfactory. 

A certain amount of scientific knowledge is now absolutely neces- 
sary to men of all ranks, and forms an essential element in a liberal 
education. The influence of scientific discovery is becoming daily 
more powerful, and is making itself felt in almost every vocation of 
life. Science not only succours the wounded on the battle-field, but 
without her powerful aid, bravery is of no avail in the General, nor 
in the ranks. The loud and fluent tongue of the pleader may seek to 
persuade, but without the unobtrusive evidence of the man of science 
it fails to convince. The tiller of the soil may labour unremittingly 
with his hands, and waste the sweat of his brow, but his neighbour 
looks on, smiling, and lets the steam-engine perform his work more 
speedily and at a smaller cost. And so it is everywhere,—in the 
factory or mine, in the university or schoolroom, in the world of 
pleasure as in the world of pain. 

It is true that, for the moment, a few theologians and politicians 
are inclined to underrate her influence, and even in some instances to 


1864. | Introduction. 3 


close their ears to her teachings; but these are exceptional cases, and 
those who “waste their philosophic pains” in thus endeavouring to 
stem the tide of progress, will one day find themselves drifting alone 
down the current with which they might have sailed in the company of 
their fellow-travellers on the way to Truth. 

Scientific knowledge is now eagerly sought, and its possessors are 
respected. Here and there a few impetuous workers or thinkers give 
utterance to tenets which shock the temperate and cautious, and lead 
the pious to believe that another golden calf is about to be set up for 
worship; but these are the exceptions, and compared with Theology 
and Politics, Science has but few extremists. As, however, her 
devotees are rather men of thought and action than of wordy elo- 
quence, they are often less appreciated than the fruits of their labours, 
and thus it happens that the astute politician or the talented historian 
may edge his way on to the Treasury Bench, or arrive at the dignity 
of a Peerage, and the eloquent Theologian may succeed in reaping 
a Bishopric, whereas the able man of science whose labours have 
changed the destiny of nations, or who has given a new direction or a 
fresh impulse to the course of civilization, must content himself with 
a Knighthood, or declining that, must rest satisfied with the honour- 
able letters affixed to his name by his fellow-labourers, and leave it to 
posterity to raise an enduring monument to his memory. 

Still, as we have said, Science is beginning to exercise a potent 
influence in every circle of society, and not only does she reckon 
amongst her followers multitudes of the labouring classes (so many, 
indeed, that it has been found necessary to organize a special depart- 
ment and machinery in the State to aid them in the pursuit of this 
species of knowledge), but even lords and statesmen who had pre- 
viously bestowed all their favours upon the nurseries of literature, are 
now beginning to cast tender glances upon Schools of Science, and 
other similar institutions. The discoveries of unwearying investiga- 
tors, too, and the explorations of bold adventurers on the earth or sea, 
or in the air, are no longer published in ponderous tomes and modest 
“brochures,” but find a rapid utterance in special periodicals, and 
even in the flying sheets of the daily press,—those great organs of 
public opinion without which no man can live the life of the nine- 
teenth century. 

Thus much by way of preface to the consideration of the present 
state of Scientific knowledge; but if, from a theme so noble and in- 
spiring, we have been able to derive so little eloquence, what words 
shall we find to plead our own cause? As we approach the subject, 
we feel as does the candidate for public suffrage, who comes before 
the constituency primed with eloquent appeals and telling periods, 

B2 


4 Introduction. | Jan. 


but who, when he sees the crowd of curious upturned faces, concealing 
tongues ready to applaud, but equally prompt to hiss, finds that his 
labelled sentences are gone, and with them his courage to seek fresh 
ones. 

Let us, then, be brief. 

We have been told by men in every walk of life, that the time is 
come when Science may claim for herself a special organ; that not 
alone scientific readers, but those of every class, desire to approach the 
source from whence this species of knowledge is derived,—to learn in 
which direction the current flows, and how it is likely to affect their 
material interests or questions bearing upon their eternal happiness. 

To supply such a want is a truly ambitious aim, and one which, 
we do not hesitate to confess, we should never have proposed to our- 
selves had we not been first assured of the co-operation of those whose 
powers alone are equal to its accomplishment. 

With men illustrious in Science, ready to avail themselves of these 
pages as a medium of communication with the public, and to many of 
whom we acknowledge ourselves already indebted, both for friendly 
counsel and for active co-operation, we now set out, full cf hope and 
confidence; and before giving place to those whose words will have 
much weight, and whose teachings cannot fail to exercise a beneficial 
influence, we invite our readers to advance a few paces with us, to an 
eminence from which we may be enabled to point out to them some of 
the more prominent farmsteads on the surrounding fields of Science, 
where the labourers are to-day busy sowing or reaping, enriching old, 
or winning new pastures. 


This figurative remark naturally leads us to the consideration of 
one or two of the more prominent features in connection with the 
Science and practice of Agriculture as they are to-day presented to 
our notice; and, perhaps, no subject is more deserving of attention 
at our hands than the Drainage and Cultivation of land. 

It is, probably, unknown to the large majority of our readers, that 
a legislative enactment was passed, a few years since, called the 
“Tand Drainage Act,” the object of which was to enable proprietors 
of arable and pasture land situated in valleys or level districts more 
effectually to drain such land by the acquisition of a convenient access 
to what are termed the arterial drains (the smaller streams and rivers); 
in fact, to give them what, in the railway world, would be called 
“running powers” for a drain through a neighbour's estate. 

When they are informed that by improved drainage the rental of 
some kinds of land may be raised from 5s. or 6s. to 40s., or even 50s. 
an acre, whilst the poorer soils are capable of being enhanced four- 


1864. | Introduction. 5 


fold, our readers will perceive this movement to be one of great 
practical importance. ‘To do our English landowners and farmers 
justice, it would appear that they have always been willing to grant 
this accommodation to a neighbour, but, owing to the laws of entail 
and other conditions of society, this has been but a fleeting privilege, 
and should the obliging neighbour die, and be followed in the posses- 
sion of his estate by one less accommodating, the outlet might at any 
moment be blocked up or otherwise intercepted, and then the owner 
of the drained land would have no power to cause it to be cleared or 
reconstructed. 

Several previous attempts had been made to remedy this evil by 
legislative enactments, all of which proved futile; but under the new 
Act (which appears to have objectionable as well as advantageous 
features) a local Board may now be formed, having power to assess a 
rural district precisely as in the case of a ‘ commission of sewers.” 
The method by which it is intended to improve the drainage of land 
is by doing away with those mill-dams which interfere with the free 
current of an arterial drain, as well as through the utilization of others 
by which the flow is facilitated ; by collecting and storing up surplus 
water, and preserving it for seasons of drought; and pumping stag- 
nant water by mechanical power from low to high levels, and thence 
directing it into arterial drains. To attain these objects, it is requisite 
to secure the hearty co-operation of whole agricultural districts, and 
owners of land should not look to their own immediate interests 
alone, but should consider the welfare of their neighbours and 
posterity. 

The promoters of such movements as these will find us ever ready 
to advocate their cause and give publicity to their reasonable sug- 
gestions.* 

But good drainage alone is not a sufficient preparation of the soil 
for the reception of the parent seed; deep and constant furrowing are 
also requisite, and for this purpose steam is rapidly and advan- 
tageously superseding horse-power. 'The work is accomplished more 
efficiently and speedily, and there are descriptions of soil, and seasons 
when it would be absolutely ruinous to allow horses to tread the land 
whilst dragging the plough, whereas no obstacle whatever is opposed 
to steam traction. Indeed, the substitution of the latter for the former 
has, no doubt, frequently gained a season to the farmer, as his improved 
harvesting implements have saved him a valuable crop. 

It is hardly needful to add, that with improved drainage and cul- 
tivation of the soil, the farmer secures more valuable produce. Light, 


* Mr. J. Bailey Denton has been most active in bringing about improved 
drainage, and in procuring enactments for the purpose. 


6 Introduction. [Jan. 


scanty grain gives place to the full rich ear, and succulent grasses and 
clovers supplant the poorer kinds; in fact, the “ conditions of exist- 
ence” are altered, and the weed no longer finds a genial bed. The 
soil prepared, we next come to the seed; and here, too, the agricul- 
turist has enlisted science in his cause. Two attempts are being 
made to increase the produce of cereals: one by the use of what is 
termed “ pedigree seed ;” that is, a seed derived from repeated selec- 
tions of the finest ears—the original parent being an ear of great size 
—by artificial selection, in fact; the other by artificial fructification. 
Our limited space will not permit us to dwell upon either of these 
systems, which will probably be treated in detail hereafter by abler 
pens than ours; and we must refer to the farmer’s last trouble— 
save and except the conversion of his harvest into gold, in which 
process he stands in need of other speculations than those of scien- 
tific men—we mean the saving of his produce, or, we might almost 
say, the conquest of the elements. 

The improvements which are daily taking place, to enable him to 
expedite and cheapen his harvest operations, deserve, and will receive 
a special place with us. The reaping and mowing machines which 
have been some time in use in America are now approaching per- 
fection in England, and the haymaking machine has already rescued 
many a crop that would otherwise have been sacrificed. A little 
more speed ; a few more applications of scientific principles ; and the 
farmer may defy or wield the weather as he already manipulates and 
utilizes the soil. 


But whilst the agriculturist turns with disfavour from the time- 
honoured running stream, and, pronouncing water-wheels a nuisance, 
calls in the aid of the steam-engine to every portion of his rapidly- 
progressing work, a leading mechanician steps forward, and warns us 
of the necessity of economizing coal and of utilizing water-power, lest 
the supply of the former should become exhausted. In his opening 
address, the President of the British Association startled the world, 
and more especially the geological world, with the announcement, 
that should the consumption of coal increase at its present rate, two 
centuries only will be the duration of the supply from the North 
Country coal-field ; and that, if no greater economy be exercised than 
at present, a hundred years will sufiice to bring about this result. 

Whatever may be the value of this speculation, its propounder has 
been led by the consideration of the subject to practical conclusions, 
perhaps not novel ones, but of great importance to the community, in 
regard to the present mode of employing this precious fuel. He has 
shown that improved machinery, a better arrangement of the fire- 


1864. | Introduction. vi 


grate, and an easy method of firing, would not only economize its 
consumption to an almost incredible degree, but that the inhabitants 
of cities would be spared the annoyance and inconvenience of a 
vitiated atmosphere. Even in our present fireplaces, he tells us, we 
consume five times as much coal as would be requisite in a properly 
constructed stove or improved open fireplaces. 

As regards the substitution of stoves for firesides, we suspect that 
our countrymen would rather dispense with coal altogether and return 
to the days of wood and turf, than allow such an innovation ; but, as 
we shall have occasion to show hereafter, striking improvements are 
being introduced into the construction of land and marine engines, 
which herald a constantly increasing economy in the consumption of 
coal. 

It would appear, however, from the opinions expressed by ex- 
perienced practical geologists, that it is difficult at present to estimate 
even the exact area of our English coal-beds, and it is believed that 
the fields now worked will yield a sufficient supply of fuel to last 
nearly a thousand years.* 

Leaving this subject, we have now to observe that the exploration 
of one new field has already produced results almost as startling, and 
certainly not less useful than the speculations of Sir William Arm- 
strong. In sinking a shaft at Middlesborough, for the purpose of ob- 
taining a supply of fresh water, Messrs. Bolckow and Vaughan, the 
enterprising pioneers of the coal and iron trade in that district, were 
so fortunate as to discover at a depth of twelve hundred and six feet, 
in the Trias, or New Red Sandstone formation, a deposit of rock salt, 
which, in August last, had been penetrated to the depth of nearly 
one hundred feet, without its lowest limit having been reached ; and 
the brine, which was found to contain ninety-six per cent. of chloride 
of sodium, has been pronounced by an experienced chemist to be purer 
than that of Cheshire. 

It is almost impossible for persons unacquainted with the mineral 
and manufacturing districts of Northumberland to form any concep- 
tion of the importance of this discovery. 

Hitherto, the soda manufacture of the Tyne has been entirely 
dependent for its supply of salt (from which the various preparations 
of soda are manufactured) upon the brine-springs of Cheshire and 
Worcestershire, and from these two counties at least one hundred 
thousand tons of salt have been conveyed annually, at a cost, in some 
cases, far exceeding the value at the works, of the mineral itself. 
Should the Cleveland salt-beds prove productive, the Newcastle soda 


* For further information on this topic, we refer our readers to an article in 
the present number, on the “ Coal Resources of Great Britain,’ by Mr. E. Hull. 


8 Introduction. | Jan. 


makers will, of course, be greatly benefited, and will compete more 
successfully than they do at present with the Lancashire manufac- 
turers for the supply of all the western markets. 

As to the fortunate ironmasters, they will not only have found an 
unexpected mine of wealth in the salt-beds, but in the evaporation of 
the brine, they will be enabled to utilize the waste heat from their 
puddling and blast furnaces, as well as from their coke-ovens; thus 
adding profit to profit, and carrying out in an unexpected manner the 
economical principles recommended by the President of the British 
Association. 

Closely allied to the question of Coal, is that of Petroleam—a 
natural product which is likely to exercise an important influence upon 
civilization. This hydro-carbon, some forms of which have long been 
known in India, has recently been found to exude from certain wells 
or springs in Pennsylvania and Canada. It is supposed to arise from 
the destructive distillation of a mineral bitumen beneath the surface, 
and on reaching the hand of man, it is subjected a second time to the 
distilling process, when it yields three distinct substances of consider- 
able value. The first is a spirit, which is employed as a cheap substi- 
tute for turpentine; the second, a burning oil of great brilliancy, 
capable of being used in lamps of an almost nominal value, and itself 
procurable at an average price not exceeding half that of rape-oil ;* and 
lastly, a kind of grease which is employed for lubricating coarse ma- 
chinery. The importation of this substance (chiefly in its distilled 
form) is increasing rapidly, and may be reckoned by millions of gal- 
lons, and almost the only thing requisite to enable it to rank amongst 
our leading commercial staples, is an inexpensive air-tight cask, in 
which it may be stored, so as to obviate the enormous leakage which 
often causes it to be a ruinous venture to importers and dealers. 

These are but two or three of the interesting results or applications 
of that geological knowledge, the development of which must neces- 
sarily occupy a prominent place in our pages; and being of a prac- 
tical character, we have selected them for comment, in preference to 
those which bear upon the principles of the science itself, such as the 
Origin of Rocks, Earthquakes,t the Paleontological Evidences as to 
the Antiquity of the Human Race, and many other subjects which are 
now engaging the attention of scientific men. 


Before quitting terra firma to follow the researches of Science into 
space, we must direct our attention for a few moments to the work of 

* The wholesale price of the finest Petroleum Oil is now (November) one 
shilling and ninepence per gallon; of Rape or Colza Oil, three shillings and 
eightpence per gallon. 

+ On this subject, am article will be found in the present number, by Mr. Mallett. 


1864.] Introduction. 8) 


Geographical Exploration, a subject of great interest in all literary, 
scientific, and political circles. 

A new era is dawning upon the profession of the traveller, and 
those attributes which found their embodiment in the fictitious but 
far-famed German Baron Miinchausen, are fast giving place to 
scrupulous care and accuracy in the description of places, and great 
modesty in the narrative of personal adventures. 

This change is due in part to the general diffusion of know- 
ledge amongst the masses, which enables men more readily to detect 
error and exaggeration; partly to the progress of the photographic art,* 
which is incapable of misrepresentation, and in a large measure to that 
wholesome competition amongst travellers themselves, which soon 
leads to the contradiction or verification of strange and novel dis- 
coveries. Amongst those who have earned for themselves a reputation 
for bravery and endurance, and who at the same time set an example of 
the virtue of modesty in the traveller, are the discoverers of the Source 
of the Nile, and the explorers of Central Australia. 

It would be impossible for us even to refer to the adventures of 
Speke and Grant on their journey from Zanzibar to Lake Nyanza, where 
the source of the Nile was discovered, and thence down the great 
river into civilized Africa. Their discoveries have been aptly com- 
pared by Mr. Crawfurd to those of Columbus, and the practical 
benefits which are likely to follow them through the introduction or 
improved cultivation of useful products of the soil, and the civilization 
of barbarous peoples, will, in this case as in that of Burke and Wills, 
recompense the world for the loss of many of its best sons in the ser- 
vice of exploration. 

But whilst we give a meed of praise to these adventurous tra- 
vellers, we consider it right also to inquire whether or not the 
governments of civilized Europe, and more especially our own legis- 
lators, are bearing their share of the burden, and extending a fair 
amount of support to those who risk their lives in the cause of 
civilization. 

This question will be answered best by a reference to what is 
passing in those regions of Western Equatorial Africa which have so 
long been the seat of the slave-trade and of human sacrifices. His 
Majesty the King of Dahomey must begin to have an elevated 
notion of his own importance, as traveller after traveller, and one re- 
presentative after another from the Courts of Europe, solicits his 
permission to visit him, and to remonstrate with him upon the errors 


* No traveller can plead the excuse that photography is difficult of application, 
after what was accomplished by Professor Piazzi Smyth, at an altitude of 10,700 ft. 
above the sea level, during the Teneriffe expedition. 


10 Introduction. | Jan. 


of his"ways; and if these numerous visits have brought about no 
other improvement in the untutored mind of the sable despot, they 
have at least imparted to it diplomatic powers which would reflect 
eredit upon any European autocrat. It is quite amusing to ob- 
serve how he “cuts his cloth according to his pattern,” flattering 
one traveller and slighting another, as the force of circumstances 
may direct. 

Amidst the conflicting accounts received from Wilmot, Burton, 
Craft, and Gerard,* it is difficult to form a correct estimate of his cha- 
racter, but a comparison of the narratives of all these travellers, with 
that of Speke and Grant concerning the kings on the route taken by 
them, leaves but little doubt that, in common with that of most of 
these sable monarchs, his every-day rule is characterized by cruelty, 
superstition, avarice, and almost every conceivable form of licen- 
tiousness and oppression. 

Why, then, are our statesmen so delicate in their interference or 
non-interference in the internal affairs of Dahomey? Oude was 
swallowed at a single mouthful, as an inconvenient neighbour in 
India; and Japan and China were pierced to the very centre to com- 
pel their peoples to listen to the voice of Kuropean civilization 
and open their ports to western trade. Why are our French allies 
so characteristically polite towards the slave-dealing King of Daho- 
mey, whilst the rulers of Mexico are made to flee before their vic- 
torious arms, to avenge the injured honour of France, and to compel 
redress for the private grievances of her subjects? The reply is a 
simple one, and is furnished to us by our neighbours themselves-—“ Le 
jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle.” 

Ministers may bestow a few hundreds of pounds upon such a cause, 
and may compensate for the small expenditure of funds by a lavish 
supply of letters of introduction; but is it worth while, they ask 
themselves, to make war for an idea—the suppression of the slave- 
trade—when the material result will be an improved supply of ivory 
or palm oil, or a small addition to our importation of cotton wool ? 

Were the supply of tea (or the demand for opium) likely to be 
affected, or if some great semi-civilized nation were to be coerced into 
buying cotton-cloths, then no sacrifice of men or money would be con- 
sidered too great until the desired end was attained; but, in the mean- 
while, Zoological and Geographical Societies and private individuals 
are compelled to support enterprising adventurers in their efforts to 
reclaim the waste places of the earth, whilst statesmen hold aloof 
until the bold pioneer has broken a gap in the hedge, perhaps at the 


* From whom an interesting communication will be found in the present 
number, 


1864. | Introduction. 11 


cost of his life, and then they follow slowly and cautiously to plant 
the national standard. 

Some day it may be found politic for Governments to take the 
initiative in such matters, and meanwhile exploring expeditions fitted 
out by Societies, and the attempts of isolated travellers, such as those 
who have penetrated into Africa, Australia, and South America, will 
find a prominent and well-merited place in these pages, and we shall 
always be ready to afford them our best aid in their efforts to contri- 
bute to our geographical knowledge. 


As we pass upwards from earth to air, we still find courageous 
adventurers at work in the cause of Science. Here, too, they are 
steadily occupied in the task of tracing the operation of Nature’s laws 
under what we consider abnormal conditions, and, by positive evi- 
dence, supplanting the calculations of experimental meteorologists 
whose feet have never left the solid ground. 

On these subjects our great atmospheric explorer, Mr. Glaisher, has 
accumulated a fund of trustworthy information. He has shown that, 
with an increased altitude, we have not always proportionally diminished 
temperature, but that the latter is sometimes abnormal to the extent 
of from one to twenty degrees, during the ascent ; that the most rapid 
decline takes place after leaving the earth, and that the rate of dimi- 
nution is less in proportion to the increased altitude. The laws of 
hygrometric variation, too, he has studied and defined more clearly ; 
and, not content with purely physical observations, he has contributed 
psychological facts of great interest. It would appear from his expe- 
rience that at great heights every sense becomes more active, and that 
impressions there formed are more firmly fixed upon the mind than 
those received below. No doubt the novelty of the situation has a 
great deal to do with this phenomenon, but altered physical condi- 
tions probably exercise a powerful influence upon the nervous system 
and the mind. 

For the benefit of those who brand men of science as infidels, and 
rail at the “intellectual pride” which, they say, causes them to sub- 
stitute their own knowledge for the truths of religion, we will quote a 
few sentences from a discourse of Mr. Glaisher, on the religious influ- 
ence exercised upon him by his aérial flights, and we hope they may 
have the effect of removing the false impression as to a want of 
reverence in scientific men :—“I have experienced the sense of awe 
and sublimity myself, and have heard it on all sides from aéronauts, 
who have both written and said the same. For my own part, I am an 
overwrought, hard-working man, used to making observations and 
eliminating results, in no way given to be poetical, and devoted to the 


12 Introduction. | Jan. 


immediate interest of my pursuit, and yet this feeling has overcome 
me in all its power. I believe it to be the intellectual yearning after 
the knowledge of the Creator, and an involuntary faith acknowledging 
the immortality of the soul.” 

In Meteorology there are many new features which might afford 
themes for passing thoughts. The students of Physical Science are 
directing their attention to the consideration of the nature of fogs 
upon our coast, and an eminent observer* has discovered that they 
are either confined to a very limited area, or reach from one to two 
hundred miles, whilst none have been observed intermediate between 
these in extent. Nothing definite is known as to their immediate 
cause. The observations of Admiral Fitzroy upon the course of wind- 
currents might further detain us, but we cannot tarry any longer in the 
atmosphere, and must pass, if but for an instant, beyond its limits 
into the infinite universe, in order to direct attention to one or two 
features in Astronomical Science indicative of the character of our 
future inquiries. 


No subject has of late attracted more attention than the appli- 
cation of Photography and of Spectrum Analysis to the examination of 
the heavenly bodies. The labours of Mr. Warren de la Rue in the 
first-named subject are too well known to require comment; and 
although the latter application of physical knowledge is yet in its 
infancy, it has already made us acquainted with some of the consti- 
tuent materials of the sun, moon, and a few of the fixed stars. 

But if the advances made in Chemistry and Physics have placed the 
heavenly bodies within the reach of experimental and analytical treat- 
ment, pure Inductive Science is not on that account the less active in 
the heavens. Only recently it has been busy in our solar system, upon 
whose subordinate members new light is likely to be thrown by a 
careful observation of the so-called “spots” upon the sun’s surface. 
Here, too, the photographie art has been enlisted to perpetuate and 
confirm the results of astronomical observation. An able astronomer 
has arrived at the conclusion, that there is a connection between the 
“behaviour” of the sun’s spots and the configuration and relative 
position of the planets, and has photographed those “ spots,” for the 
purposes of comparison and inference. 

Such experiments as these, and all other matters relating to the 
progress of Astronomy, as well as to the improvement in the fabrica- 
tion of philosophical instruments already in use, or the introduction of 
new ones, will meet with a due share of our attention; and it is only 
necessary to refer to the recent introduction of Time-balls, and Time- 


* Dr. Gladstone. + Mr. Stewart, of Kew. 


1864.] Introduction. 8 


guns, and to their employment in such places as London, Edinburgh, 
Liverpool, Newcastle, &c., to show how practical is the value of this 
branch of Science, and how immediately it affects the comfort and 
safety of the community.* 


And haying now descended once more to the earth’s surface and 
directed our thoughts to man and his surroundings, it is necessary that 
we should devote a few pages to the consideration of those subjects 
which are more immediately connected with his interests, and which 
affect his own character and condition; and with this view we shall 
cast a glance at the Natural History Sciences. 

One of the most interesting, and certainly the most practically 
useful subjects to which we can direct attention, is the transport and 
acclimatization of plants and animals. 

We have but to refer to the transplantation of the Quinine-yielding 
Chinchona-tree from South America to India, and its successful culti- 
vation there; to the introduction of British fruits into the Australian 
colonies; and to the effort, hitherto but partially successful, to trans- 
port British salmon into those colonies for breeding purposes ; in order 
to show what a practical and important movement is here taking place, 
and how much the influence of pure Science is apt to be underrated, 
until its material applications become manifest. 

The rapidly increasing demand for quinine was likely soon to have 
materially exceeded the supply from South America, but the success 
which has attended the acclimatization of the plant in India has re- 
moved all apprehension on that head; and the benefits to be derived 
from the new industry are rendered more certain and immediate by the 
fact that the young tree yields even a larger supply of quinine than it 
does in the more advanced stages of its growth. 

The scheme of transporting salmon to Australia has not been so suc- 
cessful as the foregoing experiment, but as we feel sure that the labours 
of the enterprising acclimatizers will ultimately be crowned with 
success, and will yield a rich harvest to the inhabitants of the Austra- 
lian continent, and, we trust, to the initiators themselves, we shall 
devote a page to the narrative of their efforts, and hope that a little 
influential assistance may thereby be enlisted in their cause. 

We would first observe, that there are few features in the history of 
acclimatization so satisfactory as the success which has attended the 
introduction of the natural products of Great Britain into Australia. 
Those who visited the Exhibition of 1862 cannot fail to recollect the 

* It is but just to mention, in connection with this topic, the names of Mr. 
Hartnup, of Liverpool, and Professor P, Smyth, of Edinburgh, to whom the scien- 


tific world (and more especially the maritime community) is indebied for many 
improvements in these instruments and appliances. 


14 Introduction. | Jan. 


wax models of the acclimatized fruits of that continent. The full ears 
of wheat, the long silky locks of wool, and the long-stapled cotton 
(the latter introduced into Queensland from various quarters of the 
Old and New World), must be equally well remembered by all who 
visited the Colonial Courts. 

And now we come to the novel, and not less useful, salmon-breed- 
ing experiments. This enterprise was commenced as far back as 
1852, we believe, under the auspices of Sir George Grey, of whose 
efforts to improve the natural productions of the colonies placed under 
his charge it is hardly possible to speak in sufficiently laudatory 
terms. 

The first experiment failed completely, notwithstanding that fifty 
thousand ova of salmon and trout were procured and employed in the 
attempt; and that every precaution was taken to ensure their successful 
transport. The failure is attributed chiefly to the absence of a conti- 
nuous stream of water through the hatching apparatus. 

For eight years the matter was allowed to rest, no fresh action 
being taken, but in 1860 a second expedition was fitted out with the 
same object. Owing to the failure of the precautions which were taken 
to resist the high temperature of the tropics, and other causes, this 
attempt was equally unfortunate, and entailed upon a few private indi- 
viduals a loss of 650/. The colonial governments now joined in the 
enterprise ; that of Tasmania, in conjunction with two other legisla- 
tures, voting an aggregate sum of 3,700/. for a third effort. Careful 
preliminary experiments were tried in England by scientific men, and 
vessels were then fitted out specially for the transport of the ova, an 
apparatus being provided for securing a constant flow of water, as well 
as for the maintenance of a suitable temperature. 

Again, however, the attempt was unsuccessful; the failure in this 
instance being attributed chiefly to the disturbance of the water in 
which the young fry, hatched during the voyage, were contained, caused 
by the violent rocking of the ship. The young fish were dashed 
against the sides of the apparatus and destroyed. It will not be long, 
however, before another effort is made to accomplish the desired end, 
and it is believed that the experience so dearly purchased, will render 
the next attempt successful. There will be no difficulty, it is thought, 
in eventually perpetuating the breed of salmon in the antipodes, more 
especially in Van Diemen’s Land, where the rivers already contain a 
variety of trout; but it is considered doubtful whether this can be ex- 
tended to New Zealand, where the streams are rapid, and subject to 
violent floods. 

Having thus noticed some of the strictly practical applications of 
the science, we cannot pass away from the question of acclimatization 


1864. | Introduction. 15 


without referring to the interesting experiment which has been so 
successfully carried out by our neighbours across the Channel. 

The “Jardin d’Acclimatation” may be considered an ornamental 
and an educational, as well as a practical undertaking; and the 
admirable combination of art and nature, displaying as it does, in 
the highest degree, the characteristic taste of the French people, is 
eminently deserving of commendation. We trust that the time is not 
far distant when the inhabitants and visitors in the metropolis will 
have an opportunity of participating in as great a pleasure as that 
which may now be enjoyed by visitors to the French capital. 

All questions regarding man’s origin, or his relations to the lower 
animals, and concerning the connection or differences between the 
various races of mankind, will receive the earliest consideration of the 
writers in this Journal. They are par excellence topics of the day, 
and will probably long remain so; and should any of our readers 
regard them as mere matters of speculation, interesting only to 
naturalists, or doubt their practical bearing upon society, we recommend 
them to read the report of the discussion which took place concerning 
the Negro, at the Newcastle Meeting of the British Association. 

At the close of a paper on “'The Physical and Mental Character 
of the Negro,” its author, Dr. Hunt, the President of the Anthropo- 
logical Society, summed up his views as follows :— 

“Ist. That there is as good reason for classifying the Negro as a 
distinct species from the European, as there is for making the ass a 
distinct species from the zebra. 2nd. That the Negro is inferior, 
intellectually, to the European. 3rd. That ‘the analogies are far more 
numerous between the Negro and apes, than between the European 
and apes.” 

“No man,” he continued, “who thoroughly investigates with an 
unbiassed mind, can doubt that the Negro belongs to a distinct type of 
Man to the European. This word species, in the present state of 
science, is not satisfactory ; but we may safely say that there is in the 
Negro that assemblage of evidence which would ipso facto induce an 
unbiassed observer to make the European and Negro two distinct types 
of man. My second and third proposition must be equally patent to 
all who have examined the facts.” 

And there appears to have been great unanimity in the opinions 
held by the officers of this nascent society, for, in the subsequent 
discussion, its secretary declared, in confirmation of the views of his 
chief, that wherever intellectual superiority exists in a man of colour, 
he is always found to have an admixture of white blood in his veins. 
In the section in which these statements were made (the Geogra- 
phical and Ethnological), there were unfortunately but few physiolo- 


16 Introduction. | Jan. 


gists present; and the warmest defender of the poor Negro was a 
gentleman of colour, whose remarks had a moral rather than a 
scientific bearing. It is possible that there may since have been a fair 
discussion on the subject which has escaped our notice ; but be this as 
it may, there is no reason why the question should not be fully debated 
in these pages ; and it appears to us that the discussion should be based 
not upon what is “not satisfactory” in the present state of science, 
but upon its acknowledged truths. 

For ourselves, we do not hesitate to say that we completely differ 
from much that is contained in the foregoing doctrines, and that they 
appear to us to be at variance with the opinions and evidence of the 
most advanced physiologists. If the term “ species ” be unsatisfactory, 
we apprehend that its definition has not been rendered clearer by 
those who state that there is as good reason for placing the black and 
white man in distinct species, as there is for classifying the ass and 
zebra in the same manner, ignoring the question of hybridity ; but, on 
the other hand, the admission that an intercrossing of the white and 
black races has a tendency to develope the intellectual faculties of the 
latter, and elevate the Negro to the level of the white man, seems to 
us to be pretty strong evidence that both belong to the same species, 
and partake of the same nature. 

One of the local journals (which by the way reported the pro- 
ceedings of the Association in a manner that has called forth the 
admiration of the scientific world*) did not hesitate to hint broadly, 
that the gentlemen who thus sought to degrade the Negro race, were 
the tools of the Southern Confederacy, and had been enlisted as the 
champions of slavery in England. 

With regard to man’s relations to the lower animals, and his nature 
and condition prior to the historic era, the opinions of some physiolo- 
gists are becoming more and more divergent from the views hitherto 
entertained by the community ; and stepping past the most extreme 
paleontologists of our day in this respect, a new and apparently careful 
thinker does not hesitate to present himself to the scientific world, 
and declare that he believes the fossil human remains which were 
found about six years since in the Neanderthal, near Elbertfield, to 
have constituted the framework of a being endowed with no psychical 
powers beyond those which would enable it to proyide its food and 
shelter, and possessing neither intellectual nor religious attributes. 

From the consideration of the highest born creature to that of the 
“Monad,” is but a step in the unity of animal life, and the question 


* The ‘ Newcastle Chronicle.’ 4 sie 
+ See the Report of Professor King’s paper read before the British Association , 
and his article, in the present number, on the Neanderthal Man. 


1864.] Introduction. 17 


of the origin of man now stands side by side with that of the lowest 
living types of existence. An eminent physiologist of our day has 
hinted that it may be possible, before half a century has elapsed, for a 
man to take inorganic substances such as carbonic acid, ammonia, 
water and salines, “and be able to build them up into protein matter,” 
and that that protein matter should “begin to live in an organic form.” * 
On the other hand a French geologist of note has in a most solemn 
manner protested against the presumption of the man who seeks in his 
laboratory to compete with the Creator! + Both these writers are 
disbelievers in the theory of “ spontaneous generation,” and it is in the 
treatment of this question that they have expressed such opposite views. 
Whilst we must admit that at present we have grave doubts of Man 
being able to accomplish such a feat as is here described within the 
prescribed period, if at all, we confess that we regard without the 
slightest religious apprehension, any experiments that may be under- 
taken with this object. The stronghold of life appears to be as safe as 
it ever has been, and most assuredly, all that man can learn or effect, 
he is not only justified, but is bound by the gift of an intelligence 
second only to the Divine Intelligence, to attempt; and if, through his 
chemical, physical, and microscopical attainments, he should one day 
become a maker (a Creator he never can become) of living forms, it 
will only serve as an additional evidence of his vast destiny; and of 
the boundless powers and infinite wisdom of Him who can thus afford 
to reveal His secret places in nature to the inquiring gaze of Man. But 
at present the evidence which we possess on the subject, although of a 
* negative character, is rather adverse to the doctrine of ‘‘ heterogenesis’’} 
in any form. A few words will suffice to explain the actual state of 
the inquiry. 

At present there are three modes by which it is either known or 
suspected that living beings may be produced. 

First, by “ Spontaneous generation.” That is to say, by the spon- 
taneous combination of decaying organic matters, under certain condi- 
tions, and according to an unknown law, to form anew living, moving 
beings of the lowest known types. 

Secondly (an allied form of heterogenesis), by the hand of man. 
That is to say, through the artificial application of physical or chemical 
forces and agencies to inorganic substances in the laboratory. 

Thirdly, through the operation of the parental law only. In this 
case the ordinance must have ceased to exist, under which the lower 


* Professor Huxley, ‘Lectures to Working Men.’ ye Ue: 
+ M. Boucher de Perthes, “* Avons-nous Pere et Mere?” (This isnot said in 


reference to any particular observer. ) é ; 
{ “Heterogenesis” is a term employed to express the creation or birth of 


living beings in an abnormal manner. 
VOL. I. Cc 


18 Introduction. | Jan. 


forms of matter were originally combined to form a living being, and 
the sexual law substituted ; one or two pre-existing germs, either active 
or in a state of rest, being needful for the production of a new being. 

But, lastly, it is possible that all the foregoing laws may be in ope- 
ration, inasmuch as no one of them necessarily interferes with another. 

The evidence in favour of the doctrine of spontaneous gene- 
ration, is found in the appearance of certain obscure moving types, 
of infinitely small proportions, in decaying substances, notwithstanding 
every effort on the part of man to exclude the germs of life in any 
form. That in favour of the artificial production, by man, of the 
lowest living types, is of a still more dubious character. It consists 
in the fact that out of inorganic substances he has been able to make 
a few organic compounds, such as urea, butyric acid, &c.; but our 
readers will see clearly that to make an inanimate complex substance 
from other inanimate simple substances, though we may call the 
former “ organic ”’ (in consequence of their usual origin), and the lat- 
ter “inorganic,” is a process widely different from that of making a 
living, moving, sentient being. Still the latter is not impossible, and 
if man do succeed in making such a being, and it be endowed with 
animation by the Giver of Life, he will but have added to his responsi- 
bilities, as he every day multiplies them, by the acquisition of fresh 
knowledge. 

But having thus granted a fair hearing to the advocates of the 
“spontaneous generation” theory, and to those who propound the 
second doctrine, we feel bound to state that the evidence against 
both multiplies day by day. It is found, first, in the constantly 
accumulating proofs in favour of the parental law. One after another, 
types which were supposed to have been spontaneously generated, from 
insects down to infusoria, are found to exist as germs or ova, either in 
the water, in other living beings, in decaying bodies or animal sub- 
stances, or, as it has been recently shown by French and English 
observers, to an enormous extent in the atmosphere which we breathe. 
It has been proved, too, that the tenacity of life which these germs 
possess is very great ; enabling them to defy the hand of time or the 
destructive power of chemical and physical agencies, and these facts, 
coupled with the abnormal conditions under which such germs are able 
to exist after the resuscitation of life, will probably, for some time, 
defy the attempts of even the most careful and conscientious experi- 
mentalists to define satisfactorily under what circumstances the lowest 
known types first spring into existence. 


But we must now take our departure from the field of natural his- 
tory, and return once more to the consideration of those topics which 


1864. | Introduction. 19 


more immediately affect the progress of civilization; and in order to 
enable us to do so, we shall be compelled for the present to pass over 
many questions of interest in chemical and physical science.* 

Amongst these are the discoveries of new metals, such as thallium, 
indium, &c., by spectrum analysis ; researches in organic and inorganic 
chemistry by eminent English and foreign experimentalists, and the 
important and interesting experiments upon the nature of heat, by our 
own physicist, Professor Tyndall, as well as all those medical and 
chirurgical discoveries which have added to the duration of human 
life or alleviated physical pain ; and we shall now refer cursorily to 
a few features in the progress of Mechanical Science. 


It must often appear marvellous to the uninitiated, that the hand 
of man is able to accomplish works in civil or military engineering, 
in comparison with which the labours of Vulcan appear puerile and 
insignificant. But there is one instrument alone, which, since the 
introduction of steam, has afforded almost unlimited facilities for the 
employment and fabrication of the coarser metals; we refer to the 
steam hammer. When this tool was first introduced, about twenty or 
twenty-five years since, the weight of the hammer was about five 
hundredweight, whilst that of the instruments now employed in the 
forging of guns, large shafts, and similar descriptions of work, in some 
cases attains to forty tons. And it is even stated that there is now 
one in course of construction at Sheffield, intended for the forging of 
armour-plates, of nearly one hundred tons. The rapid development 
of this almost superhuman power, then, is alone able to account for 
the tremendous results obtained from modern implements of warfare, 
and for the obstinacy with which these are resisted by modern armour. 

But it is not only in its gigantic features that mechanical science 
is making such rapid strides. The various woods which served the 
purposes of our forefathers are, indeed, still largely employed, but 
they are no longer fashioned by the hand of man. Steam and 
machinery now perform every kind of work with greater accuracy 
and economy than did formerly muscle and bone, and we have our 
mechanism for sawing, planing, grooving, tongucing, carving, and 
indeed for every similar operation. 

And through the observations and experiments of men, eminent 
in physical science, we may calculate upon a greatly increased effi- 
ciency of the motive power and its application to almost every kind of 
manufacturing industry. 

Steam, to which in the eyes of most of our readers nothing 


* A full resumé of the progress of these branches of science will, however, be 


found in our ‘ Chronicles.’ 
o 2 


a 


20 Introduction. [Jan. 


can well be added, is itself susceptible, popularly speaking, of a 
further development, and what is known amongst engineers as super- 
heating, is now daily acquiring a greater amount of favour. The pro- 
cess and its effect are simple and easily understood. 

In its passage from the boiler to the cylinder, where its work has 
to be performed, the steam loses a certain amount of heat ; in other 
words, a portion of it becomes condensed into water ; and in addition 
to this, a certain proportion of partially vaporized water passes from 
the body of that liquid in the boiler along with the current of steam 
into the cylinder. The steam thus deteriorated is, according to the 
more recent plan, “superheated” in its passage, the result being an 
improvement in its quality: for owing to its more perfect vaporization 
and its increased temperature on its arrival in the cylinder, it possesses 
more elasticity, and necessarily a greater impelling power. 'The super- 
heating process is performed by allowing the steam to pass through an 
apparatus of tubes, around which the flame or heated gases and 
atmospheric air circulate in their passage from the boiler to the chim- 
ney, thus converting the water-charged steam into elastic vapour, or 
what is technically called dry steam ; and utilizing an amount of heat 
which would otherwise have been wasted. 

Another equally simple, useful, and interesting improvement in 
engineering science, is “surface condensing.” The ultimate effect is 
the same as that of the foregoing process, namely, an acquisition of 
power without any additional expenditure of fuel. No doubt our 
readers will have frequently observed a jet of steam passing into the 
sea from the hulls of steam-vessels. This is the partially condensed 
steam, after it has done its work in the cylinder; and in order to supply 
its place, a fresh stream of cold sea-water is admitted into the boiler. 
The object of surface-condensing is to save the steam by converting it 
into warm water and returning it to the boiler. The apparatus 
somewhat resembles the last-named ; but cold water for condensing 
takes the place of steam for superheating. Instead of the cold sea- 
water passing into the condenser, there to be mixed with the steam and 
pumped off again along with it, the steam alone passes through tubes 
in the condenser, and around these, there flows a current of cold sea- 
water, which is subsequently pumped out, without having come in 
direct contact with the steam. The latter is returned into the boiler, 
and thus, instead of cold water charged with saline matter, that vessel 
is supplied with distilled water at a temperature of 100° to 120°. The 
foregoing observations apply to the condensation of waste steam from the 
ordinary low-pressure engine, but a still further improvement has been 
added, inasmuch as the steam usually ejected into the atmosphere from 
the high-pressure engine is now conducted into the vacuum in the 


1864. | Introduction. 21 


cylinder of a low-pressure engine, working in conjunction with the 
former, and thence through the surface-condensing apparatus back into 
the boiler in the form of heated distilled water, thus practically work- 
ing two distinct engines. * 

These are but two of the improvements which have been introduced. 
into a single branch of mechanical science, and if our space allowed it, 
we might touch upon many others in its various sections. We could 
speak of the advances in railway travelling, especially over short 
distances, and underground, instancing the Metropolitan Railway, with 
its convenient carriages, excellent system of lighting and signalling, 
and consequently the comparative safety with which the trains pass to 
and fro. We might refer to the introduction of coal-cutting machinery, 
which will, we trust, one of these days, put an end to the destruction 
of human beings under the most terrible circumstances that can be 
conceived ; to the improvements in machinery for the utilization of 
hitherto waste products, and new substances, and which along with 
others already named, could not in their turn be accomplished but for 
the employment of improved forms of iron, such as the cheaper steels 
and semi-steels, homogeneous metal, malleable cast-iron, &c.; but our 
readers must be content with these passing remarks on the progress 
of Mechanical Science, and pass on with us to the last subject 
which demands our notice, and without which our work would be 
far from complete. 

We now refer, not to any special branch of science or human 
industry, but to the progress of scientific education, and that chiefly in 
our own country. 

Whether this be effected by means of Philosophical Institutions for 
the middle and higher classes ; in the University Lecture Hall for 
students, or through the machinery of the Science and Art Department 
of the State ; it is entitled to, and will receive, our earnest consideration ; 
and as far as the nature of our work admits, a warm support will be 
accorded to Science instructors of every rank and station; indeed it 
will be our earnest desire, however limited may be our influence, to 
promote the welfare of all scientific men, from the most illustrious 
observer, to the humblest labourer in the fields of Science. 


And now, conscious that in this extended but hasty survey, we must 
have said much that is open to doubt and criticism, and left unsaid 


* Of the two steamers ‘ Hibernian’ and ‘ Bohemian,’ both of which are about 
the same tonnage, plying between Liverpool and Canada, the former is fitted 
with a surface-condenser, but not the latter. The former consumes 44 tons of 
coals per day, and makes 123 knots per hour; the latter requires 55 tons per 
day, and steams only 11 knots per hour. 

+ Concerning which, some valuable information will be found in the present 
number of our Journal, 


22 Introduction. | Jan. 


many things which readier pens or abler minds would have treated 
with accuracy and clearness, we have a few parting words to add to 
our readers, and more especially to a large class to whom we look for 
considerable support, and who may do much to facilitate our labours ; 
we mean ministers of religion. 

It would avail us little, if, after intimating, as we have done in the 
preceding pages, that the social, and even the political bearings of 
Science will not be overlooked, we were to remain silent on the great 
question of Theology. To do this, would be simply to arouse suspi- 
cion, and lead to misconstructions which a frank exposition of our 
views may obviate: and we have less hesitation in approaching so de- 
licate a question, from the conviction that however adverse may be the 
views of individuals, or even, here and there, of some body of narrow- 
minded theologians, a vast majority of our religious teachers look with 
anxiety, and without apprehension, upon each new revelation of the 
laws of nature, and watch with interest its bearings upon theological 
inquiry. Scientific knowledge will never lower man’s religious nature, 
nor render it any less devotional, unless it be employed for worldly 
purposes, or perverted to private ends by the promptings of passion. 
Sound Science must make some enemies, for, as we have already said, 
it drives superstition before it, as chaff is driven before the wind, and 
it may answer this or that prophet of our day to sneer at its propounders 
as self-righteous, or to hold them up to scorn as infidels; but every 
sincere and devoted preacher of the Truth, knows it to be not only to 
his interest, but that it is indispensable that he should be acquainted 
with other branches of knowledge than those immediately connected 
with his vocation, and that he should at least march abreast with, if 
not precede, the foremost rank of lay intelligence. That many such 
inquiring men will be amongst our readers, as they may already be 
found amongst our contributors, we have no doubt whatever, and the 
question arises, how shall we deal with such subjects as are supposed 
to have a more or less direct bearing upon Theology ? 

‘There need be no hesitation in furnishing the reply. 

Tt would ill serve the ends of truth in any form, if we were to in- 
terfere with the free discussion of scientific topics on the ground that 
the views enunciated might give offence to the believers in some par- 
ticular theological doctrine. Such a course would defeat rather than 
promote the ends of true religion, and it may even be necessary that 
we should now and then be tolerant of the expressions of what may 
appear erroneous or extreme views, for the purpose of ultimately elimi- 
nating the truth. Whilst, however, we have too much faith in the good 
taste and right feeling of our collaborateurs to suppose that freedom 
of discussion would ever be employed as a cloak for irreverence, we 


1864.] Introduction. 23 


are bound to state that it will not be with our cognizance or sanction, 
if any expression in the slightest degree savouring of this quality finds 
its way into our Journal; and we add this, not to curry favour with 
those to whom these remarks are more particularly addressed, but in 
order that persons who are anxious to consult these pages with a view 
to the acquisition of sound science for the purposes of religious teach- 
ing, may not be driven away, to make place for others of a less 
friendly disposition, whose aim will be to detect heresy, or to turn the 
revelations of nature into a means of upholding superstition. 

The cause of science may be advocated on the ground that it tends 
to the comfort and material prosperity of the human race ; or because 
it serves to elevate man’s intellect, and to enable him better to fulfil 
his brief mission on Earth; but its highest title to a foremost place in 
the literature and teachings of the day is found, not in either of these 
advantages, but in the fact that by disciplining the minds of men it im- 
parts to them a purer and more elevated conception of the Creator, 
and prepares them for the comprehension of the highest truths, thus 
helping to fit them for a purely spiritual existence. 


(dts 1) [ Jan. 


ORIGINAL ARTICLES. 


THE COAL RESOURCES OF GREAT BRITAIN. 


By Epwarp Hutt, B.A, F.G.8., of the Geological Survey of 
Great Britain. 


OF all sciences, none, perhaps, is so generally regarded as devoid of 
practical application as Geology. The employment of Astronomy in 
Navigation is known to all; the numberless uses of Chemistry in the 
Arts are self-evident ; Mineralogy is, of course, of value in detecting 
minerals; Physics, in laying down the principles of the electric tele- 
graph, and Mechanics, in the construction of machinery. But 
Geology ! “what can be the use of Geology ?” asks the world. If you 
answer that it has served to throw a flood of light on the past history 
of our globe, such a reply will not satisfy the utilitarian; and the 
“ practical” miner will say (though erroneously) that he can work his 
way in the earth in search of the minerals as well without, as with, 
a knowledge of Geology. To all such inquiries, as to the practical 
use of this science, let me proceed to give a final answer. Pre- 
mising that Geology is capable of application in the elucidation of a 
number of questions affecting our every-day life, which cannot be 
dwelt upon here, I may state that it is pre-eminently useful, and 
indispensable in enabling us to estimate the extent of those stores of 
mineral fuel which Providence has laid up in the strata of the earth 
for the service of man. 

The coal stored up in the bowels of the earth is limited in quantity, 
and, like the Sibylline Books, when once burnt, is irrecoverable; every 
day sees this store diminished; and just as the master of a house, at 
the approach of winter, wishes to ascertain the quantity of fuel in his 
cellar, so must it be a subject of moment to us as a nation—depending 
as we do so largely on the supply of coal for our manufacturing, 
commercial, and even political, pre-eminence,—to ascertain as far as 
possible, to what extent we may reckon on the continuance of this great 
source of motive power. Without the aid of the science of Geology, 
such an inquiry could only have ended in disappointment; with it we 
have all the materials necessary for the solution of the problem, as far 
at least as regards the actual quantity of coal itself. 

The strata, or “measures,” containing the beds of coal, belong, for 
the most part, to the great Carboniferous System of Rocks. They 
occur generally under two modes of arrangement; either as “basins ” 


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1864. | Hut on the Coal Resources of Great Britain. 25 


or “fields:” and on the threshold of our inquiry it may be well to 
give a short sketch of each of these systems. 


Fic. 1.—Section of the Forest of Dean Coal-Basin. 


1. Coal-Measures. 2, Millstone Grit, 3. Mountain Limestone. 


Coal-basin.— The section of a coal-basin is represented in the 
above woodeut. The term is used when the beds dip from every part 
of the circumference towards the centre. When the basin is elongated 
in one direction to a considerable degree, it is called a “trough ;” 
but as it is rare for any coal-bearing tract to be even approximately 
symmetrical, the term “basin” serves to denote all such tracts, 
whether the outline be circular or oval. To this form belongs the 
largest coal-tract in Britain—the South Wales Coal-field (No. 23 in 
_ Map), as also that of the Forest of Dean (24), and several others. 


Fic. 2.—Section of the Yorkshire Coal-Field. 


Q Ss < = SSSS = = SSS = 
6 oa 4 3 
1. Magnesian Limestone, 3. Coal-Measures. 5. Limestone Shale, 
2, Permian Sandstone. 4. Millstone Grit. 6. Mountain Limestone. 


Coal-field.—In the case of a coal-field, the strata dip (with more 
or less regularity) in one direction. Such an arrangement has many 
modifications; either the strata dip under those of a more recent 
formation, as in the case of the Yorkshire Coal-field (Fig. 2), or they 
are cut off along one side by a fault, as in the Anglesea coal-field. 
This is the more general form which a coal-tract assumes, and is 
often much varied by rolls in the strata, or by dislocations. 

Coal-group.—Where the strata of several coal-fields dip towards 
each other, and under those of a newer formation, such as the New 
Red Sandstone, it may generally be inferred that they are connected 
underneath, and that if the newer formation were penetrated, the coal- 
measures could be reached beneath. When several of these coal- 
fields are thus physically connected, they give rise to what may be called 
“a group of coal-fields,’ or simply a “ coal-group.” Under the same 
title we also place a number of distinct basins or fields, which were ori- 
ginally connected, but have since been dissevered by denudation, as 
those of the central valley of Scotland. In this manner the British 
coal-areas naturally arrange themselves into four groups, which, on 
the map, have been marked as the Northern, Western, Eastern, and 
Southern coal-groups. These great divisions refer more immediately 
to the present arrangement of the tracts than to that which they 
assumed at the time of their formation. Nevertheless there is reason 
to believe that out of the four only two were originally continuous 
with one another, namely, the eastern and western groups. From this 


26 Original Articles. [Jan. 


great sheet of coal-bearing strata which once stretched right across 
our island from sea to sea, and even farther, the northern and the 
southern coal-groups were both separated, the latter by a barrier of 
land, the former by difference of age; for we now know that coal was 
in process of formation in Scotland while the Carboniferous limestone 
was accumulating in the sea-bed over the English area. The follow- 
ing are the subdivisions or fields of the several groups. 


NortHEerN Coau-Group oF ScoTLAND.* 


Comprehending —1, the Coal-fields of Ayrshire; 2, Clyde basin ; 
3, Lesmahago basin; 4, Clackmannan ; 5, Fifeshire ; 6, The Lothians. 


Eastern Group (England). 


8, Great Northern Coal-field of Northumberland and Durham ; 
9, Derbyshire, Yorkshire, and Notts (only one coal-field). 


Western Grove (England and Wales). 

10, Lancashire ; 11, Burnley basin; 12, Flintshire; 13, Denbigh- 
shire; 14, Poynton; 15, North Staffordshire; 16, Cheadle; 17, 
Shrewsbury ; 18, Colebrook Dale ; 19, South Staffordshire ; 20, War- 
wickshire ; 21, Leicestershire; 22, Forest of Wyre. 


SoutHERN Group (England and Wales). 


23, Forest of Dean basin; 24, Somersetshire; 25, South Wales 
basin. Besides the above enumerated, there are several small detached 
fields, such as those of the Border, on the north side of the Solway 
Firth, Whitehaven, and Anglesea. 

The two great coal-fields of the Eastern group are, in all proba- 
bility, connected by a tract of coal-measures underlying the Triassic 
and Permian formations along the east of Yorkshire, as indicated by 
the shading on the map. The numerous fields of the Western group 
are, without doubt, physically connected underneath the New Red 
Sandstone of Cheshire and Staffordshire ; and, as already stated, those 
of the Southern group were, in their original state, joined together. 


Having thus cleared the way by a survey of the general structure 
and arrangement of the coal-groups, we are now prepared to enter upon 
an examination of the resources of the more important of the fields 
and basins. 


Nortruern Coat-crovur. 


Having already enumerated the members of this group, we must 
content ourselves with treating them as a whole, because, with the 
exception of two or three distinct fields, such as that of the Lothians, 
Fife, and Lesmahago, the coal-bearing rocks of Scotland are all physi- 
cally connected, and the structure of each is too complicated to 
allow of treating them in detail within the space at my disposal. 

The coal-formation of Scotland belongs, for the most, to the 


* The numbers refer to those on the Map. 


1864. | Hout on the Coal Resources of Great Britain. 27 


lower Carboniferous series, and is therefore of greater antiquity than. 
that of England. It occupies the broad valley stretching from the 
Firth of Forth te the Firth of Clyde, and is bounded on the north by 
the frontiers of the Highlands, and on the south, by the hilly and 
wild tract which gives birth to the sources of the Tweed. The coal- 
seams are often interrupted by the intrusion of igneous rocks, and in 
some places, the older Carboniferous and Devonian formations rise to 
the surface, and terminate the continuity of the beds. There is docu- 
mentary evidence to show that coal was worked in Scotland from at 
least the fourteenth century,* and the Celtic name for the mineral is still 
preserved in that of a little tarn, called Lough Glo. The total area of 
workable coal equals 1,720 square miles, and the total available supply 
of coal to a depth of 4,000 feet, amounts to 25,300 millions of tons. 
The quantity raised in 1861, was 11,081,000 tons from 424 col- 
lieries.t In this is included the double coal-trough of the Lothians 
—the resources of which were calculated with much labour by Mr. 
Milne-Hulme and Mr. 8. Nicol, several years ago. It will be seen 
from the above estimates, that there is coal enough to last at the present 
rate of consumption for about 2,000 years. 


Eastern Coa-GRrovr. 


The Great Northern Coal-ficld.—The resources of this district have 
been more fully illustrated than those of any other coal-field in England. 
No less than six distinct estimates having been made, and they all come 
to very nearly the same conclusion regarding the available quantity 
of coal at the time specified by each. 

The coal-field extends from the mouth of the Coquet, on the 
north, to that of the Tyne on the south, a distance of fifty miles. The 
strata dip generally eastward, and are ultimately concealed beneath 
the table-land of the Magnesian Limestone, which is now penetrated 
by shafts in search of the subordinate coal-beds. The actual coal- 
field has an area of 460 square miles, but to this we must add the area 
overspread by the Magnesian Limestone, and other formations of more 
recent age—that is, 225 square miles—making in all 685 miles, and 
containing about 7,200 millions of tons of available coal. This coal- 
field has from the infancy of mining been one of the greatest pro- 
ducers; and from its store the Metropolis of the Empire has prin- 
cipally been supplied. The consumption is still steadily increasing, 


* AMei Sylvii Opera, p. 443. 

+ ‘Coal-fields of Great Britain,’ 2nd edit. p.179. I must here apologize to 
the reader for quoting myself, which I do for the simple reason that there is 
no other authority extant for the resources of all the British Coal-fields, though 
there are for a few special ones which shall be stated. The calculations contained 
in my work were made with much care, and have been used by Sir W. Armstrong, 
President of the British Association. I may here state, in order to avoid the 
appearance of dogmatism, that in dealing with so large a question as the number 
of tons of coal in any of our coal-fields, the figures do not pretend to be more than 
close approximations to the reality, but it would be a useless repetition to place 
before each group of figures such words as “ about,” “approximately,” “ nearly,” 
&e., which the reader is requested mentally to introduce for himself. 

} Hunt's ‘Mineral Statistics of Great Britain’ for 1861. 


28 Original Articles. [Jan. 


and in 1861 reached 19,144,965 tons. Supposing the amount to reach 
20 millions, the supply would last 560 years. The calculation of 
Mr. T. Y. Hall, in 1854, was 365 years. 

Coal-field of Yorkshire, Derbyshire, and Notts.—This is the largest 
coal-field in England, and extends from Bradford and Leeds on the 
north, nearly to Derby and Nottingham on the south, a length of sixty 
miles. Towards the northern outcrop, the strata, which had pre- 
viously maintained a meridional direction throughout a distance of 
about fifty miles, suddenly bend round at right-angles, and trending 
eastward, are ultimately lost beneath the Magnesian Limestone which 
passes over their edges, and rests on the Millstone Grit. The same 
beds again re-appear in the northern coal-field, and there is good reason 
for believing, with Professor Phillips, that these two districts are phy- 
sically connected beneath the more recent formations, as indicated on 
the map by the faint shading. 

The general dip of the coal-strata is eastward; but there are 
several rolls or troughs running north and south through the centre 
of the field. The coal, which is of very fine quality, is known as 
* splint,” from its splintery fractures. 

In estimating the resources, a considerable addition must be made 
to the area of the actual coal-field, for the available coal-ground con- 
cealed beneath the Magnesian Limestone and Trias on the east, amounts 
to probably one-half as much again. The exact distance to which the 
coal-measures extend in this direction is, of course, at present a matter 
of conjecture, and will probably never be known, as the overlying strata 
increase in thickness the further we proceed eastwards ; but the distance 
is certainly considerable. The Permian beds have already been 
pierced in several places by collieries, one of the most remarkable being 
that recently sunk on the property of the Duke of Neweastle at Shire- 
oaks, in which the Permian beds were found to be 66 yards in thickness. 
Taking the area of the coal-field at 760 square miles, and that of the 
available ground occupied by the Magnesian Limestone at 400, there will 
thus be 1,160 square miles with coal, an area larger than the coal-basin 
of South Wales, and only less than that of Scotland. The available 
quantity of coal will not fall short of 16,800 millions of tons. The 
quantity raised in 1861 was 14,490,919 tons, so that at this rate of 
consumption there is sufficient to last for upwards of a thousand years. 
There were in 1861 about 577 collieries, of which only five passed 
through the Magnesian Limestone in 1859.* 


Tur Western CoAL-GROUP. 


The Western Coal-Group is bounded on the north by the Lanca- 
shire coal-field, on the east by those of North Staffordshire, Leicester- 
shire, and Warwickshire ; on the south by those of South Staffordshire 
and Shropshire, and on the west by those of Denbigh and Flintshire. 
The strata of these respective coal-fields have a general dip towards 
the centre of this great basin, which is occupied by Triassic and Per- 

* As Tam informed by Mr. C. Morton, Her Majesty’s Inspector. There may 
have been a few more since that time. 


1864. ] Hott on the Coal Resources of Great Britain. 29 


mian beds, and there can scarcely be a question that the coal-formation 
extends underneath over the whole area (as represented in the map), 
though often at very great depths. The following diagram (Fig. 3) 
will give an idea of the manner in which the Carboniferous beds rise 
from beneath the newer formations at the eastern and western sides of 
the basin. 

Fia, 3.—Section of the Western Coal-group. 


North Wales Derbyshire 
Hills. Hills. 


Cheshire Plain, 


The mineral resources of this vast area, which is not less than 4,700 
square miles, are practically inexhaustible were it possible to work the 
coal over the whole of it, but such an idea is altogether visionary, as 
the overlying formations often attain a thickness of 5,000 feet, which 
would have to be passed through before reaching the first seam. I 
shall hereafter endeavour to show that such a depth is probably 
beyond the reach of mining enterprise, at least with our present 
mechanical appliances. I therefore pass at once to the Hoe ociee 
of the available portion near the margin. 

South Lancashire.—Owing to the creat demand for coal arising from 
the extent of population and manufactures in this country, this coal- 
field is being heavily taxed. The area of the coal-bearing portion* is 
192 square miles. The field extends from Rainford and Prescot on 
the west to Ashton-under-Lyne on the east, at which place it bends 
southward into Cheshire, and throws out a small arm as far as Poynton. 
The general dip of the strata is southward, and the seams descend 
under the Triassic rocks of Cheshire. Within a vertical limit of 4,000 
feet there is an available quantity of coal to the extent of 3,700 mil- 
lions of tons, and the quantity raised in 1861 was about 12 millions, at 
which rate of consumption the coal would last for about 300 years. 

The Burnley Coal-basin.—This tract lies considerably to the north 
of the main field. It is in form a half-basin, bounded on the south- 
east side by a large fault. It has an area of 20 square miles, and a 
combined thickness of 40 feet of coal. The available quantity is about 
270 millions of tons, and the annual yield about one million. 

Flintshire and Denbighshire Coal-fields—These two fields occupy 
the same general range of hills, rising above the Triassic plains of 
Cheshire and Salop. The former is rapidly approaching exhaustion, 
owing to the fact that the seams nowhere descend to any great depth, 
but are repeatedly brought to the surface by faults; consequently 
they have been largely worked in the days of shallow pits. At 
Mostyn, coal is worked under the sea, and attempts have been made to 
reach the seam beneath the New Red Sandstone. The area of the field 
is 35 square miles, and there remains for future supply little more than 
20 millions of tons, of which the present generation may see the end. 


* This is exclusive of the hilly district, in which there are occasional thin 
seams, known as “ mountain mines.” 


30 Original Articles. [ Jan. 


The Denbighshire field, on the other hand, has a somewhat larger 
area, and holds a very much greater quantity of coal. It occupies about 
47 square miles, and has an available store of 490 millions of tons. 
The seams dip eastward (see Fig. 3), under large tracts of Permian 
and Triassic beds, and were the minerals capable of being followed 
in the direction of the dip, the supply might be almost indefinitely 
extended. The quantity raised in 1861 from these two coal-fields, 
amounted to 1,870,250 tons. 

North Staffordshire Coal-field——Considering its extent, this is one 
of the richest, and at the same time least developed, coal-fields in 
Britain. With an area of 75 square miles, a vertical thickness of 
5,000 feet of coal-bearing strata, containing 22 valuable seams, as 
well as several very rich beds of ironstone ; there are only a few mines 
of any great depth, and a considerable portion of the district may be 
considered virgin ground. At the same time mining operations are 
being rapidly extended, so that between the years 1857-61, the quan- 
tity of coal raised had doubled itself, and in the latter year it reached 
2,372,500 tons. 

The shape of this coal-field is nearly triangular, with its apex to 
the north. Towards the south and west the coal measures dip at 
moderate angles under Permian and Triassic formations, which at no 
distant day will, in all probability, be invaded by collieries. The 
available supply of coal for future use is not less than 1,600 millions 
of tons, which is capable of sustaining the present drain for nearly 
700 years. 

The Cheadle coal-field is, separated from that of North Stafford- 
shire by a ridge of Millstone Grit, and contains only a few of the 
lower seams. In an economic point of view it is unimportant. 

South Staffordshire Coal-field—This coal-field is remarkable from 
the fact that it has been upheaved bodily through the Triassic rocks 
along two lines of dislocation which bound it on the east and west sides. 
Unlike that just described as in the freshness of youth, this may be con- 
sidered as having passed the meridian of its career, and as being on the 
verge of old age. Its extraordinary richness has been the principal 
cause of its early decline, and the treasures easily acquired have been 
often recklessly squandered. No district in Britain has been more 
favoured by nature in the richness of its stores of coal and iron, but 
unfortunately for their efficient and economical working, they have 
been placed too near the surface, and consequently have been mined 
by means of a vast number of small, ill-managed coal-pits, instead of on 
a well-regulated system of mining, such as is involved in the working 
of more extensive collieries. In some places the water from the old 
excavations has been allowed to accumulate to such a degree that 
large areas are hopelessly drowned out, and in others much of the 
coal has been wasted. At the same time this mineral wealth has 
given rise to the concentration of an enormous amount of manufac- 
turing industry, and the spectacle of blast-furnaces, foundries, coal 
and iron-pits, and houses interlaced by a network of canals, railways, 
and roads, which the “ black country” presents, is familiar to most of 
our readers. 


1864. | Hout on the Coal Resources of Great Britain. 31 


Over the southern half of the ficld—that:is, south of the Bentley 
fault—a coal-seam no less than 30 feet thick is, or was, spread. It is 
called the “ Dudley 10-yard seam,” and is the thickest in England, if 
not in Britain. North of the fault it is split up into nine separate 
seams, which collectively form 50 feet of coal.* The area of the coal- 
field is 93 square miles, and of the original quantity of 3,000 millions 
of tons of coal, not more than 960 millions remain. The production 
of coal has of late years rapidly increased, and in 1861 it reached 
7,253,750 tons from 580 collieries. Taking the future production at 
eight millions of tons, the coal would last 120 years. 

Colebrook Dale Coal-field—This district is even further advanced 
towards exhaustion than the one we have just considered. The coal 
has been worked here more than a thousand years, for it was found in 
the ruins of Uriconium,} and, with the rich seams of ironstone, has 
laid the foundation of several celebrated iron manufactories. Over 
the larger part of the field both minerals have been already worked 
out, and the only place where they yet remain entire is along the 
eastern edge. 'The miles of country covered by mounds of slag, and 
waste heaps of former mines, bear witness, even to the casual passer- 
by, that the earth has been despoiled of all her treasures. 

The area of the field is 28 square miles. The beds dip eastward, 
and may one day be followed under the Permian and New Red Sand- 
stone ; but there are certain irregularities in the stratification of this 
coal-field, that render it uncertain to what extent the beds of coal 
underlie the newer formations. Only one-third of the original quan- 
tity of workable coal remains, which we may place at 14 millions of 
tons. In 1861 the quantity raised was 829,750 tons, so that twenty 
years hence the coal will in all probability be exhausted. 

Leicestershire Coal-field —This is a small, but rich district, as it 
contains one seam 12 or 14 feet in thickness, and several others of 
value. On the Coleorton, or eastern side, there are several collieries 
which are situated on the Trias, and it was here, at Whitwick colliery, 
that George Stephenson, with that power of observation so remarkable 
in him, first came to the conclusion that the coal-measures dipped 
under the New Red Sandstone, and then demonstrated the fact by 
sinking a shaft to the main coal. 

The area of this field is upwards of 15 square miles, of which a 
part is concealed by newer formations, with an available supply of 
140 millions of tons. The quantity raised in 1861 was 740,000 tons. 

Warwickshire Coal-field.—The position of this coal-field is interest- 
ing from the fact that it forms the farthest prolongation of the Carbo- 
niferous strata towards the south-east of England. It occupies a long 
and narrow strip of country, stretching from near Tamworth to Wyken, 
a distance of 15 miles. The strata dip to the south-west under large 
tracts of the Permian formation, where the coal lies at accessible 
depths, and will greatly prolong the resources of the district. The 


* Mr. J.B. Jukes’ ‘ Memoir on the North Staffordshire Coal-field,’ 2nd edition, 

t Or Wroxeter. Mr. T. Wright states that cinders were discovered under 
several of the hypocausts. 

{ Smiles’ ‘ Life of G Stephenson.’ 


32 Original Articles. [Jan. 


area of the coal-field is 80 square miles, and the available supply 
about 400 millions of tons, to which a very large addition must be 
made for the quantity underlying the Permian formation. In 1861 
the produce of this coal-ficld was only 647,000 tons, which cannot be 
said to be in due proportion to the resources. 

The small and but slightly productive districts of Shrewsbury, the 
Forest of Wye, and the Clee Hills, do not require special notice here, 
further than to intimate their existence. 


SouTHERN CoAL-GROUP. 


Forest of Dean Coal-basin.—In structure, this is a more perfect. 
basin than any in Britain, as the strata everywhere dip from the cir- 
cumference towards the centre (Fig. 1). It is by no means opened up to 
the extent of its capabilities, and for the most part presents the aspect of 
rich forest scenery, with only an occasional coal-pit chimney at wide 
intervals rising in the midst of the trees. Its area is 34 square miles, 
and it contains about 560 millions of tons of available coal. The 
annual produce is about 1,000,000 tons, which in a few years will 
be considerably extended by the introduction of railways now in pro- 
cess of construction. 

Bristol and Somersetshire Coal-basin.—The greater portion of this 
basin is uncomformably overlaid by a newer formation of Trias, through 
which the coal-measures only appear at intervals ; yet its general form 
has been pretty well ascertained by means of collieries and borings, 
Including the parts occupied by Red Marl and Lias, the area is not 
less than 150 square miles, with 51 seams of coal distributed through 
5,000 feet of strata. Of these seams, however, only 20 are of a thick- 
ness of 2 feet and upwards, and owing to some special physical impe- 
diments (such as the presence of the “ Pennant Grit”), very large 
deductions require to be made before arriving at the available supply. 
This quantity I do not place at a higher figure than 2,000,000,000 
tons. The produce for 1861 was 1,025,525 tons. 

South Wales Coal-basin.—The greatest of our coal-basins is the last 
but one to be described. It is truly an astonishing reservoir of mine- 
ral fuel, whether we regard it for its actual area, not less than 910 
square miles; the enormous thickness of the strata stored with coal, 
reaching 10,000 feet; the vertical accumulation of coal, stated by one 
authority to be from 70 to 100 feet in thickness ;* or lastly, from the 
symmetrical form of its outline, which is nearly that of a pear. It is, 
in fact, an elongated basin or trough in which the strata dip towards 
the central axis, that axis itself at the same time coinciding with a 
great upheaval of the strata in the form of a roll or anticlinal. The 
coal-field is divided into three districts: the west, yielding anthracite ; 
the centre, steam coal; and the east, bituminous coal. The richer 
beds lie near the bottom, and these are often placed within reach of 
mining operations by the great depth of the valleys, which penetrate 
for miles into the central high-lands, laying bare the strata many hun- 
dred feet. 


* Mr. H. H. Vivian, ‘Speech on the Coal Clause,’ House of Commons, 1861. 


1864. | Hutt on the Coal Resources of Great Britain. 33 


The quantity of available coal yet remaining is, according to my 
own calculations, 24,000,000,000 tons. This is one-half the whole 
amount originally contained in the basin, a very large portion of which 
is at a depth below 4,000 and 5,000 feet. The produce of the 313 
collieries in 1861 was 6,690,771 tons, which is considerably lower than 
in previous years, probably from the falling off in the export trade 
owing to the American war, but even should the amount reach ten 
millions of tons, there is enough to last 2,400 years, or to supply the 
whole consumption of Great Britain for about 300 years,—a fact which 
one might suppose ought to set the mind of the public at rest on the 
subject of our coal-resources.* 

Cumberland Coal-field_—This being detached from any of the above 
groups, I have reserved for the last. It forms a small band stretching 
along the sea, from Whitehaven to Maryport, and has been worked from 
very ancient times, as we have documents showing that the seams had 
been followed under the sea as early as the beginning of the 18th cen- 
tury. The area of the coal-field is 25 square miles, and the quantity 
of coal remaining for use is about 90 millions of tons. 

The following summary of the above shall conclude this part of 
the subject. 


General Summary. + 


Group. square miles, fmillionsef tons, PFoduce, 1861. | “Catteries, 
Northen . . .| 1,920 25,300 | 11,081,000 424 
Fasten. . . . | 1,845 24,000 | 34,635,884 848 
Western). 5 535 7,094 25,643,000 1,158 
mouthem ... . 1,094 26,560 13,201,796 516 
Cumberland . . 25 90 1,255,644 28 


5,419 83,544 | 85,817,324 | 2,974 


The above figures being rendered into words, mean that there are 
in Great Britain, within a depth of 4,000 feet from the surface, 
83,544,000,000 of tons of coal available, and that this quantity divided 
by the quantity raised in 1861, say 86,000,000 of tons, would last for 
about 970 years. 

Having thus determined approximately the resources of our coal- 
fields, and making no pretensions to prophecy, it might be wise, perhaps, 
to close this article without venturing one word regarding the future. 
Nothing is more liable to error than prospective statistics ; the only 
person who is privileged to make use of them being the Chancellor 
of the Exchequer for the time being. At the same time, the falsifi- 


* The estimates of Mr. Vivian are much larger than my own; but I think 
he has fallen into the error of multiplying the average thickness of coal into the 
full area ; whereas the range of some seams is very far short of that. 

+ The produce and number of colleries are from the ‘ Mineral Statistics of 
Great Britain,’ for 1861, by R. Hunt, F.R.S., but differently arranged to suit the 
classification into groups here adopted. 

VOL. I, D 


34 Original Articles. [ Jan. 


cations to which the estimates of this great functionary are often sub- 
ject, may well be a warning to all would-be minor prophets not to 
venture on forbidden ground. We feelit, however, necessary to say a 
few words in vindication of what may appear the, somewhat arbitrary, 
limit of depth which we have adopted in the above calculations of our 
coal-resources. The reader will be justified in inquiring why we 
prefer 4,000 feet to 5,000 feet on the one hand, or 3,000 on the other, 
and he is therefore entitled toa reply, though it must be a brief one. 

Taking the latter figure first, we may state at once that this depth 
has already been attained, or very nearly so, in more than one colliery, 
both in our own country and on the Continent,* and no colliery mana- 
ger will maintain that the limit has been here reached. 

With regard to 5,000 feet as a limit of depth the case is otherwise ; 
for we have reason to conclude that supposing this depth to have been 
attained, the temperature, not to speak of other obstacles, would be 
found so high as to forbid the employment of human labour. 

The increase of temperature as we penetrate from the surface, is a 
law which has been established on the evidence of a large number of 
observations in all parts of the world. In our own country very in- 
teresting and careful experiments have been made in several mines ; 
both in the metallic mines of Cornwall, and the coal mines of the North 
of England.t Having on a previous occasion given the experiments 
in detail, the results need only be stated here, and are summarized in 
the following table, together with the temperatures calculated to a depth 
of 4,000 feet. 


Table of Increase of Temperature for Depth. 


; Increase of Increase | Resaltin 
Depth in feet. Pee oe. due te Reel Temparainte 
1,500 21-49 5-0 76:92 
2,000 27°85 6:5 84°85 
2.500 355 8°5 94:00 
3,000 42-14 9°83 102°47 
3,500 49°28 11°66 111°44 
4,000 56°42 13°16 120°08 


In the above table “the temperature of no variation ” adopted, is 
50°5° at a depth of 50 feet from the surface. 

From the foregoing tables it will be seen that even at a depth of 
4,000 feet, a temperature may be expected more than tropical, though 
less than it would be at 5,000 feet, and sufficient, we think, to place 


* One shaft in Belgium, we are assured, is 932 yards in depth. In Saxony, 
there is another upwards of 800 yards; and in the Dukinfield Colliery, the black 
mine has been followed to the depth of 940 yards from the surface. 

+ Experiments made at Rose Bridge Colliery, Wigan, and Dukinfield Colliery, 
Ashton-under-Lyne, and detailed at length in the ‘ Coal-fields of Great Britain,’ 
pp. 223-232. The latter were first published by Mr. W. Hopkins, F.R.S., in the 
* Philosophical Transactions,’ vol. exlvii. 


1864. | Hutt on the Coal Resources of Great Britain. 35 


the limit of depth within the last-mentioned figure. The means by 
which the temperature even at 4,000 may be reduced so as to admit 
of healthful labour is ventilation, and the question remains, to what 
extent can this be accomplished. A series of interesting experiments 
undertaken at my request by Mr. Bryham, at Rose Bridge Colliery, 
Wigan, enables us to arrive at the following general conclusion :—that 
in a mine of ordinary extent, the temperature can be lowered by 
20° or 30°, according to the distance from the shaft, and the season 
of the year. The cool air of winter reduces the heat of the mine more 
than that of summer time, so that even with a depth of 4,000 feet it 
may be often impossible to excavate the coal except during the colder 
months of the year. 

Space will not admit of our doing more than to glance at the past 
history and future prospects of coal-mining. It may be said that up 
to the end of the last century, the art had only smouldered. It was 
when the invention of the steam-engine revolutionized the industry of 
this country, that mining burst forth with an energy previously un- 
approached. Probably not more than ten millions of tons of coal 
were raised at the commencement of this century; yet in 1830 the 
quantity raised was thirty millions, and in 1851 not less than fifty-four 
millions.* From 1854 downwards, we have the returns of the Mining 
Record Office,t which show a general tendency to expansion, though 
with fluctuations ; the maximum having been reached in 1861, when 
the enormous quantity of eighty-six millions of tons was brought to 
the surface. 

Notwithstanding these facts, however, it would be rash to assume 
that the experience of the past is to be a criterion of the future. We 
neither wish for, nor expect, an increase during the remainder of this 
century at all proportionate to that of the earlier half, and this view is 
borne out by some of the later returns. Some of our coal-fields, as 
has been shown, have passed their meridian, and, having expended 
their strength, are verging on decay. Others have attained their 
maximum, or nearly so; this indeed is the case with the majority. The 
younger coal-fields will have much of their strength absorbed in com- 
pensating for the falling-off of the older; so that in a few years the 
whole of our coal-producing districts will reach a stage of activity 
beyond which they cannot advance, but around which they may 
oscillate. Entertaining these views, I am inclined to place the pos- 
sible maximum of production at one hundred millions of tons a year ; 
and yet it has been shown that even with this enormous “output,” 
there is enough coal to last for eight centuries. 


* On the authority of Mr. J. Dickinson, Her Majesty’s Inspector of Coal 
Mines. 
+ ‘Mineral Statistics,’ 1854-61. 


p 2 


CRB5W) [Jan. 


OCEANIC TELEGRAPHY. 


I. Tue Derp-Sra Bev or THE ATLANTIC AND ITS INHABITANTS. 
By Dr. G. C. Watticu, F.L.S. 


THE sounding-machine has already conducted us to the confines of an 
unexplored world. It has enabled us to penetrate the secret so long 
and so steadfastly concealed by nature beneath the waters of the 
ocean, by placing within our grasp the still living forms of creatures 
differing in no material respect from some of those inhabiting moderate 
depths, yet capable of sustaining existence under the extraordinary 
conditions known to prevail amidst the more profound abysses of the 
sea-bed. In short, it has taught us that our preconceived views con- 
cerning the incompatibility of these conditions with the performance 
of functions which are essential to life, are erroneous and demand most 
careful revision. 

The fact, as thus stated, appears simple enough, and may, by many 
persons, be regarded as involving purely scientific issues. It will be 
our aim, however, to show that this is by no means the case; and that, 
whilst the interest attaching to the discovery of animal life under 
such circumstances is undoubtedly great, and likely to lead to valuable 
results in every department of Natural History, the practical bearing 
of this discovery on the question of Oceanic 'Telegraphy is of no less 
important a character. But in order to render ourselves intelligible, 
we must briefly direct attention to what was known on the subject 
prior to the time when it assumed its present aspect through the dis- 
covery of living star-fish procured from a depth of nearly a mile-and- 
a-half below the surface. 

Without stopping to notice the various conjectures regarding the 
nature of the deep-sea bed, which had previously been hazarded, it 
may suffice to mention that specimens of the material of which it is 
composed were, for the first time, systematically obtained about ten 
years ago. ‘These consisted, for the most part, of an extremely fine 
mud, with a large proportion of microscopic shells belonging to one 
of the simplest forms of animal life with which we are acquainted. 
Some of the shells retained a considerable portion of the gelatinous 
substance of which the bodies of this class of organisms is com- 
posed. But at this point the evidence failed. For whilst the fact 
of these organisms having been raised from vast depths was too 
clearly established to admit of the slightest doubt, it is manifest that 
they might have been drifted from shallow water by oceanic currents, 
or have lived near the surface of the sea, and gradually subsided to the 
bottom after death. Accordingly, the mere presence of the gelatinous 
substance of which their bodies are formed, when taken in connection 
with the well-known preservative power of sea-water highly charged 
with saline matter, affords no proof whatever of the creatures having 
lived in the localities from which they had been conveyed by the 
sounding-machine. But although the determination of the question 
as to whether animal life can be sustained at such depths was reserved 


1864.| Waxuicn on the Atlantic Deep-sea Bed and its Inhabitants. 37 


for a later period, these earlier soundings were not barren of highly 
important results; for they enabled Professor Ehrenberg, on compa- 
rison of the material obtained from the bottom with that entering 
into the formation of chalk, to announce the extraordinary fact, that 
this rock is built up, atom by atom, of shells similar to those met 
with in such profusion along the bed of the ocean ; and further, 
that it must have been deposited under conditions similar to those 
now prevailing; thereby furnishing the clearest proof that the great 
forces which were in operation at the sea-bed countless ages ago, are 
in operation still; and will, in all probability, continue to be so 
through all time. 

We now arrive at the period when the survey of the sea-bed 
received a fresh and powerful impulse from the project of establishing 
communication between Hurope and America by means of a Telegra- 
phic Cable. With a view to ascertain the general contour and com- 
position of the portion of the Atlantic it was proposed to traverse, an 
expedition was sent by the Government of the United States, to sound 
from shore to shore. But unfortunately, the information elicited in 
the course of this survey was so vitiated by inaccuracies as to have in- 
duced the eminent officer, then in charge of the Hydrographic depart- 
ment at Washington, to pronounce it untrustworthy. A second 
expedition was accordingly equipped, under the auspices of the British 
Government. Of the accuracy of the depths recorded on this occasion 
there could be no doubt. But the intervals between the positions at 
which soundings were taken were so great, and the means of obtaining 
specimens of the bottom so imperfect, that, looking at the matter as 
we now do after the event, it seems impossible to regard the informa- 
tion elicited as in any degree adequate to meet the requirements of 
the enterprise for which the survey was undertaken.* 

It is true these soundings, as far as they went, indicated no extreme 
alternations of level along the course traversed. But on the other 
hand, nothing could be more hazardous than to assume, because a cer- 
tain degree of uniformity as to depth manifests itself at the isolated 
spots on which soundings were taken, that a like degree of uniformity 
must prevail over the wide intervening spaces. Of the spaces them- 
selves we know literally nothing. Nevertheless on these imperfect 
premises was it maintained, and by many persons believed, that the 
entire central tract of the Atlantic, instead of being characterized by 
variations of level and occasional areas of naked and perhaps rugged 
rock, such as we might expect to encounter here and there in a region 
SO extended, consists of a level plateau, the entire surface of which is 
covered by a soft stratum of mud, similar to that indicated by the 
earlier soundings. Now, it must be obvious to every one that, however 
steep a submerged declivity may be, unless the depth is ascertained at 
two or more consecutive points, the information elicited will be the 
same as if the sounding-machine had been dropped on the most perfect 
level. And accordingly, for aught these soundings have shown to the 


* To render this statement intelligible, it may be mentioned that along 1,300 
miles of the Mid-Atlantic Telegraph route, only forty-one soundings were > taken, 
the intervals varying between 32 and 71 seogtaphical miles. 


38 Original Articles. [ Jan. 


contrary, the bed of the Atlantic may present features the most oppo- 
site to those that have been ascribed to it. But let us not be misunder- 
stood. It is neither our intention to assert, nor do we believe, that 
insuperable alternations of level are likely to be encountered. We 
simply deprecate the hasty adoption of a view so unsubstantiated by 
proof, and so calculated, if erroneous, to interfere with the accomplish- 
ment of one-ef the most important enterprises of the day. 

It skould be borne in mind, that the supposed plateau does not 
comprise a limited area, but one extending for upwards of a thousand 
miles across the basin of the Atlantic. Now, there is no parallel 
case to this in any portion of the present dry land. And, since 
there is no ground for the belief that such a vast area could possibly 
have remained unaffected by the agencies which produce modifications 
in the earth’s crust elsewhere; it is—to say the least of it—extremely 
improbable that so signal an exception should occur only along that 
portion of the sea-bed which has been selected as the site of the Tele- 
graphic Cable. We say only, because, judging from soundings taken 
elsewhere, it is manifest that alternations of level are the rule rather 
than the exception, and that, in some cases, they are of an important 
kind. 

But it is not necessary to have recourse to soundings, in order to 
prove the accuracy of this opinion. The islands that rise so abruptly 
in many portions of the Atlantic, if reduced somewhat in elevation, 
might occur over and over again within the intervals at which the 
depths have been recorded, and yet be completely overlooked. Their 
existence is known simply because they are lofty enough to appear 
above water. It would be an act of rashness, therefore, to assume that 
formations similar in their character, but of smaller size, do not occur 
in positions where they still remain unrecognized. 

Of what then, it may be asked, does our knowledge regarding the 
contour and composition of the sea-bed really consist? The answer 
to this question is by no means unsatisfactory. Thus, it is certain 
that in no region of the ocean in which soundings have heretofore 
been attempted with adequate apparatus, is the depth so inordinate as 
to be beyond reach. It is equally certain that, as a general rule, the 
depths are moderate—that is to say, rarely exceeding 2,500 fathoms, 
or a trifle under three miles; that, for the most part, the bottom is 
composed of a soft but tenacious mud, consisting either of an admix- 
ture of organic and inorganic débris, or of one of these constituents 
more or less uncombined with the other; and lastly, and pre-eminently 
perhaps, that deep-seated currents, if they prevail at all, are exceed- 
ingly rare and too feeble to produce the slightest deleterious effect 
upon a submerged Telegraphic Cable. These, we venture to say, are 
no unsatisfactory results when weighed against the limited and imper- 
fect nature of the opportunities that have hitherto been afforded for 
the exploration of the sea-bed; and so far from being of a dishearten- 
ing tendency, they offer conclusive evidence that the perfection of our 
knowledge with regard to the conditions prevailing along any given 
tract of the sea-bed, falls readily within our powers, and is merely a 
question of time and perseverance, 


1864.| Watuion on the Atlantic Deep-sea Bed and its Inhabitants. 39 


It would occupy too much space were we to enter into the whole 
of the facts bearing on the muddy deposits, with whose presence, over 
a considerable area of the sea-bed, the sounding-machine has made 
us acquainted. But there is one point to which we must invite atten- 
tion, inasmuch as its importance can hardly be overestimated, and yet, 
strange to say, it has heretofore been almost entirely overlooked. 

In some of the deeper soundings, both on the North and Mid- 
Atlantic route, fragments of rocks have been brought up. How is 
the occurrence of these to be accounted for, and what does it betoken ? 
The question is an intricate one, and so far as our present information 
goes, does not seem to admit of a perfectly satisfactory solution. 
This much may be said, however; that their presence on the imme- 
diate surface layer of the sea-bed, is only reconcilable with one or 
other of the following suppositions:—They must either have been 
recently dropped by some means from the superincumbent waters ; 
have been deposited by floating ice during past periods of the earth’s 
history ; must occur in beds which were once exposed above the sur- 
face of the sea; or be drifting about the bottom through the action of 
currents. 

Now in no case hitherto recorded have these stones been of large 
size—probably not larger than a hazel nut—but they present un- 
doubted traces of attrition. Fish, as is well known, sometimes 
swallow small stones, and, as a matter of course, get rid of them 
in time ; but this would not meet the requirements of the first of the 
above suppositions, inasmuch as it is obviously improbable that so 
many fish with stones in their stomachs should be moving about the 
ocean, as would be necessary to account for the fact; and it is still 
more improbable, if not absolutely impossible, that fish could have 
conveyed such substances from the distant shores, where they are 
alone obtainable. So that viewing this circumstance in conjunction 
with the fact, that no floating ice nowadays traverses the areas referred 
to, it is quite certain that the matter is inexplicable on the first sup- 
position. 

If deposited from floating ice during past periods of the Earth’s 
history (according to the second supposition, which is by no means 
impossible), it follows as an inevitable consequence that the muddy 
deposits are local in character, and that certain areas of the sea-bed 
consist of bare rock ; or that they are swept away by currents as fast 
as they are produced. We regard the first of these two views as most 
conformable with the evidence ; for, although there is reason to be- 
lieve that deep-seated currents prevail with sufficient force, in some of 
the shallower tracts of the Atlantic, to move the fine particles of 
which these deposits are for the most part composed, there is no 
ground whatever for supposing that they are ever powerful enough to 
sweep along large objects, such as the stones of which we have been 
speaking. It will be seen, therefore, that we are fully justified in 
laying stress on the possibility that extensive areas of exposed rock 
may occur along the basin of the Atlantic, which have hitherto escaped 
detection. The third and fourth suppositions are thus disposed of 
likewise. 


40 Original Articles. | Jan. 


But the facts just set forth involve another very important con- 
sideration, which, as supporters of no particular creed, we deem it 
necessary to notice. In assuring ourselves of the absence of currents 
as a source of danger in Oceanic Telegraphy, we no doubt gain a 
material point. But to some extent the gain is counterbalanced, and 
in this wise. Assuming that the bed of the present ocean has been 
subject, at some antecedent period of the world’s history, to the de- 
nuding action of atmospheric and terrestrial influences, and has thus 
been impressed with characters similar to those we see around us on 
dry land (and that it has been so, there is no valid reason to doubt), 
whatever asperities may have marked its surface when it was first sub- 
merged, must remain stamped upon it up to the present time. The 
denuding action of water in a state of motion is very great; but that 
of water in a state of comparative quiescence, such as prevails along 
the sea-bed, must be extremely limited, if it operates at all. Atmo- 
spheric agencies which wear away the rugged features of one district 
on land and reproduce them on another, are powerless either for good 
or for evil at the sea-bed. And hence it is certain, that however 
much the muddy deposits may be constantly contributing towards the 
toning down of the minor inequalities, they can exercise very little 
effect as regards those more extensive alternations of level, the 
absence of which along the sea has been assumed, solely because the 
means heretofore adopted have been inadequate for their detection. 

But let us now turn to the living tenants of these deep abysses. 
It has already been stated, that although the evidence of the vitality 
of the minute shell-covered creatures, obtained in the course of the 
earlier soundings, was altogether inconclusive, more recent observa- 
tions have established the fact that the conditions prevailing at extreme 
depths are not incompatible with the maintenance of animal life. The 
observations in question were made at the close of 1860, during the 
survey of the North Atlantic route by H.M.S. ‘Bulldog.’ Into the 
details of these it would be out of place to enter at present; but the 
proofs they involve, may be stated in a very few words. 

Thirteen living star-fishes, differing in no important particular 
from a species common on our own and most northern coasts, were 
brought up from a depth of 1,260 fathoms—or very nearly a mile and 
a half—at a point midway between the Southern extremity of Green- 
land and Rockall, and 250 miles distant from the nearest land. These 
star-fishes, however, cannot be said to have been captured by the 
sounding-machine, for they came up adhering by their spine-covered 
arms to the last 50 fathoms of the sounding-line, not as voluntary 
exiles from below, but owing to their having coiled themselves around 
a material from which they found it impossible afterwards to disen- 
gage themselves. Now, apart from all other evidence, the facts in 
connection with this particular sounding were suflicient to indicate 
that the star-fishes had been raised from the sea-bed itself, and had 
not grasped the line while floating in some stratum of water inter- 
mediate between it and the surface. But, by a singular piece of good 
fortune, the question as to their last resting-place admitted of definite 
determination on evidence that they bore along with them. To com- 


. 


1864.] Waxuicn on the Atlantic Deep-sea Bed and its Inhabitants. 41 


prehend the value of this, it is necessary to mention that by means 
of a separate observation taken upon the same spot, the bottom was 
found to consist aimost entirely of the minute shell-covered organisms 
already referred to; and, taking into consideration the fact that many 
of the shells were completely filled with the gelatinous substance of 
which their bodies are composed, and lastly, the fresh appearance of 
this substance ; the probability is very great that they, in common 
with the star-fishes, had lived and multiplied at the bottom. But the 
only circumstance which ought to be accepted as direct proof of their 
vitality, namely, motion after reaching the surface, was wanting ; as 
indeed it well might be, since the passage through the vertical mile 
and a half of water occupied nearly an hour, and the change of con- 
ditions to which the creatures became subjected, during that period, 
must necessarily have been very great. Nevertheless the chain of 
circumstantial evidence was rendered complete ; for, on examining the 
stomachs of the star-fishes, they were found to contain the minute 
shelled creatures in abundance ; thus clearly establishing the fact of the 
star-fishes having attached themselves to the sounding-line whilst it 
rested on the bottom, and adding the strongest confirmation to the 
view that the minute creatures referred to were brought up from their 
natural habitation. 

But it was not to be expected that a fact so subversive of all pre- 
conceived notions regarding the conditions essential to the presence 
of animal life on the ocean would be received without the usual 
amount of salutary scepticism. And hence, on its being boldly an- 
nounced not only that highly-organized animals had been brought up 
from so vast a depth, but that they actually arrived at the surface ina 
living state, scientific men shrugged their shoulders, and demanded 
the production of the most complete proofs. These proofs we submit 
have been produced ; and they serve to show that instead of organic 
life being carried on in defiance of the conditions so erroneously held 
to be incompatible with it, the presence of some of these conditions is 
indispensable to its continuance. In order, however, to render 

‘intelligible the doubts that were expressed on the subject, and the 
precise bearing of the evidence brought forward with a view to dispel 
them, it is necessary to draw attention to the conditions on which the 
determination of the question depends. 

According to the generally accepted opinion regarding the Geo- 
graphical distribution and vertical limits of marine animal life, the 
presence of one set of conditions is essential, that of another incom- 
patible with it. Thus we are told thata certain amount of aération of 
the water, especially with reference to the quantity of oxygen gas con- 
tained in a given volume, and the previous existence of vegetable life 
in some shape or other, are indispensable to the maintenance of 
animal life; whereas the increase of pressure beyond a certain degree, 
and the total absence of light, determine the limit in depth beneath 
which, it was contended, no living being could exist. 

Now, although in the present state of our knowledge, it is difficult 
to conceive that any animal, no matter how low in the scale, can live 
in default of a supply of oxygen, we are by no means called upon to 


42 Original Articles. (Jan. 


believe that this gas is in reality absent in sea-water at great depths.* 
From observations conducted many years ago by an eminent French 
experimentalist, M. Biot, it would appear that the swimming bladder 
of fishes contains a larger quantity of nitrogen than oxygen when they 
happen to have been captured near the surface ; and a larger quantity 
of oxygen than nitrogen when brought up from a depth of a few hun- - 
dred fathoms. The researches of other observers would also tend to 
confirm the view that the quantity of oxygen held in solution by sea- 
water increases rather than diminishes with the depth; and on 
theoretical grounds, moreover, there is reason to believe that the 
presence of oxygen is inseparable from the pressure which prevails at 
great depths. 

In the case of creatures belonging to the higher order, as, for 
example, fish, the conditions that have been laid down are no doubt 
indispensable. They cannot support life beyond a comparatively 
moderate depth ; and, as a general rule, it may be taken for granted 
that no living organism, demanding a supply of free air for its sus- 
tenance, or whose structure is of such a kind as to be inordinately 
affected by an increase of the pressure to which it is subject in shal- 
lower water, could, by any possibility, survive a single instant after 
descending lower than a few hundred fathoms. But there is a large 
class of creatures, inhabiting the ocean at ordinary depths, whose 
structure is so universally permeable by fluids that, assuming other 
conditions to be favourable and the transitions from a low to a high 
degree of pressure to be sufficiently gradual, it is immaterial whether 
the medium around them be pressed upon by one or by one hundred 
atmospheres. In the case of these creatures, as in that of a human 
being living under ordinary atmospheric pressure, it is only essential 
that the force should operate uniformly both within and without the 
body. Hence, in so far as mere pressure is concerned, there is no 
reason why creatures of the class referred to (and star-fishes are 
amongst the number) should not be able to exist at all depths. 

With regard to the previous manifestation of vegetable life which 
is said to constitute a condition essential to the existence of animals, 
both terrestrial and marine, it is only desirable to point out that, were 
this really a law cf nature, it would at once negative the assumption 
that animal life can be maintained at extreme depths ; for, if vegetable 
products are indispensable for the nutrition of the animal, and no 
vegetable structures are capable of living in default of a certain 
amount of light, inasmuch as no light can possibly penetrate to the 
profounder abysses of the ocean, animal existence must of course be 
rendered impossible. 

But whilst recent explorations of the sea-bed have indubitably indi- 
cated that animals can live at those vast depths, they would also seem 
to show that vegetable life, in any form at least in which we have 
heretofore detected it, is not co-existent; for whensoever vegetable 
structures have been found amongst the organic or inorganic matter of 

* M. Pasteur, the French chemist, in his recent experiments on Ferments, 


has sought to show that some of the so-called Infusoria are able to exist without 
oxygen. 


uarterly Journal oP Science, .N° ] 


Ga 


oper ’ - 33 s + m2 Ar NAT: 
rU.rV. a@inat:aeiy Hanhart, Imp* i Qvrin NM. YYiiiiains ,oc 


GROUP OF ee OUS & SILICEOUS ORGANISMS FROM THE DEEP SEA BRD. 


Fids.ito 6. FORAMINI® SRA. oe 7to 9.POLYCYSTINA. 
he ae 0 & U.GAGYNIDE. Fids.12tol?.SPONGE SPICULES. 


1864.] Wauxticu on the Atlantic Deep-sea Bed and its Inhabitants. 43 


the deposits, the peculiar condition of their soft parts has invariably 
been such as to indicate their having lived in shallower zones, and 
only descended to the bottom on life becoming extinct. It is mani- 
fest, therefore, that the law referred to, however stringently it may 
apply to terrestrial life, admits of exceptions in the case of marine 
forms. How these exceptions are provided against remains yet to be 
ascertained. 

But, it may be asked, what are these mysterious little atoms of 
which so much has been said, and which play so important a part, not 
only in the composition of the present sea-bed, but of vast tracts of 
existing dry land. For the benefit of those who have not directed their 
attention to the subject, we append the following brief particulars and 
the accompanying Illustrations. 

The animal, as already stated, is one of the lowest in the scale of 
creation. It consists of a minute particle of viscid matter, not unlike 
the fluid but yet granular portions of honey both as to consistence 
and colour, and like honey devoid of organization. Nevertheless it 
possesses vital contractility, and the power of altering its shape to any 
extent. The little mass is not naked, however, but in virtue of another 
vital faculty inherent in it, is able to extract calcareous matter from 
the water in which it lives, and re-secrete it in the form of the ex- 
quisite shells known to naturalists under the name of Foraminifera. 
In the deep-sea species to which we are particularly referring, the 
shells consist generally of a number of chambers ranged in more or 
less symmetrical order, and each communicating with the rest and 
with the outer world by one large aperture, and a number of minute 
pores studded over the entire surface. Through these, the little animal 
is continually projecting, and as continually retracting, delicate thread- 
like feelers, composed of the same substance as the rest of the body. 
By means of these feelers it performs the movements of which it is 
capable, and, in all probability, is enabled to provide itself with food. 
Hence it will be understood why it was stated, in a former portion of 
these observations, that in the absence of these movements it becomes 
almost impossible to determine whether the object before us is alive 
or dead. 

But although this wonderful little creature demands special notice, 
owing to the share it takes in the composition of the deep-sea deposits, 
numberless other forms are to be met with, equally simple in their 
nature, but still more beautiful in their structure. And this leads us, 
in the last place, to inquire whether or not there is reason to apprehend 
danger from their attacks upon a submerged Telegraphic Cable. 

On this point we can speak with confidence. If there be any source 
through which the abrasion of a cable, either by contact with other 
substances, or the attacks of creatures able to bore into its coverings 
and thus destroy or impair its insulation, may be obviated, it is through 
the gradual incrustation that these humble shell-builders are sure to 
form around it. Accordingly it becomes of the utmost importance to 
select, as far as is practicable, those areas of the sea-bed which are 
covered by the foraminiferous deposits, and to avoid those which are 
bare. Minute Annelids unquestionably exist even at the greatest depths, 


44 Original Articles. [ Jan. 


and amongst these there are some capable of doing mischief. That 
they can penetrate gutta-percha solely by means of the boring organs 
with which they are provided, we altogether disbelieve. But, in most 
cases, there is ground for suspecting that their penctrative powers are 
materially aided by secretions capable of acting chemically on the sub- 
stances attacked. Of the nature of the secretion, or its possible effect on 
caoutchouc or gutta-percha, we know nothing. But this is no reason for 
repudiating the possibility of an event, which if brought about only once, 
in the 2,000 miles of cable, would prove fatal to its working integrity. 
It only remains to be added, that we are no alarmists. We would 
neither conjure up, magnify, nor ignore danger. What we desire and 
believe to be indispensable, if telegraphic communication across the 
Atlantic is to be viewed in any other light than as a source of national 
chagrin, is that measures should be forthwith adopted to add to the 
scanty information we already possess regarding the sea-bed; under 
the firm conviction that whatever difficulties may present themselves, 
they require only to be understood to ensure their being surmounted. 


IJ. Tse Aruantic CABLE AND ITS ‘TEACHINGS. 


By Wiu1am Crookes, F.R.S. 


THERE is scarcely a question of more importance at the present day, 
than that of telegraphic communication with India. When these pages 
are before the public the line which is to connect the two hemispheres 
will be en route to its destination; and judging by the vast experience 
accumulated during the construction and laying of the old Atlantic 
line, and the invaluable evidence which on its demise was elicited at 
the inquest, there is every reasonable hope that the new enterprise will 
be successful. 

A great amount of misconception prevails respecting the now 
defunct Atlantic cable, and pending the successful termination of the 
undertaking now in progress, we propose to disinter from the pon- 
derous official documents some portions of its history which are not 
generally known, and, with the aid of other material now before us, to 
examine what is the reasonable prospect of success or failure in other 
similar undertakings. 

The problem to be solved is comprised in a very small compass. 
There is not much difficulty in making a cable perfect as to its 
electrical conditions, and should any flaw or faulty part happen to 
pass the first scrutiny, skilled electricians can at once detect it. The 
great difficulty which now weighs like an incubus upon every large 
undertaking of this kind, is to submerge the rope without injury. 
There is now an absolute certainty of making a cable of any length 
perfect, but we destroy it in attempting to get it to the bottom of the 
sea. If the insulated wire, in as good a state as when it leaves the 
contractor’s works, could but be transferred uninjured to the ocean’s 
bed, it would lie there as quietly as if it were at the bottom of a well, 
and would last for hundreds of years. 


1864. | Crooxess on the Atlantic Cable and its Teachings. 45 


Unfortunately, the first-laid submarine cables were attended with 
complete success; these precedents were used as arguments aguinst 
any further investigation, and hence the hasty enterprise of the Atlan- 
tic cable, involving an expenditure of three-quarters of a million, was 
rushed into in the most reckless manner, and with so utter a dis- 
regard of precautions, as to seem from the first actually to invite 
failure. 

The perfection of a cable depends upon the perfection of each 
individual inch of it; in this respect it is similar to a chain, which is 
valueless if a single link be faulty. The insulating covering of the 
conductor is composed of substances so delicate in texture, and laid on 
in such a manner as to render it extremely difficult to avoid faults. 
‘These are generally noticed as soon as they appear, and by taking the 
precaution to test the cable in definite lengths under water, they can 
be readily detected at any time, and their position ascertained. What 
is generally known as a fault, is a communication between the 
conducting wire and the water; this may be either very slight, in 
which case, the insulation is more or less injured, or it may be 
sufficient for the whole of the electricity to leak through. A small 
fault, which would not be of serious consequence in a short line, 
cannot be tolerated when the cable is of considerable length, as the 
powerful currents necessary to force a signal through, find out all the 
weak points, and eat them into fatal holes. There is another reason 
why faults or even weak places must not be admitted in submarine 
lines; it is that they are so liable to injury through lightning. In 
the Channel Islands’ telegraph, the lightning struck the cable in 
Jersey, and passing under the sea along the wire for sixteen miles in 
the direction of Guernsey, met with a weak place, where it burnt itself 
through into the water, destroying the insulation. 

The material of the outer covering of the cable, and the manner 
in which it is laid on, are matters of great importance. There must 
be no strain on the core, and the finished cable must have as little 
elasticity as possible. Many cables have been injured from a neglect 
of this precaution : an elastic rope will stretch four or five per cent. 
during deposition, and will contract when the tension is removed and 
the temperature is lowered by the surrounding water. The copper 
wire is however permanently stretched, and where the gutta-percha 
contracts over it, the wire occasionally knuckles through and produces 
a serious leakage. The outer coat of mail is almost invariably of a 
spiral form, which perhaps is the only kind that could be adopted, 
having regard to the frequent coilings and uncoilings which the rope 
has to go through, but such a form is very lable to kink whenever the 
rope is.not kept in a state of tension. 

The copper of which the conducting wire is now invariably made, 
should be selected with the greatest care. When pure it is one of 
the best solid conductors known ; but very slight impurities, such as 
are almost always met with in the commercial metal, are sufficient to 
greatly diminish its value. ‘Taking the conducting power of pure 
copper as 100, Dr. Matthiessen found that of samples of American, 
Australian, Russian, and Spanish copper to be respectively 92, 88, 


46 Original Articles. { Jan. 


59, and 14. Since these results have been made known, the wire is 
always contracted for of a certain specified conducting value per mile. 

Much has been said about the deterioration of gutta-percha when 
exposed to the air, and the great difficulty of avoiding flaws in laying 
it on the wire; these evils are however greatly magnified. The rot- 
ting will not proceed under water, and even in air it may be prevented 
by a coat of Stockholm tar, whilst the small and unavoidable flaws are 
perfectly guarded against by applying several successive coatings to 
the wire. Other complaints brought against gutta-percha, are that 
it does not insulate very perfectly when warm, and also that it 
is liable to soften. These are reasons against unnecessary exposure 
of the cable to heat before its submergence, but are of no consequence 
when once it is laid. At the bottom of the ocean everything is in 
favour of its permanence. The surrounding sheath of tar tightly held 
in iron wires, the low temperature of the water, the preservative pro- 
perties of the sea, the absence of light and air, and the enormous 
pressure to which it is subjected, are all elements tending to improve 
the lasting and insulating properties of gutta-percha. 

Many of the most important facts above referred to have been 
ascertained since the Atlantic Cable was manufactured, but they 
ought to have preceded instead of succeeded so important an under- 
taking. This could have been done easily by an expenditure, 
trifling when compared with the amount at stake, and it would have 
supplied the Company with knowledge which has been purchased at 
three quarters of a million sterling. There was far too much haste in 
the preliminary stages of the undertaking. It was looked upon 
merely as a commercial speculation, and in order to raise the requisite 
funds, promises to the shareholders were most rashly made. Whilst 
the Company was only formed in 1856, the line was undertaken to be 
laid in 1857, and in order to keep faith with the public, the prelimi- 
nary experiments and investigations, which ought to have occupied 
the highest available talent for some years, were hurried over in the 
most reckless manner, or were left to be completed by chance. In- 
deed, the most important piece of machinery in the whole affair, that 
for paying out the cable,—an apparatus which would have to run as 
smoothly as a cotton mill for every minute of the time occupied in 
that operation, the slightest hitch or irregularity snapping the cable, 
—was literally being put together for the first time as the ship was 
sailing to its destination, and was entrusted, untried, with its precious 
charge. The result may be anticipated. A stoppage in the machinery 
occurred, and 835 miles of cable were sacrificed at the shrine of 
official incompetence. 

Another great mistake was to have such a rope made of any but 
the very strongest materials. It was intended at first that the outer 
covering should be of steel wire, but this could not be adopted owing to 
the unfortunate promise made by the directors that it should be laid in 
1857. Had another year been permitted to elapse, and, instead of 
iron coating, had steel been employed, there is every probability that 
the cable would have been at work at the present day. Instead of 
a breaking strain of three tons it would have borne uninjured a pull 


Ld. | LivoKks on the Atlantic Cable wi we seacnings. 47 


of twenty tons, enough, if requisite, to have anchored the ‘ Agamem- 
now in the middle of the Atlantic, and to have endured without 
damage any imaginable vagaries of the paying-out machinery. The 
objections that steel cables do not coil as well as iron, and seem “ all 
alive” from their springiness, are not of much weight, as the enormous 
surplus strength would enable them to bear a considerable amount of 
hard usage in stowing them away. 

In paying out a cable much depends upon its being properly coiled. 
This was certainly well done in the Atlantic line, and it is doubtless 
to this fact that the last successful paying is to be attributed. 
During the whole process of paying out a kink never once occurred ; 
in fact it uncoiled itself, for the men who were stationed in the hold 
to undo the lashings, and be ready in case of accident, scarcely were 
required to touch it once. 

Few people can imagine the great mechanical difficulties to be 
overcome in laying a long cable. Owing to the difficulty of making 
the joinings properly at sea, the rope cannot be carried out in more 
than two portions, and there are very few ships capable of conveying 
the required load in the necessary manner. An electric cable is a 
difficult thing to coil, indeed no one, who inspects it in short lengths, 
would believe it capable of being coiled at all; the cable must, there- 
fore, be laid in the hold, in as large a circle as possible, and the space 
occupied must be perfectly clear from cross-beams, or perpendicular 
supports for the deck. The cable must be placed so as to load the 
vessel evenly, and must be so paid out that she shall preserve an even 
keel, otherwise water ballast must be admitted to keep the vessel in 
trim. Moreover, with a long cable, the vessel employed should be 
a steamer of sufficient dimensions not only to contain it, but coals as 
well for the entire voyage, for, if stowed in a sailing vessel and towed 
by a steamer, the ship becomes in a heavy sea unmanageable, and in 
case of a hitch occurring, it is almost impossible to check her progress 
in time to prevent accident. A cable long enough to span the 
Atlantic will weigh at least 6,000 tons, and when coals must be carried, 
and in addition a clear space provided sufficient to enable this enormous 
length of cable to be coiled, it is evident that no existing vessel 
except the ‘Great Eastern, would be equal to the requirements of the 
case. The hands employed in liberating the cable coiled in the hold 
have a difficult task to perform even when the sea is calm and every- 
thing goes on smoothly. When at full speed the coils have to be 
carefully liberated, layer by layer, from the lashings and packings of 
wood, so as to set free only so much of the cable as is required, so 
as to avoid the possibility of its escaping from the guides on receiving 
any check. ‘The break is a part of the apparatus which requires the 
most delicate handling ; the strain which it puts on must be sufficient 
to prevent the cable from running out with too great a velocity in pro- 
portion to the speed of the vessel, whilst it must be sensitive to every 
pitch and roll, in order to prevent the cable from being snapped by a 
sudden strain. Many self-acting breaks have been proposed, but in 
practice nothing has been found so effectual for the regulation of tho 
strain as constant personal superintendence. The speed at which the 


48 Original Articles. [ Jan. 


paying-out vessel travels should be as uniform as possible througkout 
the whole voyage, and as provision must be made for contrary winds 
and rough weather, a large amount of surplus power is indispensable. 
In fair weather it is not difficult to attend to all these precautions, 
nothing but proper care and attention being necessary ; but in stormy 
weather, when the vessel is tossing to such an extent that the men can 
scarcely stand while unlashing and freeing the cable, when the pitch- 
ing of the ship throws sudden and violent strains upon the break, and 
when the breaksman himself can scarcely keep his feet, and can see 
nothing in the darkness, the difficulty in managing the apparatus pro- 
perly is of no ordinary kind. 

An indicator is attached to the break, which is supposed to show 
the strain upon it, but, owing to its inertia, such an instrument is of 
very little value for obviating sudden jerks. For instance, on the 
occasion of the first snapping of the Atlantic Cable, the indicator 
showed a strain of only 35 cwt., although the cable was supposed to be 
able to resist a strain of 60 cwt. 

During the paying out of the Atlantic Cable great doubts were en- 
tertained of its permanent success, owing to the serious faults which 
soon became apparent. The ‘ Niagara’ and ‘Agamemnon’ havin 
met and joined their respective halves of the cable in the middle of the 
Atlantic, started thence and proceeded, one to Newfoundland, the other 
to Valencia Bay, in Ireland, electrical signals being constantly passed 
from one ship to the other. At one point, when nearly 400 miles had 
been paid from each ship, the electrical signals became very weak, and 
the tests applied by the electrician on board the ‘Agamemnon,’ showed 
that there was defective insulation at a very remote part of the cable. 
The fault then seemed to get better, and in about an hour the cable 
tested as usual. Three days afterwards, when about 560 miles had 
been paid out from each vessel, considerable irregularities were ob- 
served, the signals becoming weaker, until it was reported from the 
electrical cabin that they had ceased altogether. They shortly after- 
wards returned, and gradually improved for some hours, when they 
became as strong as ever. In fact, on the evening of this day 
(August 2), the signals from the ‘ Niagara’ were reported to be stronger 
than they had been previously. Other irregularities in transmission 
were afterwards observed, but the general working of the cable seemed 
good, and on referrmg to the memoranda taken by the electricians at 
the time, we find the signals spoken of as “good” in the morning of 
the drd of August, “first rate” about the middle of the day, and 
“perfect” in the evening. The next day we have reports of constant 
signals from one ship to the other, and the memorandum “all right,” 
is repeated several times. On the 5th of August, at 2.10 a.m., the 
‘Niagara’ signalled that she had paid out 1,000 miles of cable, and at 
3.50 a.m., the ‘Agamemnon’ had paid out the same quantity. At that 
time, intelligible signals were passing through the 2,000 miles of cable, 
from one end to the other, and in a few hours each ship was safely at 
anchor. 

Thus, then, the possibility of connecting the two continents by an 
electric cable was proved and considering the unjustifiable haste and 


1864. | Crooxus on the Atlantic Cable and its Teachings. 49 


disregard of necessary precautions, more than this could not be expected. 
Indeed, it was scarcely anticipated during the paying out, that any result 
whatever would be gained. The many coilings and uncoilings which 
the rope had undergone, had undoubtedly caused injury. The leakage 
at Keyham was very great, and many bad places were cut out; but as 
the cable was not once tested under water before its actual submergence, 
some imperfections necessarily escaped detection. 

It soon became evident that very serious faults existed in the cable ; 
its capability of conveying signals varied greatly, going and coming at 
uncertain intervals, and sometimes stopping altogether; and when 
to this was superadded the tedious nature of the signalling, owing to 
induction, it is somewhat surprising that any intelligible messages 
passed through its whole length. Indeed, had it not been for Professor 
Thompson, who, without fee or reward, threw himself heart and soul 
into the affair, the cable most probably would not have spoken at all. 

Even when the wire worked well, the sluggishness of the current 
was a serious obstacle to the reading of the signals. If the 2,000- 
mile wire had been suspended in air, the signals from one end to the 
other would have been practically instantaneous ; but surrounded as it 
was with iron and water, great retardation took place from induction, 
three or more seconds being required for the electric wave to pass along 
the whole distance. If the discharge at the one end were effected 
as rapidly and sharply as the charge at the other end, the time occupied 
in the transmission would be of no consequence, but unfortunately the 
discharge is always slower than the charge, and consequently a series 
of sharp crisp dots signalled into the wire at Valencia, would be 
smeared into a continuous line when they came out at Newfoundland. 
On this account words could only be transmitted very slowly, the 
highest speed actually attained being 41 words in 15 minutes. 
At one time, indeed, two clerks conversed at the rate of 4 words a 
minute, but most of these words were abbreviated or guessed at before 
half spelt, so that for ordinary messages, the highest attaimable speed 
may be put down at 23 words a minute. 

On the 10th of August, the first words were sent from America to 
Treland, but although the whole day was occupied in such messages 
as “Repeat, please,’ “Please send slower for the present,” “ How 
do you receive?” ‘ Please say if you can read this,’ “ How are 
signals ?” “ Please send something ;” and the second day was occupied 
in similar messages and requests to “Send alphabet,” and “Send V 
slowly,” Valencia, like a coy maiden, refused to respond to these 
entreaties. On the third day, Valencia showed signs of thawing, and 
condescended to obey the request contained in the following message 
sent from America :—‘“ If this received, send battery current in one 
direction five minutes.’ The next day when America signalled— 
“Send word Atlantic,” Valencia was able to reply, “ Atlantic :” (this 
was the first word read in America.) We then find several words 
from Valencia in answer to American entreaties, but during the whole 
of this day, America was signalling to Valencia such messages as 
these :—‘‘ We receive currents, but can’t read you,” “Can’t read.” “You 
must send slower, as some of your dots do not show on most delicate 

VOL. I. E 


50 Original Articles. [Jan.. 


detectors,” “ We get your currents, but so irregularly, that we cannot 
read them; will you examine your key well?” On the fifth day, 
Valencia thawed a little more, and actually asked America to “Send 
faster ;” but although several long messages were sent on that day 
from America, only isolated words were received in reply. On the 
seventh day, Valencia and America seem to have arrived at a better 
understanding with each other, and Valencia asked, ‘‘Can you take a 
message ?” with the warning, “ You must repeat each sentence in 
full.” Upon receiving an affirmative reply, Valencia telegraphed :— 
“ Directors of Atlantic Telegraph Company, Great Britain, to Directors 
in America: Europe and America are united by telegraph. ‘Glory to 
God in the highest; on earth peace, good-will towards men.’ Repeat 
back faster. Queen’s next.” After America had telegraphed back 
the above message, the Queen’s message was sent. This consisted 
of ninety-nine words, and occupied altogether sixteen hours in its 
transmission ; many parts were repeated over and over again, and the 
whole message was signalled back to ensure accuracy. After this, 
owing to the greater delicacy in the reading instruments, and 
especially to Professor Thompson’s beautiful reflecting galvano- 
meter, several long messages were sent backwards and forwards ; 
America, however, always doing the greater part of the talking. On 
the tenth day, very good signals came, and Valencia asked for the 
messages to be sent faster. The telegram respecting the collision 
between the ‘ Arabia’ and ‘ Europe,’ was sent on that day from America, 
and it was followed by the President’s message to the Queen. 

Professor Thompson was at this time constantly engaged upon ex- 
periments, and the result of these was that the cable spoke much more 
intelligibly, complimentary messages being sent between the directors 
and many public men, and several long directions on the details of 
working the instruments. From this time the cable seemed to im- 
prove, and on the twenty-second day the memorable Government mes- 
sages were sent to America, countermanding the return of the 62nd 
and 39th Regiments, thereby saving to the British Government the 
sum of 50,0001. 


To give our readers some idea of the difficulty experienced in 
forcing information through the wire, we copy verbatim the conversa- 
tion which took place in reference to these despatches at the two 
extremities of the wire. Valencia speaks to Newfoundland at 1.30 
p.m. on August 31 :— 


‘‘Can you read? We have two Government messages, Will you take? 
Reply direct.” 

Newfoundland.—“ Try, but send.” 

Valencia.—‘“ The Military Secretary to Commander-in-Chief, Horse 
Guards, London, to General Trollope, Halifax, Nova Scotia :—The Sixty- 
second Regiment is not to return to Engiand.” 

Newfoundland.—* This received :—‘'The Military Secretary to Com- 
mander-in-Chief, Horse Guards, London.’” 

“ «Trollope, understand, go on after ‘Scotia.’ ” 

“Ts it finished after ‘ England ?’” 


1864. | Crookes on the Atlantic Cable and its Teachings. 51 


Valencia.—* Yes. Now take another. Are you ready ?” 

Newfoundland.--“ Yes, send.” 

Valencia— “The Military Secretary to Commander-in-Chief, Horse 
Guards, to General Officer Commanding, Montreal, Canada :—The Thirty- 
ninth Regiment is not to return to England.” 

Newfoundland.—“ I want you to repeat ‘ Canada, 

Valencia.—* Can’t read. Try Daniel's.” 

Newfoundland. Repeat from ‘ Canada’ to ‘ return,’” 
Valencia.—* Canada :—The Thirty-ninth Regiment is not to return.” 
Newfoundland.—‘ Understand.” 


The above occupied eleven hours in transmission. 


999 


On the 30th of August, Mr. Field telegraphed from America, as 
follows :—“ Early in the morning of September 1, Please send me 
message that I can read at the celebration that day, and another on 
the 2nd that I can read at dinner that evening.’ Accordingly on the 
Ist of September, Valencia telegraphed the following message to 
C. W. Field, New York:—“The Directors are on their way to 
Valencia, to make arrangements for opening wire to public. ‘They 
convey through cable to you and your fellow-citizens their hearty 
congratulations and good wishes, and cordially sympathize in your 
joyous celebration of the great international work.” 

Up to this time the condition of the line may be said to have 
undergone slight improvement. Several long and important com- 
munications had been sent through it, and it was on the eve of being 
formally opened for commercial purposes, when, without any ascer- 
tained cause, a collapse took place, and the Atlantic Telegraph 
suddenly became defunct; its death being the more ignominious when 
we take into account the message, in the utterance of which it expired. 
From this date no other sentence could be forced through, and with 
the exception of isolated words and signals during the month of 
September, all attempts to restore communication failed. As late 
indeed as October 20th, eight words of a sentence were spoken 
through the cable from Newfoundland to Valencia, but this was 
owing to the employment of recklessly energetic battery power, and 
may be looked upon as the spasmodic twitchings of a galvanized 
corpse, rather than healthy vitality. 

Let us now try to ascertain the causes of this gigantic failure, and 
see whether the experience so dearly gained renders a similar under- 
taking likely to be reasonably successful. It must be confessed that 
from the first success was almost hopeless. Everything connected with 
the manufacture of the rope and its subsequent treatment was con- 
ducted in such a hurried and reckless manner, that few who knew all 
the circumstances were surprised at its failure. Before the cable was 
laid there was great neglect in the electrical department, and the 
manufacture was carried on throughout without proper supervision. 
At the whim of any dilettante experimentalist, the cable was cut 
through and through without hesitation, and the joints were fre- 
quently cobbled up most disgracefully. It has been estimated that 
there were upwards of 100 unnecessary cuts, and several imperfect 
joints have been exhibited, any one of which would be amply sufiicient 

E 2 


52 Original Articles. [ Jan. 


to account for the sudden cessation and reappearance of the signalling ; 
indeed it has been stated on good authority that skilled servants of the 
Gutta Percha Company who were sent to the contractor’s works for 
the express purpose of uniting the various sections of the cable in as 
perfect a manner as possible, were dismissed because they made the 
joints too slowly, and their places were supplied by other workmen. 
But even then, if skilled electricians had tested the cable properly 
under water, they ought to have found out the locality of the defects 
before it was too late to remedy them. When too late it was found 
that a very serious fault existed about 420 miles from the coast of 
Treland. It may be reasonably assumed that this was one of the im- 
perfect joints—good enough to carry the current without betraying 
itself before the paying out, but—seriously weakened by the repeated 
coilings and uncoilings that the cable had undergone. This was 
broken by the strain upon it during the paying out, was temporarily 
brought together again when lodged on the bed of the ocean, and 
finally succumbed under the burning discharges from the gigantic in- 
duction coils used during some part of the short existence of the line. 

Public attention is now being directed to the Persian Gulf cable, 
which will supply the one link wanting to connect this country with 
India. If the Atlantic disaster has done nothing else, it has proved 
the possibility of signalling through vast distances of submarine wire, 
whilst it has given to practical men such a fund of experience as to 
render a failure of the Indian line well-nigh impossible. Without 
going into the details of its construction we may briefly state that 
the copper wire possesses the highest practicable conducting value ; 
the remote chance of holes or faulty places in the four surrounding 
layers of gutta-percha has been removed by an intermediate layer of 
Chatterton’s highly insulating compound ; the cable has been not only 
kept under water whilst at the manufacturer’s works, but is carried in 
water-tanks on board ship to its destination, and its electrical con- 
dition is tested daily ; whilst the outer coating of tarred hemp acts as 
a protection to the iron armour, and prevents the twisting action 
occasioned by the rapid passage of the wire spirally through the water 
during the paying out; for when the cable passes down like a screw 
through a nut, there is a great liability to kink. 

When the cable left this island it was as electrically perfect as we 
can reasonably hope to get such a line in the present state of our 
knowledge, and the subsequent operation of paying out has been 
reduced to such certainty, that there is no doubt whatever about 
the eventual success of the enterprise. In the submarine lines 
hitherto laid, all the failures have been due to definite causes which 
can be readily guarded against. Possibly other causes of failure still 
remain to be traced out and surmounted, but we cannot imagine any 
combination of untoward circumstance which could affect the ultimate 
successful working of the Persian Gulf line. The greatest depth of 
water in which it will be laid is 60 fathoms, and should an accident 
happen during the paying out, causing the rope to snap, or should the 
electricians at either end discover leakage of insulation, or stoppage of the 
current, there will not be the least difficulty in fishing up and repair- 


a) 


1864. | Mauer on Earthquakes. 53 


ing the damaged portion. As an instance of the certainty with which 
the electrical tests now employed can point out the exact locality of a 
fault, we may mention that in one deep-sea line a defect was detected 
by the instruments to exist 190 miles out at sea. A ship repaired to 
the spot, underran the cable, and found the calculation correct within a 
mile. This being mended, the electricians immediately said that their 
tests showed another fault about 112 miles farther. This also was 
found to be the case, with scarcely more error than in the former 
instance. The bed of the Gulf is admirably adapted for the safe pre- 
servation of a cable, being free from those great variations of depth and 
rocky eminences which effected the ruin of the Red Sea cable. In that 
instance the line was laid too tensely, and was suspended consequently 
in festoons between the numerous rocks. It had ample strength to 
bear its own weight in this position, and at first experienced no harm. 
Gradually however, barnacles, seaweeds, &c., found it a convenient 
resting-place ; and in course of time they accumulated on the rope to 
such an extent, as to cause it to break under the additional strain. 
In the new undertaking, the remote possibility of such an occurrence 
as this will be avoided by paying out abundance of slack wherever the 
soundings show much undulation of the sea bottom. 

The success which must attend the Persian Gulf cable, and the 
near approach to certainty of an equally good result in other sub- 
marine lines now in progress, ought to remove much of the financial 
difficulty in inaugurating another attempt to connect England with 
America. The first line proved the possibility of transmitting mes- 
sages across the whole width of the Atlantic. This alone was worth 
all the expenditure incurred; and if the promoters of the new line 
make use only of the information which the death of the old cable 
elicited, the public will have no reason to regret the three quarters of 
a million sterling, now feeding the fishes in the cool depths of the 
Atlantic. 


THE LATE EARTHQUAKE, AND EARTHQUAKES IN 
GENERAL. 


By Rosert Matter, C.E., F.R.S. 


Over a large portion of England, people were startled from sleep, 
shaken by an invisible hand, in the night of the 5-6 October last 
(1863). A few, at once—and most persons after awhile—realized the 
the fact that they had experienced an Earthquake, and escaped un- 
harmed. Amongst the tens of thousands thus aroused, who compared 
notes at breakfast, as to their own reception of the mysterious visitant, 
how few had, or have at this moment, any notion of the narrow margin 
during that sudden and evanescent throb, which divided their own 
fates, between safety and one of the most terrible forms of death— 
that of being buried, bruised, broken, suffocated, or perhaps burnt alive, 
beneath the overthrown ruin of their own hearth and home. Slight 
as was this shock compared with those of other lands, of the terrors 


54 Original Articles. | Jan. 


of which we delight to read—as of those of war or shipwreck—it well 
might startle those who felt it, if ignorance were not here bliss to 
nearly all of us. The pulse that careered over the face of England 
on that night, like the breeze that sweeps over, and waves a field of 
standing corn, was probably not greater in the velocity of its wave 
particle than is the velocity which imparts the shock one may feel by 
dropping on his heels from a stone-step six inches in height; but had 
its wave velocity been only as great as that produced by dropping in 
like manner from the height of a chair, it would have laid im ruins 
numbers of our English towns, and would have given us a sharp 
experience, by the loss of life and property, of the mourning and woe 
that are so often the lot of Harthquake countries. 

Indeed, amongst the many natural gifts, referable to Geographical 
position and Geological structure with which Great Britain has been 
so lavishly endowed by Providence, none has been more important 
(though little recognized) in permitting our national development, 
than our immunity from frequent or severe Harthquakes. We may in 
this respect, but in a different sense from him of old, ‘‘ thank God that 
we are not as other men are.’ A single shock, no greater in 
violence than those which occur almost monthly, within less than 
2,000 miles of us (in the Mediterranean Seismic Bands)—one, namely, 
the velocity of whose wave particle should be no more than 12 to 
15 feet per second (not so fast as we sometimes move in a car- 
riage), would not only split and prostrate minster, spire, and column, 
but would leave Manchester, Liverpool, or London, mountainous 
heaps of brickdust, and rubbish, Terrible as are the consequences 
of such utter overthrows in the cities of other lands, our arti- 
ficial conditions would add new horrors to the overturning of our own; 
for besides the conflagration that almost always succeeds the down- 
fall, ignited by the buried household fires or lights, we should have 
superadded, the falling in of great sewers, with the overflow of 
their polluted streams amidst the ruins; the damming, more or 
less, or great tidal rivers like the Thames, by falling bridges; burst 
and spouting water mains; gas escaping and exploding in all sorts 
of cavities amidst these over-ground “ooafs,” viaducts and iron 
bridges brought to the ground by their own inertia, tunnels col- 
lapsed—coal and salt pits and mines ruined—roof and floor in a 
moment brought together—complications of horrors such as can be 
even but inadequately imagined. Happily there is little chance of 
such a catastrophe. Enough has already been ascertained, as to the 
distribution in space over the earth’s surface of Seismic or Harthquake 
energy, to admit of our affirming the extreme improbability of the 
occurrence of any great Harthquake in the British Islands; but there 
is no physical reason why such an event might not occur to-morrow, 
and it is certain also that the Seismic Bands, 7. e. the great ribbon-like 
spaces of maximum Earthquake energy, distributed over the surface 
of our earth, and which may be seen laid down upon the Seismic 
mercator of the world, in the British Association Harthquake Cata- 
logue,* are given to wander, and that we have perilously bad neigh- 


* 28th Report, 1858. 


1864. | Mauer on Earthquakes. 55 


bours not so far away to the north and south of us, so that a time may 
arrive, when some remote posterity of our own may become partakers 
in, if not successors to, their misfortunes. But although our country 
is thus happily placed in one of the quieter havens of this heaving 
world (upon the surface of which not a day passes without an Earth- 
quake somewhere, nor any eight consecutive months without one great 
enough to prostrate buildings over thousands of square miles), and is 
so circumstanced as never to be very violently shaken, yet we are shaken 
much more frequently than people generallyimagine ; and now and then, 
as on the late occasion, the shock is sufficiently severe to be of a very 
awakening character. 

Since the 11th century, there are upon record as occurring in the 
British Islands, including the Hebrides, nearly 240 Earthquakes. 

Statistics have been tabulated which indicate the probability that 
up to the end of the 17th century not more than one-twelfth of the 
Earthquakes that occurred in Great Britain were recorded at all, nor 
more than one-half, up to the end of the 18th century. And at the 
present moment, there is good ground to conclude that about two 
Earthquakes per week shake the soil of England, Scotland, or Ireland, 
without counting minute and continually repeated vibratory jars, such 
as those long remarked at Comrie in Scotland. Now and then, some 
of these British shocks are not quite to be despised ; for example, on 
the 13th of August, 1816, an Earthquake, that extended with violence 
over more than 100 square miles of Scotland, shook down part, and 
twisted upon its base the whole of the spire of the church of Aberdeen. 
On March 17th, 1843, an Earthquake, great enough to damage build- 
ings, occurred in the North of England, and reached from Northumber- 
land down to Flintshire, and from the Isle of Man to beyond Cheshire ; 
and no longer ago than on the 9th November, 1852, a shock which 
threw down strong walls at Shrewsbury, extended over the British 
Islands from Dumbarton nearly to Dartmoor, in Devon—and from 
Enniskillen, in Ireland, to Gainsboro’ in Lincolnshire. 

Nothing was so remarkable in the mass of letters from Correspon- 
dents as to the late Harthquake (of October) with which ‘The Times’ 
and other Papers were for a few days afterwards filled, as the dense 
ignorance that prevails amongst all classes as to the nature of these 
phenomena, and of the circumstances that it is desirable to observe with 
respect to them. 

One writer’s letter contains literally but two facts, that “he felt 
something ” which he thought must have been an Earthquake—and that 
“he got up, and immediately lighted a candle,”’—he might have added, 
that in this case he did not put it under a bushel! The pseudo-scientific 
“communications” chiefly record the exact state of Barometer and 
Thermometer at the moment of shock ; facts now known to be nearly 
as irrelevant as the price of Consols the day before. Nor is this ignor- 
ance confined to the more “ignoble vulgar,” for a professed Meteoro- 
logist, for the benefit of ‘the public at large, prints in ‘The Times’ a 
string of inquiries to which he demands answers, but which point to 
nothing so clearly as the writer’s ignorance of the subject that he 
meddled with, and which he seems to think is still, as in the venerable 


56 Original Articles. [ Jan. 


days of Aristotle, a branch of Meteorology ; at the same time we happen 
to know that that Journal declined to give publicity to a carefully drawn 
up series of inquiries prepared for it by a competent person. 

The fact is that Seismology—which has only become a science 
since 1846, and has since advanced with very rapid strides—has as yet 
not become diffused at all widely, even amongst the proper brotherhood 
of Science, and no attempt has been made to popularize it for the less 
informed reader. It occupies just now about the same relative position 
that Ice Theories did in 1837, when at the Liverpool Meeting of the 
British Association, the very first Paper that appeared in English on 
the Motion of Glaciers was read (on sufferance) in the Geological sec- 
tion ; the President observing that, “as the topmost and most recent 
of all deposits, Ice might certainly be conceived as having something 
to do with Geology ;” but no one then saw any importance, or great 
Cosmical relations, in the subject that since has engaged so many 
minds, and been shown to play so important a part in the terrestrial 
machine, and which, having passed into popular hands, is now being 
“run away with” by some Geologists, who attribute to its past or 
present agency many gigantic tasks that, tested by only a little exact 
science, would prove to be impossible. No doubt something of a like 
fate is in store for Seismology. 'Those—the few—who will master 
the preliminary science absolutely necessary to understand and make 
use of it, will find in it the key to some of the greatest, and hitherto 
amongst the most obscure, problems of Physical Geology. Those who 
will be content with scraps of knowledge, or with being told results, like 
children, will be amused ; and, in proportion as they know more, will they 
be better amused, with Harthquake stories. But though they will then 
to some extent comprehend, they can never make for themselves real 
advances into the unknown. On the contrary (as with many Glacialists 
in relation to Geology), they may oftener, if they make the attempt, 
“ darken counsel by words without knowledge ;”’ for the half knowledge 
of ingenious men is always “the Philosophy of the unconditioned.” 
But although this is peculiarly the popular career of such parts of 
science as seize upon the imagination by the grandeur of the phenomena 
they discuss, and admit of a smattering of their reasonings being attained 
without great mental effort,—still it is well, here as everywhere, that 
those who actually scaled the rugged precipice of science, when they 
have reached a firm foothold upon a new or higher ledge, should turn 
round and announce to those that labour in the plain, the wider and 
nobler horizon of nature they have commanded. 

It is good, therefore, that Science (worthily so called) should, as 
far as possible, utter her voice intelligibly to all. Let us humbly try 
to do this in part for the new-born Science of Seismology ; but we 
must begin at the beginning, albeit we may not in this paper reach 
the end. And first, let us understand what we are speaking about. 
What isan Earthquake? Our readers are confident that they can answer 
that inquiry. There are some who have read, many who have talked 
of them, and some even who have felt their effects. But what are 
these effects? and the cause—what is it? Let us mention one or two 
things which an Earthquake is not. It is never “ one of the means by 


1864. | Matter on Earthquakes. 57 


which permanent geologic elevations of the land are produced,” though 
too often confounded with these in all sorts of geological “ systems,” 
and ew cathedraé utterances. Nor is it “the reaction of the interior of 
a planet upon its exterior,” for that, oracular as it sounded from the 
lips of a Humboldt, is, in fact, to say nothing. 

What, then, 7s an Earthquake ? It is the transit of a wave or waves 
of elastic compression in any direction, from vertically upwards to horizon- 
tally in any azimuth, through the substance and surface of the arth, 
from any centre of impulse, or from more than one ; and which may be 
attended with sound and tidal waves, dependent upon the impulse, and 
upon circumstances of position as to sea and land. 

To understand the definition we must have a clear notion of what 
a wave is. We will return to that true threshold of Seismology, but 
first let us take a very brief glance at the history of our subject. This 
is twofold: that of the facts, or reputed facts, as found in innumerable 
EKarthquake narratives, and that of human opinion, from the dawn of 
knowledge downwards, as to these, in referring them to causes. 

The supposed first cradle of our race, or at least of that great 
branch of it from which we ourselves, and almost all our knowledge, 
have come, was situated in regions that during all history, as now, have 
been greatly disturbed by Earthquakes, which thus very early engaged 
the minds of the more observant of men. Nothing, not even thunder 
and lightning, amongst natural phenomena can have so impressed the 
imagination of early peoples, as did these suddenly felt shakings, by a 
terrible and unknown power inhabiting the unseen depths of the 
Earth, nor more imperatively stimulated to the discovery of some 
cause for them. 

The genius of the old nations of the East, that always “sought 
after a sign,” or for a final cause, was and is satisfied with a myth. 
When Brahma turned sides, there was an Earthquake, or when the 
Tortoise, on which the world rests, stirred his flippers, there was 
the like result ; and this sort travelled westwards, moulding the earlier 
than Homeric Mythology of the days when Greece was young, and 
showing itself in the mysterious power of the Trident of Neptune, 
Leioiydovos evvoriyaios. But the Greeks “desired wisdom,” and only 
missed it as to deciphering nature, because they started from arche- 
type creations of the mind, and not from inductive observation. 

There was plenty of such philosophizing on Earthquakes amongst 
them. There were three theories before the days of Aristotle: that 
of Anaximenes, the Milesian; of Anaxagoras of Klasomene; and of 
Democritus of Abdera, in order of time. Aristotle himself wrote 
largely and learnedly in the books regs Merewgoroyinwy, and regi Koowov. 
He had remarked and classified, with his accustomed comprehensive- 
ness, the different sorts of shocks by their sensible effects, dividing all 
into, érixAivrai, which strike the earth’s surface at an acute angle; Boa- 
orat, those that come right up (vertically), and sink down again, like 
a boiling spring or pot ; yacuarias, those that leave hollows after their 
departure ; {4xrai, those which break forth with eruption of wind, 
stones, mud, &e. Those which with one great push overturn everything 
are woras, and those, that with much shaking to and fro, and up and 


58 Original Articles. [Jan. © 


down, replace the objects they have displaced, and are of the nature 
of tremors, are raAwarias. 

The first, the second, and the two last, are clear, and almost exactly 
expressive of the sensible differences of Harthquake shocks: but in 
the two between, Aristotle either classes Volcanic Eruptions with 
Earthquakes as all parts of one common train of events—or con- 
founds the shock with its consequences, 7. e. the Earthquake with 
its secondary effects. Beyond the proof which this classification 
affords, that nearly two thousand five hundred years ago, Earthquakes 
were much the same as they are now, no man can learn anything 
from the disquisitions of Aristotle. 

Partly from the Greek being in these passages in many places 
corrupt, but far more from the fact that the Greeks had no distinct 
notions as to those forces of matter we call “molecular,” nor yet 
any clear metaphysics, an abuse of words is found in their Physical 
writings which often renders them almost unintelligible: tyevua is in 
some sort the cause of all earthquakes, says Aristotle; but whether 
by the word, he meant simply the winds, or some intangible imponder- 
able force or agent present in the earth and above it, acting upon 
the winds, and acted on by them, though not the winds themselves, 
and giving rise to Harthquakes and Volcanoes, it is impossible to 
determine. The word ryvcjua was used to express pure spirit, and 
the wind, as well as condensable vapours, indifferently and alike, by 
the vulgar, and by the philosopher. Thus in John’s Gospel, cap. iil. 
v. 8, this word occurs twice in the same verse, and is translated wind 
first, and spirit afterwards in our version. 

The views of the great and philosophic Seneca are far more 
distinct and important. What Humboldt wrote, was true at the time, 
and the ‘ Questiones Naturales’ contain the germ of almost everything 
that has been advanced in modern times as to Volcanic action in its 
larger sense. 

But we must hurry away from classic days, leaving Pliny without 
notice, and pass on and over the centuries of the so-called dark ages, 
and of the revival of knowledge, remarking only that in the fifteenth, 
sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, innumerable pamphlets and 
books were published, most of them recording with a grand gobe- 
mouche credulity, all sorts of signs and wonders, and straightway 
founding a theory thereon. In the seventeenth century, these usually 
“improved the occasion” by pointing out that the particular Harth- 
quake was a special judgment on some unfriendly nation or obnoxious 
creed. The crudest and wildest hypotheses were set forth, and more 
or less accepted to account for the production of the shock. ‘Thus it 
was due to solutio continui in the parts of the earth, to a sudden penning 
in of the subterraneous fires, to sulphureous and bituminous blasts, or, 
as Dr. Stukely was of opinion, to the play of lightning and thunder 
underground in manner like to that wherein they appear in our firma- 
ment. In nearly all these, Earthquakes and Eruptions are impartially 
jumbled. It is only within a very short time, that a few men in 
Europe have come to see, that while Vuncanrcrry is a word that may 
properly express the community as to causation that exists between 


1864. | — Matrur on Earthquakes. 59 


Earthquakes and Volcanoes, yet that these must be treated and inves- 
tigated up to a certain point as distinct, and that Sxrsmonocy shall 
express the system of doctrines of the former, and VuLcanoxoey that 
of the latter. 

There are a few bright points of observant thought to be found 
amidst all this “ old world” muddle, however. 

Fromondi, who wrote, in 1525, six books on Meteorology, and 
devotes the fourth to Earthquakes, refers to the explosion of the great 
Fire Ship, by which the beleagured Antwerpers blew up the Duke of 
Parma’s bridge over the Scheldt, of which Mottley has given so spirit- 
stirring an account in his ‘ History of the Revolt of the Netherlands.’ 
Fromondi remarks, that the blow of its explosion was felt almost all 
over Holland ; and he seizes upon the analogy between the effects and 
those of Earthquakes; but he soon loses the train of thought that had 
thus so well broken cover. 

Maggio, of Bologna, in 1571, was the first who made any attempt 
to collect and classify into eleven, the signs or presages of Harth- 
quakes, not with much light, it must be confessed, as he put Eclipses 
and Comets amongst “the eleven.” 

Then, just about a century later, came Travagini, to whom belongs 
the credit of the first attempt to found a Physical Theory of Earth- 
quake movements, and whose disquisitions present a notable example 
of how aman may go coasting along very near to a great truth, and 
yet never touch it. 

He had experienced a horrible Earthquake in 1667 at Ragusa— 
seismically a very ugly region, being that where the great seismic band 
which stretching away westward from Varna and Constantinople along 
the Balkan, crosses the Adriatic,* and joins on to the great Italian 
band at Gargano and Melfi, and a place still subject to frequent and 
violent disturbance. 

That the shock was due to some kind of impulse or blow, and that 
the force was in some sort dispersive, is all of truth that can be said to 
have been seen clearly by Travagini, though he was close to a great 
deal more. 

Hooke, in 1690, delivered his ‘ Discourses of Earthquakes,’ before 
the Royal Society. These Lectures, though called so, are, in fact, 
a diffuse sort of system of Physical Geology, and full of suggestive 
thoughts ; but Hooke throughout loses sight of what an Earthquake 
really is, and confounds all descriptions and sources and degrees 
of elevatory forces and their effects, with the transient action and 
secondary effects of Earthquakes properly defined. These Lectures 
have been the mine from which numberless later Geological authors 
have more or less consciously drawn, and while they are a repertory 
of curious and often valuable thought and information, they have 
done great mischief in being one of the main causes of the same con- 
fusion of ideas between the effects of Land Elevation, and those of 
Earthquake, which is not even yet cleared out of Geological systematic 
authors. 

In 1760, the Rev. John Mitchell, Fellow of Queen’s, Cambridge, 


* See Map D, ‘ Report to Royal Society on Neapolitan Earthquakes of 1857.’ 


60 Original Articles, [Jan. 


produced a most remarkable paper on Earthquakes to the Royal 
Society, printed in the ‘ Philosophical Transactions,’ vol. li.—atten- 
tion being then powerfully directed to the subject by the recent 
terrible shock that had destroyed Lisbon. 

He shows a wonderfully clear conception, for his time, of the general 
configuration and structure of the superficial parts (or crust as it is 
the fashion to call it) of the Earth, and of the relations between Vol- 
canoes and Earthquakes. Both, he supposes, are due to vapour of 
high tension almost instantly generated by contact of water with in- 
candescent rock, deep in the earth. Misled, however, by his concep- 
tion of the universality of horizontally disposed strata, and of a 
nucleus of liquid lava universally beneath them, he goes at last hope- 
lessly wrong, by supposing that Harthquake-shock consists in a liquid 
wave of translation produced in the lava sea beneath, which forces, as 
it travels, the flexible covering of stratified material overhead to undu- 
late along with it, just as ‘‘a large carpet spread upon a floor, if it be 
raised at one edge, and suddenly brought down again—the air under 
it by this means propelled, will pass along until it escapes at the oppo- 
site side, raising the cloth in a wave all the way it goes.” This paper 
though vitiated throughout by this leading fallacy as to the nature of 
the Earthquake wave, was a most meritorious performance, and had 
important effects (though little specifically noticed), in moulding the 
thoughts of the earlier schools of Geclogy. 

Bertrand, Bouguer, Ulloa, Dolomieu, Grimaldi, Hamilton, and the 
Neapolitan Royal Commissioners, accumulated a mass of facts (and, 
let us add, of fictions) of Earthquakes, in the last and beginning of 
this century. 

Humboldt added to the facts in his Personal Narrative, &e. ; but 
nowhere, net even in ‘ Cosmos,’ does he show that he had any clear 
notion of what is the nature of Harthquake motion—or how produced. 
In 1835, the Comte Bylandt de Palstercamp, in an extremely curious 
though wild and imaginative work, “a Théorie des Volecans,” 
attempts to build up a sort of Cosmogony from considerations of the 
relations and reactions on our planet, of light, heat, electricity, &c., 
&e.— from these come Volcanoes, and from the latter Earthquakes. 
Truth and quasi-truth are wildly and incoherently mixed in his book. 
Shocks or blows produced by and transmitted through cavities, lifted 
up and down by sudden filling or emptying of aériform fluids, form 
Bylandt’s shock,—and starting from the following extraordinary pro- 
positions, “les effets des tremblements de terre sont toujours contra- 
dictoires aux causes qui les produisent et dirigés dans le sens inverse,” 
—‘Jeffet sera celui d’un pendule, c’est-a-dire contradictore entre les 
deux extrémités,” he arrives at the true conclusion, that bodies over- 
thrown at opposite sides of a seismic focus will all fall towards it, but 
in opposite directions to the shock and to each other. We now know 
that this is only true if the bodies fall in the first semiphase of the 
wave. Had Bylandt followed this out, and curbed his tendency to 
mysticism, he would in all probability have been the creator of Seis- 
mology,—the true discoverer of Earthquake dynamics—as it was, he 
missed the prize. 


1864. | Mazer on Harthquakes. 61 


Between 1820 and 1841, Von Hoff, Kries, Hoffmann, and one or 
two others, had laboriously collected and digested into order a large 
mass of facts, or reputed facts, of earthquakes, and to the first belongs 
the credit of having, in a masterly discussion,* shown what are the 
relations (so far as then known) between Meteorological and Harth- 
quake Phenomena—and pointed out, that all the supposed meteoro- 
logical presages were devoid of reality, and that Harthquakes belong 
to Physics and Geology and not to Meteorology. 

But none of these men made the slightest advance towards a_ 
physical theory of Earthquake motions. 'The only true hint even, 
that was to be found before 1846, as to the true nature of the Earth- 
quake motion, is found in a paper on Volcanoes, by Gay Lussac, in 
the ‘Ann. de Chim., vol. xxii. p. 429, who quotes from Dr. Young’s 
Lectures, and concurs in his opinion, that “ Earthquakes were of the 
nature of vibrations in solids.” Even Darwin—who of all men had had 
the finest opportunity of seeing the effects of Earthquake on the most 
extensive scale in South America—rendered no better account of the 
then accepted Vorticose displacement of objects, than by asking, ‘‘ Might 
it not be caused by a tendency in each stone to arrange itself in some 
particular position with respect to the lines of vibration, in a manner 
somewhat similar to pins on a sheet of paper when shaken ? ” 

He, too, like Parish, had recorded the circumstances of the great 
sea-waves that roll in, after South American and other Earthquakes, but 

neither rendered any solution of the facts. Nor was an attempt made 
by anyone, as yet, to connect these sea-waves and the sounds heard in 
great Earthquakes with the other parts of the phemomena. 

A considerable advance had been made in a branch of science 
apparently remote enough from Earthquakes, which, however, greatly 
prepared the way for solving one part of their true history. The 
brothers Weber, in Germany, and Scott Russell after them, i England, 
had experimentally developed the science of certain classes of liquid 
waves; and the latter had, in 1844, shown the laws of propagation 
of one class of these, viz. waves of translation. 

In February, 1846, a paper was read to the Royal Irish Academy, 
and .then published in its Transactions, vol. xxi. part 1, “‘ On the 
Dynamics of Earthquakes,’ which (we quote the words of the Presi- 
dent, Dr. Chas. Graves, on presenting the Cunningham medal) fixed 
upon an immutable basis the real nature of Earthquake phenomena, 
and, for the first time, showed that the three great classes of phenomena 
—1, Shocks; 2, Sounds; 3, Great Sea Waves—were all reducible to 
a common origin, and formed parts of a connected train, and were 
explicable upon admitted laws. This paper also, for the first time, 
explained the true nature of the movements that had been called 
“-vorticose,’ and viewed as proofs of circular movements, by showing 
that they were the result of rectilinear motions. 

It also pointed out the important uses that might be made of Earth- 
quakes, as instruments of cosmical research, enabling us not only to 
discover the depth beneath the surface of the origin of these shocks, 
and hence of volcanic foci, but ultimately of ascertaining the nature, 


* Geschichte der natiirlichen Veranderungen der Erdoberfliche. 


62 Original Articles. [Jan. 


as well as the temperature, of the formations within our earth, to a depth 
far more profound than can be reached by any other mode of investi- 
gation, or directly ever reached at all, and that by its means, we may 
acquire some knowledge of the formations constituting the beds, or 
situated even far beneath the beds, of the great oceans. These are, in 
fact, the great aims of Seismology, for the investigation of Earthquakes 
is only a means to an end. 

This paper drew the attention of physicists and geologists, in a 
prominent manner, to the subject of Earthquakes, and was followed 
by several reports drawn up by desire of the British Association, and 
published in its volumes; and also by the laborious task completed 
in 1858, of drawing up and discussing the ‘ British Association Harth- 
quake Catalogue.’ For this large body of seismic statistics, embracing 
all historic time and the whole earth’s surface, and numbering more 
than 6,000 Earthquakes, the groundwork had been laid by the immense 
and valued labours in the same direction of Von Hoff, and of M. Perrey 
of the Faculty of Sciences of Dijon, whose life has been devoted to 
this branch of the subject, and whose labours are still continued with 
the enthusiasm and success of his early youth, 

Since 1846, the experimental method has been brought to bear 
upon the subject; and the observations made on natural shocks have 
been compared with those of Earthquakes artificially produced. And 
now Seismology has taken an acknowledged place as an important and 
productive branch of Cosmical Physics, and already some able men in 
different quarters of Europe are pursuing its study. Amongst those 
who have most, and most recently, advanced our knowledge, are 
Haughton, Favre, Schmidt Jeittelles, Otto Wolger, and Kluge. But 
we have now brought the history of discovery in Seismology to such a 
point, that its further development will best merge into the remarks to 
follow, upon the doctrines and facts of the Science itself. 


Recurring now to the definition already given of an Harthquake, 
we will clear our ideas as to what it means. The shock is produced 
by a wave of elastic compression passing through some portion of the 
substance of our earth. Elasticity is that property in matter which 
tends to the restoration of igure in solids, and of volume in liquids 
and gases, when altered by an extraneous force ; and every different 
substance has its own co-efficient (or measure) of elasticity of volume 
(cubic elasticity), and of elasticity of form (linear elasticity). 

In common parlance, it is often confounded with flexibility. Thus, 
when people praise the springs of an easy-going carriage by saying, 
“ they are so elastic,” they mean they are so flexible. Elasticity and 
flexibility are, in fact, opposites in some respects. A perfectly elastic 
solid is one that, after forcible alteration of figure completely restores 
itself ; if perfectly flexible, it would not restore itself at all, and 
might be bent to any extent without disruption. No such bodies 
exist in nature. All terrestrial materials present variable combi- 
nations of elasticity and flexibility, neither being perfect. Thus, 
Glass, Ivory, Agate, and Hard Steel are highly elastic bodies, but very 
slightly flexible. They break, as we all know, if but slightly bent, or 


1864. | Mazer on Earthquakes. 63 


when struck sharply a blow which bends them suddenly, but they 
almost perfectly resume their forms after being released from an inflect- 
ing force. 

On the other hand, India-rubber, Animal Jelly, and Whalebone, 
possess a wide range, both of flexibility and of elasticity. They recover 
their forms after great distortion, but not so perfectly as more rigid 
bodies. The elastic limit—that is, the extent to which their particles 
may be relatively displaced without fracture or other permanent alter- 
ation, is much greater in these latter, than in the former class of 
bodies. 

But we find also bodies which, like dough, or temperered potter’s 
clay, are extremely flexible, and exhibit hardly any tendency to resume 
their forms when these have been forcibly altered. 

All these are solids, 7. e. more or less rigid bodies, but liquids and 
gases are also elastic ; liquids do but very slightly—gases not at all— 
resist change of figure, but they powerfully resist change of volume ; 
and when this is altered by compression, it is restored by elasticity. 
Thus a cannon-shot that strikes the surface of the sea rises and rico- 
chets in virtue of its own elasticity and that of the water, from which 
it rebounds much farther than from a bed of solid clay or of sand ; 
but the range of the elasticity in volume, of liquids, is extremely small 
—so little, that if the weight of our atmosphere pressing upon the 
ocean were doubled, it would only squeeze about every million and 
forty-five cubic yards of water intoa million. Gases, on the contrary, 
as we all know, are largely compressible, and perfectly restore them- 
selves to their original volume; of this the air-gun affords an instance 
familiar to everyone. 

Solid bodies may be deformed by flecure, as when a carriage-spring 
is bent ; by extension, as when we pull a cord or wire endwise ; or by 
compression, as When a load is laid on the summit of a column ; or any 
combination of these may occur by the application of partial forces to 
their forms. But further, solids may be either homogeneous or 
heterogeneous, made up of different particles, or of particles having 
different elasticities in different directions. Thus, certain crystals 
have different elastic co-efficients in three different axes; and 
pseudo-crystalline bodies, such as the laminated slate of North 
Waies, or closely stratified rocks, have very different degrees of 
elasticity parallel to and transverse to the lamina, or to the strata, 
respectively. 

It is in virtue of this restorative force of elasticity, that when- 
ever a blow or pressure of any sort is suddenly applied, or a previously 
applied, steady or slowly variable force, is suddenly increased upon 
or relaxed from, any material substance, then a pulse or wave of 
force, originated by such an impulse, is transmitted through the ma- 
terial acted on, in all directions from the origin or centre of impulse, 
or in such directions as the limits of the material permit. The 
transfer through the material, or the transit of such an elastic wave, 
is merely the continuous forward movement of the original change in 
the relative positions of the particles of part of the elastic mass pro- 
duced by the extraneous force or blow—a relative displacement and 


64 Original Articles. [Jan.. 


replacement of those particles within a determinate volume of the 
material, transferred through and affecting in succession, the whole 
mass. 

The shaking of the ground by the rolling of carriages, beating 
their wheels upon the paving-stones in the streets of cities, and the still 
more perceptible rocking of the ground beneath our feet as we stand 
near a heavy railway train at speed, are examples of such waves 
in solids. 

The ordinary sounds we hear, are examples of like waves in air; 
and the noise of the grating and rolling pebbles moved by the waves 
as they approach the shore on which we stand, is an instance of such 
waves, transmitted from the mutually struck pebbles to the water, and 
through the water to the air, by which it reaches our hearing organs. 
While the shock or jar felt in a boat floating at some distance from a 
blast exploded at the bottom of the sea, is a case of such an elastic 
wave, originated by the blow of the powder, and transmitted directly 
to and through the water and the boat, to our bodies. 

Now the velocity with which such a wave-form travels, varies in 
different materials, and if these be homogeneous, depends for any given 
substance, principally upon its specific degree of elasticity —technically 
called its elastic modulus, and upon its density, upon which its mass 
and inertia are dependent in a given volume. The rate at which the 
wave-form, 1.e. the whole group of displacing and replacing particles 
in simultaneous movement, is transmitted in any particular substance, 
is called its transit period. 

This period is constant (always the same) for the same material, 
under the same conditions as to temperature, molecular state, &c., 
and for small originating impulses is irrespective of the amount or 
kind of the original impulse which produced the wave. Experiments 
conducted within a few years past at Holyhead, as to the time that 
the wave or shock, transmitted through the Quartz and Slate Rocks 
there, to traverse a measured mile of rock, from the moment of 
production by certain of the explosions of the great mines, employed 
in the adjacent Government Quarries, which vary from less than a ton 
up to six or seven tons of powder fired at once, appear to indicate that 
in elastic waves of this great magnitude and transmitted through hete- 
rogeneous material, 7. e. laminated, contorted, and shattered rocks of 
various degrees of hardness, density, and elasticity ; the transit period 
is not independent of the amount of the original impulse, but that the 
larger this is—and the greater consequently the original magnitude of 
the wave—the less (in some ratio) is the time of the transit period ; 
in other words, the faster the wave travels. 

In air, the transfer of this elastic wave, which is identical with 
that of sound, has a velocity of about 1,140 feet per second. In water, 
the transit period is about 4,700 feet per second; and in hard erys- 
tallized rocks, such as porphyry or granite, if they were perfectly 
solid and homogeneous, it would be from 5,000 to 10,000, while in iron 
and steel it reaches 11,000 or 12,000 feet per second. An enormous 
retardation of this transit velocity occurs however when the material 
through which the wave passes is heterogeneous, broken up and 


1864. | Matter on Larthquakes. 65 


shattered. When first it was pointed out that an Earthquake shock 
was an elastic wave, if appeared, upon physical grounds, that the 
rate at which the shock having reached one place on the earth’s sur- 
face, would pass on to another beyond, must be something nearly 
as great as that theoretically due to the elasticity and density of 
the rocks beneath, that is to say, often as much as 8,000 or 10,000 
feet per second. This was submitted to experiment; granite rock, 
highly elastic and dense, ought to transmit a shock wave nearly as 
fast as any rocky or other material forming part of our globe, and wet 
sand ought to transmit it almost at the extreme limit of slowness. 

More than a mile of wet uniform sand was measured carefully upon 
the shore of Killiney Bay, in Ireland, and several hundred feet in the 
granite of Dalkey Island adjacent. At one end of each of these 
ranges, respectively, small Earthquakes were made by exploding 
galvanically, casks of gunpowder buried in the sand, and blasts sunk 
in large cylindrical holes sprung in the granite, special means 
being devised for determining the time of transit, and accurate 
enough to measure time to less than the five-thousandth of a second ; 
the time-measuring apparatus being set in motion, and stopped by 
the same galvanic apparatus that fired the powder a mile or more 
away. An instrument, called a Seismoscope, was also devised and 
employed, by which the arrival of the wave of impulse transmitted 
from the powder exploded at the remote end, should be rendered 
visible to the eye, through the disturbance of a telescopic image, 
reflected in the liquid mirror of a small trough full of quicksilver, 
which was caused to undulate and flicker by the momentary tremor 
of the ground beneath it. The sensibility of this instrument was 
so great that a horse trotting on the sand half-a-mile away was visibly 
seen to shake the ground, and a stamp of the foot or tap of a hammer 
on a large stone several hundred feet away, produced visible dis- 
turbance. ‘This instrument was also employed at Holyhead. 

The results of these experiments caused some surprise amongst 
physical philosophers, for in place of the cnormous rates of transit 
that were expected, it was ascertained that the mean rates of wave pro- 
pagation were only as follows in the respective media, viz. : 


In the most solid Granite . 6 4 . 1664574 feet per second. 


In shattered-like Granite . - 13067425 zi a 
In contorted and stratified Rock (Quartz and 

Slate) . . : - 1088°559 . * 
In wet sand A * 5 : c ; 824°915 3 a 


The retardation is due to the discontinuity of the rocks, the mass of 
every known rock being broken up by joints and fissures, at each of 
which there is a loss of vis viva, and a loss of time in the transmis- 
sion of the wave. The accuracy of these results, at first received 
with some just reserve, has since been amply confirmed by observations 
and calculations of the actual transit periods of Natural Earthquake 
waves, occurring in the Rhine Provinces, Hungary, and Southern Italy, 
which are found closely to co-ordinate with those of experiment. 

It was ascertained that in the contorted heterogeneous and shat- 
tered rocks of Holyhead, no less than seven-eighths of the total theoretic 

VOL. I. F 


66 Original Articles. [Jan. 


velocity of transit due to the elasticity of the rocks, which was also 
experimentally obtained, was extinguished thus by their want of con- 
tinuity, &e. 

Now, from these different rates of wave transit in diverse materials, 
it results that if an impulse be given at a single point, it may be per- 
ceptible several times in succession by a person so situated as to re- 
ceive it through different media. 

Let, for example, one stand near a line of railway, and a heavy blow 
be delivered upon the iron rail; it will be heard first, through the iron 
rail; almost directly afterwards a second sound will be heard through 
the air; and almost at the same time the person will feel the pulse of 
the blow reach his feet through the ground. While, if another person 
had his head immersed in the water filling a side drain along the line, 
he would have heard the sound through the liquid at a moment dif- 
ferent from the arrival of any of the other waves. 

Such waves, only on a larger scale, constitute an Earthquake shock. 

An originating impulse (something of the nature of a blow, or hav- 
ing the effects of one) there must be for every shock, but we are not here 
concerned with the source from which that impulse may be produced. 
It may be an explosive production or condensation of high-pressure 
steam in heated cavities, deep beneath the surface, or sudden increase 
or decrease of its tension, or sudden fracture or fall, or forcing up or 
down or against each other of great rocky masses, or if (in near pro- 
pinquity to active voleanoes), it may be any of their throbs or throes, 
or explosive ejections, or the recoil from these; it matters not as 
respects the physical theory of Harthquake-motion, and the expla- 
nation this renders of Earthquake-phenomena, what or which or 
whether any of these be the cause of the blow, so long as some sort of 
impulse be given, and the seat of this be more or less deep beneath 
the earth. 

Then in all directions outwards from this centre of impulse, there 
will be transmitted an elastic wave. ‘The form of the wave, if origi- 
nated at one point, would be that cf a spherical shell concentric with 
the centre of impulse, 1f the medium were quite homogeneous; but 
in nature, the wave assumes ellipsoidal and various other more com- 
plex forms, and rapidly gets broken up into smaller and still more 
complex waves, by dispersion, by interference, refraction and reflec- 
tion, in consequence of the shattered and varying nature of all the 

uperficial formations through which it is transmitted. 

The wave starts from the origin with one normal and two trans- 
versal vibrations, 7. e. every particle vibrates not only to and fro, 
in the radial direction from the centre, but also at right angles to this, 
in two directions at once. The former is the larger vibration and the 
more important to attend to, so that we may often, in investigating 
Harthquake-phenomena, altogether pass over the transversals. These 
vibrations constitute the proper motion of the wave as contradistin- 
euished from its motion in transit. 

A plumb line passing from above the surface of the earth and 
through the centre of impulse is called The Seismic Veriical. The 
wave or Shock passing outwards from this centre, reaches the earth’s 


1864. ] Mauter on Earthquakes. 67 


surface vertically, and soonest in this Vertical, which is the shortest 
distance between any point below and the surface, and here it only 
produces (neglecting transversals) a rapid movement up and down. 
The surface of the ground actually rises and sinks again to its pre- 
vious place, with great rapidity, and through a range that may be 
several inches or perhaps fect, dependent on how great and how near 
the blow is given below, and what is the intervening material. 

For all points around the Seismic Vertical, the wave emerges at 
slopes, called emergent angles, which become more and more nearly 
horizontal as the distance on the surface is greater. The spherical 
or quasi-spherical shell wave-form at any given distance outwards 
when cut by the earth’s surface, intersects it as a closed curve, more 
or less circular, elliptic, or oval, and the crest, so to say, of this surface- 
wave, called a coseismal line, because all bodies situated in it are 
shaken at the same instant, travels along the surface of the earth with 
a real, though not large, and with a constantly diminishing undulation, 
like a roller at sea, constantly enlarging the curvilinear area within it ; 
and as it passes “outward, objects in succession are disturbed or 
overthrown, not by the transit of the wave-form, but by the wave itself, 
that is, by the movement of the particles in motion in the wave. 

There is a certain distance outward upon the earth’s surface, all 
round the Seismic Vertical, at which it may be proved that the over- 
throwing power of the shock is a maximum, greater than anywhere, 
within or without it—within, because there the direction of normal 
movement in the wave is more nearly vertical, and hence less calcu- 
ated to upset objects standing on the ground—and without, because 
the further the shock has travelled away from the Seismic vertical, 
the more its power (to speak loosely) has decayed. This is the 
Meizoseismal circle or curve. The angle made with the Seismic vertical 
by a line drawn from any point in this curve at the surface down to 
the centre of impulse, is for the same conditions constant. 

If the impulse or blow has been accompanied by rending or frac- 
ture, or the striking or grinding together of hard or rocky masses, or 
by the rush of vapours or gases, then the wave of shock will be accom- 
panied by waves of sound. But these latter may or may not travel just 
at the same rate, or by quite the same wave-paths to the ear of a 
person upon the surface, as does that of the shock which he feels. 
Hence there may be Earthquake shocks, with or without sounds, and 
the shock may be perceived before any sound is heard, or the sounds 
may precede and herald the shock, as the awful ‘‘ bramidos” generally 
do the Earthquakes of Mexico. 

But to hearers remote from the Seismic vertical, the sounds, if any, 
will reach their ears not only through the earth, but through a longer 
or shorter intervening range of air, and hence at very different times 
and with very different amounts of repercussion and reverberation, 
although originating in one sound only, as of a single rend, or grind, 
or explosion. 

A remarkable use has been made, for the first time, of the differences 
in the character of the sounds heard nearly simultaneously, and at 


about equal distances all round the Seismic vertical, in the Report 
F2 


68 Original Articles. | Jan. 


addressed to the Royal Society of the examination made on the facts 
of the Neapolitan Earthquake of 1857, by employing them to deter- 
mine approximately from their varying character the form of the focal 
surface or cavity, or of the subterranean locus of the centre’ of effort, 
—and the method will no doubt hereafter, when more largely and 
completely applied, yield very important results. Space forbids us, 
however, here to do more than mention it, and refer to the Report in 
question. 

These, then, are the waves produced by a single impulse, and con- 
stituting an Earthquake whose origin is inland. But should the orzgin 
be under the sea, then at the point passed through by the Seismic ver- 
tical and around it, the sea-bottom is, as on land, suddenly upheaved, 
and again dropped down; or it may be, as by submarine volcano, 
actually broken up altogether, and steam, lava, and floods of lapilh, 
and so forth, may be then belched forth under water. In either case 
there is forced up a volume of water upon the sea’s surface just 
above, or several of these in succession, and as each mass falls again 
it assumes the horizontal form of a circular liquid wave of trans- 
lation—and these are propagated outwards over the surface of the sea, 
like the circles or ring-shaped waves on a pond, when a pebble is 
dropped into it. The altitude and breadth of these waves depend 
mainly upon the magnitude of the disturbance of the bottom, and on 
the depth of water above it; the rate of their propagation outwards 
has nothing to do directly with elasticity, it is dependent simply 
upon the square root of the depth of the water traversed by the wave 
on its surface. Ifthe ocean continued everywhere of the same depth, 
and the original impulse came from a single point, or circular disc, 
then the horizontal plan of the crest of any one of these waves would 
always remain a circle; but the depth varies—and as that part of 
the expanded circle which is over a deeper part moves on much faster 
than portions moving over shallow water, or approaching shores—so 
the circles soon get distorted into various other closed curves, and the 
original radial direction of translation outwards gets changed to any 
extent —so that a wave might, without any reflection, even double back 
upon its original line of progress. 

When the long flat swell of such waves, as they are originated on 
the deep sea, approaches the shores and reaches shoal water, their 
fronts become steeper and steeper, and they finally roll in upon the 
shore, as the great sea waves of South American and other Earthquakes, 
so much dreaded wherever they have been once experienced. ‘They 
are often so large that they only topple over as breakers after they 
have rolled in unbroken masses far inland. 

Such was the wave that swept, in one unexpected deluge, thousands 
of people off the Quay at Messina, and which in some South American 
Earthquakes have inundated devoted cities like Valparaiso and Callao, 
with a frowning crest 80 feet in height. Not that the wave while 
it was far out at sea possessed anything like this altitude,—but just as 
the Atlantic tide wave,—when constricted in the Bay of Fundy, or 
in our own Bristol Channel reaches 70 or 40 feet; so does the Harth- 
quake sea-wave rise and get steep in the narrow and shallow waters. 


1864. | Mauuxr on Harthquakes. 69 


Thus, we see that in an Earthquake whose origin is beneath the 
sea, there may be a series of waves, all arriving in the following order, 
differently, and at different times, to an observer standing on the land. 

Ist. The great Earthquake wave of shock. 

2nd. The forced sea-wave (of which we have as yet not spoken); it is 
the roll of water forced up by, and carried along with, the earth-wave, 
which raises the sea-bottom, and with it the water upon its back as it 
were, and at its own rate of motion, after it has got into shallow water. 
This is but occasionally perceptible, and only in great Earthquakes. 

ord. The sound-wave through the earth, which may or may not be 
before. 

4th. The sound-wave through the sea. 

5th. The sound-wave through the air. 

All these except the second are elastic waves. 

6th, and lastly. The great sea-wave, or wave of translation, rolls in 
and completes the catastrophe, often hours after the shock has done its 
work of destruction ; or portions of it may roll in upon shores that 
have felt no shock at all. Thus in the great Harthquake at Japan, 
which a few years ago wrecked a Russian frigate in one of the harbours 
there, the great sea-wave produced in the deep seas, near those great 
Islands, hours afterwards, reached the opposite shores of the Pacific, 
at St. Diego and Francisco, and gave the first intelligence at those 
places of the disaster that had occurred at the further side of that great 
ocean. 

Space forbids us now to pursue the subject further. At some 
future opportunity we may be enabled to revert to it; and to develope 
the relations between the movements of the elastic-wave particle and 
the wave’s transit to which we have in the preceding pages almost 
confined our remarks. It remains also to be shown by what methods 
the position and depth, and even the form and magnitude of the 
deep-seated focus of an Earthquake, may be ascertained by deciphering, 
with the help of science, the terrible handwriting left by the destroyer 
upon the country it has overthrown. ‘To these should be added some 
description of the secondary effects of Earthquakes, in moulding anew 
the features of the lands they pass over, and how those affect and 
modify the shocks that reach them. Something, too, might be said as 
to the distribution of Earthquakes in time and in space upon our 
Earth’s surface ; what are the conditions originating within our planet ; 
the impulses on which their existence depends; and, lastly, what is the 
function of Earthquakes, and what uses they fulfil as parts of the great 
cosmical machine. 


70 Original Articles. | Jan. 


LIGHTHOUSE ILLUMINATION BY MAGNETO- 
ELECTRICITY. 


By J. H. Guapsronz, Esq., Ph.D., F.R.S. 


Anyone who, on a tolerably clear night, has crossed the channel be- 
tween Folkestone and Boulogne, and remained on deck, must have . 
noticed on the French coast what appeared a brilliant star, now 
waxing, now waning. It was the light of the far-famed Pharos, on 
Cape Grisnez. But if he has made the passage within the last 
eighteen months, his gaze will have been attracted by a still brighter 
star on the British coast, of a bluish tint, steady and_ brilliant. 
This is the Magneto-electric Light at Dungeness, the brightest spark 
in the world, and one which unites a rare scientific with a practical 
interest, and may prove only the first lighted of a multitude of similar 
beacons. I propose to say a few words on the history, production, 
and merits of this Light. 


History.—If we ask the parentage of the Magneto-electric Light, 
Mr. Frederick Hales Holmes is certainly its father, but, like other 
beings, it has had two grandfathers—the philosopher who first showed 
the conducting power of charcoal, and the brilliancy of the light 
between charcoal terminals of an interrupted galvanic current; and 
Professor Faraday, who discovered that when a piece of soft iron, 
surrounded by a coil of metallic wire, was made to pass by the poles 
of a magnet, an electric current was produced in the wire, which 
revealed its existence by effecting chemical decompositions, or by 
giving a spark. This spark, it is true, was barely visible as at first 
obtained, but it has been exalted into the present Magneto-electric 
Light. 

“Tt appears that in 1853 some large Magneto-electric machines were 
erected in Paris for producing gas by the decomposition of water, 
the object of the proprietor being to use this gas for the purposes of 
combustion ; but the scheme failed, the Company that was being 
formed came to nothing, and the machines were pronounced by leading 
scientific men to be only expensive toys. Mr. Holmes, however, who 
was one of the referees, proposed to turn them to account for electro- 
plating and gilding, and thought it possible that the Electric Light 
might be produced advantageously by their means. ‘‘ My proposi- 
tions,” he says, in his evidence before the Royal Commission on Lights, 
Buoys, and Beacons, “were entirely ridiculed, and the consequence 
was, that instead of saying that I thought I could do it, I promised 
to do it by a certain day. On that day, with one of Duboscq’s regu- 
lators or lamps, I produced the Magneto-electric Light for the first time, 
but as the machines were ill-constructed for the purpose, and as I had 
considerable difficulty to make even a temporary adjustment to produce 
a fitting current, the Light could only be exhibited for a few minutes at 
a time—say ten or twenty minutes—when the adjustments were entirely 
displaced by the friction ; the rubbing surfaces were worn away. From 
this time I directed my attention more particularly to the reconstruc- 


1864. | Guapstone on Lighthouse Illumination. 71 


tion of the machines entirely, from the very frame-work upwards, so 
as to produce the current that I saw necessary for the Electric Light.” 
During this time, it appears that Mr. Holmes, not liking the treatment 
he received from the French Company, left Paris, and left his imper- 
fect machine there, and it was this very machine which was subse- 
quently used by the French Government in their experiments, and these 
experiments were carried on by a man who had worked under Mr. 
Holmes. The inventor next appears in Belgium, continuing his 
improvements with a new machine, and visited by Admiral (then Cap- 
tain) Fitzroy, who was commissioned by the Admiralty to go to 
Brussels, see the Light, and report on it. In February, 1857, Professor 
Holmes applied to the Trinity Board, and in the following month the 
Electric Light was exhibited, for several nights, at the experimental lan- 
tern* at Blackwall, before the Light Committee and Professor Faraday. 
In May, an agreement was made for a trial at the South Foreland ; but it 
was not till the 8th December that this experiment at an actual light- 
house was commenced. The Elder Brethren made arrangements for 
getting observations by the crews of pilot-cutters, masters of light- 
vessels, and the keepers of neighbouring lighthouses, both on the 
British and French coasts. Some unforeseen difficulties seem to have 
arisen, due partly, no doubt, to the novelty of the whole arrangement, 
but partly also to the complicated optical apparatus in the Lighthouse 
being suited to a large flame instead of a brilliant point of light, and 
being ill-adjusted to throw that light to the horizon. All this caused 
some interruptions in the experiment. .M. Reynaud, the Director- 
General of the French Lighthouses, inspected the Light on April 26, 
1859 ; it was visited by most of the Members of the Royal Commission 
of Lights, Buoys, and Beacons, including myself, three days afterwards, 
and on the same day Professor Faraday wrote a Report to the Trinity 
House. The opinions expressed were so far favourable, that the Elder 
Brethren desired a further trial of six months, during which time the 
Light was to be entirely under their own control, Mr. Holmes not 
being allowed to interfere in any way. The Light was again kindled 
on August 22, and the experiment happened soon to be exposed to a 
severe test, as one of the Light-keepers, who had been accustomed to 
the arrangement of the lamps in the lantern, was suddenly removed, 
and another took his place without any previous instruction. This 
man thought the light quite strong enough if he allowed the carbon 
points to touch, as the lamp then required no attendance whatever, and 
he could leave it in that way for hours together. On being remon- 
strated with, he said, “It is quite good enough.” Notwithstanding 
such difficulties as these, the experiment was considered satisfactory, 
but it was discontinued at the South Foreland, for the cliffs there are 
marked by a double light, and the electric spark was so much brighter 
than the oil flames in the other house, that there was no small danger 
of its being seen alone in thick weather, and thus fatally misleading 
some unfortunate vessel. 

Then occurred a period of two years, consumed partly in coming 


* The room with glass sides, from which the light is exhibited at the top of a 
lighthouse, is called a “ lantern.”’ 


72 Original Articles. ' [Jan. 


to the decision that the Magno-electric Light was to be exhibited at 
Dungeness, and partly in fitting up the lighthouse there (which by the 
way had been cracked by lightning) for the reception of its new 
occupant. 

It was not deemed desirable to trust the illumination of that head- 
land entirely to the Electric Light, hence the old apparatus was 
retained, and the oil-lamp has always been kept ready for use in case 
of necessity. A supplementary lantern was therefore constructed on 
the top of the ordinary one, and in this the electric lamp was fixed, and 
surrounded by a small combination of lenses and prisms made 
expressly for it by Messrs. Chance, of Birmingham. In the meantime 
Mr. Holmes had considerably improved his lamp by borrowing an 
idea from an arrangement devised by a M. Serrin. At length, in 
February, 1862, this lamp was lit at Dungeness, but it was extin- 
guished on account of the necessity of instructing fresh lighthouse 
keepers, who had to take charge of the apparatus, and it was not till 
the 6th of June that the brilliant star shone permanently on our 
Southern coast. 

In the meantime, the French have not been indifferent or idle. 
When the Royal Commission visited Paris, the Lighthouse authorities 
were found experimenting with a comparatively small machine, and 
had clearly not overcome the difficulty of maintaining the charcoal 
points at a proper distance. But they persevered, and last July there 
was published in the ‘Moniteur Universel’ a Report by M. Reynaud 
to the Minister of Commerce and Public Works, in which he expressed 
a most favourable opinion of the Electric Light, and the Minister gave 
an order for two Electro-magnetic machines to be placed in the double 
Lighthouse of the Cap de la Héve, near Havre. Thus France is 
following England in the adoption of this improvement in coast lights, 
just as, years ago, Great Britain followed France in the use of the 
Dioptric system of illumination. 

It is possible that some other nations may not be behind the 
French. The Dutch Government contemplate placing an Electric 
Light at Scheveningen, and a second one at Texel. The Lighthouse 
system in the empire of Brazil is excellent, and they have long had 
an eye on the Electric Light. Sweden is on the alert; and inquiries 
also have been made respecting its management and cost by the Impe- 
rial Academy of Vienna. 


Apparatus.—Many readers will be familiar with the apparatus 
both of Mr. Holmes and of M. Berlioz, from having examined them at 
the International Exhibition last year. It would be very difficult to 
describe them without drawings, but the following may give a 
sufficiently good general idea. In the apparatus at Dungeness, the 
power that produces the light is resident in 120 permanent magnets, 
of about 50lbs. each, ranged on the periphery of two large wheels. 
This power is called into action by a steam-engine, with Cornish 
boilers, of about three-horse power, which causes a series of 160 soft 
iron cores surrounded by coils of wire to rotate past the magnets. 
The small streams of Electricity thus generated are collected together 


1864. | Guavstong on Lighthouse Illuminations. 73 


into one stream, and by a special piece of apparatus called a Com- 
mutator the alternate positive and negative currents are all brought 
into one direction. The whole power is then conveyed by a thick 
wire from the engine-house to the lighthouse tower, and up into the 
centre of the illuminating apparatus. There it passes between two 
charcoal points, producing thus a most brilliant and continuous spark. 
The “Lamp,” or ‘‘ Regulator,” is so contrived that by means of a 
balance arrangement and a magnet, round which the wire coils, the 
charcoal points are kept always at a proper distance apart. 

At sunset the machine is started, making about 100 revolutions 
per minute ; and the attendant has only to draw two bolts in the lamp 
when the power thus spun in the engine-room bursts into light of 
full intensity. It now requires little or no thought for three hours 
and a half, when the charcoal points being consumed the lamp must 
be changed, and this is done without extinguishing the light, for it is 
the kindling of the second lamp that puts out the first. There are 
always several lamps ready at Dungeness in case of accident, and 
everything is kept in duplicate. 

The French machine is composed of 56 magnets distributed in 
7 vertical equidistant planes, upon the angles of an octagonal prism. 
The maximum of intensity is obtained when the machine turns 350 
or 400 times per minute, and the direction of the current is then 
reversed nearly 6,000 times per minute. There is no Commutator 
employed, and the alternate currents are not brought into one. 


Merits and Demerits.—In favour of the Electric Apparatus, it 
may be stated without any fear of contradiction that the light is vastly 
more intense than that produced from the most powerful oil-lamp, or 
any practicable number of argand burners. In truth that now shining 
at Dungeness is the most brilliant light in existence. The following 
statement will illustrate this. Professor Faraday says of it, when at the 
South Foreland, ‘“ During the daytime I compared the intensity of the 
light with that of the sun, that is, it was placed before and by the side 
of the sun, and both looked at through dark glasses; its light was as 
bright as that of the sun, but the sun was not at its brightest.” No 
other light in existence would have stood that test. Again, he 
describes an experiment at Dungeness :—‘ Arrangements were made 
on shore, by which observations could be made at sea about five miles 
off on the relative light of the Electric lamp, and the metallic reflectors 
with their argand oil lamps—|the light formerly used|—for either 
could be shown alone, or both together. .... The combined effect 
was a glorious light up to the five miles; then, if the Electrie light 
was extinguished, there was a great falling off in the effect; though, 
after a few moments’ rest to the eye, it was seen that the oil-lamps 
and reflectors were in their good and proper state. On the other 
hand, when the Electric light was restored, the glory rose to its first 
high condition. Then, whilst both were in action, the reflectors were 
shaded, and the Electric light left alone; but the naked eye could 
see no sensible diminution ; nor when the reflectors were returned into 
effectual use, could it see any sensible addition to the whole light 


74 Original Articles. [ Jan. 


power, though the telescope showed that the alteration in the lantern 
had taken place at the right time.” M. Reynaud estimates the usual 
intensity of the light at from 180 to 190 standard Carcel burners. 

This superiority of brightness is of practical service only in thick 
weather, for if the air be clear an ordinary first-class light under the 
old system answers every purpose of the mariner, and in fog no light 
is of any avail; but it scarcely requires demonstration that in certain 
intermediate states of the atmosphere, the brighter light will penetrate 
the haze, rain, or snow to a distance at which the other is perfectly 
invisible. There is nothing in the nature of the rays emitted to 
prevent its doing so, for when submitted to spectral analysis, the 
Electric light is found to contain every ray that the oil-flame does, and 
others beside. The returns of neighbouring lighthouse keepers, and 
of the masters of two of the lightships at the Goodwin Sands, during 
the experiment at the South Foreland, show this to be actually the 
case, and similar testimony is borne by the masters of passing vessels, 
the commanders of the Channel Steam Packets, and the pilots who 
frequent the neighbouring seas. 

The peculiar bluish colour of the light as seen from a distance is 
another advantage, by distinguishing it from ships’ lights, or lamps on 
shore; and practically this is a great object. Of course, it may be 
made red or green, or any other tint, by coloured glasses. Indeed it 
is peculiarly adapted for such a purpose. As the light can be 
interrupted and immediately rekindled with full intensity at pleasure, 
this light offers facilities for signaling which no other does. Hach 
lighthouse might be made to repeat its own number all night long, if 
that were thought desirable. Another advantage is well stated in the 
words of Professor Faraday :—‘ In cases where the light is from lamp 
flames fed by oil, no increase of ght at or near the focus or foci of 
the apparatus is possible beyond a certain degree, because of the size 
of the flames; but in the Electric lamp, any amount of the light may 
be accumulated at the focus, and sent abroad at, of course, an 
increased expense. In consequence of the evolution of the light in so 
limited a focal space, it may be directed seaward, diverging either 
more or less, or in a vertical or horizontal direction at pleasure, with 
the utmost facility. ‘The enormous shadow under the light, produced 
by the oil-flame burner, which absorbs and renders useless the 
descending rays to a very large extent, does not occur in the Mag- 
neto-electric lamp; all the light proceeding in that direction is 
turned to account. ‘The optical part of the arrangement, whether 
dioptric or reflecting, might be very small in comparison with those 
in use :” and, indeed, it is so at Dungeness. As there is always an 
extra steam-engine and machinery on the premises, and ready for 
work, the power, and the consequent light between the charcoal 
points, might at any time be doubled, if the state of the atmosphere 
seemed to require it. 

It has already been remarked that in fog no light, however power- 
ful, is of much avail, and public attention is now being directed to the 
necessity of improving our fog signals. It has been well observed in 
M. Reynaud’s Report, “‘ During foggy weather the supplementary steam- 


1864. ] Guapstone on Lighthouse Illuminations. 75 


engine might be employed in playing sonorous instruments, which would 
carry sound to a much greater distance than the bells to which we have 
recourse at present.” 

Against the advantages attending the use of this Electric light must 
be set the greater complexity of the instrument, and the consequent 
greater chance of derangement, or rather the necessity of providing 
lighthouse keepers of a superior order, and an engineer to inspect the 
machinery and keep it in repair. This demand for superior workmen 
is a difficulty we generally have to encounter in perfecting our engines 
either of peace or war. 

The relative expense of the Magneto-electric light and the Fresnel 
lamp is a consideration that must not be overlooked, though it should 
not be allowed too much weight when we are dealing with the safety 
of valuable cargoes and priceless human lives. The original outlay 
in machinery for the Electric light is very large, but there must be set 
against this a considerable diminution in the cost of the apparatus used 
for directing the rays where they are wanted. The working expense 
consists of the coals burnt, the charcoal points used up, and the wear 
of the machinery, all of which perhaps scarcely exceeds the cost of oil 
under the old system. The magnets are said rather to increase in 
strength than to diminish by use. The salary of an engineer is a more 
serious item, but the expense may be greatly reduced by appointing 
one engineer to several lighthouses, if the electric system become com- 
mon. Mr. Holmes estimates the working expenses of the electric ap- 
paratus as compared with the oil lamp, at about 400 against 290. The 
French estimate is, “ Abstracting the expenses of the first establish- 
ment, it will be found that while the expenses of the annual mainten- 
ance of a lighthouse of the first order fed with colza oil rise to 9,421 
francs 75 centimes, those of the same lighthouse illuminated by elec- 
tricity would be 12,240 francs.” Again, ‘ The annual expense will be 
increased 29 per cent. in lighthouses of the first order, but it will have 
the effect of rendering the luminous intensity at least fivefold greater.” 

It has been objected that the light is too bright, dazzling the mariner 
and misleading him as to its distance, but experience will soon remove 
this source of error, and it is hard to understand how the light can pro- 
duce any dazzling effect, unless exhibited at the head of a pier close 
alongside of which the mariner must steer his way. But for harbour 
lights it is not required. Its proper place is on the prominent points of 
the coast which are used as landfalls by vessels, and unless objections 
present themselves in the future which are as yet unknown, we may 
confidently anticipate that each of these headlands will in time be 
marked by its brilliant Electric light. 


76 Original Articles. [ Jan. 


ON THE APPLICATION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF “CON- 
SERVATION OF FORCE” TO PHYSIOLOGY.* 


Part I. The Relations of Light and Heat to the Vital Forces of Plants. 
By Witt1am B. Carpenter, M.D., F.R.S., F.LS., F.GS. 


In every period of the history of Physiology, attempts have been 
made to identify all the forces acting in the Living body with those 
operating in the Inorganic universe. Because muscular force, when 
brought to bear on the bones, moves them according to the mechanical 
laws of lever-action, and because the propulsive power of the heart 
drives the blood through the vessels according to the rules of hydrau- 
lics, it has been imagined that the movements of living bodies may be 
explained on Physical principles ;—the most important consideration 
of all, namely, the source of that contractile power which the living 
muscle possesses, but which the dead muscle (though having the same 
chemical composition) is utterly incapable of exerting, being alto- 
gether left out of view. So, again, because the digestive process, 
whereby food is reduced to a fit state for absorption, as well as the 
formation of various products of the decomposition that is continually 
taking place in the living body, may be imitated in the laboratory of 
the Chemist; it has been supposed that the appropriation of the 
nutriment to the production of the living organized tissues of which 
the several parts of the body are composed, is to be regarded as a 
chemical action,—as if any combination of albumen and gelatine, fat 
and starch, salt and bone-earth, could make a living Man without the 
constructive agency inherent in the germ from which his bodily fabric 
is evolved. 

Another class of reasoners have cut the knot which they could not 
untie, by attributing all the actions of living bodies for which physics 
and chemistry cannot account, to a hypothetical “ Vital Principle ” ; 
a shadowy agency that does everything in its own way, but refuses to 
be made the subject of scientific examination ; like the ‘‘ od-force” or 
the “spiritual power ” to which the lovers of the marvellous are so fond 
of attributing the mysterious movements of turning and tilting 
tables. 

A more scientific spirit, however, prevails among the best 
Physiologists of the present day ; who, whilst fully recognizing the 
fact that many of the phenomena of living bodies can be accounted for 
by the agencies whose operation they trace in the world around, sepa- 
rate into a distinct category—that of vital actions—such as appear to 
differ altogether in kind from the phenomena of Physics and Che- 
mistry ; and seek to determine, from the study of the conditions under 
which these present themselves, the laws of their occurrence. 

In the prosecution of this inquiry, the Physiologist will find it 
greatly to his advantage to adopt the method of philosophizing which 
distinguishes the Physical Science of the present from that of the past 


* To be concluded in our next Number. 


1864.] Carpenter on Correlation of Physical and Vital Forces. 77 


generation ; that, namely, which, whilst fully accepting the logical 
definition of the cause of any phenomenon, as ‘‘ the antecedent, or 
the concurrence of antecedents on which it is invariably and uncon- 
ditionally consequent” (Mill), draws a distinction between the dyna- 
mical and the material conditions; the former supplying the power 
which does the work, whilst the latter affords the instrumental means 
through which that power operates. Thus, if we inspect a Cotton- 
factory in full action, we find it to contain a vast number of machines, 
many of them but repetitions of one another, but many, too, present- 
ing the most marked diversities in construction, in operation, and in 
resultant products. We see, for example, that one is supplied with 
the raw material, which it cleans and dresses ; that another receives the 
cotton thus prepared, and “cards” it so as to lay its fibres in such an 
arrangement as may admit of its beimg spun; that another series, 
taking up the product supplied by the carding machine, twists and 
draws it out into threads of various degrees of fineness; and that this 
thread, carried into a fourth set of machines, is woven into a fabric 
which may be either plain, or variously figured, according to the con- 
struction of the loom. In every one of these dissimilar operations, 
the force which is immediately concerned in bringing about the result, 
is one and the same; and the variety of its products is dependent 
solely on the diversity of the material instruments through which it 
operates. Yet these arrangements, however skilfully devised, are 
utterly valueless without the force which brings them into play.* All 
the elaborate mechanism, the triumph of human ingenuity in devising, 
and of skill in constructing, is as powerless as a corpse, without the vis 
viva which alone can animate it. The giant stroke of the steam-engine, 
or the majestic revolution of the water-wheel, gives the required im- 
pulse ; and the vast apparatus which was the moment previously in a 
state of death-like inactivity, 1s aroused to all the energy of its 
wondrous life,—every part of its complex organization taking upon 
itself its peculiar mode of activity, and evolving its own special product, 
in virtue of the share it receives of the one general force distributed 
through the entire aggregate of machinery. 

But if we carry back our investigation a stage further, and inquire 
into the origin of the force supplied by the steam-engine or the 
water-wheel, we soon meet with a new and most significant fact. At 
our first stage, it is true, we find only the same mechanical force 
acting through a different kind of instrumentality ; the strokes of the 
piston of the steam-engine being dependent upon the elastic force of 
the vapour of water, whilst the revolution of the water-wheel is main- 
tained by the downward impetus of water en masse. But to what 
antecedent dynamical agency can we trace these forces? That agency, 
in each case, is Heat; a force altogether dissimilar in its ordinary 
manifestations to the force which produces sensible motion, yet capable 
of being in turn converted into it and generated by it. For it is 
from the Heat applied beneath the boiler of the steam-engine, that the 
non-elastic liquid contained in it derives all that potency as elastic 


* In going through a manufacturing town, I have often been struck with the 
announcements of ‘ Power to Let.” 


78 Original Articles. [ Jan. 


vapour, which enables it to overcome the vast mechanical resistance 
that is set in opposition to it. And, in like manner, it is the heat of 
the solar rays which pumps up terrestrial waters in the shape of vapour, 
and thus supplies to Man a perennial source of new power in their 
descent by the force of gravity to the level from which they have been 
raised .* 

The power of the steam-engine, indeed, is itself derived more 
remotely from those same rays; for the Heat applied to its boilers 
is but the expression of the chemical change involved in com- 
bustion; that combustion is sustained either by the wood which is 
the product of the vegetative activity of the present day, or by the 
coal which represents the vegetative life of a remote geological epoch ; 
and that vegetative activity, whether present or past, represents an 
equivalent amount of Solar Light and Heat, used up in the decomposition 
of the carbonic acid of the atmosphere by the instrumentality of the 
growing plant.| Thus in either case we come, directly or indirectly, 
to Solar Radiation as the mainspring of our mechanical power ; the vis 
viva of our whole microcosm. Modern physical inquiry ventures even 
one step further, and seeks the source of the Light and Heat of the Sun 
itself. Are these, as formerly supposed, the result of combustion ; or 
are they, as surmised by Mayer and Thomson, the expression of the 
motive power continually generated in the fall of aérolites towards 
the Sun, and as continually annihilated by their impact on its surface ? 
Leaving the discussion of this question to Physical Philosophers, I 
proceed now to my own proper subject. 

It is now about twenty years since Dr. Mayer first broadly 
announced, in all its generality, the great principle now known as that 
of Conservation of Force; as a necessary deduction from two axioms 
or essential truths—ewx nihilo nil fit, and mil fit ad nhilum—the validity 
of which no true philosopher would ever have theoretically questioned, 
but of which he was (in my judgment) the first to appreciate the full 
practical bearing. Thanks to the labours of Faraday, Grove, Joule, 
Thomson, and Tyndall, to say nothing of those of Helmholtz and 
other distinguished Continental savans, the great doctrine ex- 
pressed by the term ‘“ Conservation of Force” is now amongst the 
best established generalizations of Physical Science; and every 
thoughtful Physiologist must desire to see the same course of inquiry 
thoroughly pursued in regard to the phenomena of living bodies. 
This ground was first broken by Dr. Mayer in his remarkable treatise, 
‘Die Organische Bewegung in ihrem Zusammenhange mit dem 
Stoffwechsel’ (‘On Organic Movement in its relation to Material 
Changes,’ Heilbronn, 1845); in which he distinctly set forth the 
principle that the source of all changes in the living Organism, 
animal as well as vegetable, les in the forces acting upon it from 
without ; whilst the changes in its own composition brought about by 


* See on this subject the recent admirable address of Sir William Armstrong, 
at the Mecting of the British Association at Newcastle. 

+ This was discerned by the genius of George Stephenson, before the general 
doctrine of the Correlation of Forces had been given to the world by Mayer or 
Grove. 


1864.] Canrrrnter on Correlation of Physical and Vital Forces. 79 


these agencies he considers to be the immediate source of the forces 
which are generated by it. In treating of these forces, however, he 
dwells chiefly on the production of Motion, Heat, Light, and Electri- 
city by living bodies; touching more slightly upon the phenomena of 
Growth and Development, which constitute, in the eye of the Physio- 
logist, the distinct province of vitality. In a Memoir of my own 
“On the Mutual Relations of the Vital and Physical Forces,” pub- 
lished in ‘ The Philosophical Transactions for 1850,’* I aimed to show 
that the general doctrine of the ‘ Correlation of the Physical Forces,” 
propounded by Mr. Grove, was equally applicable to those Vital forces, 
which must be assumed as the moving powers in the production of 
purely Physiological phenomena; these forces being generated in 
living bodies by the transformation of the Light, Heat, and Chemical 
Action supplied by the world around, and being given back to it 
again, either during their life or after its cessation, chiefly in Motion 
and Heat, but also to a less degree in Light and Electricity. This 
Memoir attracted but little attention at the time, being regarded, I 
believe, as too speculative; but I have since had abundant evidence 
that the minds of thoughtful Physiologists as well as Physicists are 
moving in the same direction; and as the progress of science since 
the publication of my former Memoir would lead me to present some 
parts of my scheme of doctrine in a different form,t I venture again 
to bring it before the public in the form of a sketch (I claim for it no 
other title) of the aspect in which the application of the principle of 
the “ Conservation of Force” to Physiology now presents itself to 
my mind. 

If, in the first place, we inquire what it is that essentially distin- 
guishes Vital from every kind of Physical activity, we find this 
distinction most characteristically expressed in the fact that a germ 
endowed with Life developes itself into an Organism of a type 
resembling that of its parent; that this organism is the subject of 
“incessant changes, which all tend in the first place to the evolution of 
its typical form, and subsequently to its maintenance in that form, 
notwithstanding the antagonism of Chemical and Physical agencies 
which are continually tending to produce its disintegration ; but that 
as its term of existence is prolonged, its conservative power declines 
so as to become less and less able to resist these disintegrating forces, 
to which it finally succumbs, leaving the organism to be resolved by 
their agency into the components from which its materials were ori- 
ginally drawn. The history of a living organism, then, is one of 
incessant change ; aud the conditions of this change are to be found 


* At this date the labours of Dr. Mayer were not known either to myself or 
(so far as 1am aware) to anyone else in this country, save the late Dr. Baly, who, 
a few months after the publication of my Memoir, placed in my hands the pamphlet 
‘Die Organische Bewegung ;’ to which I took the earliest opportunity in my 
power of drawing public: attention i in ‘ The British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical 
Review’ for July, 1851, p. 237. 

+ I have especially profited by a memoir on ‘The Correlation of Physical, 
Chemieal, and Vital Force, and the Conservation of Foree in Vital Phenomena,’ 
by Prof. Le Conte (of South Carolina College), in Silliman’s ‘American Journal’ 
for Noy, 1859, reprinted in ‘The Philosophical Magazine’ for 1860. 


80 Original Articles. [ Jan. 


partly in the organism itself, and partly in the external agencies to 
which it is subjected. That condition which is inherent in the 
organism, being derived hereditarily from its progenitors, may be 
conveniently termed its germinal capacity : its parallel in the Inorganic 
world being that fundamental difference in properties which consti- 
tutes the distinction between one substance, whether elementary or 
compound, and another; in virtue of which each “behaves” in its 
own characteristic manner when subjected to new conditions. 

Thus, although there may be nothing in the aspect or sensible 
properties of the germ of a Polype to distinguish it from that of a 
Man, we find that each developes itself, if the requisite conditions be 
supplied, into its typical form, and no other ; if the developmental 
conditions required by either be not supplied, we do not find a different 
type evolved, but no evolution at all takes place.* 

Now the difference between a being of high and a being of low 
organization essentially consists in this ;—that in the latter the con- 
stituent parts of the fabric evolved by the process of growth from the 
original germ are similar to each other in structure and endowments ; 
whilst in the former: they are progressively differentiated with the 
advance of development, so that the fabric comes at last to consist of 
a number of organs or instruments more or less dissimilar in structure, 
composition, and endowments. 
Thus in the lowest forms of Vege- 
able life, the primordial germ 
multiplies itself by duplicative 
subdivision (a, b, c, d) into an 
apparently unlimited number of 
cells, each of them similar to every 
other, and capable of maintaining 
its existence independently of © 
them. And in that lowest Rhi- 
zopod type of Animal life, the 
knowledge of which is among 
the most remarkable fruits of 
modern biological research, “ the 
Physiologist has a case in which 
those vital operations which he 
is elsewhere accustomed to see carried on by an elaborate apparatus, 
are performed without any special instruments whatever; a little 
particle of apparently homogeneous jelly changing itself into a greater 
variety of forms than the fabled Proteus, laying hold of its food with- 


* Tt is quite true that among certain of the lower tribes both of Plants and 
Animals—especially the Fungi and Hntozoa—similar germs may develope them- 
selves into very dissimilar forms, according to the conditions under which they 
are evolved; but such diversities are only of the same kind as those which 
manifest themselves among dndividuals in the higher Plants and Animals, and 
only show that in the types in question there is a less close conformity to one 
pattern. Neither in these groups, nor in that group of Foraminifera in which 
I have been led to regard the range of variation as peculiarly great, does any 
tendency ever show itself to the assumption of the characters of any group 
fundamentally dissimilar. 


1864.] Canrrunter on Correlation of Physical and Vital Forces. 81 


out members, swallowing it without a mouth, digesting it without a 
stomach, appropriating its nutritious material without absorbent vessels 
or a circulating system, moving from place to place without muscles, 
feeling (if it has any power to do so) without nerves, propagating itself 
without genital apparatus, and not only this, but in many instances 
forming shelly coverings of a symmetry and complexity not surpassed 
by those of any testaceous animals,’* whilst the mere separation 
of a fragment of this jelly is sufficient to originate a new and indepen- 
dent organism, so that any number of these beings may be produced 
by the successive detachment of such particles from a single Rhizopod, 
each of them retaining (so far as we have at present the means of 
knowing) the characteristic endowments of the stock from which it 
was an offset. 

When, on the other hand, we watch the evolution of any of the higher 
types of Organization, whether Vegetable or Animal, we observe that 
although in the first instance the primordial cell multiplies itself by 
duplicative subdivision into an aggregation of cells which are appa- 
rently but repetitions of itself and of each other, this homogeneous 
extension has in each case a definite limit, speedily giving place to a 
structural differentiation which becomes more and more decided with 
the progress of development; until, in that most heterogeneous of all 
types—the Human Organism—no two parts are precisely identical, 
except those which correspond to each other on the opposite sides of 
the body. With this structural differentiation is associated a corres- 
ponding differentiation of function ; for whilst in the Life of the most 
highly developed and complex organism we witness no act which is not 
foreshadowed, however vaguely, in that of the lowest and simplest, yet 
we observe in it that same “division of labour” which constitutes the 
essential characteristic of the highest grade of Civilization. For in 
what may be termed the elementary form of Human Society, in which 
every individual relies upon himself alone for the supply of all his 
wants, no greater result can be obtained by the aggregate action of the 
entire community than its mere maintenance ; but as each individual 
selects a special mode of activity for himself, and aims at improvement 
in that speciality, he finds himself attaining a higher and yet higher 
degree of aptitude for it; and this specialization tends to increase as 
opportunities arise for new modes of activity, until that complex fabric 
is evolved which constitutes the most developed form of the Social 
State, wherein every individual finds the work—mental or bodily—for 
which he is best fitted, and in which he may reach the highest attain- 
able perfection ; while the mutual dependence of the whole (which is 
the necessary result of this specialization of parts) is such that every 
individual works for the benefit of all his fellows, as well as for his 
own. Asitis only in such a state of society that the greatest triumphs 
of human ability become possible, so it is only in the most differen- 
tiated types of Organization that Vital Activity can present its highest 
manifestations. In the one case as in the other does the result 
depend upon a process of gradual development, in which, under the 

* See the Author's ‘Introduction to the Study of the Foraminifera,’ published 
by the Ray Society, 1862: Preface, p. vii. 
VOL. I. G 


82 Original Articles. [ Jan. 


influence of agencies whose nature constitutes a proper object of 
scientific inquiry, that most general form in which the fabric—whether 
Corporeal or Social—originates, evolves itself into that most special in 
which its development culminates. 

But notwithstanding the wonderful diversity of structure and 
of endowments which we meet with in the study of any complex Orga- 
nism, we encounter a harmonious unity or co-ordination in its entire 
aggregate of actions, which is yet more wonderful. Itis this harmony 
or co-ordination, whose tendency is to the conservation of the organism, 
that the state of Health or Normal Life essentially consists. And the 
more profound our investigation of its conditions, the more definite 
becomes the conclusion to which we are led by the study of them,— 
that it is fundamentally based on the common origin of all these diver- 
sified parts in the same germ, the vital endowments of which, equally 
diffused throughout the whole fabric in those lowest forms of organiza- 
tion in which every part is but a repetition of every other, are differen- 
tiated in the highest amongst a variety of organs, acquiring in virtue 
of this differentiation a much greater intensity. 

Thus, then, we may take that mode of Vital Activity which mani- 
fests itself in the evolution of the germ into the complete organism 
repeating the type of its parent, and the subsequent maintenance of 
that organism in its integrity,—in the one case, as in the other, at the 
expense of materials derived from external sources,—as the most uni- 
versal and most fundamental characteristic of Life; and we have now 
to consider the nature and source of the Force or Power by which that 
evolution is brought about. The prevalent opinion has until lately 
been, that this power is inherent in the germ ; which has been supposed 
to derive from its parent not merely its material substance, but a nisus 
formativus, Bildungstrieb, or germ-force, in virtue of which it builds itself 
up into the likeness of its parent, and maintains itself in that likeness 
until the force is exhausted, at the same time imparting a fraction of 
it to each of its progeny. In this mode of viewing the subject, all the 
organizing force required to build up an Oak or a Palm, an Elephant 
or a Whale, must be concentrated in a minute particle, only discernible 
by microscopic aid; and the aggregate of all the germ-forces apper- 
taining to the descendants, however numerous, of 2 common parentage, 
must have existed in their original progenitors. Thus, in the case of 
the successive viviparous broods of Aphides, a germ-force capable of 
organizing a mass of living structure, which would amount (it has 
been calculated)* in the tenth brood to the bulk of 500 millions of 
stout men, must have been shut up in the single individual, weighing 
perhaps the 1-1000th of a grain, from which the first brood was evolved. 
And in like manner, the germ-force which has organized the bodies 
of all the individual men that have lived from Adam to the present 
day, must have been concentrated in the body of their common ancestor. 
A more complete reductio ad absurdum can scarcely be brought against 
any hypothesis; and we may consider it proved that, in some way or 


* See Prof. Huxley on the “Agamie Reproduction of Aphis,” in ‘Linn. Trans.,’ 
vol, xxii. p. 215. 


1864.] Carpunter on Correlation of Physical and Vital Forces. 83 


other, fresh organizing force is constantly being supplied from without 
during the whole period of the exercise of its activity. 

When we look carefully into the question, however, we find that 
what the germ really supplies is not the force, but the directive agency ; 
thus rather resembling the control exercised by the superintendent 
builder who is charged with the working out the design of the architect, 
than the bodily force of the workmen who labour under his guidance 
in the construction of the fabric. The actual constructive force, as 
we learn from an extensive survey of the phenomena of life, is supplied 
by Heat; the influence of which upon the rate of growth and develop- 
ment, both animal and vegetable, is so marked as to have universally 
attracted the attention of Physiologists: who, however, have for the 
most part only recognized in it a vital stimulus that calls forth the 
latent power of the germ, instead of looking upon it as itself furnishing 
the power that does the work. It has been from the narrow limitation 
of the area over which physiological research has been commonly 
prosecuted, that the intimacy of this relationship between Heat and 
the Organizing force has not sooner become apparent. Whilst the 
vital phenomena of Warm-blooded Animals, which possess within 
themselves the means of maintaining a constant temperature, were 
made the sole, or at any rate the chief, objects of study, it was not 
likely that the inquirer would recognize the full influence of external 
heat in accelerating, or of cold in retarding, their functional activity. 
It is only when the survey is extended to Cold-blooded Animals, and 
to Plants, that the immediate and direct relation between Heat and Vital 
Activity, as manifested in the rate of growth and development, or of 
other changes peculiar to the living body, is unmistakably manifested. 
To some of those phenomena which afford the best illustrations of the 
mode in which Heat acts upon the living organism, attention will now 
be directed. 

Commencing with the Vegetable kingdom, we find that the ope- 
ration of Heat as the “motive power,” or dynamical agency, to which 
the phenomena of growth and development are to be referred, is pecu- 
liarly well seen in the process of Germination.. The seed consists 
of an embryo which has already advanced to a certain stage of 
development, and of a store of nutriment laid up as the material for 
its further evolution ; and in the fact that this evolution is carried on 
at the expense of organic compounds already prepared by extrinsic 
agency, until (the store of these being exhausted) the young plant 
is sufficiently far advanced in its development to be able to elaborate 
them for itself, the condition of the germinating embryo resembles 
that of an Animal. Now the seed may remain (under favourable 
circumstances) in a state of absolute inaction during an unlimited 
period. If secluded from the free access of air and moisture, and kept 
at a low temperature, it is removed from all influences that would on 
the one hand occasion its disintegration, or on the other would call it 
into active life. But when again exposed to air and moisture, and 
subjected to a higher temperature, it either germinates or decays, 
according as the embryo it contains has or has not preserved its vital 
endowments—a question which only experiment can resolve. The 

G2 


84 Original Articles. [Jan. 


process of germination is by no means a simple one. The nutriment 
stored up in the seed is in great part in the condition of insoluble 
starch ; and this must be brought into a soluble form before it can be 
appropriated by the embryo. The metamorphosis is effected by the 
agency of a ferment termed diastase ; which is laid up in the imme- 
diate neighbourhood of the embryo, and which, when brought to act 
on starch, converts it in the first instance into soluble dextrine, and 
then (if its action be continued) into sugar. The dextrine and sugar, 
combined with the albuminous and oily compounds also stored up in 
the seed, form the “ protoplasm” which is the substance immediately 
supplied to the young plant as the material of its tissues; and the 
conversion of this protoplasm into various forms of organized tissue, 
which become more and more differentiated as development advances, 
is obviously referable to the vital activity of the germ. Now it can 
be very easily shown experimentally that the rate of growth in the 
germinating embryo is so closely related (within certain limits) to the 
amount of Heat supplied, as to place its dependence on that agency 
beyond reasonable question ; so that we seem fully entitled to say that 
Heat, acting through the germ, supplies the constructive force or power 
by which the Vegetable fabric is built up.* But there appears to be 
another source of that power in the seed itself. In the conversion of 
the insoluble starch of the seed into sugar, and probably also in a 
further metamorphosis of a part of that sugar, a large quantity of carbon 
is eliminated from the seed by combining with the oxygen of the air 
so as to form carbonic acid; this combination is necessarily attended 
with a disengagement of heat, which becomes very sensible when (as in 
malting) a large number of germinating seeds are aggregated together ; 
and it cannot but be regarded as probable that the heat thus evolved 
within the seed concurs with that derived from without, in supplying 
to the germ the force that promotes its evolution. 

The condition of the Plant which has attained a more advanced 
stage of its development differs from that of the germinating embryo 
essentially in this particular, that the organic compounds which it re- 
quires as the materials of the extension of the fabric are formed by 
itself, instead of being supplied to it from without. The tissues of 
the coloured surfaces of the leaves and stems, when acted on by light, 
have the peculiar power of generating—at the expense of carbonic acid, 
water, and ammonia—various ternary and quaternary organic com- 
pounds, such as chlorophyll, starch, oil, and albumen ; and of the 
compounds thus generated, some are appropriated by the constructive 
force of the Plant (derived from the heat with which it is supplied) to 
the formation of new tissues ; whilst others are stored up in the cavities 
of those tissues, where they ultimately serve either for the evolution 


* The effect of Heat is doubtless manifested very differently by different seeds ; 
such variations being partly specific, partly individual. But these are no greater 
than we see in the inorganic world; the increment of temperature and the 
augmentation of bulk exhibited by different substances when subjected to the 
same absolute measure of heat, being as diverse as the substances themselves. 
The whole process of “malting,” it may be remarked, is based on the regularity 
with which the seeds of a particular species may be at any time forced to a definite 
rate of germination by a definite increment of temperature. 


1864.] Canrruntur on Correlation of Physical and Vital Forces, 85 


of parts subsequently developed, or for the nutrition of animals which 
employ them as food. Of the source of those peculiar affinities by 
which the components of the starch, albumen, &c., are brought toge- 
ther, we have no right to speak confidently ; but looking to the fact 
that these compounds are not produced in any case by the direct union 
of their elements, and that a decomposition of binary compounds 
seems to be a necessary antecedent of their formation, it is scarcely 
improbable that, as suggested by Prof. Le Conte (op. cit.), that source 
is to be found in the chemical forces set free in the preliminary 
act of decomposition, in which the elements would be liberated in 
that “ nascent condition” which is well known to be one of peculiar 
energy. 

The influence of Light, then, upon the Vegetable organism appears 
to be essentially exerted in bringing about what may be considered a 
higher mode of chemical combination between oxygen, hydrogen, and 
carbon, with the addition of nitrogen in certain cases; and there is no 
evidence that it extends beyond this. That the appropriation of the 
materials thus prepared, and their conversion into organized tissue in 
the operations of growth and development, are dependent on the agency 
of Heat, is just as evident in the stage of maturity as in that of ger- 
mination. And there is reason to believe, further, that an additional 
source of organizing force is to be found in the retrograde metamor- 
phosis of organic compounds that goes on during the whole life of the 
plant; of which metamorphosis the expression is furnished by the 
production of carbonicacid. Thisis peculiarly remarkable in the case 
of the Fungi, which, being incapable of forming new compounds under 
the influence of light, are entirely supported by the organic matters 
they absorb, and which in this respect correspond on the one hand 
with the germinating embryo, and on the other with Animals. Such 
a decomposition of a portion of the absorbed material is the only con- 
ceivable source of the large quantity of carbonic acid they are con- 
stantly giving out; and it would not seem unlikely that the force 
supplied by this retrograde metamorphosis of the superfluous com- 
ponents of their food, which fall down (so to speak) from the elevated 
plane of “proximate principles” to the lower level of comparatively 
simple binary compounds, supplies a force which raises another portion 
to the rank of living tissue ; thus accounting in some degree for the 
very rapid growth for which this tribe of Plants is so remarkable. 
This exhalation of carbonic acid, however, is not peculiar to Fungi 
and germinating embryos; for it takes place during the whole life of 
Flowering Plants, both by day and by night, in sunshine and in shade, 
and from their green as well as from their dark surfaces; and it 
is not improbable that, as in the case of the Fungi, its source lies 
partly in the organic matters absorbed ; recent investigations* having 
rendered it probable that Plants really take up and assimilate soluble 
humus, which, being a more highly carbonized substance than starch, 
dextrine, or cellulose, can only be converted into compounds of the 
latter kind by parting with some of its carbon. But it may also take 


* See the Memoir of M. Risler, ‘‘ On the Absorption of Humus,” in the ‘ Biblio- 
théque Universelle,’ N.S. 1858, tom. i. p. 305. 


85 Original Articles. [Jan. 


place at the expense of compounds previously generated by the plant 
itself, and stored up in its tissues; of which we seem to have an ex- 
ample in the unusual production of carbonic acid which takes place at 
the period of flowering, especially in such plants as have a fleshy disk 
or receptacle containing a large quantity of starch ; and thus, it may 
be surmised, an extra supply of force is provided for the maturation of 
those generative products, whose preparation seems to be the highest 
expression of the vital power of the Vegetable organism. 

The entire aggregate of organic compounds contained in the vege- 
table tissues, then, may be considered as the expression not merely: of 
a certain amount of the material elements, oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, 
and nitrogen derived (directly or indirectly) from the water, carbonic 
acid, and ammonia of the atmosphere, but also of a certain amount of 
force which has been exerted, in raising these from the lower plane of 
simple binary compounds to the higher level of complex “ proximate 
principles ;” whilst the portion of these actually “converted into or- 
ganized tissue may be considered as the expression of a further measure 
of force, which, acting under the directive agency of the germ, has 
served to build up the fabric in its characteristic type. This con- 
structive action goes on during the whole Life of the Plant, which 
essentially manifests itself either in the extension of the original 
fabric (to which in many instances there seems no determinate limit), 
or in the production of the germs of new and independent organisms. 
—It is interesting to remark that the development of the more per- 
manent parts involves the successional decay and renewal of parts 
whose existence is temporary. The “fall of the leaf” is the effect, 
not the cause, of the cessation of that peculiar functional activity of 
its tissues, which consists in the elaboration of the nutritive material 
required for the production of wood. And it would seem as if the 
duration of their existence stands in an inverse ratio to the energy of 
their action; the leaves of “evergreens,” which are not cast off until 
the appearance of a new succession, effecting their functional changes 
at a much less rapid rate than do those of “ deciduous” trees, whose 
term of life is far more brief. 

Thus the final cause or purpose of the whole Vital Activity of the 
Plant, so far as the individual is concerned, is to produce an indefinite 
extension of the dense, woody, almost inert, but permanent portions 
of the fabric, by the successional development, decay, and renewal of 
the soft, active, and transitory cellular parenchyma; and, according 
to the principles already stated, the descent of a portion of the mate- 
rials of the latter to the condition of binary compounds, which is 
manifested in the largely increased exhalation of carbonic adid that 
takes place from the leaves in the later part of the season, comes to 
the aid of external Heat in supplying the force by which another por- 
tion of those materials is raised to the condition of organized tissue. 
—The vital activity of the Plant, however, is further manifested in 
the provision made for the propagation of its race by the production of 
the germs of new individuals ; and here, again, we observe that whilst 
a higher temperature is usually required for the development of the 
flower, and the maturation of the seed, than that which suffices to sus- 


1864.] Carrnnter on Correlation of Physical and Vital Forces. 87 


tain the ordinary processes of vegetation, a special provision appears 
to be made in some instances for the evolution of force in the sexual 
apparatus itself, by the retrograde metamorphosis of a portion of the 
organic compounds prepared by the previous nutritive operations. This 
seems the nearest approach presented in the Vegetable organism, to 
what we shall find to be an ordinary mode of activity in the Animal, 
That the performance of the generative act involves an extraordinary 
expenditure of vital force, appears from this remarkable fact, that blos- 
soms which wither and die as soon as the ovules have been fertilized, 
may be kept fresh for a long period if fertilization be prevented. 

The decay which is continually going on during the life of a Plant 
restores to the Inorganic world, in the form of carbonic acid, water, 
and ammonia, a part of the materials drawn from it in the act of vege- 
tation; and a reservation being made of those Vegetable products which 
are consumed as food by Animals, or which are preserved (like timber, 
flax, cotton, &c.) in a state of permanence, the various forms of decom- 
position which take place after death complete that restoration. But 
in returning, however slowly, to the condition of water, carbonic acid, 
ammonia, &e., the constituents of Plants give forth an amount of Heat 
equivalent to that which they would generate by the process of ordi- 
nary combustion ; and thus they restore to the inorganic world not 
only the materials but the forces, at the expense of which the Vegetable 
fabric was constructed. It is for the most part only in the humblest 
Plants, and in a particular phase of their lives, that such a restoration 
takes place in the form of motion ; this motion being, like growth and 
development, an expression of the vital activity of the “ zoospores” 
of Algz, and being obviously intended for their dispersion. 

Hence we seem justified in affirming that the Correlation" between 
Heat and the Organizing force of Plants is not less intimate than that 
which exists between Heat and Motion. The special attribute of the 
Vegetable germ is its power of utilizing after its own particular 
fashion the Heat which it receives, and of applying it as a constructive 
power to the building-up of its fabric after its characteristic type. 


88 Original Articles. [Jan. 


THE REPUTED FOSSIL MAN OF THE NEANDERTHAL. 


By Professor Wiru1am Kina, Queen’s University in Ireland, and 
Queen’s College, Galway. 


As it is my intention to confine myself to the consideration of the 
Neanderthal fossil with reference to its place in Nature, I must neces- 
sarily be brief in my remarks on the circumstances under which it 
occurred, and on its geological age. 

The fossil was found in 1857, embedded in mud in a cave or fissure 
intersecting the southern rocky side of the ravine or deep narrow 
valley, called the Neanderthal, situated near Hochdal between Dissel- 
dorf and Elberfeld. A small stream or rivulet, known as the Diissel, 
flows along a narrow channel about sixty feet below the lowest part of 
the fissure, and on one side of the valley. 

It has long been known that human bones, belonging to an extinct 
race, and occurring in stalagmite along with the remains of the mam- 
moth and other fossil animals, have been found in the limestone 
fissures or caverns of the lofty precipices which overhang the river 
Meuse, in Belgium, about seventy English miles south-west of the 
Neanderthal. 

Lyell’s late work, ‘The Antiquity of Man,’ contains a very lucid 
description of the Meuse caverns, and of the one under consideration. 
In both cases it is evident that we have examples of ancient swallow- 
holes, into which have been washed bones, mud, and gravel, when 
their openings existed in the bed of large and powerful rivers, It was 
doubtless by the incessant abrading action of such ancient streams, 
continued for countless ages, that the Neanderthal, and much of the 
broad valley of the Meuse, became scooped out. 

Few Geologists will dispute that the Meuse caverns are of the same 
age as the flint-implement gravels of the Somme, and that both belong 
to the latest division of the glacial or (as I have lately termed it) 
Clydian period.* If we accept the physical conditions of the Meuse 
caverns as demonstrative of their having been filled up in that remote 
age, we cannot but recognize in the corresponding conditions of the 
Neanderthal fissure evidences which claim for it an equally high 
antiquity, notwithstanding certain differences seemingly supporting 
the opposite conclusion. 

The want of stalagmite and the doubtful absence of remains of extinct 
animals in the Neanderthal fissure may be readily explained ; and as 
to the physical differences, the Diissel is certainly not to be compared 
with the Meuse for size and abrading power, but it must be admitted 
that a mere rivulet may take quite as much time to scoop out a “ravine” 
as a river to excavate a considerable portion of a broad valley. 

Having finished my preliminary remarks, I shall next proceed to 
notice the fossil itself. 

According to Dr. Fuhlrott, of Elberfeld, the skeleton was found 


* See ‘Synoptical Table of the Aqueous Rock-Systems,’ 5th edition. 


1864.] Kiva on the Reputed Fossil Man of the Neanderthal. 89 


by some workmen while quarrying the rock where the cave occurs ; 
but, knowing nothing of the importance of the discovery, and being 
very careless about it, they secured chiefly only the larger bones. 
Fortunately these fell into the hands of Fuhlrott, and they were 
shortly afterwards described by Professor Schaaffhausen, of Bonn. 
The principal parts of the skeleton which have been preserved are the 
cranium ; both thigh bones, perfect ; a perfect right humerus ; a per- 
fect radius; the upper third of a right ulna corresponding to the 
humerus and radius; a left humerus, of which the upper third is 
wanting ; a left ulna; a left ilium, almost perfect ; a fragment of the 
right scapula; the anterior extremities of a rib of the right side; the 
same part of a rib of the left side; the hinder part of a rib of the 
right side; and two short hinder portions, and one middle portion of 
some other ribs. 

The skeleton, or rather, as much as is preserved of it, is charac- 
terized by unusual thickness, and a great development of all the 
elevations and depressions for the attachment of the muscles. The 
ribs, which have a singularly rounded shape, and an abrupt curvature, 
more closely resemble the corresponding bones of a carnivorous 
animal, than those of man.* 

Although a difficulty may be felt in resting a satisfactory argument 
upon merely the great size of its osseous framework, and the pecu- 
liar form of its ribs, it cannot but be admitted that these characters 
afforded some grounds for the belief, at first entertained, that the 
Neanderthal fossil had not belonged to a human being. Whether a 
more close examination of other parts of the fossil will confirm this 
hypothesis, it is the object of the present paper to determine. 

The skull is deficient in its basal and facial portions, but retains 
all the parts lying above a line connecting the glabella—or space 
between the eye-brows—and the centre of the posterior part of the 
skull immediately above the hollow of the neck, to which the name 
occipital or posterior tubercle is given.{ Fortunately the parts 
alluded to, which are of uncommon thickness, enable one to determine 
some highly important points in craniology. 

The frontal—or bone of the forehead {—possesses the upper border 
and roof-plate of the eye-sockets, the inter-orbital space, the orifices 
of the frontal sinuses, and both outer orbital processes: the upper 
part of the alisphenoid belonging to the right side appears also to be 
present. The occipital—or posterior bone—retains, in addition to the 
tubercle, the superior transverse ridges. The parietals—or upper 
side-bones—possess the impression of the temporal squamosal. The 
temporals—or lower side-bones—are broken off, though it would appear 
from Huxley’s figure,§ that the mammillary portion of the left one is 
still preserved. The lambdoidal sutwre—or joining of the parietals 

* See Busk’s translation of Schaaffhausen’s paper in the ‘ Natural History 
Review, 1861, pp. 158-162. 

; a ae line A A, in Fig. 1, Plate I., passes from the glabella to the occipital 
ubercie, 
eae explanation of the individual parts of the skull is prefixed to Plates I. 
an . 
§ See ‘Man’s Place in Nature,’ Fig. 25 A, facing page 138. 


90 Original Articles, [Jan. 


and the occipital—including the additamentum, is well marked ; the 
sagittal suture—or joining of the parictals in the medio-longitudinal 
line of the skull—is obscure ; while the coronal suture—or joining of 
the frontal and parietals in front of, and at right angles to the last- 
named suture—is but faintly marked at the crown and obliterated at 
the sides. The bounding line of the temporal muscles (situated on 
each side of the skull in front of, and above the ear) is tolerably well 
defined. 

In general terms, the Neanderthal skull is of an elongated oval 
form, with a basal outline bearing much resemblance to that of the 
Negro cranium represented by Martin.* It is of large size, being 
about an inch longer than ordinary British skulls; in width, however, 
it does not much exceed them, The forehead, uncommonly low and 
retreating, terminates in front by enormously projecting brow or super- 
ciliary ridges, which, besides being very thick, slightly rounded on 
their anterior aspect, and rather strongly arched above the eye-sockets, 
extend uninterruptedly across from one side to the other. The outer 
orbital processes—or horns of the brow-ridges—are also unduly 
developed; being thick and projecting. On the whole, there is a 
remarkable absence of those contours and proportions which prevail 
in the forehead of our species; and few can refuse to admit that the 
deficiency more closely approximates the Neanderthal fossil to the 
anthropoid apes than to Homo sapiens. 

The greatest width of the skull is towards its posterior part, and on - 
a level not much higher than the mammillary region—a character 
which is essentially pithecoid or simial. In human skulls, the greatest 
width is considerably higher—usually on a line connecting the centres 
of ossification of the parietals:+ on the contrary, the Neanderthal 
cranium, like that of the Chimpanzee, is without any particular pro- 
minency where those centres may be assumed to be situated. 

In addition to possessing a low retreating forehead, the fossil skull 
is remarkably flattened at the vertex, which, according to Huxley, rises 
about 3:4 inches only above what is called the glabello-occipital 
plane :{ in Man, the corresponding part is generally about an inch 
higher. From the vertex there is a slightly curving fall both towards 
the front and the back, ending in the former direction at the origin of 
the brow-ridges, and in the latter, at the occipital tubercle. The curvin 
is more rounded and regular on the anterior half—particularly at the 
upper portion of the brow, which, in consequence, is somewhat pro- 
minent—than on the posterior half: on the latter, there is a slight 
depression just above the apex of the lambdoidal suture. The pos- 
terior fall of the Neanderthal skull, as a peculiarity, was first pointed 
out by Huxley, who remarks that “ the occipital region slopes obliquely 
upward and forward, so that the lambdoidal suture is situated well 
upon the upper surface of the cranium:” in other words, when the 
glabello-occipital plane is made horizontal, the apex of the lambdoidal 
suture is decidedly in front of the posterior tubercle. In ordinary 

* «Natural History of Man and Monkeys,’ Fig. 182, p. 120. 
+ Plate IL. Fig. 5, b. 
t See Plate I. Fig. 1, A A. 


1864.] Kine on the Reputed Fossil Man of the Neanderthal. 91 


skulls, it is well known, the backward slope terminates near the apex 
of the lambdoidal suture, below which the occipital bone stands more 
or less vertical to the glabello-occipital plane. The Neanderthal 
cranium, in its posterior features, is approached by some savage races ; 
also occasionally by a few inhabitants of the British Isles. Moreover, 
judging from the few data at our command, the approximation appa- 
rently characterized the ancient ‘ Borreby people,” and the extinct 
race of the Meuse, supposing the latter to be represented by a nearly 
perfect skull which Schmerling obtained from the Engis cave near 
Liége ;* but in no human tribe extinct, or existing, do we find both 
the vertex and the occiput so depressed and ape-like. Well might 
Huxley have felt a “ difficulty in believing that a human brain could 
have its posterior lobes so flattened and diminished as must have been 
the case in the Neanderthal man.” 

Much*of the hinder half of the skull partakes of the slight round- 
ness just noticed; but anterior to its greatest width, in the areas which 
were embraced by the temporal muscles, the sides are perpendicular, 
and their “fore and aft” outline is straight and remarkably long. 

In these general characters, the Neanderthal skull is at once 
observed to be singularly different from all others which admittedly 
belong to the human species; and they undoubtedly invest it with a 
close resemblance to that of the young Chimpanzee, represented by 
Busk in his translation of Shaaffhausen’s memoir.t 

Another differential feature characterizes the fossil in question. 
In human skulls, even those belonging to the most degraded races, if 
the forehead be intersected at right angles to the glabello-occipital 
plane, on a line connecting the two outer orbital processes at their 
infero-anterior point, the intersection will cut off the frontal bone in 
its entire width, and to a considerable extent rising towards the coronal 
suture ;{ whereas in the Neanderthal skull, the same intersection will 
cut off only the inferior and little more than the median portion of the 
frontal. This is quite a simial characteristic, and rarely, if ever, 
occurs in man.|| 


* This is the only speciality in which the Engis and Neanderthal skulls agree. 

+ See ‘ Natural History Review,’ 1861, Plate IV. Fig. 6. 

{ See Plate II. Fig.5, BB. § See Plate I. Fig. 1, BB. 

|| I have examined and made myself acquainted with skulls belonging to the 
principal races or varieties of man, in all of which the forward position of the 
forehead, relatively to the outer orbital processes, is the general rule. The Engis 
skull exhibits it, and the same appears to be the case with the Borreby one, 
judging from the figure in Lyell’s ‘Geological Antiquity of Man,’ p. 86. It 
may be doubted that the Plymouth skull, represented by Busk (‘ Nat. Hist. Rev.’ 
1861, Pl. V. fig. 6), is an exception. I possess a very remarkable skull, probably 
about 500 years or more old, taken last summer out of the beautiful ruins of 
Coreomroo Abbey, situated among the Burren mountains, in county Clare, which 
offers a close approximation to the fossil in the depressed form of the forehead : 
indeed, although not altogether so abnormal in this respect as the Neanderthal 
skull, it has in appearance a better development, in consequence of the median 
part of its frontal being a little more rounded. There is no reason to believe that 
it belonged to an idiot, as it happens that most of the skulls lying about the ruins 
have a low frontal region. It is singular that the inhabitants of Burren a few 
hundred years ago should have been characterized by a remarkably depressed fore- 
head, while those now living have a well-developed cranial physiognomy. 


92 Original Articles. [ Jan. 


The last peculiarity is concomitant with another equally strik- 
ing. Viewing the Neanderthal forehead with reference to the situation 
of that portion of the brain which it enclosed, we may plainly per- 
ceive that the frontal lobes of the cerebrum have been situated behind 
the outer orbital processes. As far as I have ascertained, we cannot 
say this of man; for, apparently, in all existing races, whose skull has 
not been modified by artificial pressure, the corresponding parts of the 
brain actually extend in front of the orbital processes.* 

Notwithstanding the strong simial tendencies displayed by its 
general features, most of the writers who have described this skull 
do not appear to think otherwise than that it belonged to an indi- 
vidual of our species. There seems to be no doubt, whatever, 
on the part of the Honorary Secretary of the Anthropological 
Society, Mr. Carter Blake, that the Neanderthal fossil is specifically 
identical with Man. He considers it to be the remains of some poor 
idiot or hermit, who died in the cave where the bones were found.f 
His reasons, however, are obviously unsatisfactory. ‘In reply to the 
suggestion,” observes Huxley, “that the skull is that of an idiot, it may 
be urged that the onus probandi lies with those who adopt the hypothesis. 
Idiotcy is compatible with very various forms and capacities of the 
cranium, but I know of none which present the least resemblance to the 
Neanderthal skull.”t Blake admits that its frontal peculiarities give 
the cranium an “ apparent ape-like character ;” but if such peculiar- 
ities be the result of mal-development producing idiotcy, one would be 
equally justified in believing that the form of the skull of the gorilla, 
or chimpanzee, is also produced by disease of the brain. Schaaff- 
hausen, seemingly, would have no hesitation in repudiating the idea 
that the frontal specialities of the fossil are the result of individual 
pathological deformity.§ 

In case it should be suggested that this remarkable cranium has 
received its form from artificial pressure, I may observe that no one 
who has described it seems to entertain such an opinion; indeed its 
symmetry, also noticed by Schaaffhausen, is quite opposed to the 
supposition that the skull has undergone any process of artificial modi- 
fication. 

Huxley, while admitting that it is the most ape-like and most 
brutal of all human skulls yet discovered, states that it is “closely 
approached” by some Australian forms, and “even more closely affined 
to the skulls of certain ancient people, who inhabited Denmark during 
the Stone period.” || I have no intention to deny that there are gene- 


* The Corcomroo skull, noticed in the previous footnote, although closely 
approximated to the Neanderthal one in its low forehead, and this alone, is strietly 
human in the forward extension of the frontal lobes of the brain relatively to the 
outer orbital processes. 

+ See ‘ Geologist,’ vol. V. p. 207. 

t See Lyell’s ‘Geological Antiquity of Man,’ p. 85. 

§ The writer of an article on Lyell’s ‘Geological Antiquity of Man,’ in the last 
number of the ‘Quarterly Review,’ summarily disposes of the Neanderthal skull 
with the gratuitous assertion, that it is quite removed from the pithecoid type, and 
possibly belonged to an idiot. 

|| ‘ Man’s Place in Nature,’ p. 157. 


1864.] Kina on the Reputed Fossil Man of the Neanderthal. 93 


ral features of resemblance between tho Australian, Neanderthal, and 
ancient Danish crania; but it appears to me, judging from the figures 
(31 and 82) in the deeply philosophical work, ‘Man’s Place in Na- 
ture,’ that a closer resemblance is assumed than really exists. No one 
would have any hesitation in admitting that the Borreby skull, repre- 
sented under one of the figures cited, is strictly human,— nay, from 
what I have seen myself, I have no hesitation in saying that precisely 
the same cranial conformation is often repeated in the present day ; 
but it has yet to be shown that any skulls hitherto found are more 
than approximately similar to the one under consideration. 

The proposition at present contended for is apparently invalidated 
by the fact that, among certain species of animals—notably those under 
domestication—skulls very dissimilar from each other may be found. 
It is, therefore, to be apprehended that, however clearly the Neanderthal 
fossil may be shown to be inadmissible into the human species, an attempt 
will be made to set aside the consequent conclusion by an appeal to 
the fact alluded to. But this I contend is not a case in point, as will 
be evident after a moment’s reflection on the various breeds of the Dog 
—the best known of our domesticated species. These breeds, so re- 
markably differentiated by cranial peculiarities, are artificial, whereas 
the varieties of mankind are natural. The dissimilar skulls met with 
in the former are merely striking illustrations of organic or structural 
modifiability, produced by what Darwin calls Natural Selection, but 
nothing more. 

Again, some weight seems to be due to the consideration that the 
human species (in which I include all the existing races of man) is 
characterized by a great variety of skulls. We have abundant ex- 
amples affording characters which closely iink together the most dis- 
similar forms, so that it is impossible to draw a line of demarcation 
between the extremes of dolichocephaly and brachycephaly,* or between 
the lofty forehead of Indo-Europeans and the depressed one of the 
Australian. Nay, the most degraded race we are acquainted with — 
the Mincopies of the Andaman Islands — may be strictly regarded as 
closely affined by cranial conformation to the highest intellectual races. 
It might, therefore, be urged that the Neanderthal skull is simply 
an aberrant form, but which is, nevertheless, inseparably linked on to 
the Indo-European type. If sufficient has not yet been adduced to 
dispel this idea, the following additional evidences, referring to the 
particular parts of the bones composing the fossil cranium, will, it is 
thought, be deemed fully adequate for the purpose. 

Commencing with the Frontal.—Fuhlrott and Huxley have satis- 
factorily shown that this bone is furnished with large frontal sinuses ; 
and apparently they regard these as the cause of the excessive pro- 
minency of the superciliary ridges. It may be reasonably doubted, 
however, that this is the case. Frontal sinuses, it is well known, do 
not always coexist with prominent brow-ridges, as, for example, in the 
Australian and the Chimpanzee: on the other hand, the former may 
exist without being associated with any more than an ordinary de- 


* Professor Retzius distinguished long skulls, and short or round skulls, re- 
spectively by the names dolichocephalic and brachycephalic. 


94 Original Articles. [Jan. 


velopment of the latter. I have seen frontal sinuses extending to 
nearly the origin of the outer orbital processes, and almost large 
enough, even at their termination, to admit the small finger to be in- 
serted into them, yet the brow-ridges were not particularly prominent. 
But whether the Neanderthal sinuses extend the whole length of the 
brow-ridges, or they are simply confined to the region of the glabella, 
their large size, in either case, is unusual in man, and they more strongly 
approach to, or resemble, as the case may be, those of the Gorilla. 

As to the excessive prominency of the brow-ridges,—instead of re- 
garding this feature as having been produced by the frontal sinuses, — 
there is more probability that, like the other extraordinary “ elevations 
and depressions ”.,of the skeleton, pointed out by Schaafthausen, it 
is another speciality consequent on the greatly developed muscular 
system, which, from what has already been stated, evidently cha- 
racterized the so-called Neanderthal man. 

The orbital cavities appear to have had a circular rim, as in cer- 
tain apes, there being no angle in that part joining the glabella. This 
is a feature unknown in any of the human races: in them the orbits 
are always subquadrate.* 

The roof of the orbital cavities is altogether less concave, par- 
ticularly on the outer side, than in Man; and, although the inner ex- 
tremity of the plate forming the roof is broken off, sufficient remains 
to show that the cavities contracted sooner than usual. The cavities 
also appear to have been uncommonly divergent: if this were actu- 
ally the case, its significance would point towards one of the spe- 
cialities of the Gorilla. 

Temporals.—As already stated, only the impression of the upper 
squamosal is seen on the parietals; but it suffices to show, as pointed 
out by Huxley, that this part had a comparatively low arcuation: 
the highest point of the arch reaches little more than half the height 
it attains in ordinary human skulls. Besides occurring among apes, 
an equally low arcuated squamosal distinguishes the human fcetus ; 
and in some savage races—Australians and Africans—the same part 
is also depressed, but not so much as in the fossil. The Engis and 
Borreby skulls are strictly normal in this particular. 


* Tn some apes the rim of the orbits is of the human form. 

+ Under this head may be noticed a part which appears to have been over- 
looked in the fossil. On an excellent cast, supplied by Mr. Gregory, of Golden- 
square, London, there occurs on the right side and in front of the squamosal 
impression a raised flattened plate, which looks like the upper portion of the 
alisphenoid (see Plate I. Fig. 1, b): the forward situation of this plate prevents 
it being taken for the anterior part of the temporal; besides, its posterior side 
exhibits what appears to be the impression of the squamosal. The anterior 
margin of the supposed alisphenoid is about an inch behind the outer orbital 
process. Dr. Knox long ago pointed out in a Tasmanian skull a square-shaped 
bone, nearly an inch in extent, interposed between the alisphenoid and the parietal. 
I perceive that this abnormality in a Tasmanian skull is represented in Fig. 225 
of the beautiful edition, just published by Renshaw, of Dr. Knox’s translation of 
Milne-Edwards’ ‘Manuel de Zoologie.’ I have also seen the same bone, but only 
on the ‘left side, of an “Australian” skull belonging to the Dublin University 
Museum. Perhaps this interposed bone corresponds, in nature as well as situation, 
to the flattened plate observable in the Neanderthal fossil. 


1864.] Krye on the Reputed Fossil Man of the Neanderthal. 95 


Occipital.—The upper portion of this bone is quite semicircular in 
outline, its sutural (lambdoidal) border running with an even crescentic 
curve from one transverse ridge to the other :* generally in human 
skulls, including the Engis one, the outline approaches more or less to 
an isosceles triangle.t The width of the occipital at the transverse 
ridges is much less than is common to Man; and the disparity is the 
more striking in consequence of the widest portion of the fossil occu- 
pying an unusually backward position. 

Taking into consideration the forward and upward curving of the 
upper portion of the occipital bone as previously noticed, its semicir- 
cular outline, and smallness of width, we have in these characters, 
taken together, a totality as yet unobserved in any human skull belong- 
ing to either extinct, or existing races; while it exists as a conspicuous 
feature in the skull of the Chimpanzee. 

Parietals.—In Man the upper border of these bones is longer than 
the inferior one; but it is quite the reverse in the Neanderthal skull. 
The difference, amounting to nearly an inch, will be readily seen by 
referring to Figures 1 and 2, in Plate II.; the former representing the 
right parietal of a British human skull, and the latter the correspond- 
ing bone of the fossil. These figures also show that the Neanderthal 
parietals are strongly distinguished by their shape, and the form of 
their margins: in shape they are five-sided, and not subquadrate, ike 
those of the British skull; { while their anterior and posterior margins 
have each exactly the reverse of the form characteristic of Man. 

The additamentum, which undoubtedly gives the parietals their 
five-sided shape, is on a level with the superior transverse ridge, and 
much longer than usual. This peculiarity is common to the human 
foetus: I have, likewise, observed an approach to it in a “ Caffre” 
skull belonging to the Dublin University Museum, in which, also, the 
upper and lower borders of the parietals are about equal in length. 
But still the abnormality of the latter case is not at all so extreme 
as the condition observed in the fossil. These particular features 
also are characteristically simial; for in extending our survey to the 
Chimpanzee, and some other so-called Quadrumanes, their parietals 
are seen to present a great similarity to those of the Neanderthal 
skull.$ 

I have now, as it appears to me, satisfactorily shown that not only 
in its general, but equally so in its particular characters, has the fossil 


* Plate II. Fig. 4. { Plate IT. Fig. 3. 

+ The outlines were taken by pressing a sheet of paper on the parietals; and, 
when in this position, marking their margins by following the bounding sutures ; 
next, by cutting the paper according to the lines given by the sutures, and 
allowing it to retain its acquired convexity : the outlines were then marked off on 
another sheet of paper. Possibly the antero-inferior angle of the Neanderthal 
parietal, as given in the figure, is not strictly correct, owing to the coronal suture 
being obliterated in that part, but I venture to state that it is approximately true. 

§ On the cast, an incised line runs from the lambdoidal suture (where the ad- 
ditamentum joins it) towards the posterior tubercle. Is this the suture which 
occurs near and parallel to the transverse ridges in foetal skulls, and occasionally 
in that of adults? In the skull of the “ Caftre,” noticed in the text, this suture, 
which is only seen on the right side, is situated above the ridge ; but in the fossil, 
it is below this part. 


96 Original Articles. [ Jan. 


under consideration the closest affinity to the apes. Only a few points 
of proximate resemblance have been made out between it and the 
human skull ; and these are strictly peculiar to the latter in the fatal 
state. The cranium of the human fcetus, however, possesses the lofty 
dome, the forward position of the frontal respectively to the outer 
orbital processes, the greatest width at the parietal centres of ossifica- 
tion, and the vertical occipital, which are so conspicuous in the adult, 
but which are remarkably non-characteristic of the Neanderthal skull. 
Besides, so closely does the fossil cranium resemble that of the Chim- 
panzee, as to lead one to doubt the propriety of generically placing it 
with Man. T'o advocate this view, however, in the absence of the facial 
and basal bones, would be clearly overstepping the limits of inductive 
reasoning. 

Moreover, there are considerations of another kind which power- 
fully tend to induce the belief that a wider gap than a mere generic 
one separates the human species from the Neanderthal fossil. 

The distinctive faculties of Man are visibly expressed in his elevated 
cranial dome—a feature which, though much debased in certain savage 
races, essentially characterizes the human species. But, considering 
that the Neanderthal skull is eminently simial, both in its general and 
particular characters, I feel myself constrained to believe that the 
thoughts and desires which once dwelt within it never soared beyond 
those of the brute. The Andamaner, it is indisputable, possesses but 
the dimmest conceptions of the existence of the Creator of the 
Universe: his ideas on this subject, and on his own moral obli- 
gations, place him very little above animals of marked sagacity ; * 
nevertheless, viewed in connection with the strictly human conforma- 
tion of his cranium, they are such as to specifically identify him with 
Homo sapiens. Psychical endowments of a lower grade than those 
characterizing the Andamaner cannot be conceived to exist: they 
stand next to brute benightedness. 

Applying the above argument to the Neanderthal skull, and consi- 
dering that it presents only an approximate resemblance to the 
cranium of man, that it more closely conforms to the brain-case of 
the Chimpanzee, and, moreover, assuming, as we must, that the simial 
faculties are unimprovable—incapable of moral and theositic concep- 
tions—there seems no reason to believe otherwise than that similar 
darkness characterized the being to which the fossil belonged.t 


* It has often been stated that neither the Andamaners, nor the Australians, 
have any idea of the existence of God: there are circumstances, however, recorded 
of these races which prevent my accepting the statement as an absolute truth. 

+ A paper advocating the views contained in this article was read at the last 
meeting of the British Association, held in Neweastle-on-Tyne. In that paper I 
called the fossil by the name of Homo Neanderthalensis ; but I now feel strongly 
inclined to believe that it is not only specifically but generically distinct from Man. 


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1864,] Krna on the Reputed Fossil Man of the Neanderthal. v7 


JIXPLANATION OF PLAty I, 
Via. 1—Right Side of Neanderthal Skull. 
A A. Glabello-oecipital plane. 
B B. Line intersecting the forehead at right angles to the last plane through 
both outer orbital processes. 
(These lines are interrupted so as not to obscure any parts of 
the skull.) 
a to a. Border of squamosal impression. 
(Letter ‘a’ is just below the widest part of the skull.) 
b. ? Alisphenoid. 
c. Portion of additamentum. 


Fic. 2.—Top of Neanderthal Skull. 
a,a. Outer orbital processes. 

The transverse line on the middle of skull represents the coronal 
suture. (This and the corresponding line in Fig. 1 are copied 
from Busk’s figures.) 

The semicircular line at the posterior part of skull represents 
the lambdoidal suture. 

The medio-longitudinal line represents the sagittal suture. 


Fic. 3.—Front of Neanderthal Skull. 
a, a. Outer orbital processes or horns of the brow-ridges. 
b. Inter-orbital space. 
ec. Portion of roof-plate of right orbital cavity. 
(Only the anterior half of the frontal bone is represented.) 


** The figures in this plate are taken from a plaster cast, 


EXPLANATION OF Puate II. 


Fie. 1.—Right Parietal of a Human (Irish) Skull, 
a. Coronal edge. 
b. Lambdoidal edge. 
ec. Sagittal edge. 
d. Squamosal edge. 


Fie, 2.—Right Parietal of Neanderthal Skull. 
a, b, c, d. Same as in last Figure. 
e. Additamental edge. 


Fig. 3.—Occipiial of a Human (Irish) Skull. 
aa. Lambdoidal edge. 
b, b. Transverse ridges. 
e. Occipital or posterior tubercle. 


Fic. 4.—Occipital of Neanderthal Skull. 
Letters same as in last Figure. 


Fic. 5.—Right Side-view of Dome of Human Skull 
. Glabello-occipital plane. 
. Glabello-occipital intersecting plane. 
. Frontal. 
. Parietal. (The letter is on the centre of ossification and widest part 
of the skull.) 
. Occipital. 
. Temporal. 
e. Alisphenoid. 


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VOL. I. H 


(C8) | Jan. 


CHRONICLES OF SCIENCE. 


I. AGRICULTURE. 


Tur movements in the Agricultural world during the past few months 
have related more to the business than to the Art of land cultivation. 
Agricultural Societies and Meetings have concerned themselves more 
with such questions as the relations of landlord and tenant, or of 
master and servant, than with details of the processes of the farm, or 
of the appliances by which they are carried out. And just in propor- 
tion as the motive—the efficient cause —is important in comparison 
with the mere machinery, so the nature of these business relations 
will, in any occupation or profession, always be the chief of all the 
influences affecting progress or success. 

This is especially the case in Agriculture :— 

When the landowner guarantees possession of a farm for a number 
of years, and does not restrict its cultivation to any precise routine of 
operations, he induces the tenant of that farm to apply all his mind 
and all his money to its management, for then there is given to him 
hope and opportunity of a reward for his outlay and his labour. The 
land is to a certain extent a machine, and its fertility depends on the 
use that it can make of the fertilizing influences of air and rain. Its 
powers as a machine in this respect can, in the case of wet and water- 
logged soils, be wonderfully increased; but the alterations needed for 
this purpose are very costly. Land-drainage, marling, liming, burning, 
are all expensive operations. A man may, in the case of wet clay 
soils, sometimes profitably spend nearly as much again in these 
improvements as the land is worth. It is folly to suppose that he 
will do this on the lands of another. They must be made his own on 
certain conditions and for sufficient time to enable him to reap the reward 
of that increased fertility which has been conferred. A lease is thus, 
for all purposes of considerable land improvement by the farmer, 
absolutely necessary. 

Where, however, the improvements do not involve so large an 
expenditure, and where that expenditure can, under the several branches 
of it, be accurately recorded, it becomes possible so to keep an account 
between the landlord and tenant as to enable the former to repay the 
latter at any time, whatever may be due from the one to the other. 
And the system of tenancy at will, coupled with an agreement for the 
repayment of the balance of this account, does, im many parts of 
England, both maintain and promote a very high degree of cultivation. 
Nevertheless, this is but a makeshift arrangement, by which landowners 
hope to obtain the full advantage to all classes of a large expenditure 
of tenant’s capital without in any degree abandoning those special 
privileges to themselves which the possession of landed property alone 
confers. And thus the Earl of Shrewsbury, at one of the recent dis- 
cussions on the form of an agreement on this principle between landlord 


1864. | Agriculture. 99 


and tenant, gave tho fullest acquiescence to the principle of repaying 
the tenant for his outlay ; but at the same time the completest refusal 
to the principle, far more influential for good, of granting leases to his 
tenants for terms of years. On the one hand, he said :— 

“T should feel it to be dishonest if I allowed any tenant of mine 
to leave me in debt to him. If a man put on to a farm that which 
would improve it, I should feel bound not to let that man leave my 
estate without being remunerated for what is unexhausted.” 

On the other hand, he also said :— 

“TJ adhere to what I have always said respecting leases, namely, 
that nothing will induce me to give a man a lease, because in the first 
place a lease is all on one side. The landlord remains, but the tenant, 
if he be inclined to be fraudulent, may go. I boldly and honestly state 
that I will never surrender my property to a tenant. I mean that no 
man who will allow his sons to poach and act disgracefully shall have 
control over my land for a number of years.” 

With whatever cordiality we may admire the evident honesty in 
every sense which these remarks display, it is also evident that they 
are dictated by an erroneous judgment, not only of the interest of 
landowners, but of the general character of tenantry. 

The lease is not “all on one side.” It not only confers advan- 
tages on the tenant, but it secures the annual payment of the sum at 
which those advantages have been valued by the landlord. The land- 
lord does not ‘“remain:” his successor may be either himself in a 
different mood of mind, or the inheritor of his estate; and in either 
case it is within his power to put an end to an unwritten bargain. 

Again, a landlord does not “surrender his property to a tenant” 
under the lease, so much as the tenant is asked to surrender his pro- 
perty to the landlord under tenancy at will. Unlike the tenant’s share 
in the improvements he confers upon the land he occupies, the land 
remains. Baron Liebig indeed speaks of the exhaustion of the land, 
but no such thing is known in practice. The “worn-out” farm of 
the practical man would be readily taken again by another tenant at the 
former rent, if only it were let to him for a year or two for nothing. 
‘Two years’ rent, 3/. or 4/. per annum, are thus probably the utmost 
injury ordinary land receives by cross-cropping and hard usage. And 
if land be let on lease, you must suppose its tenant to be not only 
fraudulent but a fool, to do even this amount of injury to it. The 
fear which a landlord expresses lest his property should be injured 
by letting it out of his hands for so long a time is thus altogether 
visionary. The tenant’s capital is to a great extent the cause of, and it 
is the security for, its fertility. That system which most encourages 
the outlay of this capital is best in the interest of the landlord as well 
as in that of the tenant and consumer. 

And the fear of having an ill-conditioned set of neighbours 
permanently collected round you by granting leases, is equally 
visionary. It has been proved in other walks of life that the plan of 
universal restriction—of treating all men with suspicion—of making 
your general arrangements hinge on the possibility of every man being 
a rogue, isa blunder. It is an especial mistake in Agriculture. For 

H2 


100 Chroiicles of Science. | Jan. 


there is a certain class-colouring perceptible in farming, as in other 
professions, and tenant-farmers may be safely spoken of as a worthy 
and well-conditioned body of men. If, as is sometimes feared, a 
general prevalence of the lease should displace the homely and neigh- 
bourly class with whom in English country districts one has so 
long enjoyably associated, by a set of energetic, ruthless, restless, 
money-making “sharps,” the change would be lamentable indeed; but 
the fear is ludicrous. However many new men may be entering 
Agriculture from other walks of life, it will always be that the bullx of 
farmers have been bred by farmers. And it is an easier and a better 
thing to engraft upon the characteristic good qualities of this class, or 
rather (for they already exist) to foster in them the intelligence and 
enterprise, and energy of commercial life, by adopting more generally 
a commercial view of the relations between landlord and tenant, than 
it will be to engraft a strict valuation and acknowledgment of tenant 
right upon the system of tenancy-at-will. 

Although this Journal is devoted rather to the consideration of 
science than of business, yet the case of Agriculture, owing to the 
peculiarity of its raw material, land, is so exceptional, that these 
general remarks on what, more than anything else, determines its pro- 
eress and improvement, may be permitted in a paper introductory to 
a quarterly series, descriptive of the progress and improvement which 
from time to time will have to be recorded. 

And as a preliminary study of the subject which will thus at 
intervals engage us, we will now shortly enumerate the particulars in 
which this progress consists, or to which is owing increased produce 
of food from the land. 

1. It is owing in the first place to better tillage. The object of tillage 
is the creation of an increased available surface within the soil, on 
which may be prepared and deposited food for plants, and over which 
the roots of plants may feed. The greater the quantity of this internal 
superficies to act as a laboratory, as a warehouse, as a pasturage, and 
the better stored it is, under a given extent of land, then so long as 
the fitness of the mechanical condition of the land with reference 
to particular plants is preserved, the more fertile is that land with 
reference to those plants. 

Tn order to the creation of this inner surface a greater depth of soil 
is stirred, and clods are comminuted. In order to the increased acces- 
sibility of this inner surface land is drained. 'The air and rain water 
which then traverse soil and subsoil instead of merely lodging in them, 
introduce substances into this warehouse and activity into this labora- 
tory. 

The air which rain-water thus draws through the soil as it sinks 
downwards to the drains is as necessary to the fertility of the soil as it 
is to the heat of burning coals. The fire will merely smoulder until, 
by the erection of a chimney over it, a current upwards through the 
burning mass is impressed upon the air. And even then, in fires of 
caking coal, the heap may smoulder until, by the smashing of the fuel, 
that inner surface of the fire, where the action of the air takes place, 
throughout is multiplied, and the impervious ceiling—or floor, as we 


1864. | Agriculture. 101 


might call it, to an upward current—which has hindered the passage of 
the air over that inner surface, is broken up. 

Land drainage is the provision of a passage for the rain-water, along 
with which the fertilizing air has thus a downward current given it 
through the soil and subsoil, And tillage, especially tillage by steam- 
power, which does not cake a floor, as horse-power does, beneath the 
soil it stirs—has all that enlivening effect of the poker on a caked coal 
fire, which the parallel suggests. Extended drainage has a great deal 
to do with our increased produce. Mr. Bailey Denton estimates that 
nearly 2,000,000 acres have within the past fifteen years been under- 
drained, and the fertility of these acres has no doubt been largely 
increased. ' 

Deeper and better tillage has contributed to the same result. The 
extension of autumnal tillage is an undoubted fact; the enormously 
increased use of implements of the grubber class is another ; the general 
_ adoption of a better form of plough is a third; the more general adop- 
tion of the fertilizing practice of burning clay soils is a fourth. The 
success which has at length rewarded unconquerable perseverance in 
the attempt to use steam-power for tillage operations is a further great 
fact, which, if it cannot yet be quoted in explanation of agricultural 
progress, will unquestionably be looked back upon ten years hence as 
having contributed largely to the increased fertility which will then 
have to be recorded. 

2. In the second place our agricultural progress has been owing to 
the greater richness of home-made manures, and to the greater use made 
of imported fertilizers. The imports of guano since 1840 have amounted 
to 3} millions of tons; the imports of cubic nitre, which averaged 
10,000 to 14,000 tons per annum up to 1858, have since varied from 
25,000 to 40,000 tons per annum. The imports of bones since 1848 
have increased from 30,000 to 70,000 or 80,000 tons annually. All 
these are manuring substances. 75,000 to 80,000 tons of Suffolk and 
Cambridgeshire coprolites, and 15,000 to 20,000 tons of Sombrero 
phosphate, are also used in the superphosphate manufacture, which now 
probably exceeds in worth £1,000,000 per annum. To facts like this 
add the enormous extension in the use of oil cakes and richer foods in 
the meat manufacture, by which the richness of home-made manure is 
increased—the increased adoption of the practice of applying manure 
at once to the land, instead of rotting it in heaps, which is an economy, 
and so an addition to our resources worth naming—the increased prac- 
tice of feeding and collecting manure under shelter, which is another 
great economy—and the increased care to properly pulverise and even 
dissolve manures, so as to distribute them thoroughly through the soil, 
which is another first-class example of a most important improvement 
in farm practice. On the other hand there is the increased value of 
the town sewage—due to the improved drainage of our towns—which 
is still suffered to go to waste. On the whole, however, there cannot 
be a doubt that the increased fertility of the soil is due not only to 
improved drainage and tillage, but to the direct application of fertiliz- 
ing ingredients in a more liberal and economical manner. 

3. Leaving now the soil, there is the way in which its increased 


102 Chronicles of Science. [Jan 


fertility is developed and expressed. It will on the whole be admitted 
that, at least on arable lands, there are fewer weeds; our fallow crops 
ave cleaner, our tillage and manures are not so much wasted on plants 
we do not want to grow. 

Another fact of importance is the prevalence of rotations of crops 
in which bare fallows are diminished, and in which there is a larger 
acreage of the more valuable crops. The prevalent rotation of the 
country is the four-field course, in which wheat, turnips, barley, and 
clover occupy one-fourth of the land apiece. But it is common on 
well-cultivated land—where the land is folded by cake-fed sheep, and 
where a top-dressing of guano is given to the corn, to take a crop of 
wheat between the turnips and the barley, so that three-fifths instead 
of two-quarters of the land are in grain crops. One-half of the clover 
land, too, is often sown instead with peas or beans, so that five-eighths 
instead of three-fifths are in grain. Again, over large districts, espe- 
cially in Scotland, potato culture to a great extent displaces turnips 
or other fallow crops, and thus provides a great increase of food for 
man. 

But besides the adoption of improved rotations, we have to report 

the improved cultivation of individual crops. We suppose that the 
eradually diminished quantity of seed used per acre in growing grain 
crops—as drill husbandry extends, and as an increased independence 
of mere custom becomes the rule, each man determining his practice 
for himself—will be admitted by most people as an example of this 
kind. Certainly every one will admit that the extension of drill hus- 
bandry in the cultivation of root crops, the extended use of the horse- 
hoe in the cultivation of grain crops—the extended use of so-called 
artificial manures as top-dressings and otherwise in the cultivation of 
all crops—all illustrate the improved cultivation of the plants by which 
the greater fertility of our soils is expressed and utilized. 

Again, we owe our better crops to the selection and adoption of 
better sorts of the plants in cultivation. We do not suppose that indi- 
vidual sorts have improved upon our hands. Probably, as a general 
rule, they have deteriorated. But new sorts are being perpetually 
introduced ; and of wheat, barley, and oats, mangold-wurzel, swedes, 
turnips and potatoes, cabbages and vetches, a man can grow sorts as 
good as any —we think probably better than any—that his predecessors 
have known. 

4. We now come to the produce of meat, and the question of sort 
has a great deal to do with our improvement here. Our sheep are 
now ready for the butcher at 14 months old; our cattle at 24 and 30 
months. Formerly it needed at least two years of feeding to make a 
smaller carcase of mutton, and at least three or four years’ feeding to 
make a smaller carcase of beef. A thousand sheep upon a farm in 
March or April now mean something like 500 ewes in the lambing 
fold, and 500 sheep ready for the market. Formerly they meant not 
more than 300, and those a smaller lot ready for the butcher. And 
this great increase in the meat produce of a given head of stock is 
witnessed as much in pork and beef as it is in mutton. 

All the important breeds of cattle, sheep, and pigs have improved 


1864. | Agriculture. 103 


and increased in numbers during this period. Mr. Strafford receives 
entries for his herd book from fourfold the number of short-horn 
breeders ; and the influence of this, the dominant breed of cattle, in 
crossing the general stock of the country, has wonderfully increased. 
Messrs. Duckham and Tanner Davy report no falling off in the num- 
ber and quality of the more local breeds of Hereford and Devon. Both 
Down and long-woolled sheep, and especially the latter, have made 
great strides, both as to increase of numbers and general improvement ; 
and much more general interest is taken in the improvement of the 
breeds of swine. The public attention has lately been drawn, or rather 
driven, to the fact that disease is rife among our stock, and it is said 
to be increasing. It is one great point in proof of great agricultural 
improvement that an evil of this kind, whether general or local, and 
wherever it exists, is not now left to fester, but is exposed and probed 
by an energetic public agitation, which will undoubtedly promote its 
cure. 

The greater rapidity of growth, and the increased size of our im- 
proved stock, are owing partly to the better food we give our stock, as 
well as to their increased precocity, and the enormous extension of 
better bred stock. And thus, as part of this experience, we have a 
supply of more fertilizing manure and an increased growth of grain 
crops. It is, we believe, the fact that there are more acres of corn 
grown now than before has been ever known in England, and we look 
upon this as a proof of agricultural progress. And, so long as this is 
consistent with the maintenance of fertility, it is certainly for the 
interests of the consumer. It is said our climate is especially favour- 
able for the growth of green crops. We believe there are more 
bushels of wheat per acre grown here than in any other country, 
whether we have so good a climate for it or not. And if the pre- 
sent extravagant cry for laying land down to grass which has hitherto 
grown grain and green crops in alternate husbandry shall to any extent 
prevail, we do not know who is to benefit by the change. Landlord, 
tenant, labourer, and consumer are alike interested in the larger pro- 
duce and more energetic cultivation of arable land. 

The progress which we have thus sketched has been achieved rather 
by the extension of good Agriculture than by the invention of any new 
process during the period of it; and yet there is enough of novelty 
and change apparent, too, on comparing the present farmer with his 
predecessor. Bones and rape-cake, soot and salt and gypsum, lime 
and marl, and composts used to be the principal methods of adding 
directly to fertility ; and indirectly the same end was attained by the 
cultivation of successive green crops, feeding rye and rape, vetches 
and turnips, and cabbages off successively upon the same field. This 
“double” culture was advocated confidently as the perfection of arable 
cultivation twenty-eight or thirty years ago. Hear Mr. Middleton, 
who edited the 20th edition of Arthur Young’s ‘ Farmer’s Calendar,’ 
writing on this very practice. ‘That very numerous class of supine 
persons,” he says, “whose minds are so weak as not to adopt this 
practice, which-is the most improved that is known, will certainly con- 
tinue to complain of hard landlords and bad times. Such characters 


104 Chronicles of Science. | Jan. 


do not succeed in any profession; neither can they in Agriculture. I 
had nearly said they deserve to be poor, but, whether they deserve it 
or not, their destiny is to be so.” 

Notwithstanding, however, Mr. Middleton’s vigorous assertion of 

-this practice, it is not thus that the farmer now in general seeks the 
increased fertility of his lands. He has guano, superphosphate, and 
other fertilizers at his command. He has machinery, not only for the 
increased efficiency, but for the cheapening of all agricultural processes. 
Steam-power both tills the soil and threshes out its produce. The 
mowing machine, hay-tedder, and reaper—the chaftcutter, pulper, and 
steamer—cheapen the labour of securing his crops, and economize the 
after-use of them. Better plants are grown, and better animals are 
fed, and the fertility which formerly came with profit under the best 
management in two or three years, is now achieved, with at least an 
equal profit, almost at once. 

It will thus be seen that there isa large field over which the reader 
of the agricultural section of this Journal may expatiate. And in the 
improvements of machinery and soil, of manures, and plants and ani- 
mals, there is scope enough both for the ingenuity and energy of the 
practical and scientific man, and in the present activity of both in the 
agricultural world, for the industry of the recording Journalist. 


II. ASTRONOMY. 


Germany, ever foremost in practical astronomy has, within the last 
few months, seen the inauguration of a movement likely, if well 
carried on, to render valuable services to the science. The celebrated 
band whose organization in the early years of the present century 
resulted in the discovery of the planetoids, Pallas, Juno, and Vesta, 
may be said to have paved the way for the new institution we have now 
to report upon, and there is no reason to doubt that the results in the 
present case will be equally, if not still more satisfactory. ‘ The 
Astronomical Society of Germany,” modelled in some respects on our 
own, is distinguished therefrom by including in its programme a scheme 
for united work which appears very promising. It is well known that 
there are certain classes of research demanding for their proper de- 
velopment more time and attention than a single observatory, much 
less a single observer, can possibly be expected to afford—variable 
stars and comet sweeping are two noticeable examples. By a well- 
adjusted subdivision of labour amongst several persons, each under- 
taking a prescribed department or area of the heavens, as the case may 
be, it is obvious that results of extreme magnitude and importance 
may be arrived at. A copy of the prospectus has been forwarded to 
us from Germany: from it we learn that Leipzic will be the general 
head-quarters, and that German will be the official language for the 
transaction of business, though the Society will be open to all nation- 
alities and all languages. Both the entrance fee and annual subscrip- 
tion are fixed at five thalers (15s.), a very moderate sum by the side of 


1864. | Astronomy. 105 


the three guineas and two guineas which our own Society charges for 
very inadequate returns. Amongst the officers elected at the Heidel- 
berg foundation meeting, are Zech of Tiibingen (President), Argelander, 
O. Struve, Bruhns, Schénfeld, &e. The secretary is Forster, of the 
Royal Observatory, Berlin, well known as an expert calculator. 


In reviewing the progress of Astronomy during the last six months, 
we shall scarcely do wrong in assigning a foremost place to some re- 
marks on the belief which has recently taken hold upon the minds of 
leading men, that it is now necessary to adopt some revised estimate 
of the sun’s distance from the carth. The precise amount of the re- 
duction to be made in the hitherto-received value is open to future 
determination, but concerning the general fact that some correction is 
requisite there seems to be no difference of opinion. The first really 
public announcement at any considerable length is due to Mr. Hind, 
who contributed a very lucid memoir on the subject to ‘The Times’ in 
the month of September last. For our present purpose no more is re- 
quisite than to give a brief recapitulation of the matter in Mr. Hind’s 
own words, followed by a few general remarks on two of his heads 
which appear to deserve comment. He thus sums up :—“ A diminu- 
tion in the measure of the sun’s distance now adopted is implied by— 
1st, the theory of the moon as regards the parallactic equation, agreeably 
to the researches of Professor Hansen and the Astronomer Royal ; 2nd, 
the lunar equation in the theory of the earth, newly investigated by 
M. Le Verrier; 5rd, the excess in the motion of the node of the orbit 
of Venus beyond what can be due to the received value of the planetary 
masses; 4th, the similar excess in the motion of the perihelion of 
Mars, also detected within the past few years by the same mathematician ; 
5th, the experiments of M. Foucault on the velocity of light; and 6th, 
the results of observations of Mars when near the earth about the 
opposition of 1862.” 

To Encke we owe the best discussion of the observations of the 
transit of Venus in 1769: he determined the value of the sun’s paral- 
lax to be 8’-5776, from which we infer the earth’s mean distance from 
the sun to be 95,283,115 miles. Now, the time occupied by a ray of 
light reaching the earth from the sun is known very exactly to be 8m. 
18s., from which a velocity of about 192,000 miles per second is de- 
ducible. Foucault of Paris, however, by the optical contrivance of a 
“turning mirror,” due to Professor Wheatstone, has concluded that this 
value is too great; that it is more precisely 185,170 (English) miles. 
Assuming that Foucault is right, and all his predecessors wrong, it fol- 
lows that the solar parallax must be 8/86. Two most singular coin- 
cidences must here be disposed of. (1) The theoretical value assigned 
by Le Verrier, irrespective of all instrumental measurements, and purely 
on physical grounds, is 8°95 ; and (2) The discussion, by Stone of Green- 
wich, of the observations of Mars (adverted to above in Mr. Hind’s 
6th point), taken by Ellery at Williamstown, Victoria, N. 8. W., give 
a value of 8’-95, with a probable error of only 0”-03. Combining the 
foregoing, we find that three different observers, working in three most 
diverse ways, have all arrived at the same general result, and more than 


106 Chronicles of Science. | Jan. 


this, at actual evaluations, the extremes of which differ only by the 
minute amount of 0-09. Is it possible for us to withstand the con- 
clusion that our estimations so long adhered to must sooner or later 
be materially ‘‘ reconstructed,” and as a consequence, that those por- 
tions of our treatises involving this distance must be unceremoniously 
pulled to pieces and built up again. An original calculation of the 
mean distance of the earth from the sun, amended according to Stone 
and Ellery’s value of the parallax, makes it 91,512,649 miles.* 


Chiefly in consequence of the larger major planets being, during 
the past autumn, unfavourably placed for observation, we have little to 
report in the department of planetary astronomy ; the inferior con- 
junction of Venus on Sept. 28, is the only phenomenon of importance 
which has happened, and none of the observations which have as yet 
come under our notice contain any features calling for special remark. 

The already very long list of minor planets has received one 
addition due to the labours of Mr. Watson, director, in succession 
to Brunnow, of the Observatory of Ann Arbor, Michigan, F.S.A. 
This planet, which takes the ordinal number of 79, was found 
on Sept. 14, shining as a star of the tenth magnitude. The fol- 
lowing provisional elements have been determined by M. Allé, of 
Prague.t 

Epoch 1863, Oct. 4:0, Berlin M. T. 


Monn onsituden 4 )cnrhe = w2ee cOltsd-0 
Longitude of Perihelion . . = 44 56 24:24 
Ascending WO 6 6 6 6 = AG sv Sou Mean’ Eiqu 1863 
Inclination of Orbit . . . = 4 42 39:20 


D Bei soothe aa Wher 11 13 98 wherefore 
Eccentricity = 0:194563 
Log. Mean Distance . . . 0°3910464 
Mean Daily Motion . . . = 919°"2568 

The new planet revolves round the sun in an orbit slightly larger 
than Parthenope’s. It has not yet received a name. 

On Nov. 13, M. Schmidt of Athens discovered another, the 80th, 
in the constellation Taurus. It shone then as a star of the tenth 
magnitude, but fell rapidly more than a whole magnitude in less than 
a week from that time. 


On October 9 a watchmaker at Leipzic, surnamed Bicker, had the 
good fortune to discover a small telescope comet, which Tempel of 
Marseilles found independently five days later. 

The following elements are by M. Romberg :-— 

Perihelion Passage - « + = 1863, Dec. 27:70863 G.M. T. 


Longitude of Perihelion 


180 17 551 Apparent Eq. 
Longitude of Ascending Node. 


104 51 288 Oct. 14:5 


Inclination of Orbit atts = 82 16 29:4 
Perihelion Distance 5g Oo ae US Bysi0) 
Heliocentric Motion . . . - Direct. 


* Tt should be remarked that parallactic observations of Mars are not gene- 
rally regarded as susceptible of a high degree of accuracy, and that therefore we 
shall have to wait for the next transit of Venus (in 1874) to become well acquainted 
with the precise extent of the required diminution of distance. 

+ ‘Astronomische Nachrichten,’ November 13, 1863. 


1864. | Astronomy. 107 


These elements bear considerable resemblance to those of Comet il. 
1818. Hereafter it will be reasonable to inquire whether the two 
bodies are identical, thus adding another ‘periodic’ comet to our stock 
of knowledge. It may be added that these elements are not wholly 
dissimilar to those of Comets i. of 1840 and iii. of 1860; neither 
should the singular fact be passed over that the three first elements 
differ but 11°, 12°, and 3° from the corresponding ones of the Comet i. 
of 1863. 

M. Tempel was worthily rewarded, on Noy. 4, for the industry he 
so untiringly displays, by discovering another comet, one visible to the 
naked eye, and therefore more than usually interesting. 

The following elements are also by M. Romberg :— 


Perihelion Passage . 1863, Nov. 949923 


) / “i 
Longitude of Perihelion . . 94 46 106 


Longitude of Ascending Node = 97 31 15:2 
Inclination of Orbit =i SMe OMa Gro 
Perihelion Distance . . . = 0°70656 
Heliocentric Motion . - Direct. 


At the time of its discovery this comet was as bright asa star of the 
4th magnitude, and it had a short tail. As its perihelion passage pre- 
ceded that of Backer’s comet it becomes Comet iv. of 1863, the latter 
being Comet v., inverting the order of discovery. Both are still visible. 


Sidereal astronomy is a branch of the science which, from its very 
nature, makes progress less rapidly than most others. Labourers are 
here fewer, because, in many important respects, instruments equal to 
the work are somewhat scarce. Mr. Lassell, who is diligently engaged 
in scrutinizing the heavens through the fine atmosphere of Malta, has 
communicated to the Royal Society an interesting note on the well- 
known planetary nebula in Aquarius (1 H IV. R. A. 20h. 56m.; ¢ 11° 
56’8.), in which the following passages occur :—‘‘ With comparatively 
low powers it appears at first sight as a vividly light-blue elliptic 
nebula, with a slight prolongation of the nebula, or a very faint star 
at or near the ends of the transverse axis.” Under high powers and 
the most favourable circumstances, “I have discerned within the ne- 
bula a brilliant elliptic rig extremely well defined, and apparently 
haying no connection with the surrounding nebula, which indeed has 
the appearance of a gaseous or gauze-like envelope, scarcely interfer- 
ing with the sharpness of the ring, and only diminishing somewhat its 
brightness.” 

To the same Society, on Nov. 19, Sir John Herschel presented a 
work, which will, we think, equal any of his former efforts. We allude 
to a gigantic catalogue of all the known nebule, 5,063 in number, 
compiled from every available source. Sir John’s own catalogue of 
1853 furnishes 2,507 objects, his Cape observations 1,713 more, the 
residue being obtained from miscellaneous sources. The epoch chosen 
is 1860, and the information, arranged in twelve columns, furnishes, 
amongst other things, constants for reduction and copious synonyms. 
The catalogue is at present only in manuscript, but we trust that no 
more time than is absolutely necessary will elapse before this valuable 


108 Chronicles of Science. | Jan. 


result of Sir John Herschel’s indefatigable research is published to 
the world. a 

Stellar parallax, in the hands of M. Kruger of Bonn, has yielded 
results for the stars 21,258 of Lalande’s Catalogue, and 17,415 of 
Oltzen’s Zones. To the former he assigns a parallax of 0-260, with 
a probable error of + 0":02, and to the latter a parallax of 0-247, 
with a probable error of 0-021. From these determinations we must 
infer that these two stars, both telescopic, are nearer to us than either 
Capella, Polaris, Arcturus, or Sirius. 

Of the various fields of active work open to amateur astronomers, 
none are so promising as observations on variable stars. The task is 
a hard one, and requires unquestionably great patience and perseverance, 
but to those endued with these gifts a fine future is open. The number 
of known variables is steadily increasing, and now exceeds one hundred, 
to which the indefatigable Pogson of Madras has added another 
member within the last few months. He designates it U. Scorpii, and its 
place for 1860 is R.A. 16h. 14m. 26-6s., 3 17° 33’ 36” S. It is likely 
to prove an object of particular interest, having been found by the dis- 
coverer to pass through three entire magnitudes in little more than 
one month, a rapidity of change only known to be equalled by three 
other stars. 


Astronomical photography, in the able hands of Mr. De La Rue and 
the Kew observers, is making steady progress, but nothing has occurred 
during the period over which our survey extends, calling for particular 
notice. 

Solar photometry has recently received important development in 
America under the ingenious manipulation of Mr. Alvan Clarke, the 
well-known optician. A well of adequate depth not being at his dis- 
posal, he made use of a horizontal gallery 230 feet long, through which 
the sun’s rays, on a very clear bright day, were made to pass by the 
agency of a prism and mirror to obtain the required reflection. He 
employed a lens 1. of an inch focal length, and thus reduced the sun’s 
diameter 93,840 times, when it presented a brilliancy “which was 
estimated at scarcely equal to « Lyrz.” Mr. Clarke considers that ten 
per cent. loss will be a reasonable allowance for the reflections ; and 
weighing some comparisons of « Lyre without the lens, he gives it as 
the final result that the sun would have to be removed 103,224 times 
its present distance, for it to appear no brighter than the star referred to. 


No review of this character can be complete without a chronicle of 
literary intelligence, and we shall therefore glance cursorily at the 
performances of 1863 and the promises of 1864, which can scarcely 
fail to be useful and interesting. An important reprint has been issued 
in France—a work by the celebrated astronomical king, Alphonso X. 
of Castile. It is divided into sixteen parts, commencing with a cata- 
logue of the fixed stars. The royal author then treats of the apparatus 
and instruments necessary for observing the stars and estrellas movediros, 
or planets. Speaking of the constellations, he says of Ursa Major :— 
“Some astronomers have taken it for a wain with its pole, others say 
that it has the form of an animal which might as well be a lion, a 


1864. | Astronomy. 109 


wolf, or a dog, as a male or female bear. Here then are heavenly 
animals inhabiting that part of the sky where this constellation is to 
be found, and recognized by ancient astronomers because they saw four 
stars in a square, and three occupying a right line. They must have 
been endued with a better eyesight than ours, and the sky must have 
been very clear. Since they say it is a she-bear, let it be one. They 
were very lucky in being able to distinguish it.” King Alphonso was 
evidently much in advance of his age to speak thus slightingly of popu- 
lar tradition ; his work isa worthy monument of his energy and genius. 

Mr. J. R. Hind has brought out a third edition of his ‘ Introduc- 
tion to Astronomy,’ which is decidedly the best arranged elementary 
manual in the English or any other language. A new catalogue of 
standard stars has been issued from the Harvard College Observatory, 
Cambridge, U.S.A. It is a compilation of right ascensions from the 
best catalogues, of 152 stars, with copious constants for reduction, 
creditably arranged by Mr. Truman Henry Safford. The year 1863 
has, amongst other events, witnessed the successful starting of what is, 
as far as we have been able to ascertain, the first purely astronomical 
periodical ever issued in England. The ‘Astronomical Register ’ 
occupies a field hitherto a wide waste, and deserves to find a place on 
every astronomer’s table. The Rev. R. Main, Radcliffe observer at 
Oxford, has recently published a ‘College Manual of Physical Astro- 
nomy,’ designed for the use of students. After a long delay, rendered 
necessary by the discovery of certain collateral errors, the second 
portion of ‘ Bessel’s Zones’ has just been published in a handsome 
volume, at St. Petersburg. It will be recollected that Bessel observed 
a large number of stars lying between 15° 8. and 45° N., down to the 
ninth magnitude inclusive; his observations having been left unre- 
duced, the task was undertaken by the St. Petersburg Academy of 
Sciences, which entrusted the work to the hands of M. Weisse. The 
first portion, comprising 31,085 stars, lying within 15° on either side of 
the equator, was given to the world in 1846 ; but the second, containing 
31,445 stars, lyimg in a zone extending 30° northwards of the parallel 
of 15°, for reasons above stated, did not appear till 1863. 

At the head of literary announcements undoubtedly we must place 
a new edition of Admiral W. H. Smyth’s world-renowned ‘ Cycle of 
Celestial Objects.’ This book, long out of print, being constantly asked 
for, its venerable and gallant author decided some time since to reissue 
it with such alterations and additions as twenty years made requisite. 
The new edition is now in progress, the more laborious part of it 
having been undertaken by the Admiral’s accomplished son-in-law, 
Mr. Isaac Flitcher, of Tarn Bank, Workington. 

Though Mr. Carrington has abandoned the observatory for the 
brewery, his important Redhill results will nevertheless be made avail- 
able,—so far at least as regards his solar-spot observations, which are 
now in a forward state for publication. 

The Obituary of 1863 happily contains no more leading names 
than Edward Josiah Cooper of Markree, Esq., and ex-M.P. for the 
county of Sligo; Virgilio Trettenero of Padua; J. W. H. Lehman of 
Gottingen; and M. Weisse of Cracow. 


110 Chronicles of Science. | Jan. 


III. BOTANY AND VEGETABLE PHYSIOLOGY. 


Tue attention of the French government has been called to some ex- 
periments of M. Hooibrenk, a native of Holland, for obtaining, by 
artificial fecundation, a more abundant crop of cereals, vines, and fruit 
trees. These experiments have been carried on at Sillery, near Rheims, 
on the property of M. Jacquesson, the well-known wine-grower. They 
are simple and inexpensive: the apparatus employed in the case of 
cereals being a cord of from 25 to 30 yards long, upon which is fastened 
a stiff woollen fringe, about ten inches in length, the hanging threads 
of which touch one another, and have small shot attached at short dis- 
tances, At the time of flowering, this apparatus is passed over the 
crop so as to brush it lightly, an operation which employs three per- 
sons, a man at either extremity, and a child to hold up the cord at the 
middle. The object of this operation, which has to be repeated three 
times at intervals of about two days, is to scatter the pollen, and bring 
a larger quantity of it into contact with the pistils, and thus to ensure 
fecundation on a larger scale than is done by the ordinary operations 
of nature. The whole apparatus costs only five or six francs, and the 
labour employed is also very cheap, while the results have shown a 
vast increase in proportion. A modification of the process, as applied 
to vines and fruit trees, has also been followed by marked improve- 
ment in the crops ; and, as a consequence, two commissioners, named by 
the Minister of Agriculture, have visited the scene of the experiments 
during the past summer, and as they have been carried on simultaneously 
with the ordinary system of farming, a comparison of the results shows 
the advantages given by the ‘“ Méthode Hooibrenk ” as follows :— 


TTooibrenk System. Old System. 


Kilogrammes. Kilogrammes, 
\Winariy ae io be TG PSHE Gh gg Bl 
Rye hoo 0 28RD 6G a8 6 IG 
lly 5 Gg 0) 6G He Cl IG 
Oats outs! ites ee SY, ag 6 6 le 


The Commissioners recommend a methodical examination into the 
subject, and the Emperor has decided that such an examination shall 
take place on the imperial farms of Fouilleuse and Fontainebleau. 


Dr. F. Hildebrand, of Bonn, observing that in some tropical orchids, 
cultivated in the Botanic Garden, he found no ovules in the ovarium of 
the expanded flower, and that, nevertheless, he saw the enlargement 
of the ovarium after having applied the pollen to the stigma, has been 
led to make some interesting experiments upon this curious point, 
which has not escaped the notice of previous botanists. Observations 
on thirty different species of orchids proved that in the recently ex- 
panded flowers of orchids the ovules are never fully developed, while 
in some species, indeed, even the placentz are not yet fully developed. 
After the application of pollen to the stigma, the enlargement of the 
ovarium begins, and before the pollen-tubes reach the placents or 


1864. | Botany and Vegetable Physiology. 111 


ovules. The tubes of pollen, therefore, have no direct influence upon 
the original development of the ovules, but they,act first on the enlarge- 
ment of the ovarium, and by this enlargement indirectly on the ovules. 
Dr. Hildebrand deduces from all his experiments that in the formation 
of the fruit of orchids, the pollen acts in two different ways: on the 
one hand it effects the enlargement of the ovarium, and the develop- 
ment of the imperfect ovules without the pollen tubes directly touch- 
ing the ovules ; on the other hand it impregnates the ovules, directly 
touching the embryo-sac, and determining the development of one 
germinal corpuscle into an embryo. This independent action of the 
pollen upon the ovules is probably not peculiar to orchids, although it 
has thus been noticed in that family, but the remarkable facts lately 
pointed out by Darwin in his ‘ Fertilization of Orchids,’ as well as 
those just referred to, bear singular testimony to the acumen of the 
late Robert Brown, who foresaw that a patient examination of the 
structure and action of the remarkable sexual organs of this family 
would be more likely than any other means to elucidate the difficult 
subject of generation in Phanerogamic plants. 

A remarkable confirmation of Mr. Darwin’s views of the fertiliza- 
tion of orchids by insects is afforded by a South African species (Disa 
grandiflora), described in the recently issued Linnean Journal. None 
of these South African species have hitherto been examined in relation 
to their manner of fertilization. In Disa the labellum is greatly 
reduced in size, and the posterior sepal large, forming a spur containing 
nectar. The nectary thus stands behind the stigma and pollen masses, 
in a directly opposite position to that which it occupies in other orchids. 
Nevertheless, fertilization is effected by insects, by a very slight change 
in the form of the two upper petals, and in the position of the viscid 
dises of the pollen masses, which are widely removed from each other, 
and face outwards from the labellum towards the margin of the column. 
The upper sepal and two upper petals enclose the column, so that 
insects, to reach the nectar, are compelled to approach the flower in 
front ; but as the column stands in the way of the nectary, insects must 
push their proboscis or head on either side of it, in order to reach the 
nectar. In Disa the caudicles of the pollinia do not undergo the 
movement of depression, as described by Mr. Darwin, in most British 
orchids, but the caudicles are naturally crooked. In this plant there- 
fore, notwithstanding the remarkable difference in the position of the 
nectary, every part of the flower, by the aid of very slight modifica- 
tions, has become so neatly co-ordinated to ensure fertilization through 
the agency of insects.* 

In connection with the subject of fertilizing processes, a remark- 
able arrangement has been noticed, by F. Cohn of Breslau, in thistles. 
The five anthers cohere, forming a tube. At the time of flowering 
this tube is shut in at the top, enclosing the style. About this period 


* Tt may be mentioned, in connection with the interest excited by orchidaceous 
plants of late, that M. F. G. Beer has lately published an elaborate work at Vienna, 
‘On the Morphology and Biology of the Orchidacex ;’ and some remarks by Prof. 
Asa Gray, on the Fertilization of some of the North American Orchids, will be 
found in ‘Silliman’s Journal’ for September last. 


112 Chronicles of Science. | Jan. 


the anther tube rises to about four millimetres above the extreme 
points of the corolla, and if the same be touched, pollen, in lumps, 
issues from the summit, the anther-tube at the same time undergoing 
a remarkable twisting. After a short interval this is repeated. The 
style gradually becomes elevated above the summits of the anther- 
tube, and by the time it projects about four or five millimetres beyond, 
the irritability has completely disappeared, having lasted at the most 
about twenty-four hours. When the styles are visible it is too late 
for instituting experiments. These phenomena are produced solely 
by the contraction of the filaments of the stamens, which on each touch 
instantly contract, and after a little, resume their former length. The 
expulsion of the pollen depends upon the anther-tube being drawn 
downwards upon the style by the contracting filaments, and then pushed 
up again. 


The subject of the functions of vascular tissue causes some difference 
of opinion among botanists, some saying that although containing air 
at most seasons, they are filled with sap in spring, while others affirm 
that when once formed they contain only air. M. Gris has applied 
Fehling’s solution, which deposits a red precipitate when boiled with 
avery small quantity of glucose, thus indicating the presence of an 
essential element of the sap. On plunging for a few moments into 
such a boiling solution, thick fragments of the wood of chestnut, beech, 
poplar, laburnum, &c., at the commencement of spring, and afterwards, 
cutting thin sections for the microscope, the precipitated oxide of 
copper is found clothing the inner face of the large vessels, and form- 
ing reddish threads visible to the naked eye. 'The precipitate is also 
abundant in the cells of the medullary rays, whence M. Gris concludes 
that the so-called lymphatic vessels (at all events in spring) contain a 
sap either identical with, or closely analagous to, that found in the 
cellular elements of these stems. The spiral fibres of the reticulated, 
annular and spiro-annular, and other similar vessels of herbaceous 
plants, also present, in their interior, the red precipitate when similarly 
treated. 

With regard to one class of vessels concerning which very con- 
siderable modification of opinion has been necessary since their first 
discovery by Schultz, viz. the laticiferous tissue, M. Lestiboudois has 
instituted a systematic series of experiments, the results of which he 
communicates from time to time to the ‘Comptes rendus.’ He has 
established beyond doubt the existence, in certain plants, of vessels 
containing coloured liquids, and that these vasa propria are not mere 
excavations in the tissue, permeated by a thread of granuliferous tissue, 
but that, though probably at a late period, a delicate wall is developed, 
which constitutes it a distinct vascular system, though notin all points 
a counterpart of that of the blood-vessels of animals; nor do they fulfil 
precisely the same purpose. While not, however, regarding the contrac- 
tility of these vessels as proved, he considers that he indisputably 
makes out a circulation of the liquid contents, not regularly from one 
point to another, but in such a manner that the granules are driven 
into all the ramifications of a more or less complicated network. In 


1864. | Botany and Vegetable Physiology. 113 


addition to tho trite vessels which contain the proper juices of plants, 
and which may either be long rigid tubules without anastomoses, or 
thin flexuose, and branching, with frequent inosculations, there are 
certain reservoirs or utricles, and others in the form of intercellular 
passages (or meati), which present themselves in the form of slightly 
branching vessels, constituting now and then a sort of framework 
around cells—and some of which are simply irregular cavities pro- 
duced by laceration. In another communication, M. Lestiboudois 
enlarges on the subject, and adds that this imperfect vascular system is 
not met with in the generality of plants, nor in all parts of the plant 
in which they occur—nor, therefore, is the laticiferous juice an essen- 
tial element in the growth of plants. M. Lestiboudois refuses to 
recognize two categories of coloured juices, essentially differing from 
one another,—the one special, scented, and excrementitial, and the 
other vital and alimentary ; and further, is of opinion that the terms 
latex and laticiferous vessels should be abolished, because they per- 
petuate an erroneous idea, by assigning to plants those centralized 
functions which they do not really possess, but which are peculiar to 
animals, 


Tt is always an interesting matter to receive confirmation of 
the natural affinities of structure in groups which have already, 
from a general community of characters, been arranged by botanists 
in what are termed natural orders; and the researches of Mr. 
Gulliver among the minute crystals called raphides existing among 
the tissues of some plants tend to this result. Mr. Gulliver has 
distinguished the acicular crystals (or true raphides) from another 
class of crystals which occur among Phanerogamia, commonly in 
a more or less globular congeries, either naked or within a cell, and 
which he proposes to call Spheraphides. The distribution of this 
latter class of crystals appears to be especially characteristic of the 
Caryophyllacez, Geraniacez, Paronychiacee, Lythrace, Saxifragee, 
and Urticacez, so that he has never failed to find them in a single spe- 
cies of these orders. But inasmuch as he further believes that few, if 
any, orders could be named in which Spheraphides do not exist, it is 
questionable how far they might be available as botanical characters. 
With true raphidian tissue, however, the case is different ; they occur 
so regularly and plentifully in some plants, and so sparingly or not at 
all in others, that they afford good characters by which certain orders 
may be readily distinguished from their allies of other orders. Thus 
if we confine the word raphides to the needlelike crystals commonly 
occurring in bundles, it may be the expression of a more universal 
diagnosis between such orders as the Onagracez and their next allies 
(and yet no less simple and sure), than any single character hitherto 
employed ; and we could determine the affinities and contrasts of 
certain plants by a method at once easy and practical, and in the ab- 
sence of those parts heretofore exclusively used for the descriptive 
distinctions. Mr. Gulliver speaks in a later communication thus 
strongly :—“ No other single diagnosis for the orders in question is so 
simple, fundamental, and universal as this ; and the orders to which 

VOL, I. I 


114 Chronicles of Science. (Jan. 


it applies should be designated raphis bearing or raphidiferous. 
Besides Onagraces, Dioscoracee, Aracer, and Asparagacese are 
spoken of as truly raphidiferous orders. 


M. B. Corenwinder has been making a series of observations upon 
the expiration of leaves by day and night. He finds that the ‘amount 
of carbonic acid exhaled at night varies with the temperature and 
ceases at zero; nor is the property of absorbing carbonic acid and 
again decomposing it found in very young leaves and buds. Adult 
leaves, however, never exhale carbonic acid in the open air, and when 
they receive a full supply of light from all parts. The question 
whether leaves coloured red, brown, or purple, possess the same pro- 
perties as green leaves, has also occupied his attention, and he asserts 
that they differ in nothing from green plants in regard to the pro- 
perty of absorbing carbonic acid under the influence of light, and ex- 
haling it in darkness. It is therefore inexact to say, in an absolute 
manner, that it is by their green parts that leaves decompose carbonic 
acid under the influence of sunlight. 


The abundance of minute organisms found at deep-sea bottoms in 
the Atlantic and elsewhere, and the remarkable facts disclosed by Dr. 
Wallich’s deep-sea soundings in the expedition of Capt. M‘Clintock, 
gave some colour to the idea that the vegetable Diatomacez exist in a 
living state at great depths, and Dr. Stimpson, an energetic young 
naturalist connected with the Smithsonian Institution at Washington, 
who examined the specimens taken at the depth of 2,700 fathoms, in 
latitude 46 N. and longitude 168 E., by Lieutenant Brooke, found 
some startling appearances. The armature consisted of three quills, 
each about three inches in length, fastened together, and placed in such 
a position that, when the lead struck the bottom, the quills would be 
forced perpendicularly into it, and thus become filled with mud from 
a stratum a few inches below the general surface of the sea-bottom. 
One of these quills, cut in two in the middle, contained Diatoms, appa- 
rently Coscinodisci, which appeared to Dr. Stimpson to be undoubt- 
edly living, judging from their fresh appearance and the colours of 
their internal cell-contents. Dr. Wallich, however, argues that 
although the soft parts are retained in specimens obtained from ex- 
treme depths, they differ materially both in aspect and quality from 
those of Diatoms known to be living. Such Diatoms never present 
a trace of locomotion, which is so tenaciously retained by Diatoms 
under all other circumstances. Moreover, the Coscinodisci, which 
constitute the largest proportion of Diatoms found in deep-sea depo- 
sits, are essentially inhabitants of shoal water. They do not live im- 
bedded in mud, but the upper waters,teem with their frustules. Dr. 
Wallich therefore inclines to answer the question decidedly in the 
negative. 


1864. ] Chemistry. 115 


IV. CHEMISTRY. 


In commencing the Chronicles of the progress of Science for the 
last few months, it becomes necessary to exercise considerable care 
in the choice of subjects to be mentioned, so as to avoid on the one 
hand the omission of anything likely to interest a large section of 
our readers, and on the other hand to keep our pages from being 
overburdened with a mass of facts, important, no doubt, to the student 
of one special science, but of no interest to those outside the circle. 
This precaution is especially necessary in a science like Chemistry, 
in which not only does every month bring forth new discoveries, but 
every week—nay, every day is marked by some valuable fact. Our 
readers must not therefore expect to find every fact, even those most 
important, recorded in these chapters, but it will at the same time be 
our endeavour so to select our topics as to constitute these pages a 
truthful mirror of the general progress of Science. 


There have been few periods more fruitful in important chemical 
discoveries than that comprised within the last few months. Two new 
metals have been announced as belonging to the already numerous 
family of elementary bodies, one of which has been literally brought 
to light by spectrum analysis—that powerful analytical process which 
has already given us cesium, rubidium, and thallium. The new arrival 
is due to the labours of two German chemists, F. Reich and T. W. 
Richter.* They were examining some impure chloride of zinc obtained 
from two Freyberg ores, in the expectation of finding thallium present. 
In the spectroscope no green line was seen, but the authors remarked 
an indigo blue line, which was till then unknown. Upon isolating 
the conjectural substance in the form of chloride, they found that 
it gave this blue line, so brilliantly sharp and persistent, that they 
at once came to the conclusion that it belonged to a hitherto unrecog- 
nized metal, to which they accordingly gave the name indium. In 
their memoir the authors give the characteristic properties of the new 
metal, which appears somewhat to resemble zinc, and describe several 
of its compounds. The discovery has been confirmed by other chemists 
of eminence, and there now appears to be no doubt whatever as to its 
accuracy. The same cannot be said respecting the new metal claimed 
by M. J. F. Bahr.t In the analysis of a highly complicated mineral, 
from the island of Réusholn, containing nearly all the metals of the 
aluminium group, the author obtained about 1 per cent. of what he 
supposed was a new addition to this numerous family. He pro- 
poses for it the name of wasiuwm. The existence of wasium as a 
simple body has been since disputed by M. Nicklés, ¢ who asserts it to 
be a mixture of the known bodies yttrium, didymium, and terbium. 


* ¢ Journal fiir praktische Chemie,’ bd. Ixxxix. p. 441. 

+ ‘Annalen der Physik und Chemie,’ vol. exix. p. 572. 

t ‘Comptes Rendus,’ Novy. 2. ; 
I 


116 Chronicles of Science. [ Jan. 


The already known elementary bodies are being gradually brought 
within the domain of spectrum analysis. Phosphorus, which has been 
long known to communicate, under some circumstances, a green colour 
to flame, has been shown by MM. Christofle and Beilstein * to possess a 
very definite spectrum, consisting of three distinct green lines. This 
new test is likely to be of considerable use, as, by its means, this dele- 
terious body has been shown to exist in many samples of good com- 
mercial iron, which were supposed to be free from this impurity. 

Our knowledge of the recently discovered element, cesium, has been 
greatly enlarged by its discoverer Bunsen.t For the original isolation 
of this interesting alkali, nearly 100,000 lbs. of the mineral water of 
Dirkheim were evaporated down, yielding, however, only 30 to 40 
grains. He has since determined the atomic weight to the metal with 
great accuracy upon a somewhat larger quantity, and has obtained 
the same number as those given by Messrs. Johnson and Allen, { 
namely 133. 


M. Rose has announced a no less important discovery than that of 
an entirely new series of metallic oxides.§ In his memoir he pro- 
poses a new nomenclature which, were it generally adopted, would be 
of great convenience to chemists. The new series, which he has dis- 
covered, consists of 1 of metal with + of oxygen, and this he proposes 
to call quadrantoxide ; the compound of 1 of metal with + of oxygen, 
variously named the suboxide or the protoxide, he proposes to call 
semioxide ; the compound of equal atoms of metal and oxygen he calls 
isowide ; the compound of 1 of metal to 14 of oxygen retains its name, 
sesquiowide ; whilst the ordinary binoxide is called the diplowide. 
Only one quadrantoxide has as yet been formed and analysed, but 
reasons are given for supposing that the suboxide of silver is really 
the quadrantoxide, and it is very probable that quadrantichlorides 
of the alkali metals are also known. As might be expected from their 
composition, these new oxides are difficult to prepare, and are easily 
decomposed. 


The mysterious body ozone, respecting which so much has been 
done but so little is known, is still occupying the attention of chemists. 
Schonbein has already shown that this body is formed when evapora- 
tion takes place, and M. Morin || considers that the good effects ob- 
served when water is artificially evaporated during the ventilation of 
rooms, may be due to the formation of a certain quantity of ozonized 
oxygen. English writers on Ventilation always advocate the intro- 
duction of a certain amount of moisture into the air supplied to inha- 
bited places, and this has been well carried out in the ventilation of 
the Houses of Parliament. 


Few chemical manufactures have been developed so much of late 
years as that of the barium compounds, and its prospective applications 
are most numerous and important, although at the present day their 


* «Comptes Rendus.’ t ‘Phil. Mag.,’ vol. xxvi. p. 241. 
t ‘Silliman’s Journal,’ vol. xxxv. p. 94. § ‘ Poggendorff’s Annalen,’ 
|| ‘Comptes Rendus.’ 


18 64. | Chemistry. 117 


use seems to be confined to the manufacture of green fire. M. Kuhl- 
mann has lately entered very largely into the manufacture of different 
compounds of barium, with a view to their commercial introduction, 
The absorption of oxygen from the air by red-hot baryta, and its sub- 
sequent release at a higher temperature, in the form of pure gas, could 
be made of the greatest importance to metallurgical and furnace 
chemistry. A cheap method of making peroxide of barium would 
place us in possession of the valuable peroxide of hydrogen, which 
would be of incalculable use as a disinfectant, and also in many manu- 
facturing processes. To the industrial chemist cheap caustic baryta 
would entirely revolutionize the alkali manufacture, whilst for many 
purposes it would supersede the ordinary alkalies. In the manufac- 
ture of crystal-glass, lead, the most costly ingredient, could be even 
now economically replaced by a barium compound, provided a few 
preliminary difficulties were overcome. Nitrate of baryta can also be 
economically employed in the preparation of blasting powder; the 
chromates of baryta can in many cases replace the more costly chro- 
mates of potash, and the same may be said of the ferrocyanides, all of 
which are largely used in dyeing. These are some of the more important 
applications of this earth, but an immense number of minor uses has 
also been proposed, and there is little doubt that it will shortly become 
as valuable in industrial as it already is in analytical chemistry. 


The extraordinary prolificness of some organic chemists in the 
discovery of new bases, will cease to be surprising after the perusal of 
a paper by Mr. Broughton,* in which it is shown that the known 
general processes for their formation are competent to produce several 
sextillions of new ammonias. As most, if not all, of these compounds 
only require for their production certain known agents to be placed in 
contact, it is evident that chemists need not debar themselves from the 
title of original discoverers for lack of virgin soil on which to work. 

The value of the element bromine in the arts and manufactures is 
daily increasing, and were its price reduced, its importance in many 
industrial operations can scarcely be over-estimated. Hitherto the 
only source has been sea-water, where it exists in the form of bromide 
of magnesium, one part of this salt being dissolved in 100,000 parts 
of water. Recent experiments, by M. Roux,t show that the water of 
the Dead Sea is more than 100 times richer in bromine than ordinary 
sea-water. Already we hear of proposals for the establishment of a 
factory near the Dead Sea, for the separation of this element. It is 
much to be desired that this inexhaustible store of so valuable an agent 
should be utilized. 


Perhaps the most important point to determine in the analysis of a 
drinking water is the presence of nitric acid, as this body is so closely 
connected with putrescent organic matter. Hitherto, however, few 
chemists take note of it, owing, doubtless, to the difficulties which 
beset its detection when very dilute. Mr. R. Kestingst has now 
* «Chemical News,’ vol. viii. p. 245. 


+ ‘ Comptes Rendus,’ vol. lvii. No. 14. 
t ‘Annalen der Chem. und Pharm.’ 


118 Chronicles of Science. [Jan. 


shown that the alkaloid brucine is a most delicate test for nitric acid, 
being coloured rose-red by water, containing only the 100,000th part. 
It is to be hoped that more attention will in future be paid to the 
varying proportions of this acid in potable water, and that the warn- 
ings given by its presence will not be disregarded. 


The subject of pure water for household purposes is so important 
that we again recur to it, to notice an invention of Dr. H. Schwartz, 
which appears to remedy perfectly the effects of the employment of 
lead pipes and cisterns. He converts the inner surface of the metal 
into an insoluble sulphide by boiling in it a solution of sulphur in 
soda. The result is that the water is perfectly kept from contact with 
the metal, and will be as free from contamination as if it had been 
passed through a glass pipe. 


Some curious results of the inhalation of the vapour of glonoine 
(an oil obtained by the action of nitric acid on glycerine) have been 
given by Mr. Merrick.* It has long been known that this body pro- 
duces violent headache, but these experiments show that it is a most 
powerful agent in its physiological action. In one case the fortieth 
part of a drop dissolved in spirit was swallowed on a piece of sugar. 
In two minutes the pulse had risen considerably, being accompanied 
with a violent headache. This continued for nearly half-an-hour, 
when the symptoms passed off. At another time, when a quantity of 
vapour was accidentally inhaled, the headache became almost intolerable, 
and was accompanied by a good deal of faintness and exhaustion, in- 
tolerance of light, and a feeling of great general distress and alarm. 
The violent toxical effects show that glonoine is a powerful poison, 
and, like most agents of this kind, will doubtless be employed in 
medicine. 


The application of gun-cotton as a substitute for gunpowder in 
warfare has occupied the attention of a committee of scientific men 
for some time past. General Von Lenk, of the Imperial Austrian 
Artillery, has invented a system of preparation by which gun-cotton 
has been made practically available for warlike purposes. The 
committee have had the advantage of personal communication with 
the General, and in the report, which will shortly be issued, an ab- 
stract of which having been communicated to the British Association at 
Newcastle, we are promised a vast amount of information of the most 
important character. General Von Lenk has shown that perfect gun- 
cotton is a definite chemical compound; he has given accurate pro- 
cesses for its manufacture, and for the removal of all extraneous matter 
and traces of free acid. As thus prepared, it is no longer liable to 
spontaneous combustion, it can be stored for any length of time with- 
out deterioration, it is not impaired by damp, and may be immersed in 
water without injury, its original qualities returning unchanged when 
allowed to dry in the air. These are valuable properties, and when 
we add to them the absence of smoke, the entire freedom from foul- 
ing, the innocuous character of the products of combustion in com- 


* “Silliman’s Journal,’ yol. xxxvi. No. 107. 


1864. | Geology and Paleontology. 119 


parison with those of gunpowder, and the far inferior heat imparted to 
the gun itself, it will be seen that the advantages attending the employ- 
ment of gun-cotton, are so many and so important as to call impera- 
tively for the fullest investigation. 

From gun-cotton to armour-plated ships is a natural transition in 
these warlike days. Science seems to be at fault on the subject of the 
preservation of iron plates from oxidation and fouling. One of the 
best processes, that has yet come under our notice, is due to Messrs. 
Johnson and Calvert. They propose to coat the iron with a thin layer 
of metallic zinc, as in the ordinary process of galvanizing. Their 
results prove that the film of zinc exercises a great protective power 
against the corrosive action of sea-water; upwards of a year’s ex- 
posure showing that four or five times as much corrosion took place in 
the case of uncoated as with galvanized iron plates. Whether galva- 
nizing would prevent fouling, remains to be seen; we suspect it would 
rather aggravate this evil. 


V. GEOLOGY AND PALZONTOLOGY. 


TueERE is perhaps more difficulty in describing the periodical progress 
of Geology, than there is in recording that of any other science. 
The exactitude of the advance is less decided, the views set forth more 
speculative, and the facts given more open to objection or discussion, 
than is the case in any other department of intellectual investigation. 
In Chemistry, the discovery of an element or of some previously un- 
known compound, gives a fixed and tangible point from which to go 
onward to further knowledge. Every step is a permanent score in the 
continuous tally. So the discovery of a comet or a planet, or a nebula, 
or more exact measurements of angles, or of distances, or the detection 
of errors of observation, or calculations or the revelations of increased 
telescopic powers, all’ yield for Astronomy definite and incontrovertible 
results, and it is only in the special sphere of absolutely speculative 
Astronomy, that there is any uncertainty whatever. So, too, in Botany, 
a new flower, or a flora of some previously unnoticed region, is 
so much substantially added to the previous knowledge, so much gain 
which can be appreciated and recorded. But in Geology, we have to 
deal with the rags and shreds of former ages and former beings, 
nothing whole or entire,—every relic has to be dug out of the débris 
and ruins, which we have, as it were, first to clear away before we can 
get a glimpse of any treasures remaining beneath, and when we find 
these they are damaged and mostly broken fragments which we have 
to join and fit, and put together, to get, in the best way we can, some 
general notion of what they originally were. Thus it is a new geo- 
logical idea gets started, and is discussed, opposed, supported, until 
finally substantiated or disproved; in short, it is only after a contest 
_ that, generally speaking, any progress in this science is admitted. In 


120 Chronicles of Science. [Jan 


a quarterly summary of the nature of the present article, there must 
necessarily therefore be, as a rule, less definiteness and more hesitation 
and uncertainty than one would wish, but notwithstanding this in- 
herent difficulty in the task, it is perfectly possible to give a concise 
and clear account of what is new and what is changing; but it must be 
more or less the newness of theories as well as of facts, bearing always 
in mind that geological facts are first provisionally accepted on the 
reliability of the observer, and are often open not only to questioning 
but to reversal, Thus for many years the older crystalline or meta- 
morphic rocks were regarded as owing their characteristic structure 
to their contact with other heated or so-called igneous rocks,—such as 
granite was supposed originally to have been, constituting the lower 
zone at least of the crust -of the planet we inhabit. 

For some time past, some of our most acute and practical geolo- 
gists have more than doubted the old doctrines, and our own Sorby, 
by detecting the existence of steam-bubble cavities in granite, decisively 
proved that dry heat had not been the cause of its crystalline change. 
Dr. Rubidge, who has done so much good geological work at the Cape 
of Good Hope, also years before threw doubts on the heat-origin of the 
changes exhibited by the metamorphic rocks, by stating the occur- 
rence, in the district of Port Elizabeth, of intercalated metamorphosed 
strata with unchanged sedimentary beds above and belowthem. Such 
examples have since been from time to time not unfrequently timidly 
recorded, but they are now being more boldly noticed. Dr. Hitchcock, 
very lately speaking of the granites of Maine, in the Northern States 
of America, regarded the old theory that granite was once melted 
matter thrust into every crack of the overlying strata as erroneous, 
and substitutes the aqueo-igneous explanation of a plasticity of the 
original materials by means of steam, the primal structure of the rock 
béing thus obliterated, and a new crystalline condition induced. He 
thinks that granite may thus have been formed out of schists, and these 
originally from shales and sandstones, and contends that it is ‘“‘ only 
an example of metamorphism carried to its utmost limit—carried far 
enough to obliterate all traces of stratification, foliation, and lamina- 
tion.” Observation, he further claims, shows that granite does not 
always constitute the axes of mountains, but that it lies between strata, 
and instead of having been the agent by which they have been lifted 
up, it has partaken of the general movements which have resulted from 
general causes. In York and Oxford counties, in Cumberland, and 
Franklin, he notices the intermixture of granite with bands of sedi- 
mentary strata, and constantly speaks of it as ‘‘ comporting itself like 
a stratified rock.” That of Buckfield is mostly in the form of large 
beds and veins, and at Woodstock mica-schist is seen lying beneath it. 
Again, in the south-eastern counties of Maine, granite at the south 
end of Bluehill Neck, overlies strata of gneiss and mica-schist ; and 
in the Kennebec region it is said that in one of the Hallowell quarries 
there are twenty-six different sheets, varying from eight inches to four 
feet in thickness, and that “ these sheets are arranged like strata.” In 
Canada, too, even the granites of the Lamentian and Lower Silurian 
age appear in every case to be indigenous strata altered in situ, and 


1864. ] Geology and Paleontology. . 121 


still retaining evidences of their former stratification. These instances 
might be greatly multiplied not only in the American States, but by 
numerous examples in Europe, and probably by some in our own islands. 
Indeed nowhere is there any evidence of the hypothetical granitic sub- 
stratum which, in even not yet very ancient treatises on Geology, we 
were taught to believe constituted the “ backbone of the earth.” Even 
one such example of interstratification would have gone far to throw a 
doubt upon the purely igneous origin of granite, but when instances 
become so multiplied the doctrine seems no longer tenable. Dr, Hitch- 
cock argues forcibly against it. The dry heat, he contends, that would 
be required to keep granite melted must be intense, for it resists the 
most powerful blast-furnaces, and even if, as melted matter, it were 
injected in close contact with the cold walls of fissured rock, it must 
have cooled before it had time to penetrate all the narrow crevices in 
which it is found in the form of veins. Again he urges that, if crys- 
tallized from such fusion, the quartz would have been consolidated and 
crystallized first, because it is less fusible than the mica and feldspar ; 
instead of which its condition in the structure of granite shows it to 
have been the last consolidated of the ingredients, for if anyone ex- 
amines a piece of granite, he will see the crystals of mica and feldspar 
are often perfect, while those of quartz are never so. The quartz is 
’ always in the amorphous state, and the sharp crystals of mica and feld- 
spar seem to cut into it, as is beautifully seen in graphic granite—an 
appearance which cannot be accounted for in any other way than that 
the mica and feldspar crystals were formed first, and that the quartz 
subsequently filled up the interstices. But such an admission is fatal to 
the doctrine of a cooling down from fusion by dry heat because, in that 
case, the quartz should have been, as we have said, the first to crystal- 
lize. Moreover, that granite contains not a few hydrated minerals, 
or such as contain water in their composition, is another fact telling 
also against the old opinions. 

In the matter of metamorphic rocks Mr. Sterry Hunt has also been 
continuing those valuable theoretical and practical researches of which 
he gave us two instalments in 1858 and 1859. Those articles were 
remarkable for the great ability of his attempts to indicate the ages 
of granites by the amounts of soda or potash they contained, and 
during the present year he has given to the world another elabo- 
rate paper, read before the Dublin Geological Society, on the chemical 
and mineralogical relations of the metamorphic, or, as they have been 
as commonly called, the crystalline primitive rocks. It is not indeed 
so very long since all rocks of this character were included in the com- 
mon designation of primitive, and were considered to belong to a 
period anterior to all the fossiliferous formations, and indeed to the 
existence of life, either vegetable or animal, on our earth. To express 
this idea, the term “ azoic”” was invented, while “ palzeozoic ” was given 
to the Silurian rocks, as containing the supposed first traces of ani- 
mated existence, or the “oldest life-forms,” on our planet. Some 
geologists still consider the Lower Silurian or Cambrian zone to be the 
first burial-ground of organic remains, and that no previous creation of 
animated beings or vegetation had taken place. Not only, however, 


122 Chronicles of Science. [Jan. 


do the imperfectness of the animal series, and the superior organization 
and degrees of development of the fossil genera and species met with 
in the lowest of the palwozoic rocks, as they are at present restricted 
in their downward horizons, militate against such a view by indicating 
the previous existence of zones of previous creations, and causing the 
reflective mind to regard these earliest paleeozoic fossils as only the 
shreds and patches of still earlier life-garments of our earth, but they 
seem also to make the inquiry lack the aid of the chemist and mine- 
ralogist to tell us whether, in the present altered state of such rock- 
masses as are older than the paleeozoic beds, there can be detected in 
the component materials any ingredients which owe their piesence to 
the former existence in those masses of organic remains. 

It is exactly with this question that Mr. Sterry Hunt has occupied 
himself, and has made some excellent attempts to ascertain whether, 
in the absence of organic remains, or of stratigraphical evidence, there 
are any means of determining, even approximately, the geological 
age of a given series of crystalline stratified rocks—in other words, 
whether the chemical conditions which have presided over the forma- 
tion of sedimentary rocks have so far varied, in the course of ages, as 
to impress upon such rocks any marked chemical and mineralogical 
differences. 'To some extent it does appear possible to work out such 
a problem in respect to definite cases, although as yet no one could 
see the way to the generalization of a rule ; indeed, in the ever-variable 
and divergent conditions of our planet’s surface, and the different 
combinations and oppositions of the atmospheric influences which 
have been, through all periods, carrying on their effects around it 
everywhere, it seems impossible this ever should be accomplished. 'To 
arrive at any such indicative result in the case of unaltered sedimen- 
tary formations could not be accomplished without multiplied analyses, 
and even then the conclusions might not be absolute. It is different, 
however, when chemical or mineralogical changes have set in, for the 
natural ‘affinities of some elements for others render definite the 
results of such combinations, and so we find that the crystalline 
minerals which are formed are definite in their composition, and vary 
with the chemical constitution of the sediment from which they were 
derived. Therefore it is that Mr. Sterry Hunt thinks these crystalline 
minerals of the metamorphosed rocks may become to a considerable 
extent, to the geologist, what organic remains in the unaltered rock 
are to the paleontologist—a guide to geological age and succession. 
The feldspars, for example, composed mainly of silica and alumina, 
combined with the silicates of potash, soda, and lime, do, in their 
spontaneous decomposition, part with the latter ingredients, and there 
remains behind, as a final result, a hydrous silicate of alumina, which 
is kaolin, or clay. Now, where potash and soda feldspars are asso- 
ciated, it has been repeatedly observed that the soda-compound is 
much more readily decomposed than the potash-compound, and that 
the soda-feldspar becomes perfectly friable, and fit for a further reduc- 
tion into clay before the orthoclase, or potash-feldspar, has been altered 
at all. The result of combined chemical and mechanical agencies 
acting upon rocks containing quartz, with orthoclase and such soda- 


1864.] Geology and Paleontology. 123 


feldspars as albite and oligoclase, would be thus a sand-compound of 
quartz and the less destructible potash-feldspar. The mechanical 
agency might be air or water; if the latter, there would be found sus- 
pended in it a fine clay, consisting mostly of the partially decomposed 
soda-feldspar. Now this process of destruction is evidently one 
which must go on in the wearing away of rocks by aqueous agency—just 
the agency which is the most important in such inquiries as the pre- 
sent, because most intimately associated with the deposition of the 
sedimentary rocks. It is easy to see how, by such partial destruction 
of the primal rocks, quartz is for the most part wanting in those 
which contain a large proportion of alumina, while it is abundant in 
those in which potash-feldspar predominates. So long as this decom- 
position of alkaliné silicates is sub-aérial, both the silica and alkali 
are removed in a soluble form. But as immense quantities of unde- 
composed fragments of the primal rock are detached by atmospheric 
causes, and carried down to the sea, which acts upon these with more 
power even than upon the surfaces of the rock directly exposed to its 
influence, the process is often sub-marine and beneath the sea-bottom 
in the midst of sediments containing the carbonates of lime and mag- 
nesia. When the silicate of soda is, under such circumstances, set 
free, it reacts upon those earthy carbonates, or upon the chlorides in the 
sea-water, and forms in either case_a soluble soda-salt, and insoluble 
silicates of lime and magnesia. | 

The sources of the carbonates of lime and magnesia in sedimentary 
strata, have been the decomposition of silicates containing those bases, 
such as lime-feldspar and pyroxene, and the action of the alkaline 
carbonates formed by the decomposition of feldspars upon the 
chlorides of lime and magnesia originally present in sea-water, but 
which have been by this process in subsequent ages, in great part 
replaced, by the resulting chloride of sodium, A curious result as 
showing the sea to have not been originally as salt in the primeval era 
as it is at the present epoch, and giving, if the total could be ascer- 
tained, the clay or aluminous silicate of the earth’s crust, as a measure 
of not only the quantity of salt added to the primitive ocean, but of 
the amount of the carbonic acid removed from the air, and of the 
carbonates of lime and magnesia precipitated. As the coarser sedi- 
ments in which quartz and orthoclase prevail are permeable to 
infiltrating waters, their soda, lime, magnesia, and oxide of iron will 
be gradually removed, leaving at last only silica, alumina, and potash 
—the elements of granite. On the other hand, the finer marls and 
clays, resisting the penetration of water, will retain their soda, lime, 
magnesia, and oxide of iron, and having an excess of alumina, will by 
their metamorphism give rise to basic lime and soda-feldspars, to 
pyroxene and homblende—the elements of diorites and dolerites. In 
this way, the long-continued operation of chemical and mechanical 
causes would naturally tend to divide all the crystalline silico-alumi- 
nous rocks of the earth’s crust into two types, exactly corresponding 
to the two classes of so-called igneous rocks, the trachytic and 
pyroxenic, which geologists have supposed to have been derived from 
two distinct imaginary magmas beneath it. When, however, ordinary 


124 Chronicles of Science. [Jan. 


sedimentary strata have been rendered crystalline by metamorphism, 
their future alterability becomes difficult, because their permeability to 
water is so enormously diminished, and it is not until they are once 
more broken down to the condition of soils and sediments, that they 
become again subjected to such important chemical changes as we 
have described. Hence, the mean proportions of alkali and alumina 
in the composition of the clay sediments of any geological period will 
depend not only upon the age of the formation, but upon the number 
of times its materials have been broken up, and the periods during 
which they have remained unmetamorphosed and exposed to the 
action of infiltrating waters. Such are the general principles which 
in this excellent paper Mr. Hunt brings to bear upon the actual state 
of the metamorphic rocks of Canada from the Carboniferous to the 
Lower Silurian, and down to the azoic rocks and granite, even the 
veins of which he regards as formed like metalliferous veins by 
aqueous deposition in fissures. 


The Sixth Annual Report of the Maine Board of Agriculture* 
recently circulated, presents a feature not so common in this country 
as it deservedly ought to be, an association of geological investigations 
with the practical pursuit of agriculture. Even in the first few pages 
on the application of fish-manure, and where we should have little 
expected it, we find practical hints from the geologist. Commenting 
on Mr. Bruce’s endeavour to introduce this to us very objectionable 
and disgraceful appropriation of the most extensive source of animal 
food which nature supplies to mankind, Mr. Sterry Hunt recommends 
the combination of the fish-manure with calcined shale for the pur- 
pose of driving away insects from the plants to which it is applied. 
Distilling a black bituminous shale from Port Daniel at a red heat, 
the disengaged vapours were passed through a vat containing the fish, 
which by the continuance of the heat were ultimately reduced to a 
pulpy mass. The calcined shale, ground to powder, was mingled 
with this; the whole being then dried. Experiments made with 
the manure are reported to have given satisfactory results ; it might 
be well if English agriculturists should pay some attention to the 
poorer kinds of bituminous shales which are met with in the British 
Isles, and even the refuse of the richer sorts, such as the Kimmeridge 
and the Glasgow shales, which have been used for making gas, might 
be in this way turned to a useful and profitable account, not necessa- 
rily for mixing with fish-manure, the use of which we have strongly 
deprecated, but for commingling with many other classes of manures, 
as the chief efficacy calcined shale possesses against noxious insects 
appears to be in the presence, or perhaps in the odour, of the bitu- 
men it contains; for it is known that coal-tar applied to the in- 
terior wood-work in greenhouses has the effect of expelling those 
unwelcome intruders. Such bituminous sandstones as those of Caith- 
ness, might thus be turned to profitable account, and there are other 


* «Sixth Annual Report of the Secretary of the Maine Board of Agriculture.’ 
Augusta: Stevens and Hayward, 1861-2. 


1864. ] Geology and Paleontology. 125 


rocks in various parts of our island, which, although not sufliciently 
rich for gas-making, contain quite sufficient bituminous ingredients 
for agricultural purposes, particularly the enormous beds of shale 
which are at present left untouched in our coal-pits. But it is not 
in incidental suggestions like this, valuable as they may be, that this 
Report shows in the strongest light the important relations existing 
between the geological structure of a country and the farming opera- 
tions carried on upon it. So high has the Board of Agriculture of 
Maine considered the advantage of such knowledge, that it has 
directed a special survey to be made of the whole State, “ believing 
that such a survey, ably conducted, would greatly tend to develope and 
improve its agriculture ;” and urging at the same time “that the 
utility and value of such explorations are no longer doubtful.” This 
preliminary Geological Survey has been executed under the direction 
of Mr. Charles H. Hitchcock, of Amhurst, with Mr. Goodall, of Saco, 
as chemist, and Mr. Houghton as mineralogist. By them the sea- 
board from Saco to Calais was explored, and excursions made into the 
interior, and to the islands; next through the north of Washington 
County to Holton, and thence to Bangor. Subsequently up the 
Penobscot river, down the Alleguish and St. John river to Woodstock, 
through the iron and slate region of Piscataquis County, the country 
around Moosehest lake and the Penobscot river. By these explora- 
tions and the use of the valuable observations previously made by Dr. 
Jackson of Boston, a sufticient idea of the geological structure of the 
slate has been obtained for the construction of a general map, to serve 
as a basis for future systematic and more thorough explorations. It 
is not our intention to follow through the report of this, as far as it 
goes, excellent survey, but to gather rather from it such new or re- 
markable purely geological phenomena, as may be worthy of par- 
ticular notice. One of these is a condition of the pebbles in a con- 
glomerate bed on the northern border of Washington County, which 
is very remarkable. The inclination of the strata is some 65° east- 
erly ; the strike being N. 8° W. The layers are sometimes contorted, 
and numerous narrow perpendicular veins of quartz cut across their 
bedding. But the peculiarity of the conglomerate consists in the 
distortion and curvature of the pebbles it contains, the general appear- 
ance of which is illustrated in the accompanying sketch. They appear 
as if they had been drawn out, 
curved, and pressed together by 
the forces to which they had been 
subjected. Mr. Hitchcock con- 
siders there is no doubt of these pebbles having been curved since 
the consolidation of the rock in which they are embedded ; and even 
goes to the length of asserting, that such elongated pebbles have been 
changed into the siliceous lamine of talcose and micaceous schists, 
while the cement has been converted into mica, the tale of talcose schists, 
and feldspar. To effect the change of form of the pebbles, according 
to Dr. Hitchcock’s views, the substances of which they are composed 
require to have been brought into a soft or yielding state like moistened 


126 Chronicles of Science. [J ee 


clay, and then to have been contorted under the application of force or 
pressure ; while to effect their still greater alteration into the laminez 
of schists, he looks to the further continued action of chemical changes 
amongst the heterogeneous sedimentary materials in selecting and 
combining the different mineral atoms in their proper proportions to 
form the new crystalline masses. - 

Letting alone this last topic, and confining ourselves to the pheno- 
mena of contortion only, if these pebbles were of clay, we could 
understand their being softened; but if they are of limestone, sand. 
stone, slate, or flint, it is very hard to believe they ever were soft- 
ened after they were once solidified. 'The phenomenon is, however, 
exceedingly remarkable, and not yet perhaps clearly explainable. It 
would seem to belong to the same class as the Nagel-Flue of Switzer- 
land, so successfully investigated by Mr. Sorby, or as the nodular 
bands of limestone in the Wenlock Formation, to which attention has 
been drawn by M. La Touche and Mr. Salter. If anyone examines 
the ordinary condition of a conglomerate, or the nature of a sea-beach, 
the more or less rounded pebbles will be found simply piled one upon 
the other, very rarely are any elongated or flat, except when the 
pebbles are of slaty-rocks, and never bent unless they happen to be 
the fragments of naturally-curved strata. In no case are there any 
corresponding lines of contortion, such as shown in the woodcut, which 
represents a section of the Weston Conglomerate, in which the peb- 
bles are drawn out and flattened, and compared by Dr. Hitchcock to 
spheres of clay pulled out into prolate-spheroids ; and the pressure 
of an immense weight might, he thinks, be so continued as to elongate 
a pebble of clay into the resemblance of a lamina of quartz in gneiss. 
He makes intelligible the nature of the Weston Conglomerate by 
supposing that amongst many balls of clay some were plastic and 
- some hard, and that these were then subjected to such a pressure as 
should pull out and flatten all the plastic ones, which would thus 
have their forms modified by the unyielding ones, the plastic pebbles 
fitting on the solid ones like a cap on the human head. “ We find,” 
he says, “among the distorted pebbles cases of this nature. Some 
pebbles have been more plastic than others, and the results are: 
indentations of the harder into the softer ones, curves around the hard 
ones, or the fitting of one into another like a ball into its socket, or 
the ends of the elongated pebbles may only fit upon each other to 
economize space ”—as in the woodcut. 

An example of the first stage of the distortion of pebbles is to be 
seen near Newport, R.I. The lower carboniferous conglomerate at 
Alms House, north of that city, is in a normal state, and consists of a 
mass of loosely-cemented cobble-stones, from an inch to six inches in 
diameter, all round or spheroidal ; but two miles further, at Purgatory, 
there is another mass of conglomerate, nearly of the same age, having 
the pebbles much elongated in the direction of the strike, flattened, 
and often indented, “by being pressed one into the other ;” they are 
sometimes a good deal bent, occasionally in two directions, the whole 
being cut across by parallel joints or fissures, varying in distance 


1864.] Geology and Paleontology. 127 


from one or two inches to many feet. The cement is very meagre, and 
consists of talcose schist, containing crystals of magnetite: the 
pebbles, however, are firmly adherent. In small flexures of the strata, 
Dr. Hitchcock has observed the elongated pebbles bent at the same 
angles. 


The part of the ‘ Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society,’* 
containing Professor Owen’s valuable and admirable Report on the 
extraordinary bird-remains from the lithographic limestone of Pappen- 
heim—the Archeopteryx macrorus—has been published during the past 
month, and the full particulars of the memorable description which 
excited such attention at Burlington House, in the November of last 
year, are now before the world. It appears to have received little 
alteration or emendation, as far as our memory will permit our judging, 
since the time of its first reading, when the completeness and Iucid- 
ness of the account were features which prominently struck all hearers. 
The first evidence of bird-remains in the Solenhofen-beds was, as itis 
well known, the impression of a single feather, described and figured, 
with his characteristic minuteness and care, by Hermann von Mayer, 
in the ‘Jahrbuch fiir Mineralogie,’ under the title of Archaopteryx 
lithographica, and although it is most probable that the class of birds 
was represented in the Solenhofen age by more than one family, Pro- 
fessor Owen has retained the generic appellation of Archzopteryx for 
the present specimen. As the reptilian pterodactyles of the litho- 
graphic stone differ in the length of their tails—some having extremely 
long ones, as the Ramphorhynchus longicaudus, and others scarcely 
any, as the Pterodactylus crassirostris, so we may expect to find 
similar differences in the strange birds which lived in those days; and 
just as the original appellation of Griphosaurus given to it by Wagner, 
under the idea of its being a feathered reptile, has been changed to 
Archeopteryx, it is not by ¢ any means certain that the generic term may 
not yet have to be again altered. 

Professor Owen’s paper commences with an account of the circum- 
stances under which the specimen was found and those under which it 
was acquired for our national collection. The exposed bones in the 
specimen are then named, and one after another compared with those 
of recent birds of different species, and the corresponding bones of 
various fossil pterodactyles, a comparison requiring unusual care and 
accuracy on account of the previously supposed reptilian characters of 
the singular remains. By his examination and comparison Professor 
Owen has proved the general ornithic nature of the fossil—a conclusion 
which must be henceforth adopted; although there are some points 
which cannot be settled by the present relics, and which may hereafter, 
when fresh examples revive the subject, give rise to some important 
considerations. A magnificent lithograph of natural size is given of 
the principal slab and its contents, even to its ripples and surface- 
markings, by Mr. Dinkel, who has as conscientiously done his duty in 


* ¢ Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London,’ vol. cliii. part 1, 
1863. 


128 Chronicles of Science. [Jan. 


as faithful a representation as it is in an artist’s power to attain. But 
neither Mr. Dinkel nor any cther artist can free himself from a bias 
of ideas. The hand will follow the mind, and given the notion of a 
fish’s head, the pencil will involuntarily portray the resemblance in 
figuring the object to which the resemblance is assigned. When 
Professor Owen first described the Pappenheim specimen, he made no 
mention of what has since been described by Mr. Mackie as the brain 
or cast of the cerebral cavity of the skull, nor of certain osseous relics 
which in the present publication are referred to as a “ premaxillary 
bone, and its impression resembling that of a fossil fish.” And yet 
these objects are perhaps among, if not actually, the most important 
of all the fossilized remains. The nodule representing the brain, it is 
admitted by the Professor, may be, as suggested by Mr. Evans, “ part 
of the cranium with the cast of the brain of the Archzopteryx ;” but 
of the so-called fish-head he makes no other remark than the quotation 
above, “resembling that of a fossil fish.” Nor do we blame his reti- 
cence. Every word Professor Owen says carries weight, and the last- 
mentioned object is certainly in so obscure a state that no one, without 
further illustrative fossils, could by any possibility determine what it 
is. It would be discordant with all our present knowledge to find a 
bird’s beak containing teeth in sockets, yet that would not be more 
extraordinary nor more out of all comparisons with living things than 
a long tail such as the Archeopteryx undoubtedly possesses. Yet 
such a toothed bill may be possible. After many days’ careful study 
and comparison we could not convince ourselves that this object was a 
fish’s jaw, nor could we find evidence enough to assert that it was a 
bird’s beak with teeth; but it certainly has, as it lies in the slab, as 
much likeness to a beak as to a premaxillary, and as there is not a 
fish-scale nor a fish-bone in the whole slab, nor in its counterpart, nor 
a speck nor portion of a fish in either, it is as possible for this object 
to belong to the Archzopteryx as to any other creature. 

The general ornithic nature of the fossil is, as we have already 
said, indisputable, but not so positive do we think can anyone be as 
to its exceptional characters. If the Archeopteryx had in its long 
vertebrate tail, one character so exceptional as not to be matched by 
any existing or any other fossil bird, it may have had other characters 
as exceptional ; and although we should say that no bird that preened 
its feathers would have teeth, yet the beak of a bird is but a modi- 
fied mammalian jaw, just as the whole structure of birds is a 
modification of the mammalian type; so it is not without the bounds of 
possibility that a bird’s jaw may be in such a state of development as 
to retain some traces of teeth. Nor can we be certain, it seems to us, 
that there are no reptilian affinities, or, at least, resemblances in the 
structure of the wings. Had the manus of Archzeopteryx been adapted 
for the support of a membranous wing, the extent to which the 
skeleton is preserved, and the ordinary condition of the fossil Ptero- 
sauria in the lithographic stone, render it almost certain, as Professor 
Owen properly observes, that some of these most characteristic long 
slender bones of the pterosaurian wing-fingers would have been visible 


1864. | Microscopical Science. 129 


if such had existed in the present specimen ; and besides this negative 
evidence, the positive proof of the bird-like proportions of the pinion, 
and the existence of quill-feathers, sufficiently evince the true class- 
affinity of the Archwopteryx. We are, however, in ignorance as to the 
manner in which those singular wing-hooks were attached to the main 
bones of the wing, and of all the comparisons which Professor Owen 
has made with the spur-winged birds, such as the Merula dactyloptera, 
Anser gambensis, Parra jacana, Palamedea cornuta, and Megapodius, 
there are none, we believe, which give us a single illustration of the 
same character of organization as is exhibited by the claw-hooks in the 
Archeopteryx. Indeed, Professor Owen admits that in this respect, it 
difters from every known bird in having “ two free unguiculate digits,” 
i. e€. the wing-hooks, “in the hand,” and that “these digits in the 
slenderness of the penultimate phalanx do resemble the unguiculate 
digits in the hand of the Pterodactyle.” But it is true, as Professor 
Owen continues, that “the claw has not the characteristic depth or 
breadth of that of the Pterodactyle ; and there is no trace of the much 
lengthened metacarpal and phalangial bones of the fifth digit, or 
peculiar wing-finger of the flying reptile.” We doubt, however, if 
the wing-claws of the Archeopteryx are comparable with the spurs of 
the jacana, or of the screamer; and we are not aware that the 
skeletons of either are obtainable in this country for comparison. 

These are questions, however, which itis judicious of the Professor 
to avoid until there is sufficient evidence collected to warrant, if not 
a decisive, at least a reliable opinion. It is quite a different thing for 
us to point them out, that the importance of obtaining further illus- 
trative specimens may be borne in mind. 


VI. MICROSCOPICAL SCIENCE. 


As the advance of all physical science depends in a great measure on 
the degree of perfection of the instruments with which it is studied, 
we propose devoting this, our first article on the progress of Micro- 
scopical research, to a brief exposition of the improvements that have 
been recently made in the construction of the instrument. Our next 
article, on the other hand, shall be devoted to a review of the modern 
standard works on the Microscope, and its mode of application ; and 
then having, as it were, set our house in order, we shall be prepared 
in our subsequent Numbers to enter directly on the true object of our 
work, namely, to keep our readers aw courant with the progress of 
microscopical inquiry. 

Fortunately for us, we do not at the present day require to say 
anything in support of the claims of the microscope to public atten- 
tion. Scientific men have unanimously decided in its favour, and 
although, among the general public, there are still individuals to be 
encountered who regard its teachings with distrust, their number is 

VoL. I. K 


130 Chronicles of Science. [Jan. 


day by day becoming more and more limited, as the object and powers 
of the instrument are becoming better and better understood. Many 
false doctrines have no doubt been promulgated in consequence of the 
employment of the microscope; but for one that depended on the 
imperfection of the instrument, a thousand arose from a defect in the 
observer. We are even forced to admit, that there are still amongst us, 
men who without any previous training, or special aptitude for micro- 
scopical research, damage the cause in which they are volunteers, by 
insisting upon publishing the result of their labours, and loading our 
journals with false data and erroneous theories ; which although 
perhaps perfectly harmless in themselves, nevertheless clog the 
chariot wheels of progress. And what is still more unfortunate, these 
would-be discoverers often become the worst enemies of the micro- 
scope ; for, as in the course of time they see their cherished facts 
and theories one by one swept away, instead of attributing this their 
misfortune to its proper cause, they seek to turn the blame against the 
instrument, which they imagine misled them. In a word, the enemies 
of the microscope, at the present time, are only to be found, either 
among those who do not possess an instrument, or possessing one, do 
not know how to use it. Remember, we do not consider that a man 
knows how to employ the microscope because he can demonstrate the 
presence of infusoria in a drop of water, exhibit muscular fibres on 
prepared slides, or focus photographs of the Royal family, not bigger 
than a pin’s point ; for nine out of every dozen of men who can do 
that are unequal to the preparation and demonstration of a piece 
of simple cellular tissue. If the microscope fails to assist such as 
we have just been describing, that is no reason why it should fail to 
assist others, even although they are not scientific men. 

The education requisite for microscopical inquiry is a special 
education, attainable by every ordinarily educated man, either by 
means of books, or, what is still better, by oral instruction. In proof 
of this assertion we have only to look around us, and see in whose 
hands the microscope is now being turned to account, and we shall at 
once perceive that the employment of the instrument is no longer the 
monopoly of professional men. It has even passed through the 
second stage of its career, and after having for a time occupied the 
place of instructor of the idle hour to the amateur, has entered, in the 
hands of the commercial class, upon the third phase of its existence. 
The liquids we drink, the food we eat, the clothes we wear, have each 
been found to le within its scope. Hence the microscope is to be 
met with in the office, in the warehouse, and in the shop. It is con- 
sulted in ascertaining the purity of flour, in revealing the nature of 
arrowroot, in unmasking the adulterations of coffee, and in innume- 
rable other ways advancing the interests of trade. And it would prove 
even still more useful in its commercial capacity, if men would but 
refrain from seeking its assistance until they had exhausted the infor- 
mation attainable by the unaided eye; for the true object of the 
microscope is not to supplant, as too many imagine, but to extend our 
ordinary means of observation, and when so employed it never fails 


9 


1864. | Microscopical Science. T3E 


to yield important information. It is not, of course, to be supposed 
from these remarks, that we would try to limit its field of usefulness, 
for our object is, on the contrary, to endeavour to enlarge it. The 
advice we give has, in fact, this object in view, and is simply that if, 
instead of directly placing an object under the microscope, the observer 
will first take the trouble to examine it carefully with the naked eye, 
he will find himself in a far better position to form a correct judgment 
of its nature on seeing it under the magnifying-glass, than if he had 
omitted previously to do so. 

Having said this much regarding the observer, we must now turn 
our attention to his instrument. It is essential that it should be of 
good quality. When we speak of a microscope being of good quality, 
we do not mean that it should have handsome and elaborate brass work, 
for that part which is so attractive to the eye is the least valuable 
of the whole. °Tis in the object-glasses—’tis in the lenses, that the 
real value of the instrument resides, and thus it was that scientific 
men so long preferred the low-priced insignificant-looking foreign 
microscopes of Nachet and Oberhauser, to the elaborately got-up Eng- 
lish instruments. The foreign opticians sacrificed appearance to utility, 
while too many of our home manufacturers sacrificed utility to appear- 
ance. At the present moment, however, the British manufacturer is 
inferior to none, even in low-priced instruments, while, as is well 
known, his superiority in those costing from thirty guineas, and up- 
wards, has never been matter of dispute. 

Before speaking of the cheap instruments, we must first call special 
attention to the high-power object-glasses that have been recently con- 
structed by Messrs. Ross, Powell and Lealand, and Smith, Beck and 
Beck, the value of which it is scarcely possible to overrate, seeing that 
there can be no end to discovery, so long as there is no end to instru- 
mental perfection. In our opinion, the only boundary that human 
knowledge admits of, is that imposed upon it by the limited means 
of physical observation. Every additional magnifying power is, as it 
were, a new world gained. 

The progress of science, therefore depends as much upon the 
mechanician, as upon the observer, for the acumen of the latter would 
fail to reach its goal, if unassisted by the skill of the former. 

It will be recollected that Ross was the first to succeed in manu- 
facturing an object-glass of +: of an inch focus, and that shortly after- 
wards Powell and Lealand overstepped him by producing a +, which, 
for the time being, was regarded as quite a scientific curiosity. The latter 
manufacturers have now, however, stimulated by Professor Beale, out- 
stripped themselves, and actually manufactured a workable lens of no 
less than 3's of an inch focus. Since ‘then, Ross has improved his 34, 
and Smith, Beck, and Beck have produced az. Perhaps it will be 
better, if before describing the 25, we first say a few words regarding 
the +; of Ross, and the +5 as now supplied by Smith, Beck, and Beck. 
The advantages of the new 7: are its having a large front distance 
with a maximum of real angle of aperture. It will work through 
glass the +35 of an inch thick, and bear the highest eyepieces. These 

K 2 


132 Chronicles of Science. [Jan. 


improvements have been accomplished by employing specimens of 
glass which allow the minimum of thickness of media to be used. 
The powers with this objective range from 600 to 4,000. The 3, is 
also so constructed, as to admit a large pencil of light, and at the 
same time leave a space between its front lens and the covering-glass 
of the slide sufficient to allow of the examination of ordinary objects. 
The ;!, magnifies with the three eyepieces, 950, 1,700, 3,100, linear ; 
its aperture is 140 degrees; and the thickness of the covering-glass, 
to which it will adjust, is 005 of an inch. 

The 5! of Messrs. Powell and Lealand, as we already said, was 
first made at the suggestion of Dr. Beale, and we can corroborate from 
personal experience the expression made use of by the jurors of the 
late International Exhibition, namely, that it is possible to see by its 
means evidences of structure which are under ordinary powers utterly 
undistinguishable. On looking at an object with the j., after having 
first used the + of an inch, one is immediately struck with the great 
difference in size which it presents. The object looks six times as large 
as it did with the 4 of an inch, and although of course the field is 
darker, it is not nearly so dark as one might be led to expect, consider- 
ing that we are employing a magnifying power of 1,300 diameters. 

In order to see objects distinctly with the y5, it is, of course, 
necessary to use a good light; but it does not require that the light 
should be very much stronger than that ordinarily employed when 
using a quarter. The common microscope-lamp, and achromatic 
condenser, are all that is requisite for the purpose of illumination. 
Like Smith, Beck, and Beck’s 35, Powell and Lealand’s +; object-glass 
is adapted to suit any English microscope. to be used with a covering- 
glass of -005 of an inch in thickness, and to leave a sufficient space 
between the lower lens and the glass to admit of its being employed 
in the examination of ordinary objects. The =; consists, like all other 
good objectives, of eight lenses, two triplets, and one doublet. The 
front one, indeed, measures only :025 of an inch in diameter, and to 
the naked eye looks like a small diamond in its setting. It is, 
however, a vast deal more valuable than a diamond of the same 
dimensions. 

There is great difficulty experienced in the manufacture of these 
lenses ; for they have actually to be ground under a microscope. 
This arises not simply because of their small size, but in order to 
enable the workman to keep the surfaces perfectly level, as a deviation 
of as little as one thousandth of an inch would give rise to both 
spherical, and chromatic aberration. To specify the particular class 
of objects for which the 3; is adapted, is not our present purpose. 

We have now to say a few words regarding the improvements that 
have recently been introduced into the construction of the large micro- 
scope stands. These have for the most part been devised by Mr. 
Ross, with the view of obtaining additional working room for the 
illuminating apparatus beneath the stage, in order to acquire the 
greatest possible angle for simple oblique illumination. This object 
has been accomplished, as will be seen in the figure, by reducing the 


1864. | Microscopical Science. 183 


thickness of the mechanical and sub-stages. A still further improve- 
ment has been made by adding an additional tube, and thereby adapt- 
ing the instrument to the binocular arrangement. Moreover, Mr. Ross 
has graduated the circular parts of both the upper and lower stages so 
as to enable the observer to use the instrument as a goniometer. 


ll 


_ jam TTT 


We shall now pass on to the consideration of our next head, 
namely, the diminished cost of instruments for the use of students 
and others. 

At our public institutions where there are large microscopical 
classes, as, for'example, at University College, London, and at the 
University of Edinburgh, the great majority of the students have 
hitherto been supplied with the foreign instruments of Nachet and 
Oberhauser, costing about 8. each. Now, however, English opticians 
are cutting the ground from beneath the foreigner’s feet, by producing 
really good useful instruments at similar prices. The most recently 
constructed microscope of the kind, is that just brought out by Parkes 
of Birmingham. 


134 Chronicles of Science. | Jan. 


It is a handsome-looking instrument of the form represented in 
the accompanying woodcut. 


This microscope is made entirely of brass, and is 16 inches high. 
At first sight, it looks like an instrument costing 18/. or 201., which 
is more than double the actual price. It is supplied with two powers 
of a quarter of an inch focus, two eyepieces, a polarising apparatus, a 
coarse and fine adjustment, a magnetic stage, a circular diaphragm, a 
double mirror, and a stage condenser. 

The microscope is so constructed as to fit into a hexagonal box ; 
the bottom of which forms the stand of the instrument, and mto which 
are set the requisite apparatus. So, no sooner is the top of the box 
removed, than the microscope is found in its place all ready for use. 
The objectives and eyepieces are, as we have said, fitted into the stand 
round the instrument, so that they can be adjusted at a moment’s 
notice, and in order that this may be done more effectively they are 
fitted with slips as well as screw attachments. 

Moreover, the mahogany stand is polished, and has a circular groove 
round it, to receive the lip of a glass-bell jar, so that the box cover 


1864. | Microscopical Science. 135 


may be dispensed with, except in travelling, and the instrument, with 
its glass shade, forms. a handsome ornament to a room, while at the 
same time, it is always ready for immediate use. 

If Mr. Parkes furnishes a quality of lenses to all his microscopes 
made on this plan, similar to those attached to the instrument we had 
the opportunity of seeing at University College, we must admit he will 
prove a formidable rival to foreign instrument makers. 

There are still lower priced instruments, which are extremely well 
adapted for educational purposes, now being manufactured by Messrs. 
Highley, Pillischer, Baker, and Smith and Beck ; but the consideration 
of these we must defer to a future occasion, and for the present turn our 
attention to the binocular microscope. 

As is well known, the purpose of the binocular microscope is to 
remedy the difficulty in the way of correct observation, arising from 
our having to view an object with only one eye. Mr. Wenham, by a 
very simple contrivance, has accomplished this in a most satisfactory 
manner, at least, as far as low magnifying powers are concerned ; there 
is still, however, room for improvement with respect to high magnify- 
ing powers. By means of a small prism mounted in a brass box 
which slides into the draw tube immediately over the objective, the 
rays of light proceeding from the object are reflected in two directions, 
which by means of a double body are conveyed to both eyes, and 
thereby give a stereoscopic view of the substance under observation. 
This is a most important point gained, when uneven surfaces are being 
examined, because it enables the observer at once to judge of the posi- 
tion, form, and relative distance of the various parts without altering 
the focus of the microscope. 

So valuable, indeed, has this improvement been considered, that all 
opticians are now prepared to attach an additional draw tube and 
prism to any of the ordinary uniocular instruments, and thereby make 
them answer both purposes. For be it remembered, that the attach- 
ment of a binocular body in no way interferes with the employment of 
the instrument as a single-eyed microscope. 

As it is impossible, in this short review, to describe all the varieties 
of binocular microscopes now placed before the public, we must limit 
our remarks to the one which we consider the most perfect. 

The binocular, which we believe is most deserving of this title, is 
that just brought out by Mr. Collins (of Titchfield Street, Portland 
Place, London). It is constructed on the model suggested by Pro- 
fessor Harley, and contains all the recent improvements for combining 
rapidity of application, with simplicity in manipulation. Indeed, so 
far as the saving of time is concerned, we scarcely know how a change 
for the better could be devised. It possesses also the further advan- 
tage of having the apparatus so arranged as to render it a matter of 
difficulty to put it out of order. The whole apparatus of the instru- 
ment, prism, polariscope, stage condenser, objectives of both high 
and low powers, &c., &c., are attached to the microscope itself, and 
that, too, in such a manner as to enable the observer to place them 
in soract position without the turn of a single screw, or a moment’s 

elay. 


136 Chronicles of Science. [ Jan. 


A glance at the accompanying woodcut will greatly aid in the 
understanding of this mode of arrangement. 


The microscope, as is here seen, is fixed into the bottom of the 
mahogany box, which forms at the same time the stand. Round it, 
like the one previously described, which is in this respect made on 
Dr. Harley’s model, a groove is run to receive the lip of a glass 
shade. The instrument itself is made of polished brass, and is eighteen 
inches high. The eyepieces are supplied with shades (a, a) to protect 
the eyes. 

These are a great comfort to the observer when he is using the 
instrument for any length of time. 

At the end of the transverse arm (f), is the box which contains 
both Wenham’s binocular prism, and the analyser of the polariscope ; 
and by merely drawing it a little out, or pushing it farther in, the 
instrument can be instantly changed from a binocular to a uniocular, 
and still further to a polarising microscope. 

Immediately beneath (f) are the two objectives, a quarter, and an 
inch; so that in order to change the power, all that is necessary is to 
slide them backwards or forwards. Moreover, these are fitted with the 
universal screw, so that either of them may be detached, as in an 
ordinary instrument, and a }, as, or any other power, put in its place 
at the option of the observer. The instrument is fitted with a coarse 


1864. | Mining, Mineralogy, and Metallurgy. 187 


and fine adjustment, and has the additional advantage of a magnetic 
stage, in the cross-bar (h) of which is a groove, in order that the 
observer may enjoy the luxury of applying a Maltwood’s finder, as in 
large instruments possessing movable stages.* Beneath the stage is 
seen the polariser (p), fitted into the circular diaphragm. 

The double mirror (m) possesses a triple joint, so that it can be 
applied obliquely in all directions. Indeed, as we before said, it is 
difficult to see how an instrument could be devised of a more simple, 
and, at the same time, so perfect construction at the price. 

Having now given our readers an insight into the most important 
improvements that have been recently made in the construction of 
the instrument, we purpose in our next Number introducing to their 
notice, the various works on the microscope, and its mode of appli- 
cation. 


VII. MINING, MINERALOGY, AND METALLURGY. 


Tue Mining operations of these islands may be regarded as amongst the 
most important of our industries, taxing—as they do, to the utmost— 
the powers of man’s endurance, and the resources of engineering 
science ; requiring the boldest expenditure of an enormous capital, and 
adding nearly thirty millions sterling to our national wealth. Hidden 
in our rocks is the “ hoarded treasure,” but man, the magician with 
the wand of industry, brings it forth to-day and converts the valueless 
ores into valuable metals, which minister in a thousand forms to the 
necessities of human existence. 

The subterranean explorations now in active progress in this 
country, claim the labours of above 300,000 Miners, independently of 
men, boysand women, employed at the surface. They task the powers 
of thousands of steam-engines in pumping the waters from the depths ; 
in drawing the minerals from the mines; in lowering and raising the 
men; and in restoring pure air to those dark recesses in which the 
atmosphere is rapidly suffering deterioration from several causes. 

At the present time there are upwards of 3,000 collieries, and not 
less than 1,000 metalliferous mines at work in the United Kingdom. 
The produce of these—in the more important minerals only— during 
the last two years, has been as follows :-— 


1861. 1862. 

Tons, Tons. 
CoaLs . . 85,635,214 ‘5 - $1,638,338 
Tron ORE . iezlovols * - 7,562,240 
CopPpPrER : 5 231,487 5 : 224,171 
RIN’ == . 3 11,640 ° “ 14,127 
LEap 5 2 90,696 < : 95,311 
ZINC : és 15,770 2 ‘ TAIT 


PyYRITES . = 125,135 ‘ 98,433 


* Maltwood’s finder can be obtained at Smith, Beck, and Becks. 

+ These, and all the statistical returns given, are taken from the ‘ Mineral 
Statistics of the United Kingdom,’ by Robert Hunt, F.R.S., which are published 
annually by order of the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty’s Treasury. 


138 Chronicles of Scrence. | Jan. 


In addition to these, of ores of the metals, our mines give us 
Silver, Nickel, Cobalt, Tungsten, Antimony, Manganese, and others. 
Of earthy minerals we produce Barytes, Strontian, and Gypsum, in- 
dependently of the Lime, Magnesia, Porcelain, and other clays; while 
the Salt districts of Cheshire and Worcestershire give us above 900,000 
tons of Salt annually. 

Gold must be regarded as an unusual product from British rocks, 
but the Quartz lodes in the vicinity of Dolgelly gave us of that precious 
metal, in 1861, 2,784 standard ounces, of the value of 10,817/., and in 
1862, 5,299 standard ounces, the value of which was 30,3901. 

Nearly all the Lead ores of these Islands contain Silver, and from 
this source, by an interesting Metallurgical process, we obtaimed, in 
1861, 569,530 ounces, and in 1862, 686,123 ounces of sterling Silver. 

From the returns obtained by the ‘Mining Record’ Office, we 
learn that the values of the Metals produced from the ores of the 
British Islands alone, and Coals, were at the place of production— 


In 1861 at 34,602,853. 
In 1862 at 54,691,037. 


In this rapid sketch, we endeavour to convey a correct idea of the 
importance of our Mining operations, without loading our pages with 
details, which may be consulted by all who are interested in the sub- 
ject, in the publication already quoted. 

Directly connected with our Coal-Mining, one question of the 
highest importance has been recently revived :—that is, the probable 
duration of our coal-beds. Sir William Armstrong, in his Address as 
President of the British Association, at the recent Meeting at New- 
castle-on-Tyne, spoke as follows on this subjeet :—‘‘ By combining 
the known thickness of the various workable seams of coal, and com- 
puting the area of the surfsce under which they lie, it is easy to arrive 
at an estimate of the total quantity comprised in our coal-bearing 
strata. Assuming 4,000 feet as the greatest depth at which it will 
ever be possible to carry on mining operations, and rejecting all seams 
of less than two fect in thickness, the entire available coal existing in 
these Islands has been calculated to amount to about 80,000 millions 
of tons, which, at the present rate of consumption, would be exhausted 
in 930 years; but, with a continued yearly increase of two millions 
and three quarters of tons, would only last two hundred and twelve 
years.” * 

Mr. Greenwell stated a few years since his opinion that “the 
Northern coal-field would continue 331 years.” Mr. T. Y. Hall 
agrees in the main with Mr. Greenwell, and taking the annual con- 
sumption of the Newcastle coal-field at 14 millions of tons, he gives 
365 years as the period at which this coal-field will be exhausted. 
Mr. Fordyce in 1860, supposing the drain upon this coal-field to be 
20 millions of tons annually, says, “then at this rate of demand the 
coal-field would be exhausted in the course of 256.years.” + 

* Report of the Meeting of the British Association at Newcastle, 1863. 

+ See ‘The Transactions of the North of England Institute of Mining En- 
gineers,’ and Fordyce’s ‘ History of Coal, Coke, and Coal Fields,’ 1860. 


1864. | Mining, Mineralogy, and Metallurgy. 139 


In the Report presented by the Coal Trade at the recent Mecting 
of the British Association, the rate at which the reporters suppose the 
exhaustion of this coal-field is going on in 1861, is given at 21,777,570 
tons.* This quantity is above that which is given in the ‘ Mineral 
Statistics for 1862’ (we there find 19,360,356 tons recorded as the 
quantity raised and sold; but the coal wasted is not reported, owing 
to the uncertainty of the returns obtained). 

Mr. Edward Hull has devoted much attention to this important 
subject. He calculates that the total remaining supply of coal 
amounts to 79,843 millions of tons, and “that in the whole of Great 
Britain the supply is sufficient to last for upwards of a thousand years 
with a production of 72 millions of tons annually.” 

It has been already shown that the general rate of exhaustion has 
exceeded this computation by twelve millions of tons. It is not, how- 
ever, probable that there will be any long continuance of such a rapid 
increase. The progress of civilization has ever been a system of 
undulations, the maximum of elevation is reached, and the still onward 
wave subsides, the momentum acquired in its decline being the power 
by which it again rises to its highest level. Let it not be inferred 

from this that we suppose our commerce and manufactures to have 
reached their highest point. It is believed that a large extension is 
before us, but we argue, from the history of the past, that our progress 
will not be a system of continuous rise in the future. The question 
requiring the limits of time within which the coal-fields of these 
Islands will be exhausted has been hastily propounded, and no less 
hastily replied to. No satisfactory computation of the quantities of 
workable coal remaining in our several coal-fields has yet been made. 
Mr, EK. Hull, in his work already quoted, has given the best existing 
information, but those most intimately acquainted with special locali- 
ties, all alike pronounce the evidence to be incomplete. This is 
admitted, by the grant of a small sum from the funds of the British 
Association, to collect exact information on this point. The grant 
is so small, for the amount of work which is to be done, that nothing 
satisfactory can be expected from this assistance. The Government 
having at its command a trained body of men, of superior scientific 
knowledge, in the officers of the Geological Survey, with twelve In- 
spectors of Collieries, each man well acquainted with his own district, 
and a Mining Record office with its statistical returns, might, by a 
judicious arrangement, and a sufficient grant of money, determine the 
question within very small limits of error. This stock-taking would be 
a very important one, bearing as it does, on the future of every manu- 
facturing and commercial industry, which has placed our country the 
‘foremost amongst the nations,—a position which we desire to retain. 
Referring, of course to their own field only, the Reporters on the 
Northern coal-field say, “ Until further and more extensive explora- 


* “On Coal, Coke, and Coal Mining,’ by Nicholas Wood, F.G.S., John Taylor, 
John Marley, and J. W. Pease, in ‘ History of the Trade and Manufactures of 
the Tyne, Wear, and Tees.” Spon: London, 1863. 

+ ‘The Coal Fields of Great Britain,’ by Edward Hull, B.A. Second edition. 
Stanford : London. 


140 Chronicles of Scvence. [ Jan. 


tions determine at what distance beyond the coast the greatest de- 
pression of the coal-beds will be found, we are completely at fault as 
to the quantity of coal lying underneath the sea. * * * * We have 
not yet reached the threshold of such a conjecture. We have not yet 
explored one square mile of this vast unknown space, or determined 
one of the many elements required in such an intricate and uncertain 
investigation.” To a certain extent, these remarks will apply with 
all their force to other localities. The difficulties determining the 
existence of coal, and its quantity, under several unexplored regions 
are exceedingly great, and until opened out, it could only be approxi- 
mately estimated. Still we cannot but think the concluding remark 
of the Reporters, that “such an investigation can be of no practical 
utility, and that the attempt for a vast period of time is, at the least, 
premature,’ is one induced, rather by the influences of commerce, 
looking only to the present, than by the broader spirit of philan- 
thropy which embraces the future. It may not be out of place here 
to caution the less scientific of our readers from receiving, as in any 
way probable, that speculation which is echoed from book to book 
promising man that science will find, when coal is exhausted, some 
other source of heat and light, which shall be equally economical and 
as easy of application. If those speculative minds, who suppose the 
time will come when the constituents of water will be burnt, or elec- 
tricity be made an unfailing producer of heat, would but carefully 
entertain the fact, that every form of physical force is the result of 
the destruction (change of form) of matter somewhere, they would be 
more cautious in promulgating their unsupported hypotheses. To 
burn zinc or iron in a voltaic battery to produce heat or light, must 
always be infinitely more costly than burning coal in a furnace. 

The lamentable catastrophes which from time to time occur in our 
collieries, awaken public attention, and excite the utmost sympathy 
for the sorrowing survivors. That there is a deep-felt desire to 
assuage the flood of misery which falls, tempest-like, upon a colliery 
village ; and so far to improve the conditions under which the coal- 
miner labours, as to render the risks less imminent to him, is proved 
by the manner in which money was poured into the Hartley Fund. 
After some delay, the large sum whch remained unexpended, after 
every necessary want had been satisfied amongst the widows and 
orphans of those poor men who perished so miserably in that Colliery, 
has been distributed to other districts for the purpose of forming the 
nucleus of local funds to meet such exigencies as may unhappily arise. 
The public expression of feeling is loud, it will be heard and attended 
to; but, independently of the impulse which is due to this voice, 
it must not be forgotten that numerous minds are, and have been 
silently and earnestly at work, aiming to improve all the conditions of 
our collieries, and so to render accidents less common. 

We have lately, at the Morfa Colliery, in South Wales, had an 
explosion of fire-damp, by which 39 men were destroyed. This 
serious accident occurred in a colliery remarkable for its very excel- 
lent arrangements. The works were carried on under the most skilled 
colliery engineers ; the ventilation was excellent ; locked safety-lamps 


1864. | Mining, Mineralogy, and Metallurgy. 141 


were always used; and the strictness with which a well-devised code 
of rules was enforced appeared to secure this colliery from accident 
by explosion. Yet, when least expected, the fire-damp accumulates, 
and mysteriously it is fired, sweeping away in a moment 39 men, and 
strewing wreck around in its deadly progress. This sad accident 
should teach us that we must not suppose we can, by any skill or care, 
secure absolute immunity from casualties of this class. In all proba- 
bility the Morfa explosion arose from a sudden outburst of carburetted 
hydrogen gas, attended with a fall of the roof, by which the wire 
gauze of a safety-lamp became broken. It is important that a record 
should be prominently made of the fact, that the proprietors of this 
colliery, the Messrs. Vivian, refused the aid which the public readily 
offered, and that they take upon themselves the burthen of supporting 
the widows and orphans of those who perished in their employment. 
Knowing the imperfections of human nature, and the power exerted 
by selfishness over the better feelings of the heart, we are persuaded 
that both master and man would be permanently benefited by a legis- 
lative enactment, rendering it imperative that the Colliery proprietor 
should be responsible for the maintenance of the widow and the child 
of the collier, who has perished by accident in his pit. With such a 
provision, a more searching system of inspection would be introduced ; 
the workings would be kept in better order; rules would be more 
rigidly enforced ; and, as a consequence, the coal would be obtained 
in better condition, and at less cost, than at present. Beyond this, 
the Colliery proprietors would speedily protect themselves by forming 
funds to meet the exigencies as they arose. A course of this kind is 
the only one left for trial: there is surely philanthropy enough in this 
Christian land to force on the experiment. 

In nearly every division of human labour, some mechanical power 
has been introduced for the purpose of relieving the labourer from 
the constant strain made upon his muscular system. The coal-hewer 
has not, however, been in any way assisted. With the primitive pick 
and the ancient wedge, he has been compelled, often under the most 
trying conditions, to “get” the coal. This state of things may be 
accounted for by the circumstance that Mining work is performed in 
the deep and dark bowels of the earth, where there is little to attract, 
and much to repel, such minds as usually give birth to appliances of 
physical force. The subject has not been, however, entirely neglected. 
So long since as 1789, a patent appears to have been granted for 
improved machinery to be used in getting coal, and since that time 
many plans have been proposed, and some of them patented, though 
none have been successfully applied. The first machine which has 
been found capable of taking its place in the regular business of coal- 
cutting is one belonging to the West Ardsley Coal Company, Messrs. 
Firth, Donisthorpe, and Bower. This machine has been in regular 
work during the last twelve months, and it appears to be admirably 
adapted to the purpose for which it is contrived. 

The Machine— shown on the adjoining plate—is carried on a cast- 
metal frame of great firmness, the size and weight varying to suit the 
condition and thickness of the bed of coal to be operated upon. An 


[ Jan. 


Chronicles of Science. 


142 


——IN E 
en Nes iM 


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SS —=—— SS ee eh 
Sa ee SSS SS 
2 Se ee == 


ry’ 
The Ardsley Company’s Machine 


1864. | Mining, Mineralogy, and Metallurgy. 143 


Engine is mounted within this framework: it is actuated by com- 
pressed air, and so arranged as to give the blow of the pick or cutter, 
either by the pull or the push of the piston. Almost any form of engine 
is applicable, but that which is employed with advantage in practice at 
Ardsley Colliery, is the oscillating cylinder principle, whereby is 
obtained compactness of form and diminished friction in the working 
parts. The whole is carried upon wheels with flanges, sometimes 
single and sometimes double, as may be required by the nature of the 
work. It is propelled backward and forward by a wheel and screw, 
or a ratchet and pawl, which is fized on one side. On the other side 
is the valve-lever to regulate the admission and the emission of the 
‘air, and the stroke of the piston when the Machine is at work; 
the man in charge of it moves the ratchet-lever, which is con- 
nected with the gearing of the under-carriage, and thus pushes up 
the carriage on the tram, a distance equal to the cut of the previous 
blow ; and so moves on to the end of the “ bank,” or working face of the 
coal. In seams of three feet, or upwards in thickness, the man may 
sit on a movable seat fixed at the end of the Machine, but in thin 
seams this cannot be done, and he has to kneel on a truck running 
on low pulleys or rollers which travel in the rear of the cutting- 
machine. 

The cut, or groove of the coal, made by hand-labour, is a triangular 
opening varying in size according to the hardness and nature of the 
coal, but averaging from 9 to 12 inches. In firm coal the machine 
makes a cut which is not usually more’than 24 inches’ opening, and 
the under-cut is taken 3 feet into the coal. The Ardsley Coal Com- 
pany state that the coal is obtained in a better condition by machine, 
than by hand cutting, so much so that about 1s. a ton more can be 
obtained for the coal, on the yield of the seam. 

A matter of more importance than this is urged by the proprietors, 
viz. the diminished risk to the persons and lives of the employed. 

Numerous lives are lost by falls of coal. Ié will be well under- 
stood, that, if the miner has made an opening in the lower part of the 
coal, which shall be 12 inches wide on the face, and the superincum- 
bent mass of coal should by its weight fall, much care will be required 
on the part of the workman to keep himself harmless. Often, when 
working in a constrained position, the coalhewer, unable to relieve 
himself from the falling masses, is crushed to death. 

By the machine work there is much less lability to this kind of 
accident. The groove being narrow can be spragged with ease and 
system, and a slip in the coal only closes up the groove. In ordinary 
cases the coal is not pushed out; but, if it does come forward, there 
is little danger to the workman, because he can readily get out of the 
way, and if it catches the machine but litile injury is done. There 
are some technical advantages, beyond those named, which need not 
be noticed in this Journal. 

The length of the coal-cutting machine which we have described, 
has been thought by some to be a disadvantage. Difficulties are said 
to have arisen when it was required to be taken round the short elbows, 
and the abrupt curves, which often occur in a colliery. To obviate this 


144 Chronicles of Science. [Jan. 


Messrs. Ridley and Jones have constructed a new machine, which is 
about half the length of the machine in use by the Ardsley Company. 
This diminution in the length is effected by an ingenious arrangement, 


Ridley & Jenes’s Machine. 


1864. | Mining, Mineralogy, and Metallurgy. 145 


the connecting rod to which the pick is attached, acting as a substitute 
for the piston, in this way the required length of stroke is obtained, as 
it were, within the cylinder itself. 

This machine is very small and compact, being two feet two inches 
high, and three feet long, the pick being two feet six inches in length. 
As in the former case a mah and a boy attend the machine in its pro- 
gress along the ordinary tramway of the colliery. 

The following diagrams will render clear the difference between 
the two machines. Fig. 1 represents the old patent arrangement: a 
is the cylinder, b the piston, c the piston rod, d the connecting rod, e 
the crank or lever. Fig. 2 represents the new patent trunk arrange- 
ment: a is the cylinder, b the piston, ¢ the trunk, d the connecting 
rod, e the crank or lever. 


= = NY 
OMPPULMTL LAMY LU ULL TTT 
i. aw 


Yd 


S & Y 
LLIN iS 
= at 


Fia. 2. 


Hither of these machines is guaranteed to be capable of under- 
cutting a seam of coal to the depth of three feet, and to the length of 
150 yards, along the face of the coal, in the space of eight hours. These 
machines can be worked either by compressed air or by steam. At 
the Ardsley Pit, air has been employed, and the experience of eighteen 
months confirms its advantage over any other motive power, for this 
purpose. The air is pressed into a receiver on the surface, by an 
ordinary steam-engine, to a pressure of from 45 to 50 lbs. to the inch. 
It is led down the shaft 80 fathoms deep in 44-inch metal pipes, and 
hence in pipes of diminished diameter in the several directions of the 
workings, and finally into the “ Banks”’ or working faces by India- 
rubber tubing of 14-inch diameter. 

The use of air, underground, has many advantages. It is free 
from any kind of danger, and exceedingly manageable ; there is 
nothing of an inconvenient or annoying character to be guarded 
against. It is clean, dry, pure, and cool. 

Beyond all this, when the air has performed its mechanical work, it 
may be made available for sanatory purposes. When discharged from 
the cylinder of the coal-cutting machine, under a pressure of three 

VOL. I. L 


146 Chronicles of Science. [ Jan. 


atmospheres, which at 100 strokes per minute, when expanded to 
its natural volume, gives about 300 cubic feet of air, this supply can 
be sent into each working face. This air, in expanding, takes heat 
from all surrounding bodies, thus lowering the temperature of the 
mine; and it, at the same time, increases the current, and dilutes the 
noxious agents which are found, as the preducts of respiration and of 
combustion, or such as are evolved from the coal itself. The advan- 
tages of these machines are most satisfactorily proved, and many coal 
proprictors have made arrangements for their introduction to their 
several works.* How will the invention be received by the mining 
population ? is a question which many ask. Since the machine is to 
relieve the miner from his heaviest labour—to do, indeed, the drudgery 
of the pit—and thus tend to alleviate his condition, reserving his 
strength for less injurious trials, he cannot but feel that the aid 
afforded him is great, and we hope that he will receive it with ali 
thankfulness. 

In our anxiety to describe clearly the coal-cutting machines, so 
much space has been absorbed, that we feel compelled to defer to our 
next Number all notice of two or three machines—which have been 
devised, for working upon our hardest rocks,—used in driving levels 
and proposed for use in sinking shafts in our metalliferous mines. 

If the collier be exposed to injurious influences—and subject to 
violent casualties—the metalliferous miner is subjected to conditions 
so much more distressing, that, although we seldom hear of such dire 
calamities as those which follow from an explosion of fire-damp, it is 
too well known that the number who perish young, from the con- 
sequences of their labour, is fur greater, relatively, than the deaths 
occurring amongst the coal-miners. Every mechanical aid, therefore, 
which proves a benefit in one case, becomes a yet greater blessing in 
the other. We expect before our second Number can appear, that the 
Report of Lord Kinnaird’s Commission, “To inquire into the sanatory 
conditions of the metalliferous miner,” will have been published, and, 
consequently, it will demand our attention in connection with the 
boring machinery—analogous to that employed in driving the tunnel 
through Mont Cenis—which promises to take the wearying task of 
‘beating the borer” from the failing arm of flesh, and transfer it to 
the resistless arm of iron. 

It is interesting to find, that some successful attempts have been 
made to introduce so much of science amongst our miners as promises 
to facilitate their labours, and relieve them from the liability to error, 
which is ever the attendant on ignorance. ; 

The Miners’ Association of Cornwall and Devonshire, and the 
Mining Schools of Bristol, Wigan, and Glasgow, are doing good work. 
At the same time as those local institutions, supported by limited 
subscriptions, are earnestly at work, the Royal School of Mines in 
London, supported by an annual vote from the House of Commons, 
is providing a numerous staff of young men furnished with all the 
resources of modern science, to undertake the direction of the ore- 


* We believe that the new coal cutting-machine has been at work three months 
or more at the Ince Hall Colliery.—Ep. 


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Quarterly Journal of Science, 


VEINS WITH THROWS 7 


OF ONE AND TWELVE FATHOMS. 


“MILLSTONE GRIT. 


bin 25 BEDS? 
PUES UOVEN 


P= SP LATE, 
BLACK BEDS 

y LIMESTONEC 7 1x7], 
MAIN CHERT 


OG DY ay ey) 


AIMESTONE 
MAIN CHERT 


We EAeNS ag 


LIMESTONE 


UNDERSET CHERT 


[\JUNDERSET LIMEX/\ 


10 FATHOMS. 


PSHE: 


UNDERSET CHERT 


NSCTAY [Ene RSET MELA 


gnaras) 
SELMER 


SCALE 
nC 20 x Fa 90 Fathoms 
Most productive portion of the vein (with or without rider) PE 
Productive in the presence of a rider SCG y0y79 
Uncertain portions eee 
Unproductive. 
Unexplored HURETRATOECVUHLEUTA AETV 


1864. | Mining, Mineralogy, and Metallurgy. 147 


mines, the engincering difficulties of which are rapidly augmenting 
with the increasing depth. 

The uncertainty which attends the conditions of any of our 
mineral lodes or veins, is one of the causes which has led to the 
unfortunate spirit of gambling which marks too many Mining specu- 
lations. It may never be possible to pronounce with certainty, 
whether a mineral lode shall prove rich, in the metalliferous ores, in” 
depth. But it is certainly within the limits of human knowledge to 
be able to pronounce on the high probabilities of any subterranean 
exploration being remunerative or otherwise. 

The Philosopher who stands upon the surface of the Earth, and 
frames his hypothesis, as to the laws by which the metals have been 
deposited in the fissures of the rocks, is as likely to run wildly wrong, 
as the untaught miner, who, without a knowledge of one of the Physical 
Forces, persuades himself that he has an unfailing rule for determining 
the value of the hidden treasures. Neither the one nor the other will 
ever advance knowledge by his guesses. Teach the Miner to observe 
carefully, and to record his observations correctly—then call in the 
aid of the Philosopher, and his deductions from a sufficient number of 
well-observed facts will possess a high value. It is an important and 
a most favourable feature of the present time, that several practical 
miners are employed in endeavours to determine if any constant law 
can be discovered in relation to the accumulation of the Metalliferous 
ores in lodes. 

M. Moisenet, Ingénieur des Mines,—who has himself examined 
with great industry the Metal Mines of this country,—has endeavoured 
to refer the conditions of our mineral deposits to actions influenced 
by the direction of our great mountain ranges. In this country 
Mr. Lonsdale Bradley has published a valuable set of sections of 
the strata, in the lead-bearing rocks of Swaledale; and given careful 
explanations of the actual conditions observed in the veins. 

Those sections instruct us on some points, which from their almost 
constant occurrence, assume the conditions of a law. These are that 
Limestoves and Cuerts are the beds which are productive of lead, and 
that the Grits and Pats are wholly unproductive. All mineral veins 
must be regarded as lines of dislocation; the strata seldom being pre- 
cisely similar on both sides of the fissure or lode. Those disturbances 
are locally termed “ throws.” The sections published by Mr. L. Brad- 
ley appear to prove, amongst other facts, “ That veins of simple throws 
are the most productive of lead-ore from having ore-bearing or ore- 
producing beds on each side of the veins, opposite or nearly so to each 
other ;” “that veins of large throws are invariably unproductive, because 
the ore-bearing beds are thrown past each other, and that cross veins 
of large throws when productive of lead ore are usually so in the 
Limestones.””* 
fully drawn to scale—in Mr. Bradley’s book, these conditions are 
clearly shown. The accompanying lithographed examples of two 
lands of “throw” will fully illustrate this position. 


* «An Inquiry into the Deposition of Lead Ore in the Mineral Veins of Swale- 
dale, Yorkshire.” By Lonsdale Bradley, F.G.S8. Edward Stanford, London, 1862. 
L 2 


148 Chronicles of Science. [ Jan. 


A far more extensive inquiry has been made by Mr. Wallace of 
Alston Moor, with a view to the solution of this problem, and he is 
fully persuaded that, as far as this district is concerned, he has arrived 
at the true solution.* The balance of evidence is greatly in favour of 
the hypothesis put forth. It is not possible, within the limits of a 
summary notice, to explain satisfactorily the views of this writer. 
Suflice it to say, that Mr. Wallace regards the mineral lodes as chan- 
nels through which, the waters accumulated on the surface, and 
percolating the rock, were discharged. These waters are supposed to 
derive from the adjacent rocks, or from some other source, the minerals 
which are subsequently deposited in those larger channels. 'The rich- 
ness of any lode is determined by several conditions, all of which, 
however, may be regarded as disturbing causes. For example if, into 
a main channel of fissure, several lateral fissures flow, it is found that 
along the main fissure or lode, it is productive of metallic ores at 
these parts. 

Several good examples of this are given in Mr. Wallace’s beautifully 
executed map; one of these we copy. It is a portion of the great 
Rodderup Fell vein, and shows that the lode is unproductive except 
where the numerous small lateral veins, as shown in our drawing, 
have been channels in which fluids have been collected and conveyed 
to the larger fissure. The vein has proved remarkably productive of 


S 


lead in those parts. Mr. Wallace’s book is a valuable contribution 
to the very limited literature which exists in the English language, on 
mines and mineral deposits. That attention has been awakened to 
this question, is further proved from the fact, that at the last meeting 
of the Miners’ Association of Cornwall, two Cornish miners contributed 
papers on the subject. 

Such are the matters of interest connected with British Mining, 
which have recently presented themselves. 

As illustrating the value of our mines in relation to those of other 
countries, it is satisfactory to be able to examine two very recently 


* «The Laws which reeulate the Deposition of Lead Ore in Veins : Illustrated 
by an Examination of the Geological Structure of the Mining Districts of Alston 
Moor.’ By William Wallace, Edward Stanford, London. 


1864. | Mining, Mineralogy, and Metallurgy. 149 


published returns, which have been issued by the Governments of Spain 
and Prussia. 

The number of productive mines, in Spain, in 1862, was 1,798, 
employing 32,789 miners. The results of their labours, and those of 
the smelter, were as follows :*— 


MINERALS. Merra.s. 
Tons Tons. 
WeRCdiOresr.a cme OOD (D0) mais eel aa OOaT ILL 
(Oo m6 6 6 1 CAMUEET CG Me po ASHI 
906 Cast . . 34,022 
Iron. - + - 128,333 | Wrought) 32,131 
JAVIER Seton Pee Re ioe bbe 2,180 
Quicksilver Ores . 17j;984 i. . =. 923 
Silver aks ZI GO} ait iged Cok 715 
Tin ee ES GOR stipe dew iis cs 635 
Coal ODOM GAS Ba oo al ae — 
Sulphuri@ressesae e2e-7gOn eal ay eae en Ss040 
Mancanesers, 2) 2 plod, SGa cts ssc ents — 


Of the above quantities, the Government mines of Linares produced 
of lead-ore, 3,521 tons; lead, 2,232 tons ; those of Rio ‘Tinto of copper- 
ore, 79,057 tons, or 1,170 of fine copper; and the important mercury 
mines of Almaden, 11,191 tons of ore of Cinnabar, yielding of quick- 
silver, 894 tons. Although Spain produces the largest quantity of 
lead-ores, its produce of lead falls below that of Great Britain, 
owing to the poorness of the minerals, their average produce falling 
below 18 per cent., while the produce of the lead-ores of England 
averages about 70 per cent. 

The Prussian Government has published a valuable set of Mineral 
and Metallic statistics—being an account of the mineral production of 
the States for the ten years, 1852—61.t From this it appears that 
the total value of these products amounted in 1861, to 4,685,000/. 
sterling. The number of mines worked were 2,304, and of workmen ° 
employed 115,341. Notwithstanding the insignificance of these 
returns as compared with the mineral wealth of Britain, it is clear 
that the production of minerals in Prussia has increased more than 
six-fold during the past twenty-five years. 

The latest returns furnished by the French Government of the 
production of ‘“ Metals other than Iron,” show that in twelve depart- 
ments there existed 23 mines in which were employed 3,072 workmen. 
The value of the argentiferous lead produced was 1,545,365 francs— 
and of other metals, 601,623 frances. 

There are few sciences which move so slowly as Mineralogy—not- 
withstanding the Treatises by Dana,{ by Brooke and Miller,$ and the 


* «Revista Minera.’ Madrid, lst Nov. 1863. 

+ ‘Zusammenstellung der statistischen Ergebnisse des Bergwerks, Hiitten- 
und Salinen-Betriebes in dem Preussischen Staate wahrend der Zehn Jahre yon 
1852 bis 1861” Bearbeitet von E. Althaus. 4to. Berlin: 1863. 

¢ ‘A System of Mineralogy ; comprising the most recent Discoveries.’ By 
James D. Dana, A.M. 

§ ‘An Elementary Introduction to Mineralogy.’ By the late William Phillips. 
New edition, with extensive alterations and additions by H. J. Brooke, F.R.S., 
F.G.8., and W. H. Miller, M.A., F.R.S., F.G.S. 


150 Chronicles of Science. |Jan 


Glossary by Bristow,* which last will be found one of the most useful 
of books to the young student in this interesting field, the science of 
minerals makes no advance. This is referable to the cumbrous, un- 
natural, and confusing nomenclature which besets it. To call oxide of 
tin, Cassiterite, because it is found in a place which probably was at 
one time called The Cassiterides,—aud to name Copper-glance, or di- 
sulphide of copper, Redruthite, on the erroneous supposition that the 
best specimens of this Mineral are found near Redruth, is neither more 
nor less than absurd. It is hoped that the system of exact nomen- 
clature which has tended so much to advance Chemical science, will 
ere long be applied to Mineralogy. 

There has recently been published in Paris a valuable Manual of 
Mineralogy,t to which we direct the attention of students. It was, 
the author informs us, his first intention to have translated the ex- 
cellent work on this science by Brooke and Miller. He was, however, 
induced by some considerations, connected chiefly with the optical 
section of the science, to write a new book, of which the first volume 
only is published. To those students of Mineralogy who desire to 
enter earnestly on the study of Crystallography—and the optical 
characters of crystals—this Manual will be a valuable aid. The 
completeness with which the localities of the mineral described are 
given, renders this work an example to some of our English Mineralo- 
gists, who have not shown the requisite caution in determining these 
with exactness. Indeed, by trusting to some of these, M. Des Cloizeaux 
has occasionally been led astray. 

Dr. Wedding, of Bonn, has directed attention to an ore of alumi- 
nium occurring at Baux, near Avignon; hence it has been named 
Bauwite. According to Meissionier, it penetrates the chalk as a vein- 
like mass for a length of nearly two miles. This ore has been mistaken 
for an iron ore, and employed as such. It consists essentially of 
alumina and peroxide of iron—which reciprocally replace each other 
—and water. It contains also small quantities of silicic acid, tita- 
nium, and vanadium; some varieties contain about 80 per cent. of 
alumina, and others almost as much oxide of iron. This ore is 
applied by MM. Morin and Co. of Nanterre, and Messrs. Bell of 
Newcastle, to the manufacture of aluminium. 


The discovery of rock-salt at Middleton-on-Tees, by Messrs. 
Bolchow and Vaughan, is of great probable importance. A bed of 
rock-salt 99 feet in thickness has been pierced by boring at the 
depth of 1,206 feet from the surface. Mr. Marley’s paper on this 
discovery, which was read at the Newcastle Meeting of the British 
Association, is about to be published in a revised form by the 
Institute of Mining Engineers—to this we shall again refer. 

Professor N. 8. Maskelyne and Dr. Viktor Von Lang, of the 
British Museum, have contributed some interesting notices of Aérolites, 
which are supposed to have fallen within recent years.~ These 


* « A Glossary of Mineralogy.’ By Henry William Bristow, F.G.8. 
+ ‘Manuel de Minéralogie.’ Par A. Des Cloizeaux, Tom.i. Paris: Dunod, 
t ' Philosophical Magazine,’ August, 1863. 


1864. } Mining, Mineralogy, and Metallurgy. 151 


notices were commenced in No. 165 of the ‘Philosophical Magazine,’ 
by a paper ‘on Aérolites,’ which included notices of a fall of stones at 
Butsura, in India, in May, 1861. Their more recent paper contains 
an account of two other meteorites. One of these stones fell at Khira- 
gurh, 28 miles’ south-east of Bhurtpoor, on the 28th March, 1860. 
Another—of which a more detailed account is given—fell on the 
16th August, 1843, at Manegaum, in the collectorate of Khandeish, 
in India. 

Of the Manegaum stone, some fragments, amounting only to 
2% ounces, have been preserved in the collection of the Asiatic Society 
of Bengal, at Calcutta,* and a specimen is deposited in the British 
Museum. The evidence of the fall of this stone is given in the 
following words :— 

“wo villagers described the fall as having been witnessed by 
them. There had been several claps of thunder with lightning some 
two hours previously, and the northern heavens were heavily charged 
with clouds; but no rain had fallen for eight days before, nor did any 
fall for four days after, the event. Their attention was arrested by 
‘several heavy claps of thunder and lightning,’ and they ran out of 
a shed to look around, when they saw the aérolite fall in a slanting 
direction from north to south ‘ preceded by a flash of lightning.’ 
It buried itself 5 inches in the ground, and appeared as a mass of 
about 15 inches long, and 5 inches diameter. It exhibited a black 
vitreous exterior, and was of a greyish yellow inside. At first, the 
observers stated it to have been (as is recorded of the Bokkeveldt 
aérolite) comparatively plastic, and at any rate to have become more 
hard and compact subsequently. There was only one stone seen, and 
that was smashed to pieces. Another witness mentioned that the 
stone was at first cool, but in a short time became rather warm.” 
The evidence which is being accumulated by Shepard, Haidinger, and 
others, added to the chemical and physical examinations to which 
these aérolites have been subjected, by Rose, Maskelyne, and Lang, is 
advancing our knowledge of the peculiarities which belong to those 
remarkable bodies. The chemical constitution and the lthological 
characteristics of a peculiar class of stones, appear to prove their 
meteoric origin. It must, at the same time, be evident to all, that 
the utmost caution is necessary in examining all the evidence brought 
forward as descriptive of the phenomena accompanying the fall of 
stones through the atmosphere—and that, especially, which has led to 
the assumption that certain physical and chemical peculiarities are 
characteristic of, and unmistakably indicate, a true meteoric origin. 

Dr. C. T. Jackson, of Boston, U.S., gives us some interesting 
particulars of a mass of Meteoric Iron from the Dakota Indian terri- 
tory. It was found on the surface of the ground, 90 miles from any 
road or dwelling, and from its presenting a bright surface when cut, 
it was thought to be silver. A portion of about 10 lbs. weight was 
broken from the original mass, which weighed about 100 lbs. This 


* «Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal’ for 1844 contains the first 
account of this aérolite. 


152, Chronicles of Science. | Jan. 


was subjected to analysis, and its meteoric character supposed to be 
determined. The constituents of the Aérolite were— 


Metallieiiron ee uno laioe 

Pe Nickell mca). sermOro 
iN ftw ee oetoy soniye A OROOS: - 
BhosphoTusisweeen enn ue CAO LO 


Cobalt and chrome were also detected.* 


We have already given the value of the Metallurgical products of 
British ores ; there is little of novelty in the furnace operations to which 
they are subjected. Although numerous patents have been completed, 
and notices of many more given, for improvements in the processes of 
smelting the several metallic ores, there is scarcely anything of suff- 
cient importance to require special notice. One Patent for ‘ separating 
Silver and other Metals from Lead,” founded on a principle discovered 
by M. Clement Roswag, Engineer, of Paris, promises to be successful. 

In carrying out this invention, the first operation consists in fusing 
the lead containing silver and incorporating zinc therewith. For 
this purpose a suitable furnace is provided with a melting-pot or 
vessel, in which the lead and zinc are melted, the zine being placed in 
suitable tubes or holders, and deposited, after the lead is melted, at the 
bottom of the vessel, so that as it melts it rises up through the molten 
lead by reason of its less specific gravity, and by means of agitators it 
is uniformly distributed in its passage through the fluid lead. When 
the whole of the zinc is melted and has risen to the surface of the 
molten lead, the zine holders and the agitators are removed from the 
vessel, and the alloy of zinc and silver is skimmed off the surface, to 
be operated upon in the ordinary manner by oxidation. The molten lead, 
which now contains a small percentage of zinc, is next run off into the 
hollow of a reverberatory furnace, such as is generally used for an- 
nealing and refining lead, and the zincy lead is purified by keeping it 
in a state of fusion at a dull red heat, and subjecting it to the action 
of the vapours or gases arising from the burning or decomposition of 
pieces of green wood enclosed in suitable tubes or holders below the 
surface of the molten lead; the dross of the zine (called seconds) is 
skimmed off during the process, and is added to the alloy of zine and 
silver previously obtained. The lead thus refined is run into ingots 
for sale or use. 

Under the name of Wasium, a new Metal has been recently an- 
nounced by M, Bahr, as existing in the Orthite of Norway. M. Nickles 
denies the reality of the discovery—according to him, the supposed 
new simple body is but impure Yttrium. 

We expected to have examined Dr, Percy’s second volume of Me- 
tallurgy, which will be devoted to Iron and Steel ; although long since 
announced, it is not yet ready for publication. We may, however, 
safely predict that this work will be a valuable contribution to the 
Metallurgy of iron. 

The late Exhibition furnished many striking illustrations of the 
importance of mechanical improvements to the worker in Metals. 


* «The American Journal of Science and Arts. Conducted by Professor 
B, Silliman and others. No. 107, September, 1863. 


1864. | Mining, Mineralogy, and Metallurgy. 153 


This has been most strikingly shown in the application of mechanical 
engineering to several branches of iron manufacture. 

There are few things which illustrate the giant power of machinery 
more entirely than the manufacture of armour-plates. A number of 
scientific men, and some of the Lords of the Admiralty, witnessed 
recently a great experiment with some new Rolling Mills belonging 
to John Brown of Sheffield. These rolls have a first foundation of 
no less than 60 tons of solid iron, resting on masonry carried far 
below the earth. The rollers themselves are 32 inches in diameter, 
and 8 feet wide, and are turned by an engine of 400-horse power. 
A powerful screw, applying its force through compound levers, 
allows the distance between the rollers to be adjusted to the frac- 
tion of an inch, so that the plate which on its first rolling, is 
forced through an interval of—for instance—12 inches apart is, on 
its next, wound through one of ten inches, next through one of 
8 inches, and so on until the required thickness has been carefully 
and equally attained by compression through every part of the metal. 
When the enormous mass of iron to be rolled was first taken from 
the heating furnace, and brought to the rollers, it was found that they 
did not bite directly the mass came to them, and when they did, the 
engine was almost brought to a stand-still by the tremendous strain 
upon it; but at last the soft plate yielded, and the rollers wound it 
slowly in, squeezing out jets of melted iron, that shot about as the 
pile was compressed from 19 inches to 17 inches by the force of the 
rollers. From the time the mass had once passed through the mill, 
it was kept rolling backwards and forwards, the workmen sweeping 
from its face the scales of oxide that gathered fast upon it. Every 
time the plate was passed through, the rollers were squeezed closer 
and closer together, until at the end of a quarter of an hour from leaving 
the furnace, an almost melted mass, it was passed through the rolls for 
the last time, and came out a finished armour-plate, weighing 20 tons, 
19 feet long, nearly 4 feet wide, and exactly 12 inches thick through- 
out from end to end. 

Attention has been directed by Lieut-Colonel H. Clerk, R.A., to 
a matter of some engineering importance, “‘The Change of Form 
assumed by Wrought Iron and other Metals when Heated and then 
Cooled by partial Immersion in Water.” The experiments recorded 
in a communication made by Colonel Clerk to the Royal Society 
originated in this way :— 

“A short time ago, when about to shoe a wheel with a hoop tire, 
to which it was necessary to give a bevel of about $th of an inch, one 
of the workmen suggested that the bevel could be given by heating the 
tire red hot, and then immersing it one-half its depth in cold water. 
This was tried and found to answer perfectly, that portion of the tire 
which was out of the water being reduced in diameter.” These experi- 
ments have an important bearing on many engineering problems; the 
general result appears to prove that metals heated to redness, and 
partially cooled, by having one portion only placed in cold water, 
contract about one inch above the water line, and that this is the same, 
whether the metal be immersed one-half or two thirds of its depth. 


154 Chronicles of Science. | Jan. 


VIII. PHOTOGRAPHY. 


By far the most important subject which has arisen in this branch 
during the last quarter, or, indeed, for many years past, is the alleged 
discovery of photographs taken half a century before the recognized 
birth of this art. An immense mass of evidence, direct and collateral, 
has been collected together in the most conscientious and energetic 
manner by Mr. Smith, Curator of the Patent Museum, and it certainly 
affords strong grounds for the presumption that no less than three, if 
not four, distinct classes of pictures, each by a different process, pro- 
duced about the year 1790, are now in existence, there being the 
strongest circumstantial evidence that they are bond fide photographs. 
One is on a silver plate, pronounced by leading members of the Pho- 
tographic Society to be an undoubted photograph from nature, the 
subject being Mr. Boulton’s house, which was pulled down in 1791; 
the picture was found amongst papers in Mr. Boulton’s library, which 
had not been disturbed during the present century. There are also 
two pictures—one of them undeniably a photograph—which were 
found by Miss Meteyard amongst papers supplied to her for the 
purpose of writing a life of Wedgwood, the great potter; and from 
documents of that date they are said to have been produced by the 
younger Wedgwood, reference being made to a lens, camera, and 
chemicals. There is also the hearsay evidence of an old retainer of 
the Boulton family, lately dead, of the silver picture of Mr. Boulton’s 
house having been taken by placing a camera on the lawn; and there 
was a society called the ‘ Lunar Society,’ the members of which were 
said to produce pictures by using a dark room, throwing the images 
on to a table, and fixing them by some chemical. The whole subject 
has recently been brought before the Photographic Society, and, on a 
careful analysis of the evidence, there is the very strongest presump- 
tion, short of absolute certainty, that this important discovery was 
made, and then suffered to die out. Only a few links in the chain are 
wanting to establish the actual proof, and from the intense excitement 
the subject has now occasioned, there is little doubt that it will be 
sifted to the bottom. 


The measurement of the chemical action of light has lately received 
considerable attention. Dr. Phipson* has published a process which 
appears to promise very good results ; it is based upon the fact, that a 
solution of sulphate of molybdic acid is reduced by the action of light 
to a lower state of oxidation ; and by measuring this amount of reduc- 
tion by chemical means, a correct estimate of the amount of actinism 
used up in the operation is obtained. The measurement is done with 
a standard solution of permanganate of potash; and Dr. Phipson 
states that his observations have disclosed the fact, that the amount of 
actinism during the day varies considerably, describing curves, which 
are not only irregular, but sometimes present sudden deflections of 
considerable extent. This phenomenon has been noticed before. 
During the last summer many correspondents of the ‘ Photographic 


* «Chemical News,’ vol. viii. p. 135. 


1864. | Photography. 155 


News’ have stated that, on certain days during particular hours, there 
seemed to be an almost total absence of actinic force. In some in- 
stances five and six times the ordinary exposure were given with very 
imperfect results ; and in other instances twenty times were tried with 
no effect. No particular atmospheric influence could be detected at work; 
and on subsequent days, apparently identical in light and clearness, 
photographic operations were conducted with their usual celerity. 
The cause of this great variation appears to have some connection 
with the dryness of the atmosphere, the days on which the absence of 
actinism was most marked having been intensely hot and free from 
humidity. It is much to be desired that a simple system of actino- 
metry should come into general use. The processes of Draper, Niépce 
de St. Victor, Bunsen and Roscoe, Herschel, Phipson, and others, are 
very useful, but rather too tedious for general use. What we want is 
some method of reading off the amount of actinism as simply as we 
read off the amount of heat with the thermometer. 


A most elaborate series of researches on the behaviour of chloride, 
bromide, and iodide of silver in the light, and on the theory of photo- 
graphy, has recently been published by M. H. Vogel.* The researches 
have extended over three years, and are of the most exhaustive cha- 
racter. We have only space to give some of the bare results which he 
has obtained, and must refer our readers for further particulars to the 
original memoir. The author considers that the action of light upon 
chloride and bromide of silver is first the production of a subchloride 
and subbromide, with liberation of chlorine and bromine, but that 
the iodide of silver undergoes no chemical change whatever. The 
action of acids and various saline solutions, especially nitrate of silver, 
has been studied very carefully, and some of the results are of con- 
siderable value. The effect of developing agents has been likewise 
examined, and the whole memoir constitutes one of the most im- 
portant contributions to the science of photography ever published. 


A valuable improvement has been inaugurated in the manufacture 
of lenses for photographic purposes. By the ordinary method of 
grinding and polishing, the surface is not left in a state of perfection 
anything approaching that required for astronomical glasses. For the 
usual photographic processes this surface is quite good enough, al- 
though, when carefully examined with a powerful glass, it will be seen 
covered with irregularities, the remains of the last stages of the grind- 
ing process. ‘T'o attain greater perfection entirely different means have 
to be employed, and the costly nature of this operation is one reason 
why telescopic lenses are so valuable. For some purposes, however, in 
which it is absolutely necessary to get perfect delineation, as in the 
copying maps, &c., a lens ground in the ordinary way would be inap- 
plicable, and perfection must not be hoped for unless the lens possesses 
a perfectly continuous spherical surface with the highest possible 
polish. Mr. Osborn, the photographer to the Melbourne Government, 
who is engaged in copying maps for the Melbourne Survey Office, has 
just ordered a lens from Mr. Dallmeyer, the cost of which is to be 


* Poggendorf’s ‘ Annalen,’ 1863, p. 497. 


156 Chronicles of Science. | Jan. 


2501. It will be a triple achromatic, and the glasses will probably 
require months for their completion, during the whole of which time 
the grinding and polishing machinery will have to be moving under 
the personal superintendence of one of the first practical opticians in 
England. The experiment is necessarily a costly one, and photo- 
graphers are naturally anxious to see if the result compensates for the 
enormous additional expense. The Melbourne Government deserve 
the thanks of all photographers for the spirit of enterprise they have 
shown in the matter. 


From time to time rock crystal lenses have been recommended on 
account of their superior transparency to the chemical rays of light. 
Mr. Grubb has put this theory to the test of experience, and finds that 
the difference is not so great as has been imagined; for instance, a 
compound lens of the ordinary make transmits 87 for every 100 rays 
which the rock crystal allows to pass. It is therefore only 13 per 
cent. worse, whilst in flatness of field and achromatism, the glass lens 
is much superior. 

M. Gaudin suggests that lenses should be made from fused rock 
crystal. The manufacture of these is simply a question of expense, 
and they might possibly be achromatized by the employment of other 
suitably transparent minerals. 

A new fixing agent, sulpho-cyanide of ammonium, is likely ere 
long to supersede hyposulphite of soda. The advantages claimed are, 
permanence of the print, and great facility in the washing operations ; 
but, on the other hand, the expense is likely to be an objection. A 
little time ago, the new agent cost 4s. an ounce; there are rumours 
that it can now be procured in Paris for 1s. 13d. per Ib., although we 
have been quite unable to obtain any at this price, and Mr. Spence, 
the manufacturing chemist of Manchester, has just erected large ap- 
paratus, by means of which he hopes to supply the sulpho-cyanide at 
even a less price. We may therefore reasonably anticipate that sulphur 
toning, yellow whites, and fading positives, will soon have gone the 
way of the Dodo and Megatherium. 


Celestial photography is making great strides on the other side of 
the Atlantic. Dr. Henry Draper has just completed a large reflecting 
telescope, 16 inches in aperture, and 13 feet focus, which he intends 
to devote to this branch of science. ‘he mirror is of glass, covered at 
Sir John Herschel’s suggestion, with a film of precipitated silver. It 
is sustained in a walnut tube, hooked with brass, and specially mounted 
to avoid tremor. When in use the instrument is allowed to be at rest, 
clockwork being used only to drive the sensitive plate. By this means, 
only 1 oz. instead of half a ton, is moved. A photographic laboratory 
is attached to the observatory, and the apparatus is arranged to take 
photographs of the moon as large as 3 feet in diameter, being on a scale 
of less than 50 miles to the inch. From the reputation which Dr. 
Draper has already earned as a photographer and physical philo- 
sopher, we are justified in expecting that celestial photography will 
advance rapidly in his hands. 


1864. | Physics. 157 


Px! PHYSICS. 
Lieut, Heat, anp Execrriciry. 


Liaut.—The cause of the scintillations of stars has long been a 
puzzle, not only to children, but to philosophers. Many explanations 
have been given, but none are quite satisfactory. Mr. A. Claudet * 
has thrown some new light upon this subject, by an instrument which 
he has devised, called the chromatoscope. He attributes the beautiful 
sparkling, with changing colours, exhibited by certain stars on a clear 
night, to the evolution in different degrees of swiftness of the various 
coloured rays they emit. These rays are supposed to divide during 
their long and rapid course through space, and we see them following 
each other in quick succession, but so rapidly that, although we see 
distinctly the various colours, we cannot judge of the separate lengths 
of their duration. Mr. Claudet’s instrument consists of a reflecting 
telescope, part of which is caused to rotate eccentrically in such a 
manner, that instead of a point a ring-like image of the star is seen. 
The rapidity of rotation is adjusted so that each separate colour 
given by the star is drawn out into a large segment of the ring, and 
in that manner the light from the star can be analysed as in a spectro- 
scope. 


In observing the rays of sunlight through a powerful spectroscope 
many additional lines are visible when the sun is near the horizon. 
These are called telluric rays, as they have been shown to owe their 
existence to some components of the earth’s atmosphere. Father 
Secchi, the Roman Astronomer, considers that aqueous vapour in the 
atmosphere is the principal cause of these telluric rays, and this 
opinion has been generally adopted by physicists: but M. Volpicelli ¢ 
now describes experiments to prove that these rays are independent of 
the presence or absence of aqueous vapour in the atmosphere. In our 
opinion his experiments are scarcely conclusive ; for it is quite reason~ 
able to suppose that the passage of light through 100 miles of atmo- 
sphere might produce effects which could not be imitated in a labora- 
tory experiment. 

The determination of the refracting power of various transparent 
liquids and solids, a matter of considerable practical importance, is 
usually effected by reference to certain well-known lines in the solar 
spectrum. It would be much easier to have recourse to the bright 
spectral lines of coloured flames, which are obtainable with ease at any 
time, whereas the employment of Fraiinhofer’s lines is dependent on 
the weather. For accurate experiments it is necessary to know the 
length of the waves for the differently coloured rays, and this informa- 
tion has been supplied by Dr. J. Miiller,t by means of one of Nobert’s 
well-divided glass screens. His results show that the length of wave 

* Phil. Mag.’ No. 175. 
+ ‘Cosmos,’ vol. xxiii. p. 430. 
t Poggendort’s ‘ Annalen,’ vol, exviii. p. 641. 


158 Chronicles of Science. | Jan. 


of the red lithium line is 0:0006733 millimetres. The wave length 
of the yellow sodium line is 0:0005918 millim ; * that of the green 
thallium line is 0°:0005348 millim, whilst that of the blue strontium 
line is 0:0004631 millim. 


Perhaps the most powerful spectroscope in the world has recently 
been constructed by Professor Cooke. It has nine bisulphide of carbon 
prisms, which are constructed of cast-iron, with parallel sides of glass, 
special precautions being taken to remedy the curvature of the glass 
plate from the hardening of the glue. The nine prisms are almost 
optically perfect, and the light is bent by them through nearly 360°. 
By its means Professor Cooke has established the following points :— 
1. The lines of the solar spectrum are as innumerable as the stars ; 
at least ten times as many being visible as are shown in Kirchhofi’s 
Chart, with an infinitude of nebulous bands, just on the point of being 
resolved. No less than nine additional lines are seen enclosed within 
the fixed line D, one being nebulous and showing signs of resolva- 
bility under further increase of power. 2. It proves that the coinci- 
dences between the metallic lines of artificial spectra and the corres- 
ponding dark lines of the solar spectrum remain perfect under this 
increase of optical power. The two sodium lines can be spread out 
so as to allow of the thousandth part of the intermediate space being 
distinguished, and still their coincidence with the Fraiimhofer lines is 
absolute. 38. Many of the bands of metallic spectra are broad coloured 
spaces crossed by bright lines; this is especially the case in the calcium, 
barium, and strontium spectra. 


Some reliable experiments on the photometric value of the electrie 
light have been published by Professor W. B. Rogers.t The battery was 
very powerful, consisting of 250 carbon elements, each having an active 
zine surface of 85 square inches. They were grouped in fine battalions 
of 50 each, and the light was obtained in an apartment where a range 
of about 50 feet could be obtained for the photometric apparatus. In- 
stead of an ordinary standard light, equivalent to 20 candles, a unit 
was substituted ten times as great, equal therefore to 200 candles. By 
a series of experiments with the naked electric light unaided by a re- 
flector, it was found that its intensity was from 52 to 61 times as great 
as the standard light, making it equal in illuminating power from 10,000 
to 12,000 standard sperm candles. With the rays concentrated by a 
parabolic reflector, its illuminating force had a value equal to several 
millions of candles all pouring forth their light at the same time. The 
only previous measurement of the illuminating power of the electric 
light which we can call to mind is one given by Bunsen. This was 
taken with a less powerful battery (48 cells), and the photometric 
equivalent was estimated at 572 candles; giving a proportion of 12 
candles to the cell, whilst Professor Rogers’ estimate gives the ratio 
of 40 candles to the cell. 


* Fraiinhofer’s measurement for the dark line D of the solar spectrum gave it 
a wave leneth of 0:0005888. 
+ ‘Silliman’s Journal,’ vol. xxxvi. p. 307. 


1864. | Physics. 159 


An improved process for silvering glass for telescopic purposes has 
been published by M. Martin.* Sle uses four liquids :—The first 
being a 10 per cent. solution of nitrate of silver; the second, liquor 
ammonie sp. gr. ‘970; the third, a 4 per cent. solution of caustic 
soda; and the fourth, a 123 per cent. solution of white sugar, to which 
he adds a 4 per cent. of nitric acid, and after 20 minutes’ ebullition 
adds 25 parts of alcohol, and water to make up the bulk to 250, The 
silvering liquid is made by mixing together twelve parts of solution 1 ; 
then eight parts of No. 2; next twenty parts of No. 3; then sixty parts 
of distilled water ; and finally, in twenty-four hours’ time, ten parts of 
No. 4. The object to be silvered is then to be immersed in, when it 
will be immediately covered with a film of reduced silver, which in ten 
or fifteen minutes’ time will be sufficiently thick for use. After having 
been well washed with distilled water and dried, the surface may be 
polished with chamois leather and rouge. 


During some researches on the compounds of mercury with the 
organic radicals, Dr. Frankland and Mx. B. Duppa discovered a sub- 
stance which they call mercuric methide. This body is a transparent 
colourless liquid, of the specific gravity of 3:069, so heavy, in fact, that 
dense lead glass floats upon its surface. It has been suggested by Mr. 
Spiller that this would be an admirable liquid for fluid prisms. At pre- 
sent the only substance suited for this purpose is bisulphide of carbon, 
which is not half the density, besides being objectionable on account of 
its offensive odour, its great volatility, and easy ignition. Mercurie 
methide is superior to bisulphide of carbon in all these respects, and 
its preparation in quantity would not be attended with any particular 
difficulty. 


A most ingenious application of some well-known facts connected 
with the reflection of light by prisms, has been brought forward by 
Mr. Henry Swan, at the meeting of the British Association. He takes 
two rectangular prisms of flint glass, placed with their widest sides in 
contact. ‘The two copule of a stereoscopic picture are placed in con- 
tact with this combination, one being at the back and the other at the 
side. Upon now viewing this arrangement with the two eyes, the 
picture at the back is seen only by one eye, whilst the side picture is 
the only one seen by the other eye, the result being that the picture 
appears projected into the centre of the block of glass, possessing as 
much apparent solidity as if it were a model cut in ivory. 


Heat.—The relation of radiant heat to aqueous vapour is being 
thoroughly investigated by Professor Tyndall.t He has found that 
pure dry air is almost perfectly transparent to heat-rays, but that, on a 
day of average humidity, the quantity of aqueous vapour diffused in 
London air produces upwards of sixty times the absorption of the air 
itself. This fact is of vast importance to meteorological science. Ten 
per cent. of the entire radiation of heat from the earth is absorbed by 


* «Comptes Rendus,’ vol. lvi. p. 1044. 
+ ‘Phil. Mag.’ vol. xxvi. p. 30. 


160 Chronicles of Science. [ Jan. 


the aqueous vapour which exists within 10 feet of the earth’s surface 
on a day of average humidity. Wet weather, saturating the atmosphere 
with vapour, acts as a warm blanket to the earth, whilst cold frosty 
weather, by drying the air, allows more heat to radiate from the earth, 
and produces a still greater degree of cold. The relation which these 
facts bear to many obscure phenomena of climate is fully discussed by 
Professor Tyndall in the paper already mentioned. 


The destructive energy of hot water in steam-boiler explosions has 
been made the subject of an investigation by the Astronomer Royal.* As 
the result of many experiments, he concludes that the destructive energy 
of one cubic foot of water, at the temperature which produces a pressure 
of 60 lbs. to the square inch, is equal to that of 1 1b. of gunpowder. 


A very sensitive thermometer has been described by Dr. Joule.t 
It consists of a glass tube, 2 feet long and 4 inches in diameter, divided 
longitudinally by a blackened pasteboard diaphragm, with spaces of 
about an inch at the top and bottom. In the top space a bit of mag- 
netized sewing-needle, furnished with a glass index, is suspended by 
a single filament of silk. The arrangement is similar to that of a 
bratticed coal-pit shaft, and the slightest excess of temperature of one 
side over that of the other occasions a circulation of air which ascends 
on the heated side, and, after passing across the glass index, descends 
on the other side. As a proof of the extreme sensibility of the instru- 
ment, it is able to detect the heat radiated by the moon. A beam of 
moonlight was admitted through a slit in a shutter, and as the ray 
passed gradually across the instrument, the index was deflected several 
degrees, showing that the air in the instrument had been raised a few 
ten-thousandths of a degree in temperature by the moon’s rays. 


Many researches on the intensity of the electrical current developed 
by different thermo-electro pairs have been published by M. Edmond 
Becquerel ; he finds that the best thermo-electric couple is composed of 
platinum and palladium, the two metals being unaltered by heat, and 
the intensity of the current increasing regularly with the temperature. 
This electric pyrometer was compared with graduated air-thermo- 
meters, and by this means many high temperatures have been able to 
be expressed in centigrade degrees. We give a few:—The boiling 
point of sulphur is 448° ; the fusing point of silver is 916°; the fusing 
point of gold, 1,037°; the fusing point of palladium, between 1,560° 
and 1,380°; the fusing point of platinum, between 1,460° and 1,480° ; 
the highest temperature of a fragment of magnesia, before the oxy- 
hydrogen blow-pipe, 1,600° ; whilst the limit of temperature of the 
positive carbon of the voltaic are is 2,000°. 


A convenient gas-furnace for experimental purposes has long been 
wanted. Many contrivances have been made having for their object 
the production of a furnace-heat with gas, but they have invariably 
required an artificial blast of air, thus rendering it necessary for one 
person to be in attendance, and hard at work, during the whole of the 


* British Association, Newcastle Meeting. 
+ ‘Proceedings of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester,’ 


1864. | Physics. 161 


operation. Mr. Gore* has described a new gas-furnace, which possesses 
many advantages over those hitherto used. It would be difficult to 
rénder its construction intelligible without drawings; but the value of 
it may be understood when we say that the smallest size will melt half- 
a-pound of copper or six ounces of cast-iron in less than a quarter of 
an hour, at a cost of about,one halfpenny. The melted substances are 
perfectly accessible to be manipulated upon for a continuous and 
lengthened period of time, without contact with impurities or with the 
atmosphere, and without lowering their temperature sufficiently to cause 
them to solidify. Moreover, these advantages are secured by means 
of ordinary coal-gas and atmospheric air, without the use of a bellows 
or a lofty chimney, or of regenerators or valves requiring frequent 
attention. 


Execrriciry.—The passage of an electrical discharge through 
various gases and between electrodes of various metals, gives rise to 
different luminous phenomena. When this light is examined in the 
spectroscope, it has been found that each elementary gas or metal 
possesses certain well-marked characteristic lines, and it has generally 
been assumed :—1. That each substance has a set of lines peculiar to 
itself. 2. That those lines are not produced or modified by any mole- 
cular agent except heat. 3. That the spectrum of one substance is 
in nowise modified by the presence of another; in such cases both 
spectra co-existing independently, and are merely superposed. 4. That 
electricity does not make matter luminous directly, but only by heating 
it, so that the electric spectrum differs in nothing from that produced 
by heat of sufficient intensity. Dr. Robinson has examined these 
questions in a long and laborious investigation, and the result has been 
presented to the Royal Society, in a Paper “On the Spectra of Electric 
Light.” The opinion to which his results seem to point, is that the 
origin of the lines is to be referred to some yet undiscovered relation 
between matter in general and the transfer of electric action ; the places 
of the lines being invariably the same, but their brightness being 
_ modified according to circumstances. 


Since attention has been directed to the enormous variation in elec- 
tric conducting power, caused by the admixture of even minute quan- 
tities of metallic or other impurities in copper, it has become a question 
of some interest to determine the electric conducting power of all the 
pure metals. Professor Matthiessen + has continued his researches on 
this subject, and has lately determined the electrical relations of pure 
thallium. At the freezing point of water this metal has a conducting 
power equal to 9-16 (pure silver being 100), and its conducting power 
decreases between the freezing and boiling point, 51°420 per cent., 
which is a larger percentage decrement than that obtained for many 
other pure metals, namely, 29°307 per cent.{ The conducting power 
of pure iron was found to be, at 0? C= 16°81, with a percentage decre- 
ment for an increase of temperature to 100°C = 38:1. The conducting 

* «Chemical News,’ vol. viii. p. 2. 
+ ‘Philosophical Transactions,’ 1863. 
t ‘Philosophical Transactions,’ Part. I., 1862. 
VOL. I. M 


162 Chronicles of Science. j Jan. 


powers of the pure metals given in the following table, shows the places 
which the above metals take in the series. 
Conducting Power at 0°. 


Silver . hic : : ; : - 10000 
Coy o so a oS eS lg) BBE 
Gold 5 6 A 5 + : ; 5 77-96 
Zine 5 6 - é ' 5 c $ 29°02 
Cadmium . 5 3 c é . 4. YBYTD. 
Cobalt . O 5 : ° : S 4 Wy (Pe 
Tron : A : 4 ‘ a 5 16°81 
Nickel . Aohpees 5 F ‘ ‘ 5) PLL 
Tin ; ; ; ‘ ; ; ; 5 12°36 
Thallium ° Bee me Path othr F A 9°16 
Lead . 6 A ‘ é - ‘ ‘ 832 
Arsenic . C A : : . c ; 4-76 
Amik? 96° “5 9 6 oo G Oo 4°62 
Bismuth 4 See ame ‘ 4 1-245. 


It has long been a desideratum amongst electricians to obtain a 
battery having the constancy of Daniell’s without the annoyance 
attending the use of a porous cell. Two such batteries have been 
described lately. One is the invention of M. Jacobini, and consists of 
a glass vessel, in which is placed a cylinder of copper pierced with 
holes ; outside this is a larger cylinder of zinc. The copper cylinder 
is filled with powdered sulphate of copper, tightly pressed down, and 
the remainder of the space in the glass vessel is filled with sand, 
touching the zine cylinder on both sides. Water is then poured in, so 
as to saturate both the sand and powdered sulphate of copper, and the 
arrangement is covered up. Several hours elapse before the electric 
current begins to develope itself actively. It then increases for a few 
days, and finally sinks again till its power becomes constant. Father 
Secchi has had a battery of this kind in use for three months, and 
reports that it is as efficient as when first constructed. 

The other battery is the invention of M. Grenet, and is a modi- 
fication of the sulphate-of-mercury pile of M. Marie-Davy. At the 
bottom of a glass jar a quantity of acid sulphate of mercury is placed. 
A stick of gas-carbon and a cylinder of zine are supported upright in 
the jar by means of a cork, which closes the upper part of the vessel ; 
water is then carefully poured in, and the whole is set aside, where it 
will not be shaken or moved. A wire connected with the carbon forms 
the positive pole, whilst the zinc forms the negative pole. The water 
becoming gradually charged with sulphate of mercury, attacks the zine ; 
the hydrogen which is evolved reduces the mercury on the carbon, and 
the metal as it accumulates falls down to the bottom of the vessel. It 
the apparatus is not shaken, there are formed two layers of Lquid— 
the lower one consisting almost entirely of a solution of the mereury 
salt, whilst the upper layer contains the sulphate of zinc. It is owing 
to this separation that the porous vessel is able to be dispensed with. 
The battery is employed of two sizes—the larger one contains 500 
grammes of water and 100 grammes of mercury salt; the smaller con- 
tains respectively 100 grammes and 380 grammes. They are said to 
keep in perfect order for six months at a time, without once requiring 
to be touched. 


1864. | Sanatory Science. 163 


X. SANATORY SCIENCE. 


Ir we were asked to state what it is that more especially characterizes 
the scientific Practitioner of Medicine of our own day, we should state 
it to be the strong desire whereby he is actuated to investigate the 
conditions which lead to the production of disease, the laws that re- 
gulate its propagation, and the means by which its exciting causes may 
be diminished or altogether destroyed. The modern physician does 
not waste his energies or burn the midnight lamp in anxious strivings 
after the philosopher’s stone, in vain researches for some subtle elixir 
or fragrant balsam, with a few drops of which he might hope to charm 
away disease, to renew the life’s blood, and impart to the frail and 
tottering form of age the vigour and elasticity of youth. Neither does 
he now rely in his treatment of disease on complicated formule, which 
like the once celebrated Mithridate of the ancients, consisted of some 
two score ingredients; nor on nauseous and disgusting remedies, which, 
like the oriental Bezoar stones, or the Album Graecum, were invested 
with a reputed efficacy proportioned to the repulsiveness of their 
origin. All this is now changed. A striving after simplicity is the 
order of the day. The sutliciency of the natural processes of re- 
covery, when aided by a few appropriate remedies, is more widely 
recognized. The necessity of ensuring an abundant supply of fresh 
air, of practising social and personal cleanliness, of procuring a mo- 
derate yet sufficient quantity of food, and of guarding by precautionary 
measures against the special risks attendant on the pursuit of certain 
occupations, is now loudly proclaimed. 

The importance of paying due attention to all such wise and simple 
sanatory regulations, is not only at the present time acceded to by the 
medical profession and the more intelligent of the general public, but 
has at length been fully recognized by the Legislature. The admir- 
able reports which, in obedience to the Public Health Act for 1858, 
have now for a series of years been annually submitted to the Privy 
Council by their medical officer, Mr. Simon, have contributed in no 
small degree to the distribution of sound information on many of the 
causes that lead to the production of diseases, and on the means 
which ought to be taken to mitigate or prevent them. Of the many 
reports which have proveeded from his pen, there is none, we think, 
exceeding in general interest the one published in the autumn of the 
past year.* It embraces careful inquiries into the efficacy of the pre- 
sent system of public vaccination, and particulars as to the supply and 
distribution of vaccine lymph; into the diseases which may result from 
the pursuit of some industrial occupations ; into the influences probably 
exerted by the distress in the cotton-manufacturing districts in the 
production and spread of typhus and other starvation diseases ; on the 
effect produced on the human body by the consumption of the milk or 
flesh of diseased animals, and on the best steps for lessening the pre- 
valence of disease amongst our domestic animals. As these subjects 


* Fifth Report of the Medical Officer of the Privy Council. London, 1863. 
M 2 


164 . Chronicles of Science. [Jan. 


all possess a considerable scientific and practical value, it may not be 
without interest to examine into some of the leading conclusions to 
which Mr. Simon has been led in the course of his inquiries. 

The existence during the last few years of several wide-spread 
epidemics of small-pox, in different parts of the country, has caused 
much public attention to be directed to the working of the various 
statutes which the Legislature has enacted for the national protection 
against that disease. Doubts have even been thrown by some on the 
efficiency of the vaccine matter at present employed. It has been as- 
sumed that its protecting powers have been, through long-continued 
transmission from one individual to another, worn out or greatly im- 
paired, and that a more frequent recourse to the original source from 
which it was obtained ought to have been resorted to. But on this 
matter Mr. Simon speaks both decidedly and assuringly. He re- 
quested Mr. Robert Ceely, of Aylesbury, “to whom more than to any 
man, since Jenner, the medical profession of this country is indebted 
for its knowledge of the natural history of vaccination,” to inspect all 
the sources whence lymph is conveyed to the National Vaccine Hstab- 
lishment; and the result of that inspection has been to assure Mr. 
Ceely “of the perfectly satisfactory character of the lymph there in 
use.” 

Of the workings of the different enactments for ensuring a complete 
system of vaccination the report is anything but satisfactory—nay, 
the public defences against small-pox are in a great measure insufficient 
and delusive. The neglect of local authorities in enforcing vaccina- 
tion in the workhouses and schools under their control; the imperfec- 
tion of the arrangements for providing at the public expense thoroughly 
good vaccination, so that it should be everywhere and gratis within 
reach of those who may choose to avail themselves of it; and the 
omission In many cases to give the required notification of such 
arrangements, even when they may have been provided, have all ope- 
rated in bringing Mr. Simon to this conclusion. But now that attention 
has been directed to these cases of neglect in the working of the exist- 
ing machinery, it is to be hoped that means will be taken to ensure a 
thorough vaccination of the people, and if needful to compel it. We 
are slow indeed in this country to enact anything which may seem to 
impose an unnecessary restriction on personal liberty; but the per- 
sonal liberty of the individual must always be subordinate to the 
general good. The welfare of the whole community is so closely con- 
nected with this question of compulsory vaccination, that we should 
not regret to see the day when the production of a vaccination certifi- 
cate will be as essential to holding any office, to gaining employment, 
or to obtaining admittance to a school, as an attestation of correct 
principles and good moral character. 

The diseases of animals employed as food by man possess an 
interest both in a sanatory and economic point of view. The in- 
fluence which the flesh of diseased animals exercises upon those who 
may consume it has for some time attracted attention. Many strong 
representations on this subject have been made by Professor John 
Gamgee, Principal of the New Veterinary College, Edinburgh, and in 


1864. | Sanatory Science. 165 


1862 he was requested by Mr. Simon to prepare a special report, which 
is included in the volume. The result of the very elaborate inquiries 
which Mr. Gamgee has conducted has been to show that disease has 
prevailed during the last few years, and still prevails very extensively, 
amongst horned cattle, sheep, and swine, and that the diseased animals 
are largely employed as human food. The diseases with which these 
animals are affected may conveniently be classed under three heads :— 
Ist, Contagious Fevers ; 2nd, Anthracic and Anthracoid Disorders ; 
ord, Parasites. The chief forms of the contagious fevers are those 
which are more commonly known as the pleuro-pneumonia, or lung 
disease, of horned cattle, and the aphthous fever, murrain, or foot and 
mouth disease, which attacks not only horned cattle but also sheep and 
swine. Small-pox also sometimes attacks sheep, and not many months 
ago an outbreak of it excited much alarmin Wiltshire. What influence 
then will the consumption of the flesh of animals so diseased have 
upon those consuming it ? Repulsive though it may be to our notions 
to eat the flesh of animals which have died of such disorders, and 
though we may be inclined on @ priori grounds to suppose it might 
generate disease in those who eat it, yet more extended investigations 
must be made before we can state absolutely what the disorders are 
which it induces in the human frame. 

The anthracie and anthracoid diseases are, it is said, frequently 
accompanied with peculiar changes, in some respects putrefactive, 
in the blood ; erysipelatious and carbuncular affections also sometimes 
occur, and the body of the animal may develope in itself a specific 
morbid poison, which, by inoculation, can be communicated to cther 
animals, and cases have been recorded in which disease and even 
death in man have followed the use of cooked meat derived from 
animals suffering from anthrax. 

The parasitic diseases of the domestic animals are both numerous 
and important. The so-called “ measles” of the pig is nothing more 
than the diffusion of a parasite, the cysticercus cellulose, through the 
muscular system of the animal; the “sturdy” of the sheep is due to 
the development of the ccenurus cerebralis in the brain ; the ‘“‘ rot” of 
sheep to the production of flukes, a species of distoma, in the liver ; 
a form of lung-disease is produced by the development in those 
organs of different kinds of strongylus ;* and the muscular system may 
be infested by multitudes of a minute microscopic worm, the trichina 
spiralis. Now, there can be no question that meat affected with one 
or other of the above parasites may become the source of disease in man. 
Observations on this head have been so multiplied that this statement 
may be made in the most positive manner. That most troublesome 
and annoying of all the worms infesting the human bowel, viz. the 
tapeworm, has been shown by the researches of Von Siebold and 
Kiichenmeister to be derived from eating the flesh of “measly” 
pork, the cysticercus cellulose of the pig becoming developed into 
the tenia solium of the human bowel: and by the ingestion of the 
ccenurus cerebralis, another form of tenia, the tenia ccenurus is pro- 
duced. But perhaps the most curious of all these parasites is the 


* A nematoid worm. 


166 Chronicles of Science. | Jan. 


trichina spiralis which infests the muscular system. So long as it 
remains in the muscle, it lies quietly coiled up in a spiral form in a 
small cyst. But as the recent investigations of Virchow, Leuckart, 
Zenker, and Turner have shown, when the flesh of an animal con- 
taining these worms is swallowed, they become disengaged from their 
cysts, young worms develope in the interior of the females, and this 
takes place with such rapidity that in a few days the intestinal mucus 
becomes packed with multitudes of minute threadlike worms. Then 
from the intestines they migrate in swarms into the muscular system, 
and there enclose themselves in cysts possessing the same form as those 
with which their parents were enveloped. The flesh employed as human 
food which is most frequently infested by the trichina is that of the 
pig, and more than one case has now been recorded in which violent 
symptoms, and even death, have followed the use of the flesh of the 
trichinatous pigs,* and Professor Leuckart has found that trichina 
meat retains much of its injurious properties, even after some amount 
of pickling and smoking. We may learn, then, from these instances, 
how important it is that animals affected with such parasitic diseases 
should not only most scrupulously be avoided as articles of human 
food, but that their flesh should not even be given to other animals. 

The great diminution which has taken place in the supply of cotton 
and the consequent stoppage of the factories of our numerous Lan- 
cashire towns, by throwing many thousands of persons out of employ- 
ment, necessarily excited much anxiety not only as to how money was 
to be procured for their maintenance, but the best and most economical 
way in which this money was to be spent. The report that typhus 
fever was making its appearance in some of the towns also excited 
attention and alarm, and in obedience to the wishes of the Lords of 
the Privy Council, Mr. Simon requested Dr. Buchanan and Dr. E. 
Smith to visit the distressed districts and report upon the local pre- 
cautions taken to prevent that destitution which breeds disease, and to 
obtain more exact information with regard to the minute economics of 
diet. The report of Dr. E. Smith is of a most complete and elaborate 
nature. He has in it endeavoured to answer two important questions. 
1st. What is the minimum allowance of money to purchase sufficient 
food for the maintenance of healthP 2nd. What is the best method 
of expending that allowance ? 

He has compiled a large collection of formule and dietaries, with 
the wholesale prices and nutritive values of the articles employed. 
His estimates are based on the real amount of nutriment which is re- 
quired by these populations; viz. 380,100 grains of carbon, and 1,400 
grains of nitrogen, weekly. He suggests that relief should be ad- 
ministered in three ways—in money, cooked food, and uncooked food. 
From the actual experience of the people, it would appear that single 
persons now spend weekly 2s. 43d. each for food ; but in the case of 
families, where there are young children, the rate of expenditure is 


* As these pages are going through the press, we notice a paragraph in the daily 
public prints, in which it is stated that at Herrstadt, in Prussian Silesia, a large 
number of persons who had eaten at dinner trichinatous pork, were taken suddenly 
and seriously ill, and that of these sixteen died. 


1864. | Sanatory Science. 167 


under 2s. This sum of 2s., at the present rates of prices for food, ap- 
pears to be the dividing line between sufficiency and insufficiency, as 
by an expenditure below that sum, health cannot be maintained. There 
is also much interesting information on the comparative digestibility 
of certain foods, and on the influence which they exercise both on the 
secretions and excretions. This report of Dr. Edward Smith’s we 
look upon as a valuable contribution to the study of dietetics, and one 
which ought to be carefully perused by all who take an interest in 
providing economically a due quantity and variety of nutritious food 
for the poor and destitute. 

The effect produced by the pursuit of certain occupations, on the 
health of the employed, has for some years past excited much attention. 

The prevalence of phthisis amongst file-makers, the tendency to 
bronchitic disorders exhibited by coal-miners, the paralytic affections 
and attacks of colic so frequent amongst workers in lead and its com- 
pounds, the diseases of the nervous system which attack looking- 
glass silverers, watch gilders, and others exposed to mercurial emana- 
tions, have long been subjects of discussion, and many ingenious plans, 
mechanical and otherwise, have been devised for warding off the per- 
nicious effects resulting from the pursuit of such occupations. The 
increase which has of late years taken place in the industrial appli- 
cations of phosphorus, and of the compound of arsenic called emerald 
green, or Scheele’s green, and the cases in which injurious, nay fatal, 
effects have been produced on those employed in their manufacture 
and use, induced Mr. Simon to request Dr. Bristowe and Dr. Guy to 
make inquiries and report thereon. From the careful examination 
which Dr. Bristowe has conducted into the methods employed in lucifer 
match-making—the chief industrial application of phosphorus,—he 
concludes that the disease of the jaw-bone, to which match-makers are 
especially liable, might be altogether avoided if amorphous instead of 
common phosphorus were employed, and that this form of match would 
possess the additional advantage of not being spontaneously combus- 
tible, and therefore not so liable to cause fires. There are, indeed, 
certain difficulties in the way of carrying out the application of the 
amorphous phosphorus. But it is the opinion of Mr, Albright, one 
of the largest manufacturers of phosphorus, ‘that if the use of the 
common form were prohibited, the end would be attained completely 
in six months, to the satisfaction of the manufacturers and the public 
advantage.” 

The recent extensive employment of emerald green in the manu- 
facture of wall papers, coloured ornaments of confectionery, artificial 
leaves and flowers, green tarlatans for dresses, children’s toys, &e., 
has aiforded Dr. Guy abundant material for the preparation of his in- 
teresting report. He makes many suggestions as to methods which 
might be adopted to prevent or diminish the risk of poisoning by 
this pigment, and we recommend all those who may be connected 
with the different branches of industry in which this brilliant green 
is employed, to attend carefully to the conclusions to which he has 
arrived. 

At those two great scientific Congresses, the British Association for 


168 Chronicles of Science. | Jan. 


the Advancement of Science, and the Social Science Association, 
which now assemble every autumn in one or other of our large towns, 
various questions affecting public health were at their last meetings 
brought before their appropriate sections. To some of the most im- 
portant of these we will now refer. As was not unnatural, the meet- 
ing of the British Association last autumn in Newcastle, the centre of 
one of our most important coal-producing districts, called forth some 
interesting papers by Drs. Wilson, White, and B. W. Richardson, on the 
habits and diseases of the miners, and on means which might be em- 
ployed for diminishing the evil effects of breathing noxious vapours 
and gases. An excellent paper by Dr. G. Robinson, on organic 
effluvia, was also communicated, in which the author showed that those 
abnormal constituents of the atmosphere which are recognized under 
that term, may be resolved into four principal groups, viz.:—I1st. Gases 
and vapours formed during the decomposition of organic matter. 
Qnd. Odoriferous particles suc generis. 3rd. Volatile organic matters 
not endowed with vitality. 4th. Living germs. On those last-named 
constituents of the atmosphere many valuable observations were made 
by Mr. James Samuelson, whose suggestion that the atmosphere of 
hospitals should be tested microscopically for living germs, appears 
to us to be of much importance. 

The great Sepoy mutiny, &c., by necessitating a much larger number 
of European troops to be retained in India for defensive purposes 
than was formerly required, has compelled the attention of the autho- 
rities to the need of greater care in promoting and preserving the 
health of the soldiers stationed there, both in camp and barracks. 
Papers on this subject were read before the British Association by 
Drs. Bird, Stewart, Clark, and Camps, and at the Social Science As- 
sociation by Miss Nightingale and the Rev. Dawson Burns. From 
the report of the Royal Commission on the sanatory state of the army 
in India, it would appear that the death rate amongst the British 
troops serving in India amounts to no less than 69 per 1,000 per 
annum. Now taking the strength of the British army in India at 
73,000, it follows that such an army would lose somewhat over 5,000 
men annually, equal to an entire brigade. And asin unhealthy sea- 
sons the death rate rises to double the above amount, we may well ask 
with Miss Nightingale, ‘‘ Where are the 10,000 recruits to be found 
to fill up the gap of a single unhealthy year?” and say with her, 
‘‘that on the better preservation of the health of our troops—hinges 
the very important social question, viz.—How the British race is to 
hold possession of India, and to bestow upon its vast population the 
benefit of her own civilization ?” This great mortality is due to two 
distinct sets of causes, for one of which the authorities are respon- 
sible ; the other is to be ascribed to the personal habits of the men 
themselves. The building of barracks in bad situations, the crowding 
together of a large number of men, the insufficient supply of fresh 
water, the imperfect ventilation, and the deficient drainage are all 
causes of disease which are under the control of the Government, and 
for which it ought to be made responsible. 

The excessive use of animal food and ardent spirits are those vices 


1864. | Sanatory Science. 169 


amongst the personal habits of the soldier which call most loudly for 
correction and reform, and we cannot but think that if proper steps be 
taken, the mortality arismg from them may be largely diminished. 
Experience has shown that the proper carrying out of sanatory prin- 
ciples in other parts of the globe in which British troops are quartered, 
has succeeded in effecting great improvements in the health of the 
men, and we see no reason why the same good result should not follow 
the application of the same principles in our Indian empire. 

We cannot close this brief résumé of some of the most important 
recent contributions to Sanatory Science, without directing attention 
to the suggestive address on many matters connected with public 
health, delivered at the Edinburgh meeting of the Social Science 
Association, to the department over which he presided, by Professor 
Christison. 

In this address Dr. Christison inquires into the mode in which 
the principal diseases or groups of diseases are influenced by the 
agents which affect public health. One of the most remarkable facts 
which he elucidates is the total disappearance of ague which has of late 
years taken place in Scotland, a country in which at one time it was 
very common. This disappearance does not indeed seem to be coin- 
cident with the drainage and agricultural improvements which have 
been carried on so energetically there for many years past; for the 
decline in the disease took place before such improvements were car- 
ried out. The co-existence of typhus fever with deficient ventilation 
and cleanliness and want of work is forcibly pointed out, but the de- 
cline which has of late years taken place in Edinburgh in the number 
and fatality of the visitations of this disease is ascribed by the Pro- 
fessor to changes in the type or constitution of epidemic diseases, 
rather than to any satisfactory improvement in the cleaning of the 
lanes and houses of the working classes. In the case of the typhoid 
or enteric fever, Dr. Christison thinks that something more is to be 
looked for in endeavouring to decide upon its mode of origin than ill- 
drained streets, defective water-closets, and foul air. Allthese cir- 
cumstances certainly favour its invasion, but its true cause lies in 
something more specific, and whilst better drainage and more perfect 
ventilation ought to be encouraged, yet they alone are nut sufficient to 
extirpate enteric fever. These statements are in opposition to much 
that recent writers, both medical and non-medical, have been for 
many years back strongly inculcating, and, as was naturally to be ex- 
pected, have not been allowed to pass unchallenged. But we cannot 
help thinking that as the deliberately expressed opinions of a phy- 
sician, who has possessed opportunities of studying fever second to no 
man, they are deserving of much careful consideration. From a sta- 
tistical comparison of the mortality of the large towns of Scotland with 
the agricultural counties, the greater frequency of the diseases de- 
pendent on a depraved state of the constitution in the former than 
the latter is, as might naturally be expected, clearly proved. The 
address concludes by showing that the Western Islands of Scotland, 
in spite of their mist-laden atmosphere and exposed position, enjoy 
an almost complete immunity from pulmonary consumption. 


170 Chronicles of Science. | Jan. 


XI. ZOOLOGY AND PHYSIOLOGY. 


Prorrssor Owen has made a Report upon the departments of Natural 
History inthe British Museum for the year 1862, which speaks favour- 
ably of the general condition of the collection as to preservation, 
though, as far as the stored animals in the vaults—many thousands in 
number—are concerned, each successive year of such storage increases 
the difficulty of keeping the specimens in a good state. The skins 
of Mammalia and Birds are in good condition, and available for scien- 
tific examination, though exhibiting some signs of the effects of damp. 
The Insects and Crustacea are also easily available, and in good con- 
dition; but the Mollusca in spirits are so crowded, that access to the 
specimens not in the front row is difficult and hazardous, and their 
utility greatly abridged. The exhibited specimens in the various 
galleries are described as showing only the degree of detriment which is 
inevitable from exposure, with the utmost amount of care; but these 
are in general so crowded as to impair their utility. The additions 
to the Zoological department in the yeat 1862, were 13,129 in number, 
including several great rarities and valuable specimens, such as Troglo- 
dytes vellerosus, 2 new anthropoid ape, discovered by Captain Burton 
in the Cameroon mountains of West Tropical Africa; a new tortoise 
(Cyclemys Mouhoitii), from the Lao Mountains in Cochin China; three 
or four new species of crocodiles; 1,911 fishes have also been added, 
many of them new species, and of them 128 have been placed in the 
British Collection. 


M. Thury, Professor in the Academy of Geneva, has made a dis- 
covery, which, if it be corroborated, will be one of the utmost value 
in the farm and homestead. He has arrived at a formula for obtaining 
cattle of either sex at will. The duration, character, and signs con- 
nected with the period of heat in the cow upon which it is proposed 
to experimhent must be first ascertained. These being known, in 
order to ensure a cow-calf congress must be effected on the first ap- 
pearance of the access of this period ; while a bull-calf may be as 
certainly ensured, by making use of the termination of this period. 
It is necessary to exclude from the experiment those animals in which 
the signs of heat are vague and uncertain, as is observed in fat cattle, 
and confined individuals; but healthy cows, and those living in the 
open air, must be used for the purpose. The experiments made upon 
cattle at Montet, appear to have been decisive, if we may judge from 
the following results :—‘“‘ In the first place,” says the breeder, “ in 
twenty-two successive cases I have sought to obtain heifers; my cows 
were of the Schwitz race, and my bull pure Durham blood. I obtained 
the result sought for in every case. Having later purchased a Durham 
cow, I sought to obtain a pure Durham bull-calf, and succeeded, and 
have since obtained six other bulls, crossed between Durham and 
Schwitz. Altogether, I have made twenty-nine experiments, and 
every one has given the result sought.” The importance of such a 
law will be evident,—and especially will such results be valuable in 


1864, | Zoology and Physiology. 171 


countries where it is desirable to obtain oxen for working purposes ; 
as in others, cows are the most valued animals. Moreover, the same 
remarks will apply to sheep. 

A series of experiments is about to be conducted on the Imperial 
farm at Vincennes, in order to test the value and truth of the discovery. 

While on the subject of cattle, it may be well to refer to a practice 
adopted by M. Charlier, for the suppression of horns, an operation 
which may sometimes be of great advantage. In the early months of 
life, when the rudiment of the horn begins to appear, it may be done 
without danger or expense, the owner himself operating with facility. 
The instrument used is a kind of trephine, a small cylinder of good 
steel, with a sharp cutting edge at one end and a point at the other. 
This instrument is placed around the young horn, bearing sufficiently 
on it to cut through the skin and subjacent tissue at the base of the 
horn, and then everting the soft horn, which offers no resistance. The 
wound heals in a few days afterwards without suppuration, and gene- 
rally without any febrile symptoms. 


In the beautiful and elaborate Memoir published by the Smithsonian 
Institution (Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, xiii. 169), en- 
titled ‘ Researches upon the Anatomy and Physiology of Respiration 
in the Chelonia, by Drs. Weir Mitchell, and G. R. Moorehouse, some 
curious errors of previous writers are pointed out with regard to the 
respiratory movements in Turtles. All writers upon this subject, 
including Malpighi, Cuvier, Johannes Miller, Milne Edwards, Agassiz, 
&e., appear to have described the act of breathing to be performed by 
them thus:—by the depression of the hyoid apparatus and tongue 
air is drawn into the mouth through the nostrils, which are then 
closed ; and by raising the hyoid, air is driven from the mouth through 
the glottis and trachea into the lungs, when inspiration is completed. 
Expiration being effected by the contraction of the abdominal muscles, 
and the consequent compression of the lungs. Instead of this, the 
authors of this Memoir have proved that the -hyoid apparatus has 
nothing whatever to do with ordinary breathing, but that inspiration is 
performed by the abdominal muscles, which naturally form a deep 
concavity, but contracting become flat, draw down the viscera, enlarge 
the cavity of the trunk, which enlargement is followed by a rush of 
air through the trachea into the lungs, when inspiration is completed ; 
while expiration is produced by the action of a peculiar muscle, now 
first completely described, like a broad digastric, which arises from 
the fore and hind part of the shield, and unites by a broad tendon 
across the middle of the abdominal cavity, between which muscle in 
front and the shield behind, are included the viscera—and by contrac- 
tion of which expiration is effected. It is remarkable that this correct 
view has since been found by the authors to be set forth in a dissertation 
on the subject written at Gottingen, in 1795, by Robert Townson, LL.D., 
and they were surprised, on learning the singularly correct views there 
propounded, to find that they had ever since been either unappre- 
ciated or condemned. 


Signor Trinchese has been engaged in the investigation of the 
oD oD 


172 Chronicles of Science. | Jan. 


nervous system of the Gasteropodous Mollusca, taking as types the 
Helix pomatia, Arion rufus, and Lymnea stagnalis. He finds that 
in all the nervous centres of these animals there are,—round or pyri- 
form cells of variable dimensions, enveloped in a thick sheath of con- 
nective tissue ; small cells of irregularly triangular form, round which 
no envelope is perceived ; and free nuclei, like those met with in the 
grey matter of the cerebro-spinal axis in Vertebrates. The cells 
usually present four prolongations, passing to each of the cells sur- 
rounding them, whilst other processes pass between the latter to other 
cells at a greater or less distance. These cells are usually found in the 
peripherical portions of the ganglia, the interior being occupied with 
fibres and conjunctive tissue. The optic ganglia consist of free 
nuclei and nervous fibres proceeding from the anterior part of the 
cerebroid ganglia, two in number. On the anterior portion of them 
in Helix and Arion, there are four small accessory cerebroid gan- 
glia; and on the course of the nerves connecting the cerebroid masses 
with the pedal or abdominal ganglion, there is a small ganglion, 
composed of cells united in groups, like the compartments of an 
orange. The peripheral nerves are formed of very delicate tubes, 
having on their walls nuclei similar to those which are observed in 
the higher animals in the Embryonal state. Their mode of termi- 
nation in the muscles is remarkable. The nervous element on arri- 
ving at the muscular fibre, loses its proper wall, and the axis-cylinder 
alone penetrates the muscle, dividing into two very slender filaments. 
These take opposite directions, each traversing one-half of the mus- 
cular fibre, on arriving at the extremity of which they terminate in 
very fine points. 


Although we have long been acquainted with the young state of 
the true crabs, and hermits, under the form known as Zoéa, especially 
distinguished by the want of the ten feet to which the adult animals 
are indebted for their name of Decapoda, it is only recently that Fritz 
Miller has described the Zoéa forms of the Porcellane as approach- 
ing most closely to those of the crabs. He has now added the in- 
teresting fact that in certain Prawns and Stomapoda (as probably 
Squilla mantis) similar conditions occur. The metamorphosis of the 
former commences sometimes (as in the Cirripeds) with monoculoid 
forms, and passes through very peculiar Zoéoid and Mysis-like states, 
sometimes with Zoéa forms which in structure and mode of movement 
resemble those of Hermit Crabs, whilst in others we can hardly say 
that there is any metamorphosis. Dr. Miller has, however, described 
and figured a little animal which he considers the Zoéa of a Stomapod, 
of glassy transparency, in which the segments exist in almost the same 
number as in the mature Stomapods, the sixth and seventh abdominal 
segments only being not yet distinct from each other. As in the Zoée 
of the Crabs and Porcellane, the appendages of the sixth hinder 
thoracic segments, and the lateral lamine of the caudal fin were also 
as yet entirely deficient. They possess only a median eye. 

So little is known of the habits and modes of life of marine animals, 
that we cannot but feel much interested and deeply indebted for care- 
fully observed facts in this department. Such are those of the curious 


1864. | Zoology and Physiology, 173 


relations existing between tho Crab, Pagurus Prideauxii, and the 
Zoophyte, Adamsia palliata. These two incongruous animals are, it 
is well known, constantly found associated together, and although we 
have found them difficult to keep alive in an aquarium, Lieut.-Col. 
Stuart Wortley has been more successful, and has observed the crab, 
after eating two pieces of meat given to it, seize a third with its large 
claw, and thrust it into the expectant mouth of the Adamsia. This 
has been frequently repeated. On leaving its shell, for the purpose 
of establishing itself in a new one, the Pagurus returned to the old 
shell, and dislodged the Adamsia with its pointed claws, during which 
rough process no acontia were thrown out, as would be done on the 
slightest irritation from any other source ; and when entirely separated, 
the crab holds it firmly with its base against the new shell until it has 
affixed itself. It remained on one occasion for an hour in this position, 
when, finding Adamsia did not affix itself readily, it returned to its old 
shell upon which Adamsia firmly attached itself as before. So attached 
does the crab appear to be to its helpless companion, and so loath to 
quit its hold upon it, that Col. Wortley concludes, as we were inclined 
to do from facts observed in dredging when they were abundant, that 
Adamsia palliata is almost, if not quite, a necessity of existence to 
Pagurus Prideauxii. The converse, however, cannot be said, for we 
have kept a specimen of Adamsia alive for twelve months unattached 
to any shell, the Pagurus having died on the day succeeding its capture. 
Another remark on the habits of Crustaceans has been furnished by 
Mr. Moore, Curator of the Liverpool Museum, in reference to the King 
Crab (Polyphemus) of which several living specimens have been sent 
over by Professor Agassiz. The long spine-like tail of this species 
has excited much question as to its use. If they are turned over on 
their backs, they bend down the tail until they can reach some point 
d’appui, and then use it to elevate the body and gain their normal 
position. The function assigned to it by some, viz. of placing it under 
the body and leaping from place to place, has never been observed. 


Rudolf Leuckart has made some interesting observations upon the 
development of the Acanthocephali, the only group of Entozoa whose 
development had hitherto eluded the investigations of naturalists. 
Scattering the ova of six or eight Hchinorhynchi of the species HE. pro- 
teus in a bottle containing Gammari, he found in a few days a great 
number of these ova in the intestines of the Gammari. The embryos 
quitting their envelopes passed into the abdominal cavity of the Crus- 
taceans. After three or four weeks the embryo underwent a singular 
metamorphosis, which converted its nucleus into a true Echinorhynchus, 
like an Echinorderm in its Pluteus. This rapidly increases in size, 
and finally fills the body of the embryo, which becomes transformed 
into the envelopes external to the muscular tube of the worm, and dis- 
tinguished by a proper vascular system. When the spinous armature 
of the head is formed, it draws back into the posterior part of its body 
like a Cysticercus in its vesicle. Leuckart has counted fifty or sixty 
parasites in a single Gammarus. 


Considerable attention has been devoted to the characters of the 


174 Chronicles of Science. { Jan. 


Ameebina, by two gentlemen who, though they do not agree in all 
their results, will no doubt by a friendly rivalry the better tend to 
elucidate the truth. These are Dr. Wallich and Mr. H. J. Carter. 
Dr. Wallich insists upon the absolute necessity of long-continued 
and daily observation whenever it is desired to elucidate the characters 
and vital phenomena which appertain to the lowest forms of organic 
existence ; and entertains the view that probably many, if not all, the 
previously described species of Amoeba are referable to, and constitute 
mere phases of Ameba villosa, the most highly developed type. Mr. 
Carter, however, regards certain characters of primary importance, 
and typical of A. princeps (EKhr) as reconstituted by him, while Dr. 
Wallich urges these characters as distinctive of Ameba villosa as 
already described by him. The characters which Mr. Carter claims 
for his A. princeps are its large size and the number of granules it con- 
tains; its limacious though protean form, its lobed and obtuse 
pseudo-podia proceeding from a posterior end, normally capped with 
a tuft of villous prolongations; while the nucleolus is so much 
extended over the inner surface of the nuclear cell, that it passes 
beyond the equatorial line of the latter, preventing any halo round the 
nucleus, as in other Amcebee; but the border of this nucleus is wavy 
when it has attained the 450th of an inch in length. The anomaly in 
the configuration of the nucleus, however, Mr. Carter afterwards 
resigns as a distinctive character. With regard to the apparent 
circulation in these low organisms, Dr. Wallich believes that it is not 
a vital act, but a secondary and mere mechanical effect consequent on 
the inherent vital contractility of the sarcode. The particles simply 
flow along with the advancing rush of protoplasm, and there is no 
return stream. The numerous and lengthy papers of Dr. Wallich and 
Mr. Carter, in the ‘ Annals of Natural History,’ on the subject of these 
organisms tend to the combination not only of species, but of genera 
which have always hitherto been regarded as perfectly distinct. 

The difficulty of distinguishing the lowest animal forms from 
vegetable bodies has received a good illustration from some observa- 
tions of Mr. H. J. Carter, well known for his papers upon Rhizopods, 
on Difflugia. He has shown in this species (D. pyriformis) that 
chlorophyll cells exist as part of its organization, and that starch cells, 
until recently believed to be a peculiarly vegetable product, form 
part of its products. Moreover, he has observed conjugation similar to 
that of the contents of the cells of Spirogyra, and that apparently 
after this conjugation, when the body of the Difflugia is densely 
charged with chlorophyll cells and starch granules, the nucleus 
becomes charged with spherular, refractive, homogeneous bodies, 
which appear to be developed in the protoplasm that lines (?) the 
nucleus. These spherules pass from the nucleus into the body of the 
animal, and there, becoming granuliferous, so increase by duplicative 
division, as to form the chief bulk of the whole mass, while the chloro- 
phyll cells have entirely disappeared, and the starch granules have become 
more or less diminished innumber. Colourless specimens of Difflugia 
having been placed in water, after four days the bottom of the vessel 
became covered with granuliferous cells of the same size and appearance 


1864. | Zoology and Physiology. 175 


as those peculiar to the colourless specimens, but with the difference 
that they were all provided with a cilium (perhaps two); most were 
fixed and retained their globular form; others swam about by means 
of their cilium; many of the fixed globular forms altered their shape 
by becoming polymorphic; and some lost their cilium and became 
altogether reptant and amcebous. There can be little doubt that these 
Amoebee are the young brood of Difflugia pyriformis. Thus the cycle 
of generative development in this Rhizopod by “granulation of the 
nucleus” is so far completed. It is probably the same as in Amaba 
princeps. The development of the young Amba into adult testaceous 
Diflugice has not yet, however, been observed. 

We should hardly be prepared for psychical development in these 
minute masses of sarcode, nevertheless Mr. Carter’s observations of 
Aithalium and Actinophrys render it probable that certain manifesta- 
tions of instinct are occasionally evinced by them, of the same kind as 
those in the higher animals. On one occasion, for example, Mr. Carter 
observed an Actinophrys station itself close to a ripe spore-cell of 
Pythium, which was situated upon a filament of Spirogyra, and as the 
young ciliated germs issued forth, one after another, from the dehiscent 
spore-cell, the Actinophrys remained by it, and caught every one of 
them even to the last, when it retired to another part of the field, as if 
instinctively conscious that there was nothing more to be got at the 
old place. As, however, these lowest forms of life appear to have but 
one object, and that the attainment of food, we cannot be so much 
surprised if they are provided with sufficient discrimination to be aware 
when they are receiving it, and when the supply has ceased. Indeed 
their whole instinctive development is concentrated upon that important 
end. 


(176) ) [Jan. 


REVIEWS. 


THE BIRDS OF INDIA.* 


Tun want of text-books on the Natural History of our colonial and 
foreign possessions, has been long and severely felt by the many 
residents in them who are desirous of employing their hours of 
leisure or recreation, in the pursuit of this most attractive study. As 
regards Botany, the energy of the Director of the Royal Botanic 
Gardens at Kew has already accomplished much towards the attain- 
ment of this desirable object. Some years since, Sir William Hooker’s 
urgent representations to the Colonial Office succeeded in inducing 
that department to take into consideration a scheme which he pro- 
pounded, for issuing a complete series of Manuals of the Botany of the 
different Colonies, and although the small sums necessary to effect this 
object were, with one exception, grudged to him by the Imperial Ex- 
chequer, the Colonies themselves have in many instances taken up the . 
matter, and there is little doubt that Sir William Hooker’s scheme 
will eventually be carried out in its integrity. 

Our zoologists have not as yet followed the good example thus set 
before them. Their field of operations is much more extensive, they are 
less united as a body, and they have certainly no single leader amongst 
them, who occupies a corresponding situation to that filled by Sir 
William Hooker with regard to the sister science. So far as concerns 
the zoology of our foreign and colonial possessions, therefore, we 
must for the present look to what the unassisted energies of private 
individuals can accomplish. And we must be thankful when even 
such indirect sanction and assistance as the Government of India has 
bestowed on Dr. Jerdon’s present undertaking can be obtained. 

Dr. T. C. Jerdon’s name is well known in connection with many . 
contributions to the Natural History of India, which he has made 
during a long service, in different parts of that country, as a medical 
officer of the Indian army. In 1839, Dr. Jerdon commenced the 
publication in the ‘Madras Journal of Literature and Science’ of a 
catalogue of the birds of Southern India. This with its supplements 
was completed in 1844, and still remains our best authority on the 
ornithology of the districts of which it treats. In 1844, Dr. Jerdon 


* «The Birds of India: being a Natural History of all the Birds known to 
inhabit Continental India; with Descriptions of the Species, Genera, Families, 
Tribes and Orders, and a Brief Notice of such Families as are not found in India ; 
making it a Manual of Ornithology specially adapted for India.’ By T. C. Jerdon, 
Surgeon-Major, &c. Caleutta, 1862. Vols. I. and II. pt. 1. 


1864. | Jurvon’s Birds of India. 177 


also published a series of illustrations of Indian birds,* in a quarto 
volume of fifty plates, in which many rare species were figured for the 
first time. Besides this, he has contributed many papers relating to 
Indian zoology to different scientific journals, and has been a most 
indefatigable explorer and collector in nearly every province of India, 
It cannot be doubted, therefore, that Dr. Jerdon’s qualifications to 
carry out the plan he now proposes,—that is, to issue a series of Manuals 
of the Natural History of the Vertebrated Animals of India,—are very 
considerable. And looking to the way in which he has commenced to 
execute his plan, in the case of the two volumes now before us, which 
form the first part of his ‘ Manual of Indian Ornithology,’ we have 
every reason to be satisfied that it has fallen to his lot to undertake 
it. Nor can it be doubted that such a series of manuals is a great de- 
sideratum. At present, as Dr. Jerdon observes, to “ obtain acquaint- 
ance with what is already known respecting the Fauna of India,” it is 
necessary to “search through the voluminous transactions of learned 
societies and scientific journals,’ which are of course quite inacces- 
sible to residents in an Indian up-country station, and hardly to be 
referred to even in Madras or Calcutta. Dr. Jerdon’s aim, therefore, 
is to supply in a few portable volumes the information requisite for a 
student of any branch of the natural history of the vertebrata of 
India to ascertain what is already known of his favourite science 
and to what points especially he should direct his inquiries. The 
two volumes already published by Dr. Jerdon take us through the 
greater part of the class of birds; a third volume, shortly to be issued, 
will complete this part of the subject. The author will then turn his 
attention to the Mammals, Reptiles, and Fishes, and treat of each of 
these classes of animals in a similar manner. 

Dr. Jerdon introduces himself to his readers in the first volume of 
his present work with a well-written chapter of general remarks, which 
will repay perusal. After giving an outline of the structure of birds, 
external and internal, and some remarks on their migration, he pro- 
ceeds, before entering upon the subject of classification, to devote a 
few words to the much-vexed question of the differences between 
species and variety. A species, Dr. Jerdon defines as consisting of a 
“number of individuals closely resembling one another in size, struc- 
ture, and colour, and propagating a like race ;” a variety, as “ consist- 
ing of one or more individuals resembling certain other individuals 
sufficiently to be considered identical in species, and yet differing in 
certain external points of colour, size, or form.” As regards the mode 
in which this difficult subject, as encountered in the case of the birds 
of India, has been dealt with, the following remarks of our author may 
prove of interest :— 

“Some naturalists believe that permanent varieties are common in the 
animal kingdom, and Kaup calls them swb-species. Such persons consider 
that their differences from other individuals, of what they would term the 


typical form, do not entitle them to the full rank of a species. Others, 
again, deny that permanent varieties exist, and state their conviction that 


* «Tllustrations of Indian Ornithology” By T.C.Jerdon. Madras, 1844. 
1 vol. 4to. 
VOL. I. N 


178 Reviews. [Jan. 


even slight differences of colour and size, if found to be constant, are suf- 
ficient to constitute such individuals a distinct race or species. When such 
differences are found to co-exist with a different geographical distribution, 
I certainly prefer the views of those who look on all permanent distinctions 
of colour, size, structure, &c., as distinct species; and I believe that no change 
of climate, or food, or other external circumstances, will produce any altera- 
tion in them or in their descendants, if they remain true to each other ; 
and as yet I know of no recorded instance where any well-marked race has 
produced offspring differing from their own, or tending to revert to a 
supposed original type. That various nearly-affined species will propagate 
inter se, and produce fertile offspring, I fully believe; as in the cases of 
the green Pigeons of Bengal and of Southern India, in the Indian and the 
Burmese Rollers, the small Cuckoos of South India and those of Bengal, 
and in several other instances: but that this fact militates against their 
being species and in favour of their being varieties, I think is not sup- 
ported by many recent experiments in crossing. Of late years many 
species have been universally admitted as such, which were formerly con- 
sidered simple varieties, and although, perhaps, the tendency of late 
writers has been to multiply species, in some cases most unnecessarily, 
yet in previous years the other extreme was taken, more especially by 
Schlegel and his followers. Our best naturalists and ornithologists now 
fully recognize the distinctness of permanent races. If varieties are once 
allowed, it depends on individual judgment or caprice to what extent they 
may be carried. In this country, where there are many very closely allied 
Species, among genera characteristic of the country, many of the species 
of Malacocercus and Hematornis would be classed as simple varieties by 
some, whilst others would perhaps allow some of them, whose different 
notes they might have observed, to be distinct species, and the rest 
varieties. Lastly: it is, I think, more convenient in practice to give each 
race a distinct specific name, than to speak of them as ‘ Var, A,’ or 
‘Var. BY’ of such a species.” 


With revard to the origin of these allied or “representative ” 
species, as they are usually termed, Dr. Jerdon states that, as far as 
his “brief experience goes, geographic distribution is against Mr. 
Darwin’s theory. ‘‘'To give one instance,” he continues, “ Malaco- 
cercus striatus of Ceylon is more allied to M. Bengalensis of Bengal, 
than to M. Malabaricus, which is spread throughout a vast region 
between those provinces.’ On this point we may remark that the 
great mass of evidence in such cases is, as is now generally allowed, 
decidedly on the other side of the question. It is beyond a doubt, 
that allied species, are as a rule, distributed geographically in the 
order of their affinities, that is, that the most nearly allied occupy con- 
terminous areas. Moreover, Dr. Jerdon ought to be aware that 
Ceylon, though now-a-days much more nearly connected with the 
peninsula of India, than with the upper provinces, furnishes many 
remarkable forms which tend to show that this island has been peopled 
with life from the other side of the Bay of Bengal, along which the 
Bengalese species descend, often far to the south. Dr. Jerdon, how- 
ever, seems to take a very candid view of Mr. Darwin’s theory on 
other points, though he is of opinion that that distinguished naturalist, 
“perhaps, lays too much stress on external and fortuitous cireum- 
stances as producing varieties, and not enough on the inherent power 
of change.” 


1864. | Jurvon’s Birds of India. 179 


Dr. Jerdon next proceeds to the difficult subject of the classifica- 
tion of birds, and adopts as his system, nearly that of Mr. George 
Gray, as given in his ‘ List of Genera.’ Finally, he concludes his in- 
troduction with a sketch of the physical features of Northern, Central, 
and Southern India, in relation to their respective Faunas, and gives 
some account of what has already been effected by different natu- 
ralists who have devoted their attention to various points of the area 
embraced in these three divisions. The names of Franklin, Tickell, 
Sykes, and Hodgson are all well known in connection with the earliest 
researches made in Indian Ornithology. The latter gentleman espe- 
cially, who was for many years resident at the Court of Nepaul, 
laboured long and zealously in this, as in other branches of Natural 
History, and has effected far more than any other naturalist towards 
making known to us the many singular forms of life that people the 
slopes of the Himalayas. Other more recent workers in the same 
field have been Burgess, Adams, Tytler, and McClelland, and last, but 
not least, Mr. Edward Blyth—for many years the energetic and 
devoted curator of the Asiatic Society’s Museum at Calcutta, whose 
numerous publications and extensive rescarches have, as rightly 
observed by Dr. Jerdon, done more to extend the study of Natural 
History in India than those of all the previously mentioned observers 
put together. 

We now come to the main portion of Dr. Jerdon’s work, which 
consists of short treatises on each of the species of birds belonging 
to the Indian Avi-fauna, interspersed with current allusions to the 
various groups found in other countries, but not represented in the 
Indian series. Dr. Jerdon’s two published volumes treat of the 
Birds of Prey and the numerous divisions of Insessores or Perchers. 
Of the first, he gives 81 species as belonging to the Fauna of India, 
of the Insessores, no less than 689 species are enumerated. Such 
being the case, it could not be expected that any very detailed account 
could be given of each bird, especially as what is contemplated is a 
“brief, but comprehensive Manual.” And on the whole, as regards 
the first volume especially, we cannot but think that we have every 
reason to be satisfied with the way in which our author has performed 
his work. The descriptions given are sufficient for the determination 
of the species in ordinary cases. In many allied forms, it will, of 
course, be necessary for the student to refer back to the previously 
published accounts indicated among the synonyms of each species, 
and in the more difficult cases, to go to the typical specimens in the 
Museum of Calcutta, or of the British metropolis. The details as 
regards the geographical distribution, habits, and general alliances of 
each species are likewise carefully worked out, and the whole account 
is written in plain and comprehensible terms, well suited for the pur- 
pose intended. As an illustration of Dr. Jerdon’s style, we extract 
his remarks on the Turwmti Falcon (Hypotriorchis chicquera)—one of 
the best known, and commonest small Falcons of India, allied to 
our Hobby. 


“The Turumti is universally spread throughout India from north to 
south, but is rare in the forest districts, as it affects chiefly open country 
xn 2 


a“ 


180 Reviews. [Jan. 


in the vicinity of cultivation. It frequents gardens, eroves of trees, and 
even large single trees in the open country, whence it sallies forth, some- 
times circling aloft, but more generally, especially in the heat of the day, 
gliding with inconceivable rapidity along some hedgerow, brink of a tank, 
or across some fields, and pouncing suddenly on some lark, sparrow, or 
wagtail. It very often hunts in pairs, and I have now and then seen it 
hover like a kestrel for a few seconds. It preys chiefly on small birds, 
especially the social larks (Coryphidea calandrella), sparrows, and the small 
ringed-plovers (Charadrius); also not unfrequently on bats, which 1 have 
seen it seize on the wing just at dusk. It breeds on high trees, and has 
usually four eggs of a yellowish-brown colour, mottled with brown spots. 
The young fly early, by the end of March or beginning of April. It has a 
shrill angry scream, and is very courageous, driving away crows, kites, and 
even the wokhab (Aquila fusca), from the vicinity of its nest or perch. 
It is occasionally reclaimed, and flown at quail, partridges, mynas, but 
especially at the Indian Jay or Roller (Coracius indica). In pursuit of this 
quarry the Falcon follows most closely and perseveringly, but is often 
balked by the extraordinary evolutions of the Roller, who now darts off 
obliquely, then tumbles down perpendicularly, screaming all the time, and 
endeavouring to gain the shelter of the nearest tree or grove. But even 
here he is not safe; the Falcon follows him from branch to branch, drives 
him out again, and sooner or later the exhausted quarry falls a victim to 
the ruthless bird of prey. I have known falconers train the Zurumtt 
to hunt in couples. 

“The Indian name, Turumti, appears to owe its origin to Turumtat, 
given by Pallas as the Calmuc name of the Hobby. 

“A very nearly-allied species of Martin exists in Africa, Ff. ruficollis, 
Sw. (chicqueroides, A. Smith), long considered as the same, but now 
recognized as distinct by Hartlaub and others. Kaup, P.Z.S. 1851, calls 
it a sub-species of the other, differing in its darker colours, more striped 
head, and with the cheek-stripe darker and more distinct.” 


The second volume of Dr. Jerdon’s work is, perhaps, not quite so 
satisfactory as the first. The descriptions given are mostly shorter 
and more concise, and we do not find so many of those agreeable episodes 
upon the habits of the species which tend to render a book of this 
sort acceptable to the ordinary reader. Yet we must recollect the ex- 
tent of the subject,—the immense number and variety of the little 
Passerine birds, of which this part of Dr. Jerdon’s book treats,—and 
how difficult it is to say much when the subject is so new, and when 
so little, considering the wide field of observation, has been done by 
former workers. As it is, Dr. Jerdon has already transgressed the 
bounds originally marked out for himself,—his prospectus having an- 
nounced the completion of the birds in two volumes. It is perhaps, 
therefore, hardly fair to find fault with our author on these grounds, 
though, we think, the Indian field-naturalists, for whose benefit mainly 
the work was undertaken, will agree with our remarks upon these 
points. 

We have now, in conclusion, one or two criticisms to make upon 
points which will interest our scientific readers. Dr. Jerdon adopts, 
as we have already stated, Mr. George Gray’s arrangement of the class 
of birds, and, so far as the six great ordinal divisions (given p. xxxix.) 
go, we are not aware that he could have much improved upon them. 
But when he proceeds (p. 151) to employ Mr. Gray’s subdivisions of 


1864. | Bates’s Naturalist on the Amazons. 181 


the great group of Insessores, Dr. Jerdon is certainly behind the age. 
It has long since been most satisfactorily demonstrated that the Te- 
nuirostres of Cuvier form a most ill-assorted group, which ought to be 
divided amongst the others in any natural arrangement, and that, ex- 
clusive of the Parrots, there are but three natural sub-groups of In- 
sessorial birds,—namely, the Fissirostres, Scansores, and typical Pas- 
seres. We might also object to Dr. Jerdon’s collocation of the Swifts 
and Swallows, to the situation he has assigned to Upupa, and to many 
other minor points. But on the other hand we must congratulate him 
on his giving the Megalemide their true rank as a distinct family, on 
his correct appreciation of the relation of the Hornbills, and on 
much that relates to his general arrangement of the smaller groups. 
On the other hand, Dr. Jerdon goes too fast in another direction, 
especially when it is recollected that his book is intended for learners 
and unscientific persons as well as for the initiated. The subdivision 
of the Genera is carried to by far too great an extent, and this, in our 
estimation, forms one of the principal defects of the book as a scien- 
tifie work. The best authorities of the day, in all departments of 
natural history, set their face against this indiscriminate multiplication 
of generic terms, which, as carried out by certain writers, bids fair to 
convert every species into a genus, and renders the burden of recol- 
lecting technical names almost insupportable. Generic differences 
ought to be founded on essential and easily recognizable points of 
structure. That this is not the plan followed in Dr. Jerdon’s book, 
every naturalist will very soon discover, and we fear the non-naturalists 
(if we may so express ourselves) will be sorely puzzled in their at- 
tempts to fathom many of Dr. Jerdon’s minute subdivisions of well- 
known groups. Who will recognize the Linnean Turdi under the 
names T'urdulus, Planesticus, and Geocichla? Who will appreciate the 
separation of the well-defined genus of Pipits (Anthus) into Pipastes 
Corydalla and Agrodroma? In thus following the phantasies of Kaup, 
and the mad vagaries of Bonaparte (in his latest writings), we can- 
not believe that Dr. Jerdon has acted well for his own reputation, 


nor wisely as regards the class of readers for whom his volumes are 
specially intended. 


NATURAL HISTORY ON THE AMAZONS.* ~ 


To no class of men are the thoughtful students of Natural History 
more deeply indebted than to those who, casting behind them all the 
,luxuries and pleasures ‘of civilized life, plunge into the forests and 
solitudes of far distant regions, there to hold communion with Nature 
face to face, and to obtain an insight into her workings and modes of 
action in situations which, under ordinary circumstances, would for 


* «The Naturalist on the River Amazons.’ By Henry Walter Bates. 2 vols., 
S8vo. London: John Murray, 1863. 
‘Contributions to an Insect Fauna of the Amazon Valley; Lrepmoprrra, Hel- 


eonide,” By Henry Walter Bates. (‘Linnzan Transactions,’ vol. xxiii. part 3, 
page 495.) 


182 Reviews. [Jan. 


ever be concealed from intelligent curiosity. The framers of theories, 
and the elaborators of grand generalizations, must necessarily own 
their dependence upon such self-sacrificing investigators, and the value 
of the facts accumulated by such men depends upon their own inhe- 
rent powers of observation, and the degree of intelligence and industry 
they bring to bear upon their self-imposed labours. And seldom 
indeed does it happen that these qualities are so admirably combined 
as they appear to be in one whose ardent thirst for natural knowledge 
impelled him to exile himself for eleven years in a tropical and 
unhealthy country, in order that he might revel in the rich prodigality 
of animal and vegetable life which characterizes the great valley of 
the Amazons—a region which, though far indeed from the comforts 
and necessities of civilization, may fitly be designated “ the Metropolis 
of Nature.” 

Mr. Bates embarked at Liverpool in the spring of 1848, in company 
with Mr. A. R. Wallace, for Para, the only port of entry to the vast 
region watered by the Amazons. The object which the travellers pro- 
posed to themselves was twofold—to make for themselves collections 
of specimens, consigning the duplicates to London, to be there dis- 
posed of in payment of expenses, and, to gather facts towards solving 
the problem of the “origin of species.” The first of these objects 
was attained in an eminent degree; for not only have Mr. Bates’s 
collections many a time and oft caused congregations of naturalists 
under the hammer of Mr. Stevens, but he astounds us with the state- 
ment of his ageregate results when he informs us, with truthful sim- 
plicity, that he obtained, during his eleven years’ sojourn, 14,000 
insects, and 712 other animals, of which startling total no less than 
8,000 were new to science. Never has it fallen to the lot of a single 
individual to bring so vast a contribution to systematic zoology, and 
it is a grand proof of the rare riches of the teeming district he so 
wisely selected for his exploration. 

With regard to the second object of the journey, while the results 
have not been so definite as those just glanced at, the two explorers 
arrived at some conclusions to which we shall refer in the course of 
the present article, and which, however widely they may differ from 
the views of another school, will, we venture to predict, be of consi- 
derable service in the ultimate advance of science. It is now a 
matter known to every one, that Mr. Wallace, after spending four years 
in South America with Mr. Bates, travelled to the East in search of 
new fields of exploration, and there, while lying stricken down by 
fever, he elaborated in his busy brain the theory afterwards pro- 
mulgated by Mr. Darwin in his work on ‘The Origin of Species.’ It, 
was this fact, and the communication of this hypothesis to Sir C. 
Lyell, which determined Mr. Darwin to bring his long-cherished views 
before the Linnean Society, and thereafter to publish the book which 
has been so fertile a source of scientific controversy. We may judge, 
therefore, that as far as Mr. Wallace is concerned, he considered that 
the facts he had collected threw some light upon the problem which 
they had charged themselves to illuminate. And in the work before 
us Mr. Bates proves himself an apt scholar and valuable ally of Mr. 


1864. ] Bares’s Naturalist on the Amazons. 183 


Darwin; and in his preface he tells us that it was Mr. Darwin’s 
opinions and wishes which were mainly instrumental in inducing him 
to commence the inditing of his book, and the same steady encourage- 
ment which strengthened his wavering resolution, and. helped him to 
accomplish the task. We shall not be surprised, then, to find the 
tendency of the book to be Darwinian. 

Mr. Bates made Paré his head-quarters, and his first volume is 
devoted to that neighbourhood, and his excursions up the Lower Amazons. 
The zoological richness of the immediate vicinity of Para itself is 
something almost beyond belief; and our traveller’s account of his first 
walk on the afternoon of his arrival is most graphic and stirring. 
Nevertheless he appears to have been at first struck with the generally 
small size and obscure colouring of the birds, and the similarity of 
appearance which the insects and birds of the open, sunny places bore 
to those inhabiting similar spots in Europe. The roadside vegetation 
consisted of tangled masses of bushes and shrubs, intermingled with 
prickly mimosas; but, notwithstanding this resemblance to European 
roadside features, there were, as may be supposed, many others which, 
at every step, reminded the travellers that they were in another world, 
The abundance of climbing trees attracted the attention in their first 
forest walk, and elicited a remark which is extremely interesting, viz. 
that these climbing trees do not form any particular family or genus ; 
there is no order of plants whose especial habit it is to climb ; but species 
of many, and the most diverse families, the bulk of whose members are 
not climbers, seem to have been driven by circumstances to adopt this 
habit. The orders Leguminose, Guttifere, Bignoniacer, Moracer, 
and others, furnish the greater number. There is even a climbing 
species of palm (Desmoncus). This remark is very characteristic of 
the tendency of Mr. Bates’s mind, which, though not to an undue 
degree speculative, yet sees, in observations like these, something more 
than the meagre fact which would be patent to all. He concludes the 
subject with the remark: “The number and variety of climbing trees 
in the Amazons forests are interesting, taken in connexion with the 
fact of the very general tendency of the animals also to become 
climbers.” (p. 49.) 

The quadrupeds and birds of the forest do not appear to the 
passing traveller, for, being excessively shy and widely scattered, the 
first impression which Mr. Bates received was that they were very 
few; he met with no tumultuous movement or sound of life, but 
describes it as a solitude, in which only at long intervals animals are 
seen in abundance, when some particular spot is found which is more 
attractive than others ; and this fact of distribution is one which we 
have ourselves observed, when, for example, scanning an expanse of 
sea-shore in search of the smaller marine animals, in situations where 
certain species are known to abound. The feeling inspired in the 
Brazilian forests was one of inhospitable wildness, only increased 
tenfold by the fearful and harrowing uproar made by the howling 
monkeys morning and evening. Other sounds are not so easily 
accounted for, even by the natives themselves, such as a sudden noise 
like the clang of an iron bar against a hard, hollow tree, or a piercing 


184 Reviews. [ Jan. 


ery which rends the air—sounds not repeated, while the succeeding 
silence tends to heighten the impression which they make on the mind. 
“With the natives it is always the Curipira—the wild man or 
spirit of the forest—-which produces all noises they are unable to 
explain.” (p. 73.) 

Near Cameté, on the river Tocantins, Mr. Bates had an oppor- 
tunity of verifying a fact which had almost fallen into discredit, viz. 
the bird-catching propensities of the great Mygale spider (M. avicu- 
laria). Its web was stretched across a crevice in the tree-trunk, and 
in it were entangled two birds about the size of our English siskins; 
one of them was dead, and the other under the spider, not quite dead. 
The observation appeared to be new to the residents, though the insect 
was well known ; and the crab-spiders, as they call them, are injurious 
even to man, from the maddening irritation produced by their hairs, 
which come off when touched. Nevertheless, Mr. Bates “saw the 
children belonging to an Indian family, who collected for me, with 
one of these monsters secured by a cord round its waist, by which 
they were leading it about the house as they would a dog.” (p. 162.) 

The impediments which Mr. Bates encountered in his journeys up 
and down the ‘Great Father of Waters’ almost exceed belief, owing 
partly-to the dangers of the river navigation, and partly to the scarcity 
of trading-canoes large enough for his accommodation. Although but 
a river, a strong breeze would produce such a sea, that the vessel (a 
schooner) pitched and rolled like a ship in the ocean; and in the 
Tocantins, the view from the middle of the stream is described as very 
imposing :—“ Towards the north-east, there was a long sweep of horizon, 
clear of land; and on the south-west, stretched a, similar boundless 
expanse, but varied with islets clothed with fan-leaved palms, visible, 
however, only as isolated groups of columns, tufted at the top, rising 
here and there amidst the waste of waters.” (I. 220.) 

We cannot sufficiently admire the perseverance and earnestness with 
which Mr. Bates overcame difficulties that would have deterred any 
ordinary traveller, and encountered dangers of no insignificant nature. 
These difficulties and dangers are best illustrated by his account of a 
voyage up the Tapajos, from Santarem to the Munduruct village. It 
was necessary first to procure a vessel of his own, a two-masted cuberta, 
of about six tons’ burthen, strongly built of Itauba wood. This was 
hired at the cheap rate of 1s. 2d. perdiem. (Then men were necessary, 
and although only six were wanted, it was almost impossible to procure 
them; and at length, after almost fearimg that the voyage must be 
given up, he procured one man, and with his servant José he deter- 
mined to attempt the journey. Before they had got many miles a 
storm arose which blew away their boat, tore their sails to rags, 
snapped their ropes, and drove their vessel broadside on the beach. 
Nine days were necessary to repair the rigging ; but not lost days, for 
there were rich forests to explore. Having been fortunate enough to 
meet with another hand, they again proceeded, and for some days all 
went on well, but the loss of the boat was a great source of annoyance, 
and ultimately was remedied by building a canoe out of a tree felled 
for the purpose, and moved with great labour to the river-side upon a 


1864. | Barers’s Naturalist on the Amazons. 185 


road made for the occasion. The casca turned out a success. Add to 
all this the plagues of fire-ants—Tabani, which, by twos and threes at 
a time, dug their probosces, half-an-inch long and sharp as a needle, 
through the long thick cotton shirt upon their backs, making them cry 
out under the infliction, and a host of other inconveniences ; and it 
will be seen that natural-history collecting upon the Amazons is no 
child’s play. 

Some curious adventures with serpents rewarded this excursion. 
On one occasion an Anaconda (Eunectes murinus), 18 feet 9 inches 
long, was systematically hunted and despatched with harpoons; and 
he appears to credit reports of similar serpents having been found 
42 feet long. Moreover, the natives are not without faith in the ex- 
istence of a great Amazonian serpent, rivalling the great sea-serpent 
itself in magnitude. On another occasion, “ whilst pinning an insect, 
I was rather startled by a rushing noise in the vicinity. I looked up 
to the sky, thinking a squall was coming on, but not a breath of wind 
stirred in the tree tops. On stepping out of the bushes, I met face to 
face a huge serpent (Boa Constrictor) coming down a slope, and 
making the dry twigs crack and fly with his weight as he moved over 
them. I had very frequently met with a smaller boa, the Cutim boa, 
and knew from the habits of the family that there was no danger; so 
I stood my ground. On seeing me, the reptile suddenly turned, and 
glided at an accelerated pace down the path. Wishing to take a note 
of his probable size, and the colours and markings of his skin, I set 
off after him, but he increased his speed, and I was unable to get near 
enough for the purpose. There was very little of the serpentine move- 
ment in his course. The rapidly moving and shining body looked 
like a stream of brown liquid flowing over the thick bed of falling 
leaves, rather than a serpent with a skin of varied colours. The huge 
trunk of an uprooted tree here lay across the road; this he glided 
over on his undeviating course, and soon after penetrated a dense 
swampy thicket, where, of course, I did not choose to follow him.” 

Having stayed about three years and a half at Santarem, and in its 
neighbourhood, Mr. Bates proceeded to Ega, on the Upper Amazon, 
or Solimoens, and this distant spot, 1,200 miles from Parad, he made 
his head-quarters for no less than four-and-a-half years, making during 
that period, however, excursions of 300 and 400 miles’ distance from 
it. An arduous journey of 55 days from Santarem brought our tra- 
veller to Ega, where, far from civilized life, he was often put to great 
shifts, from the failure of communication and remittances from Europe. 
From the inhabitants he met with civility and kindness, and although 
never troubled with impertinent curiosity on their part, his pursuits 
could not fail to arouse some speculation. The Indians and half- 
castes complacently thought it but natural that strangers should collect 
and send abroad the beautiful birds and insects of their country, uni- 
versally concluding that the butterflies were wanted as patterns for 
bright-coloured calico prints. We can sympathize with the noble 
endurance of Mr. Bates, in spite of the difficulty of getting news, the 
want of intellectual society, and, towards the latter part of his resi- 


186 | Reviews. [Jan. 


dence, ill-health arising from bad and insufficient food; and feel 
rejoiced that he was well repaid by the fact that the neighbourhood 
yielded him, up to the last day of his residence, an uninterrupted suc- 
cession of new and curious forms in the different classes of the animal 
kingdom, but especially insects. 

It is difficult, from sucha mine of information as is displayed in 
the contents of these two volumes of travel, to select for illustration 
one subject of considerably greater interest than another. Mr. Bates 
discourses of monkeys, of serpents, of birds, of insects, of vegetation, 
of natives, and all with the air of one who speaks of what he has seen. 
But it is to insects more especially that his attention was directed, 
and if we were to single out one subject in particular which he has 
thoroughly studied, it would be that of the history of the various spe- 
cies of Ants, the Satiba Ant, the Formiga de Fogo or Fire Ants, the Ter- 
mites, the Foraging Ants, &c., for the graphic and interesting accounts 
of which, however, we must refer the reader to his volumes. But while 
it is to insects that he has devoted a large portion of his attention, it 
is in reference to them also chiefly, that he has advanced those views 
which we have already alluded to, as bearing upon the question of the 
origin of species; and in the remaining portion of this article we 
shall briefly notice those views. 

Among insects, the causes and influence of colour is a very im- 
portant subject, which receives its share of attention, but although 
the brilliant ornamentation of the males exists in the fauna of all 
climates, it certainly reaches a higher degree of perfection in the 
tropics than elsewhere; nevertheless Mr. Bates concludes that it 
is not wholly the external conditions of light, heat, moisture, and 
so forth, which determine the general aspect of the animals of a 
country, and he combats the generally entertained notion that the 
superior size and beauty of tropical insects and birds are imme- 
diately due to the physical conditions of a tropical climate, or are 
in some way directly connected with them. It is almost always the 
males only which are beautiful in colours; the brilliant dress is rarely 
worn by both sexes of the same species. If climate had any direct 
influence in this matter, why, he asks, have not both sexes felt its 
effects, and why are the males of genera, living under our gloomy 
English skies, adorned with bright colours? It is true the tropics 
have a vastly greater total number of species altogether ; the abund- 
ance of food, high temperature, absence of seasons of extreme cold 
and dearth, and the variety of stations, all probably operate in favour- 
ing the existence of a greater number and variety of species in tropical 
than in temperate latitudes; but the contrast between the colouring 
of the sexes is often greater in the tropics than in any species of tem- 
perate zones, so that, in fact, beauty of colour is not peculiar to any 
one zone, but producible under any climate where a number of species 
or given genus lead a flourishing existence. ‘These facts “all point to 
the mutual relations of the species, and especially to those between 
the sexes, as having far more to do in the matter than climate.” Else- 
where he makes a remark in which we most heartily concur : “I think 


1864.] Bartes’s Naturalist on the Amazons. 187 


it is a childish notion, that the beauty of birds, insects, and other 
creatures is given to please the human eye. Surely rich plumage and 
song, like all other endowments of species, are given them for their 
own pleasure and advantage. This, if true, ought to enlarge our 
ideas of the inner life and mutual relations of our humbler fellow- 
creatures !” 

Again, the similarity of the colour of the insect to the ground it 
inhabits is an interesting problem touched upon at vol. i. p. 207. 
This assimilation is exhibited by some and not by others, the dress of 
some species being in striking contrast to the colours of their dwell- 
ing-place. But, as Mr. Bates remarks—The species not so protected 
“has means of protection of quite a different nature, and therefore does 
not need the peculiar mode of disguise enjoyed by its companion ;” 
and he properly infers, “that the fact of some species not exhibiting 
the same adaptation of colours to dwelling-places as their companion 
species, does not throw doubt on the explanation given of the adapta- 
tion, but is rather confirmatory of it.” 

Mr. Bates supports by observation Darwin’s views of the compe- 
tition existing amongst organized beings, and illustrates it in the 
vegetable world by the growth of the Amazons forest, especially by 
the Murderer Liana, a species of fig, which puts forth arm-like 
branches from side to side, which meet together, and clasping one 
another mount upwards, tightly encircling the tree which supports it 
with inflexible rings, till at length the tree is killed, and “ the strange 
spectacle remains of the selfish parasite, clasping in its arms the life- 
less and decaying body of its victim, which had been a help to its own 
growth. Its ends have been served; it has flowered and fruited, 
reproduced and disseminated its kind; and now when the dead trunk 
moulders away, its own end approaches, its support is gone, and 
itself also falls.” Thus the Liana merely exhibits, im a more con- 
spicuous manner than usual, the struggle which necessarily exists 
amongst vegetable forms in these crowded forests, when individual 
is competing with individual, and species with species, all striving to 
reach ght and air, in order to unfold their leaves and perfect their 
organs of fructification. But “there is plenty in tropical nature to 
counteract any unpleasant impression which the reckless energy of 
the vegetation might produce. There is the incomparable beauty and 
variety of the foliage, the vivid colours, the richness and exuberance 
everywhere displayed, which make, in my opinion, the richest wood- 
land scenery in Northern Europe a sterile desert in comparison. But 
it is especially the enjoyment of life manifested by individual exist- 
ences, which compensates for the destruction and pain caused by in- 
evitable competition.” (vol. i. p. 56.) 

But Mr. Bates’s strongest article of alliance with Mr. Darwin is 
upon the subject of mimetic resemblances. This curious topic, touched 
upon in several places in his work, has received further elucidation in 
the admirable and elaborate memoir referred to at the head of this 
article. This memoir was read to the Linnean Socicty, Nov. 21st, 
1861, and long preceded, therefore, his two volumes of travel, to which we 


188 Reviews. | Ji an. 


have hitherto been referring. By this memoir, entitled ‘ Contributions 
to an Insect Fauna, of the Amazon Valley,’ Mr. Bates has established for 
himself a high rank among original investigators, and has shown powers 
of observation of which he may justly feel proud. For although the 
subject of recurrent form, or analogical resemblance, or homomor- 
phism, or by whatever title it may be called, has attracted the atten- 
tion of many naturalists, the manner in which it is here illustrated in 
the Heliconine group of butterflies, is equally original and acute. 

Mr. Bates found that certain butterflies, so closely mocked cer- 
tain others belonging to distinct groups, that though always on the 
watch, it required all his caution to distinguish them.* He believes 
that these resemblances are intended as a protection to otherwise 
defenceless insects, by deceiving insectivorous animals, and pre- 
sumes that, seeing the excessive abundance of one species and the 
fewness of the individuals of the other, that the MHeliconide is 
free from the persecution to which the Leptalis is subjected ; and he 
seems inclined to attribute less to community of habit than we should 
be disposed to do, though it cannot be denied that such community is 
a constant concomitant of mimetism. 

The bearing of this subject, upon the origin of species, is plainly 


* The Heliconids appeared to him to be the objects mocked, because they all 
have the same family facies, whilst the analogous species are dissimilar to their 
nearest allies,—permitted, as it were, to produce the resemblance from the normal 
facies of the genus or family to which they severally belong. So close were 
the resemblances that Mr. Bates was never able to distinguish the Leptalides 
(Pieridze) from the species they imitated, without close examination after capture. 
And yet the Leptalides belong to a family totally different in structure and meta- 
morphosis from the Heliconidx, which they imitate. Moreover, they fly in the 
same part of the forest, and generally in company with the species they mimic. 
Species of Ithomia (Heliconidx) concerned in these imitations have all the character 
of true species, being distinct and constant. They are all excessively numerous 
in individuals, swarms of each kind being found in the districts they inhabit. The 
Leptalides are extremely rare ; they cannot be more than as one in a thousand of 
the Ithomiz. Moreover, none of these Leptalides have been found in any other 
district or country than those inhabited by the Ithomiw, which they counterfeit. 
A species very closely allied to L. Lysinoé has been received from Mexico; but an 
Ithomia of nearly tie same colours (I. Nero) also inhabits Mexico. Some other 
Leptalides exist which do not mimic Ithomix, but some other genera of the same 
family, as Methona and Mechanitis. ‘ A’similar series of mimetic analogies occurs 
in the Old World, between the Asiatic and African Danaidex (or representatives 
of the Heliconidx) and species of other families of butterflies and moths; but no 
instance is known in these families of a tropical species of one hemisphere counter- 
feiting a form belonging to the other.” So, also, on the banks of the Amazons 
parasitic. bees and two-winged flies mimic the dress of industrious and nest- 
building bees peculiar to this country, at whose expense they live, in the manner 
of the cuckoo. 

An examination of the beautiful coloured plates in the Linnean Society’s 
memoir shows that the mimetic resemblances exhibit a minute and palpably 
intentional likeness, which, as Mr. Bates expresses it, is perfectly staggering ; 
and no wonder, indeed, that he was constantly being deceived by them. Com- 
paring Leptalis Theonoé with Ithomia Flora, or the Ega variety with Ithomia 
Illinissa, Leptalis Amphione with Mechanitis Polymnia (both var. Egaensis), and, 
again, Leptalis Orise with Methona Psidii, we cannot fail to be astonished at the 
closeness of the resemblance, particularly when taken in connection with the 
normal form of Leptalis Nehemia. 


1864. | Barus’s Naturalist on the Amazons. 189 


stated by Mr. Bates, as a most beautiful proof of the theory of natural 
selection, by showing that a new adaptation, or the formation of a new 
species is not effected by a great and sudden change, but by numerous 
small steps of natural variation and selection. Local conditions favour 
the increase of one or more varicties in a district at the expense of the 
others,—the selected ones being different in different districts, in the 
case of the varieties of Mechanitis. ‘“ With the mimetic species Leptalis 
Theonoe the case is different. We see here a segregation of local forms 
sunilar to that of Mechanitis Polymnia ; but we believe we know the con- 
ditions of life of the species, and find that they vary from one locality 
to another. The existence of the species, in each locality, is seen to 
depend on its form and colours, or dress being assimilated to those of 
Ithomice of the same district, such assimilation being apparently its 
only means of escaping extermination by insectivorous animals.” And 
indeed the abundance of the mocked species seems to show that it pos- 
sesses some such immunity, and at all events lives under conditions 
very favourable to its increase and preservation. To exist in a certain 
locality, a Leptalis must wear a certain dress, and those of its varieties 
which do not come up to the mark are rigidly sacrificed. 

It is manifestly impossible in a review to enter fully into all 
the arguments of the work. All that can be done is to indicate the 
salient points, and abstract the conclusions; and much as these specu- 
lations of Mr. Bates have interested us, we must content ourselves with 
this imperfect résumé of them, and refer those who would know more 
upon the subject to the memoir itself. In taking leave of Mr. Bates, 
however, we cannot help expressing the gratification and rare pleasure 
we have felt in the perusal of his ‘ Naturalist on the Amazons,’ in which 
a vast amount of truthful and original information is given, in an 
unobtrusive and unselfish style. The world of naturalists is under a 
heavy obligation to him for his toilsome and laborious collection of 
facts, and for the interesting, though probably not less laborious, work 
in which they are permanently embodied. Nor must we omit thanks 
to Mr. Darwin, for screwing Mr. Bates’s courage to the sticking place, 
without which perhaps the work would never have been written, or at 
all events have been so deferred as to impair its value. The ‘ Contribu- 
tions to Insect Fauna of the Amazons’ are an important addition to 
Entomological science, and however averse some may be to the theory of 
natural selection, no one can fail to be instructed, as well as interested, 
by the ingenious remarks with which Mr. Bates preludes the systema- 
tic part of the subject. We hail Mr. Bates as a worthy naturalist- 
traveller, and willingly and gratefully accord to him a well-earned and 
high position amongst those who have advanced science by patient, 
earnest, and original investigation. 


190 Reviews. [Jan. 


THE GREAT METEOR OF 1863.* 


Amonest the most startling of cosmical phenomena are the occasional 
appearances of Meteors of extraordinary size and luminosity. Coming 
without the forewarnings of gathering clouds and dropping rain, their 
sudden advent in a clear bright sky excites more astonishment in the 
common observer than the most vivid lightning, while the dull booming 
sound which follows their disappearance or explosion has more of 
mystery, and excites more terror than the pealing thunder which 
succeeds the electric flash. 
Almost as transient as— 


‘the borealis race 
Which flit ere you can trace their place,” 


the scientific observer is often as much at a loss to tell whence they 
come and whither they go as the ordinary witness of their brilliancy. 
He is generally but conscious of a momentary flash of light, and on 
looking to the heavens sees only the trail, something like a luminous 
scratch in the sky, left by the passing object. A debt of gratitude is 
therefore due to any philosopher who, like the author of the opuscule 
we notice, is at the pains to collect and compare the observations of 
any single example made at widely distant stations, and construct 
from the whole a connected narrative. 

On the evening of the 4th of March, 1863, at about seven o’clock, 
Dr. Heis, Professor of Astronomy and Mathematics in the Royal Academy 
of Miinster, was taking a walk in the open air. The sky was clear and 
bright, when suddenly the whole neighbourhood was for a moment 
lighted up as with Bengal fire, and looking upwards the Doctor saw 
passing majestically across the firmament a fire-ball which seemed to 
increase in size until it grew as large as the moon at full. Such an 
appearance of course excited astonishment in all who witnessed it, and 
as the author was known to take an especial interest in these phe- 
nomena,{ a few days brought him numerous communications on the 
subject. From these, some contributed by astronomers and physicists 
of great repute, as Baumhauer of Amsterdam, Quetéléet of Brussels, 
and Mr. Greg of Manchester, others from writers of no scientific 
repute, but as country clergymen telling no doubt truthfully what they 
believed they saw, and also from the results of his own inquiries 
among the most stupid of Belgian peasants, the author has drawn up 
this complete account of the form, apparent size, colour, brightness of 
the object, as well as the trail, and the manner in which it disappeared 
or exploded. 


* «Die grosse Feuerkugel, welche am Abende des 4 Marz, 1863, in Holland, 
Deutschland, Belgien, und England gesehen worden ist.’ Won Dr, Ed. Heis, Pro- 
fessor der Mathematik und Astronomie an der Konigl. Akademie zu Munster. 
Halle: H.W. Schmidt. 1863. 

The large fire-ball which was seen in Holland, Germany, Belgium, and Eng- 
land on the evening of the 4th of March, 1863, &c. &c. 

+ He had published an account of the large Fire Ball seen in Germany on the 
evening of the 4th December, 1861. 


1864. | Hats’s Great Meteor of 1865. 191 


The Meteor appears to have been visible over a hexagonal area, 
the angles of which are formed by the following places :—Manchester, 
Brighton, Tréves, Erbach, Hanover, and the North-coast of the kingdom 
of Hanover. This space encloses more than 100,000 English square 
miles. The most distant opposite angles in the direction N.W. and 
S.E. are Manchester and Erbach, 553 miles apart; and from N.E. to 
S.W. Bremen and Brighton, 401 miles distant. 

About the time of the appearance and its duration there is little 
room for difference of opinion. The author calculates the mean time 
for Minster at 7h. 6m., and the duration is variously stated to have 
been from 3 to 6 seconds. 

The form and size of the fire-ball are naturally open to wider 
differences of opinion among the observers, but in this instance the 
differences are capable of reconciliation. One observer compared the 
head of the Meteor to the head of a fish, and remarked that it pro- 
gressed with the movement of a swimming fish. Another compared 
it to a club, the length of which was three times that of the breadth. 
The majority observed that it was pear-shaped, egg-shaped, or fig- 
shaped ; hence the author concludes that it was really ellipsoidal. 
But as most on the Belgian side described it as a “ fiery cannon ball,” 
the author infers that the longer axis was directed towards that 
side. 

The apparent size was mostly compared with some terrestrial 
object. It was said to have been the size of a man’s head, a child’s 
head, a hen’s egg, or a ball 4, 5, or 6 inches in diameter. Many 
said it was the size of the moon, others that its diameter was 4, 4, or 
4 that of the moon. One observer describes it as four times the size 
of the evening star, and another says that at its first appearance it was 
no larger than ordinary star dust (Sternschuppe). 

The description of the colour, also, offers some differences. 
Some say it was of dazzling whiteness, others, a greenish blue, while 
another remarks that the light resembled that of the Electric spark.* 

The colour, however, appears to have been changed by intervening 
media, so that at some stations it was said to be red, deep yellow, dark 
red, or violet. The author believes that the real colour of the Meteor 
was red, inasmuch as it appeared of that colour when at a great height, 
and in bright moonlight. 

The most extraordinary brightness was remarked everywhere ; it 
seemed like the sudden appearance of a full moon in the heavens. Near 
Boppard, an observer on a mountain saw for a moment the valley of the 
Rhine lighted up as by avery bright full moon. At one place, a clergy- 
man could distinguish the letters in a newspaper lying on his table, 
and at Kupen a man could see to read in the street. The shadows of 
objects were thrown remarkably sharply and well defined ; and the 
confused dance of the shadows of houses and trees, projected as 


* The Reviewer, who was passing along Regent Street, London, on the evening 
in question, was much startled by the sudden appearance of an extraordinary light, 
which, to him, appeared exactly like the light of the electric spark. On looking to 
the sky, he saw nothing but a brilliant line of light which appeared to lie nearly 
East and West, and seemed three or four yards long. 


192 Reviews. ; [ Jan. 


the Meteor darted over the ‘“ Domplatz” of Miinster, formed a most 
peculiar sight. 

The Meteor was seen through the large western window of the 
Cathedral of Miinster (as is shown in our illustration), by an observer 
within the building, and this appearance 
furnished the author, as we shall presently 
see, with the most important elements from 
which to determine its height and direction. 
So near to the earth did it appear at Miin- 
ster, that people ran to the common before 
the Castle to find it, thinking it must have 
fallen on that spot. It was sought for by 
the peasantry in many places, and in one, 
as we shall see, by the author himself; and 
we are by no means astonished to read that 
at a village near Tréves, the peasants said 
that a fiery cross had fallen from heaven. 

[eee eae eee a As is usually the case, the fire-ball of the 
4th of March left behind it a line of light 
which showed for a few moments the direction it had taken. By some, 
this is described as a simple straight line of light, and by others, as a 
trail of sparks. One clergyman, however, denies that it left a trail, 
and the author accounts for the invisibility by showing that from 
the geographical position of the observer, the trail must have been 
covered by the object itself. 

The disappearance is variously described by different observers. 
In most places they agree that the Meteor suddenly appeared and as 
suddenly disappeared, like lightning. But some assert, that it gave 
off sparks and burst like a rocket; others say that it burst into small 
pieces, which seemed to be entirely consumed, while one declares 
that it disappeared in blackish vapours, which the author does not 
appear to believe. . 

In general it has been remarked that the apparent extinction of an 
object such as that we are describing, has been attended by a noise 
resembling distant thunder. It has imvariably been heard when 
meteoric stones have subsequently been found. No fragment of the 
fire-ball of the 4th of March has yet been traced, but it is certain that 
observers, far and near, say they heard a noise. It was not heard in 
large towns, even when they lay near to the spot at which the ball 
disappeared ; but that can be easily accounted for. In some places 
the sound is said to have resembled the rushing noise made by a rocket 
in its flight, or a passing cannon-ball; in others, it is compared to the 
dull ‘bump’ which follows the fall of a heavy body on soft earth. 
We must remark, that the noise waa heard loudest in North Brabant, 
and appeared most distant at Hanover, from which important conse- 
quences follow. 

Respecting the true path of the Meteor, the observations which 
reached the author left him in no doubt. All the observers in the 
east saw the object towards the west, going from right to left; while 
those in the west saw it towards the east, and going from left to right 


1864. | Hets’s Great Meteor of 1863. 193 


There were others who supposed it to be going towards the zenith. 
Two reliable observations further afforded him the means of calcula- 
ting with some certainty, both the direction and the height. One of 
these was the observation made in the Miinster Cathedral. The large 
west window of the cathedral was suddenly lighted up, so that the 
architectural details were all rendered plainly visible, and the observer 
saw the ball pass across in an oblique direction from the right-hand 
corner. From measurement of the distance of the observer from 
the window, and the height of the window, Dr. Heis was enabled to 
calculate two points in the path of the Meteor. 

We may sum up, in a few words, the conclusions at which the 
author arrived from a careful comparison of the various observations 
which reached him. He believes that the fire-ball first became visible 
at a point in the North Sea, about 53° 50’ north latitude, and longitude 
5° east of Greenwich, at a height of 88 miles; that it travelled from 
north to south, and disappeared in latitude 51° 28’, longitude 5° 18’, at 
a height of 17 miles, having in its visible course traversed 187 miles in 
4% seconds, at the rate of 473 miles in a second. The path inclined 
towards the horizon, at an angle of 22°. 

We have said that the author himself believed that the fire-ball had 
fallen to the earth. So convinced was he of this, that he made a 
journey to the place near which he supposed it to have fallen, in order 
to search for and make inquiries after it. He wandered over the 
neighbourhood of Herzogenbusch, in the north of Flanders, for several 
days, but without success, and departed at last, disappointed indeed, 
yet still hopeful, for he left at the village schools a promise of a large 
reward for any boy who should find a meteoric-stone. 

On all sides, however, he found the impression existed that the 
Meteor had fallen in the immediate neigbourhood, and from the in- 
terval of time which elapsed between the disappearance of the light 
and the observation of the sound in this vicinity, he calculated the 
height at which it exploded. But unfortunately the ideas of the 
Belgian peasants as to length of the interval were rather vague. Several 
guessed it at five minutes, which was much too long, so the Doctor, 
in his perplexity, appealed to an intelligent cook, who both saw the 
Meteor and was frightened by the noise. In answer to the question, 
“Could she have boiled an egg hard in the interval?” she replied, 
“Lord bless me, no—not even soft !—Lord bless me, no; it could not 
have done in double the time ;” and so the interval was reduced from 
five minutes to less than one minute, which was further diminished by 
other observers to twenty-two or twenty-five seconds. 

If it were solid, and had fallen entire, there would hardly have 
been much difficulty in finding the object, for Dr. Heis has cal- 
culated that in such-a case the earth would suddenly have acquired 
a@ mountain as large as one of the Siebengebirge. The diameter of 
the fire-ball he estimates at 1,381 English feet ; but it may be, he 
remarks, that these bodies have only a small nucleus within a luminous 
envelope. 

The cosmical relations of the fire-ball of the 4th of March we must 
dismiss very briefly, The author determined that it moved around the 

VOL. 1. t) 


194 Reviews. [ Jan. 


sun ina hyperbola, and that it became visible at a point in the heavens 
near the star y Cephei. For the elements of this determination we 
must refer the reader to the little work under review. 

With regard to the chemical composition of fire-balls, Dr. Heis has 
nothing new to tellus. The recent discovery of hydrocarbons, graphite, 
and free sulphur in stones which have fallen, may lead to the supposi- 
tion that some are wholly combustible in very attenuated air, and we 
may thus account for the phenomena of falling or shooting-stars ; while 
in others the mineral matters may predominate, and these sometimes 
exploding with detonation, fragments fall to the earth constituting 
meteoric stones. : 

Respecting the origin and destination of the Meteors and fire-balls 
we have, of course, no information, and the votaries of modern science 
and of ancient poetry will still continue variously to regard them as 
fresh fuel for our flaming sun, or fragments of a shattered world. 


MILLS AND MILLWORK.* 


To the minds of laymen the vocation of engineering is not so obviously 
cut up into distinct departments as the better known and older profes- 
sions. While time and the experience which each of us must encounter 
teach all men to distinguish, with some approach to accuracy, between 
the many distinct provinces into which the practice of medicine and 
that of law are divided, there are comparatively few persons not con- 
nected with engineering who are aware that the same division of labour 
which characterizes each of the three so-called learned professions 
may be found to regulate and aid the labours of the engineer. The 
two main lines of the calling are pretty well known under their relative 
names of Civil, and Mechanical Engineering ; but out of these, and 
especially out of the latter, there spring numerous entirely distinct 
branch lines, each leading and ministering to its own special industry, 
and each (to carry out our figure) presided over by a distinct staff of 
management with widely different functions. 

The civil engineers being a more purely professional class than 
their mechanical brethren, naturally deal with a wide range of matters, 
and do not greatly tend to split up into specialities ; but the mechani- 

ian being generally a practical man who lives by producing as well 
as scheming machinery, soon finds that his business, to be made pro- 
fitable, must be confined within comparatively narrow limits. 

Hence there arises an immense varicty of machine makers, all in- 
cluded under the generic title of mechanical engineers, a body amongst 
whom, taken as a whole, there exists an astonishing amount of practical 
experience and theoretical knowledge ; but each having his own speci- 
ality out of which it is seldom his wish or his interest to travel. 

This is, however, quite a recent state of things in the profession. 


* ¢Mills and Millwork.’ By W. Fairbairn, Esq., C.E., LL.D., F.R.S., F.G.S., 
&ec. 2 vols. Longmans. 


1864. | Farrparrn’s Mills and Millwork. 195 


Some fifty years ago, when the machinist’s art was in its infancy, 
the “ millwright,” who may fairly be considered as the ancestor of 
mechanical engineers, was far from special in his pursuits. In the 
best cases he was, to use Mr. Fairbairn’s own words, “ the sole repre- 
sentative of mechanical art. He was the engineer of the district in 
which he lived; a kind of Jack-of-all-trades who could with equal 
facility work at the lathe, the anvil, or the carpenter’s bench. Generally 
he was a fair arithmetician, knew something of geometry, levelling, 
and mensuration, and, in some cases, possessed a very competent 
knowledge of practical mathematics. He could calculate the velocities, 
strength, and power of machines; could draw in plan and section, and 
could construct buildings, conduits, or water-courses in all the forms 
and under all the conditions required in his professional practice ; he 
could build bridges, cut canals, and perform a variety of work now 
done by civil engineers. Such was the character and condition of the 
men who designed and carried out most of the mechanical work of this 
country up to the middle and end of the last century.” 

In the course of the great modern expansion of the mechanical arts, 
the old millwright has become very nearly extinct, and the wide field 
in which he laboured has been partitioned among several craftsmen. 
The domain of mill-work is, however, still very comprehensive, while 
it is not surpassed in importance by any other branch of mechanical 
industry. 

Mill-work may properly be said to include every engineering 
process involved in the construction both of the buildings and 
machinery employed in producing consumable manufactures, including 
every species of motive power, whether derived from wind, water, or 
steam. Mr. Fairbairn’s book is a practical and, in some particulars, 
an exhaustive treatise on each of these subjects, which are judiciously 
divided into five sections, comprising—1l. Introduction, with a sketch 
of the early history of mills. 2. The principles of mechanism. 3. 
On prime movers. 4. On the machinery of transmission. 5. On the 
arrangement of mills. Of the two first sections we have little to say ; 
both might have been omitted without detriment to the merits of the 
work ; it is only after we have skimmed the curious information of the 
first, and glanced at the familiar elementary mechanics of the second 
section, that we begin to find the great storehouse of the author’s 
original experiences open, or to recognize what an enormous amount 
and variety of actual practice is here reduced, tabulated, and made 
ready for the daily use of the millwright and engineer. 

Throughout the whole of his work, but especially in the second 
and latest published volume with which we have more particularly to 
deal, Mr. Fairbairn is essentially ‘“ practical.” It is a noteworthy fact 
that in spite of the aid which mathematical science affords to the engi- 
neer, our best machinists and our best machinery are less the result of 
applied mathematical investigation than of intuitive judgment backed 
by the time-honoured rule of thumb. It is true that the mathematician’s 
aid is in every-day use in ascertaining the direction and intensity of 
strains and calculating the resisting powers of the various parts of 
machinery, but even through all the elaborate tables and rules given 

oO D> 


a 


196 Reviews. ; [Jan 


by our author for the determination of the proportions of gearing, 
shafts, or any other portion of mill work, the fact transpires, that the 
mathematics have been fitted to the practice, and not the practice to 
the mathematics. Nor is this peculiar to Mr. Fairbairn; on the con- 
trary, a similar tendency has pervaded the work of our best engineers, 
so that it has almost come to be believed by some, that a great mathe- 
matical capacity is inconsistent with unusual mechanical ability. 

Though this is a question of much interest, we do not propose to 
discuss it here, but merely remark, in passing, that Mr. Fairbairn’s 
work is certainly another and weighty argument put into the mouths 
of those who hold that the great masters in the mechanical craft have 
ever used pure mathematics as a very humble kind of servant, treating 
her mainly as a custos rerum, or a means of making the results of their 
great natural intuition and observation common property for their 
inferiors or successors. 

The second and recently published volume of the work opens with 
Section 4, and contains an elaborate investigation into the wide subject 
of the machinery of transmission. Amongst one of the most important 
general conclusions on this subject, towards which Mr. Fairbairn con- 
ducts the reader, is that of the superiority of toothed gearing over straps 
or other wrapping connectors for purposes of transmission. It is well 
to have our attention called to this point at a time when the example of 
American engineers has produced a strong feeling in favour of strap- 
ping as compared with gear, and Mr. Fairbairn does good service in 
pointing out the superiority of wheelwork. The advantages which can 
be claimed for straps are smoothness of motion, noiselessness of action, 
and perhaps smallness of first cost; but they are cumbrous, frequently 
out of repair, destructive in their effects on the journals, and wholly 
inapplicable in cases where the motion requires to be transmitted in a 
constant ratio. One of the drawbacks to a freer use of toothed wheels 
has hitherto been found in the great expense of truly shaped and fitted 
gears; but the introduction of the wheel-moulding machine, with its 
consequent improvement in the truth of teeth in cast-wheels, is likely 
to bring wheelwork into more extensive use than at present. 

The chapters on the teeth of wheels would be little more than a 
recapitulation of the ordinary mathematical demonstration of their true 
form were it not for the introduction of a most useful series of practical 
tables, from one or other of which, as if from a ready reckoner, every 
problem concerning any required wheel may be instantly solved, 
whether it relate to the strength, pitch, thickness, depth, clearance, 
or horses’ power to be transmitted through a particular tooth.* 


* Among the drawings given of various forms of teeth is one which, like the 
table just referred to, illustrates the very practical nature of this treatise. Our 
mechanical readers are, of course, aware that in most demonstrations of the Epicy- 
cloidal tooth that particular form having its flanks formed by hypocycloids, which 
are also radial lines, is almost exclusively dealt with. Now this is a tooth which, 
notwithstanding the simplicity of its delineation, is rarely used in practice, because 
of its inherent weakness ; so, although we get, as usual, some prominence given 
in the demonstration to the radial hypocycloid, Mr. Fairbairn’s practical bent does 
not permit him to leave his reader without giving a figure of the “teeth of a large 
wheel, traced from one of my own patterns, to exhibit the form which practice has 


1864. ] Farrparrn’s Mills and Millwork. 197 


The remaining chapters on the machinery of transmission deal 
chiefly with shafting and its details. Next to the practice of dividing 
labour into minute departments, and making each man’s work a task of 
repetition, the factory system depends for its economy of production on 
the concentration of a large number of machines under one building. 
Some years ago, before this plan was carried to its present extent, 
it was common in mills to have separate water-wheels to every machine ; 
but, as trade developed, the true principle of concentrating the motive 
power soon forced itself into notice. No sooner did it become the 
custom to use either one large water-wheel or steam-engine to drive 
the whole factory, than the question of shafting for the transmission 
of power to the distant parts of the building began naturally to receive 
attention. In order to show to what an extent this system of trans- 
mission has been carried, we may mention that, at the great Saltaire 
Mills, more than two miles of shafting is employed. Nowhere, per- 
haps, throughout his work, does Mr. Fairbairn give more full, accu- 
rate, and useful information in a tabulated form than on the subject of 
shafting, while the practical examples of couplings, clutches, journals, 
and brackets, illustrated by detail drawings, comprise every modern 
design of value. 

Section 5, on the arrangement of mills, opens with some very 
interesting remarks and information on mill architecture. It is true 
that Mr. Fairbairn does not touch at all upon that frequently agitated 
question, the shortcomings of the engineer as an architect, but his 
sketches and observations tend to bring it closely before us. <A 
recent writer very well remarked, in speaking of the relations between 
the engineer and the architect, that, in consequence of the entirely 
opposite views which either of the two take of their respective profes- 
sions, the “architects are quarrelling over Greek mouldings and 
Gothic pinnacles, and dreaming of reproducing the elegance of classical 
times, while the engineers are spanning our rivers with structures such 
as the world never saw before, arching under our mountains, and 
roofing acres for stations. They are, in fact executing a series of 
works which throw everything else hitherto done into the shade ; but 
all this, unfortunately, without that touch of higher art which is alone 
wanted for perfection, and this simply because the building profession 
is divided against itself, because its two branches are conducted on 
principles so much at variance that they cannot work together. 
The engineers cannot forego theirs, because they are the only prin- 
ciples which men of sense can follow; so unless the architects will 
consent to waive some of their archeological fancies, we may be 
condemned to live in the midst of ugliness for ever. When once 
this fact is appreciated, we shall surpass all preceding ages in architec- 


shown to be desirable.” In this specimen, as might have been expected, the flanks 
of the teeth are generated by a small describing circle, whose hypocycloid gives a 
tooth admirably proportioned and amply strong in the root. This is a small 
matter, perhaps, but not an unimportant one. No young student of mechanical 
engineering is likely to be led astray by Mr. Fairbairn, and the teeth of the wheel, 
“traced from my own pattern,” are a good sample of the principle on which the 
whole of the book is written. 


198 Reviews. | Jan. 


ture as we have done in engineering. To call architecture back within 
the domain of common sense is what is most wanted on the part of the 
engineers to complete the services they have rendered and are render- 
ing to mankind.” 

Whether brought about by architects or engineers, there is, how- 
ever, a great change for the better in the artistic treatment of mill 
buildings. Mr. Fairbairn gives us a sketch of a very slight attempt 
at architectural effect with which he succeeded, in 1826, in replacing 
the old boxlike form of mill, and there is no doubt that much of the 
credit of modern improvement in this respect is due to him. There 
is still room, however, for the advent of that architect of the future 
alluded to by the writer from whom we have quoted above. 

Among the most interesting descriptions of mills actually erected 
by our author which occupy the larger and latter half of his second 
volume is the Taganrog Corn Mill, on the north shore of the Black 
Sea, constructed for the Russian Government, and originally intended 
for the double purpose of supplying the Russian navy with biscuit, 
and facilitating the export of Russian grain in the shape of flour. 
The terms of the Paris treaty of peace, stipulating that no. vessel of 
war should be retained on the Black Sea, have modified the original 
objects contemplated in the erection of these mills, and they are now 
used only for the purpose of grinding, dressing, &ec. The mill con- 
tains 86 pairs of stones arranged on Mr. Fairbairn’s longitudinal 
principle, and possesses every requisite for grinding 180 to 200 bushels 
of wheat per hour. 

During the siege of Sebastopol it was determined by the English 
Government to supply the troops daily with fresh flour from the grain 
of the surrounding country, and the description of the ‘ Bruiser ’ 
floating mill and bakery is one of the most generally interesting in the 
book. This vessel was fitted up internally precisely in the same 
manner as an ordinary mill, the power being derived from her screw 
engines. Without the sketches it is difficult to extract an intelligible 
description of the floating mill, but we learn that, “ During the time 
the vessel was in Balaclava harbour, the daily produce of flour was 
about 24,000 Ibs. It was originally intended that the mill should be 
capable of producing 20,000 Ibs. of bread per day, but it proved equal 
to a considerably larger production. The total quantity of bread 
turned out in the three months from January to March, 1856, was 
1,284,747 lbs., and the expenses of working were 2,017/. or 3s. 2d. 
per 100 lbs. of bread made. The quantity of flour ground in the same 
time was 1,331,792 Ibs., with 358,172 lbs. of bran; the expenses of 
working were 2,0501., or 3s. 1d. per 100 lbs. of flour produced. The 
total cost of the flour produced was about 25s. 3d. per 100 Ibs., the wheat 
costing about 18s. per 100 Ibs. The grinding of the wheat was found 
to be performed quite satisfactorily while the vessel was at sea, even 
in a heavy swell causing an excessive motion.” 

Bearing in mind the success of this experiment and the import- 
ance of fresh flour and bread to the health of troops, Mr. Fairbairn 
suggests the propriety of “a light portable steam-engine and mill 
for grinding being constantly attached to the camp whenever an 


1864. | Farrzarrn’s Mills and Millwork. 199 


army takes the field. The whole affair would not exceed the weight 
of one of our heavy siege-guns, and there would be no practical diffi- 
culty in the way of introducing an engine capable of supplying 
newly-baked bread from an oven constructed in the smoke-box of a 
portable locomotive engine, mounted on wheels and prepared to grind 
at the same time.” Here is another direction in which the ingenuity 
-of mechanicians may be made to serve the interests of military prac- 
tice, somewhat more peaceable than that which is leading many of our 
best mechanical engineers to become either artillerists or armour- 
makers. 

Our limits do not permit us to follow Mr. Fairbairn through the 
descriptions of flax, cotton, oil, gunpowder, and paper mills, all of 
which are more than usually valuable, as they contain, in almost every 
case, the story of his own doings, and the result of his own practice. 
As the most successful and most extensive master-millwright in the 
world, Mr. Fairbairn has done good service to the profession of en- 
gineering by the publication of this work. The subject is one on 
which there has been a singular dearth of published information ; 
most other important branches of engineering have been treated at 
length by more or less able authors, but the mysteries of the mill- 
wright’s craft have been hitherto preserved mainly in oral tradi- 
tions and empirical rules. No fitter person than Mr. Fairbairn could 
have been found to give this floating information a shape. Com- 
mencing his work as a millwright some fifty years ago, he found the 
practice of mill-work in a most primitive condition. By the applica- 
tion of new principles, by the concentration of motive power, the 
substitution of cast-iron wheelwork for the old and cumbrous forms 
of wooden gear, the improvement of water-wheels by the invention of 
ventilating buckets, the use of the steam-engine as a prime mover, and 
last, not least, the introduction of wrought-iron shafting of small 
diameter, he brought about just such a revolution in the millwright’s 
art as the increasing commercial activity of his time demanded. Like 
most men who attain celebrity, William Fairbairn has worked hand in 
hand with circumstances. His professional career commenced, to use 
his own words, “just at a time when the country was recovering from 
the effects of a long and disastrous war, and he was enabled, from this 
circumstance, to grow up with, and follow out conscientiously, nearly 
the whole of the discoveries, improvements, and changes that have 
since taken place in mechanical science.” Hence it was that he was 
enabled to apply his great natural mechanical abilities with so much 
success towards the further development of our industrial resources 
and the extension of our trade throughout the globe. 


200 Reviews. | Jan. 


LOCAL FLORAS.* 


Tue highest attainment of Natural-History science is to describe 
accurately the living inhabitants of the earth. This can only be done 


by the slow and laborious process of making catalogues of the plants: 


and animals of particular localities. Such catalogues are of little use 
to those ignorant of natural-history studies, and can only be compiled 
by those who have made the greatest progress, and are competent 
critically to pronounce that the forms alleged to have been found in 
a particular locality are truly the forms named by some standard 
authority. It is no wonder then, that so little has been done towards 
giving an exact account of the animals and plants of any particular 
district. Of all parts of the world, the British Islands afford the 
best opportunity for such a study, and perhaps there is no country 
where so much has been done in this direction. 'The work is, how- 
ever, still very imperfect. Our lists of animals and plants, such as are 
comprehended in our Floras and Faunas, do not pretend to give the 
localities, excepting generally where any particular species has been 
found to occur. ‘The relation which a local Flora bears to a general 
Flora, is well seen in Professor Babington’s ‘ Manual of the British 
Flora,’ and his list of plants in the ‘Flora of Cambridgeshire.’ In 
the one, the species of plants are given which occur throughout Great 
Britain, and the locality is only generally stated by the county or dis- 
trict in which it grows; in the other, every locality in which a par- 
ticular plant is known to occur, is given. 

It is only when plants and animals are studied in the last- 
mentioned way, that the causes of their growth and distribution 
can be expected to be discovered. It is evident to all who pass 
through a limited or large space of country, that the growth of plants 
is very varied, and no one can fail to be impressed with the fact, 
that there are certain causes acting which produce this great variety 
of distribution. A cursory examination shows that such influences as 
temperature, moisture, water, and composition of soil are at work, and 
general laws can be laid down according to which certain groups of 
plants are found to flourish or disappear. It is, however, as we come 
to examine individual species, that we find no explanation can be 
given of their absence and abundance ; and closer observation of the 
connection between each species and the soil, and other conditions of 
their growth, are demanded for the purposes of satisfactorily affording 
the basis of the laws of their distribution. Much has been done in 
this direction, and we are indebted to the laborious efforts of Mr. H 
C. Watson, to reduce to something like general order what is at pre- 
sent known of the distribution of English plants. 

Apart, however, from the scientific interest that attaches to the 


* *Blora of Surrey; or, a Catalogue of the Flowering Plants and Trees found 
in the County.’ By James Alexander Brewer. London: J. Van Voorst. 

‘Flora of Marlborough; with Notices of the Birds and a Sketch of the Geo- 
logical Features of the Neighbourhood.’ London: J. Van Voorst. 


——— Oe ae 


1864. | Local Floras. 201 


accurate description of plants in particular localities, they have their 
valuo in directing the attention of students to places where they can 
find species which otherwise would escape their attention. It is 
perhaps to this fact that we are indebted for the publication of local 
Floras as separate works at all. The publication of such works has 
been especially called for and produced by the formation of local 
Naturalists’ Field Clubs. These Associations, devoting themselves to 
the exploration of the natural history of the localities in which they 
occur, collect a great quantity of information, and it is to such a 
Society that the public is indebted for one of the Floras named at the 
commencement of this article. 

We are also indebted to other. Clubs in various parts of this 
county for similar works. Nothing can be more conducive to 
health, both of mind and body, than such Associations, and a public 
is thus formed capable of appreciating and using Local Floras such as 
those above mentioned. 

It is also very desirable, when the study of Natural History is cul- 
tivated in schools and families, that guides to the treasures which are 
to be found in the immediate neighbourhood should be possessed by 
the pupils as incentives to the collection of particular or rare kinds of 
natural-history objects. 

It is a mistake to suppose that natural objects can only be success- 
fully studied in their larger or more striking forms; it is the objects 
which are found at every man’s door that become the field for the 
grandest and most important discoveries. Lyonnet has made for him- 
self an undying reputation by the study of the anatomy of the cater- 
pillar of the common privet hawk moth. Huber studied the bees in 
his own garden and the immediate neighbourhood of his residence. 
White has made Selbourne a classical spot for all time by the study 
of the habits of the animals within a mile of his own house. The 
finest illustrations of his beautiful theory of the origin of species 
were derived by Darwin, not from his studies as a naturalist who 
had voyaged round the world, but as a country gentleman who had 
studied the habits of the tenements of his dovecote, and the relations 
of the cats, mice, bees, and clovers in his own paddock. Fascinating 
as the prospect must be to every young and ardent lover of nature to 
traverse the ocean, and view its wonders under tropical suns, or pierc- 
ing the rich forests of the torrid zones, to behold for the first time 
with human eyes, the forms of animal and vegetable life they may 
contain, there is nothing more certain than that the fixed and quiet 
study of natural objects at home can be made as rich a source of intel- 
lectual pleasure, and important discovery, as traversing distant, 
though more fertile fields. 

It is with much pleasure, then, that we direct attention to two 
works which have been recently published on Local Natural History. 
They are both called ‘ Floras,’ at the same time they are both some- 
thing more than a mere catalogue of plants and their localities. “In 
both we are supplied with maps of the district, to the elucidation of the 
botany of which they are devoted. In both we have a sketch of the 
geology of the part of the country in which the plants are found, a 


202 Reviews. [Jan. 


recognition of the relations of the plants to the soil in which they 
grow, of considerable importance. To the ‘ Flora’ of Marlborough there 
is also added a list of birds found in the neighbourhood of that place. 
We should be glad to see the practice of combining lists of plants and 
animals followed up so that every student of natural history may be 
supplied with a knowledge of whatever forms of life exist around him, 
in whatever direction his particular tastes may lead him. 

Of the two works before us the most unpretending is the ‘ Flora 
of Marlborough.’ It is the production of Mr. T. A. Preston, who is 
too modest to place his name upon the title-page, but he dates from 
Marlborough College. He says, in his preface, the work was “ under- 
taken mainly for the purpose of assisting those members of the 
College who may be fond of Botany.” We are sure all friends of a 
more extended education than is at present afforded in our great 
educational establishments, will congratulate Marlborough College on 
the production within its walls of this contribution to Local Natural 
History. We do not know whether any direct encouragement is given 
to the study of Natural History at Marlborough, but we regard this 
publication as one of many other indications that natural science is 
beginning to excite attention, and its claims to a place in the curri- 
culum of school studies recognized. 

In the list of plants presented by Mr. Preston he confines himself 
to the limit of a circle with a radius of six miles from Marlborough. 
This circle is divided into four districts, and lies principally upon the 
chalk formation, so that little opportunity is given for the compa- 
rison of plants occurring on different geological strata. 

The arrangement of plants followed is that of Professor Babington, 
in the fourth edition of his ‘Manual of British Botany.’ The author 
has done this from the conviction that, although Bentham’s ‘ Hand 
Book’ is extremely useful for those beginning the study of Botany, 
and has many excellent points about it, yet the wholesale manner in 
which Bentham has united what have generally been regarded as dis- 
tinct species, and described them imperfectly, as varieties, have induced 
him to prefer Babington’s book. 

The list of plants is preceded by some remarks on the.‘ Geological 
Features of Marlborough,’ by W. G. Adams, Esq. This essay is 
devoted to the description of too small a portion of the earth’s surface 
to call for criticism, but it is evidently the production of one who has 
studied the geology of the district, and contains an interesting expo- 
sition of the causes that have been at work in the production of the 
chalk, and the beds that lie above it in the neighbourhood of 
Marlborough. We may, however, venture to say that we think the 
Diatomaceous theory of the production of flints in the chalk, as 
propounded by Mr. Adams, is hardly borne out by the facts of the case. 
Whether the silex of flints was once in the form of the skeletons of 
Diatoms is perhaps a question, but we have no knowledge of any facts 
which could lead to the conclusion that flints are produced as the 
result of a conglomeration of the skeletons of Diatoms. 

Of the list of plants we have nothing further to say than that it 
is printed on the plan of Professor Babington’s ‘ Flora of Cambridge,’ 


1864.] Local Floras. 203 


and that for every locality given for a plant the initials of the name 
of the observer are attached. . 

The list of birds has been drawn up by R. B. Smith, Esq., of 
Corpus Christi College, Oxford. The notes attached to the name of 
each bird are interesting, and will be found to make this part of the 
work much easier reading than the list of plants. It would not per- 
haps be found impossible in Local Floras to make notes to the plants 
which might be instructive to the beginner in Botany. 

The Flora of Surrey is much the most important volume of the 
two. It is three times the size of the last; has two valuable coloured 
maps; embraces the plants of a county; has a history; and has been 
produced by men not unknown to fame. Who that has studied Natural 
History the last quarter of a century, is not acquainted with the 
papers of “ Rusticus, of Godalming ?” It was the late J. D. Salmon, 
of Godalming, with a few friends interested in the study of plants, 
who first resolved, at a meeting held in the town of Guildford, to pro- 
cure materials for the publication of a Flora of the county of Surrey. 
Mr. Salmon undertook the task of editing this Flora, and had pro- 
ceeded to some considerable extent with his task when he died. At 
the sale of his effects, in the autumn of 1861, all his MSS., and a rich 
collection of plants which he had formed, were purchased by the 
Holmesdale Natural History Club, and those materials were placed in 
the hands of the author of the ‘ Flora of Reigate,’ for publication. No 
one could be better fitted for the work, and Mr. Brewer has now pro- 
duced a Flora which, for accuracy and extent, stands unrivalled 
amongst the Local Floras of Great Britain. 

As already stated, this work is accompanied with two maps ; on one 
of them the county is divided into nine divisions, to each of which a 
letter is attached. Each plant is referred to in the list, as it is found 
in one or other of these divisions. The second is a geological map, 
which has been drawn and coloured from one laid down by Mr. Joseph 
Prestwich. The work opens with an Introduction on the Physical 
Geography and Botanical Divisions of the county of Surrey, which, we 
are informed, was written by the late J. D. Salmon. It is an interest- 
ing geological and geographical account of the county of Surrey. 

The list of plants is very copious, and the arrangement and nomen- 
clature generally adopted are those of the fifth edition of the ‘ London 
Catalogue of British Plants.’ We should have preferred the plan of 
following some British Manual, and in this respect we think the plan 
of the Marlborough Flora the best. The notices of localities are very 
numerous, and the names of the specimens are at once guarantees of 
the accuracy of the observations. 

The most interesting parts of the volume to the general student 
will be found in the Appendices, of which there are four. In the 
first is given a list of plants introduced to the country, and not tho- 
roughly naturalized. The second contains a list of plants found on 
the Thames side, near Wandsworth and Battersea, and which are 
undoubtedly introduced plants from seed brought to this locality by 
the presence of a large distillery situated at the waterside. They 
nevertheless have their interest in showing how plants from distant 


204 Reviews. [ Jan. 


counties may be introduced and become naturalized. The third 
Appendix consists of a table showing the geological distribution of 
plants in the county. From this table we gather that the number of 
plants known to occur on all strata is 117. The number confined 
to the valley alluvium, 7; to the superficial gravels, 19; to the 
Bagshot sands, 9; to the London clay, 14; to the Reading and Wool- 
wich beds, 2; to the chalk, 55; to the upper greensand and gault, 5 ; 
and to the lower greensand, 28. The last Appendix gives the relative 
proportion of the plants of the United Kingdom to those enumerated 
in the Surrey Flora, and also the proportion which the number of 
species in each natural order in Surrey bears to the total amount in 
the country. From this table we find that Surrey is deficient in the 
following natural orders :—Frankeniacee, Tamariscacee, Illecebracee, 
Plumbaginacee, Eleeagnacee, Aristolochiacee, Empetracee, and Erio- 
caulonee. It will at once be seen that none of these are common 
orders. 

The Flora of Surrey contains altogether 984 species, besides 65 well- 
marked varieties. The following five plants are believed to be pecu- 
liar to Surrey. Impatiens fulva, Teucrium Botrys, Lilium Martagon, 
Digitalis sanguinalis, and Buxus sempervirens. The latter, the common 
Box, is well known throughout England, but is not thoroughly natu- 
ralized in any other county. 

From what we have said, it must be seen that the Flora of Surrey 
is a most valuable and laborious work, and deserves to be in the hands 
not only of every lover of Natural History in the county of Surrey, but 
in those of every student of Botany throughout the country. We are 
glad to observe a good list of subscribers, and wish that our good 
opinion of the work may be the means of increasing its sale, and en- 
couraging Local Natural History societies to follow the good example 
of the Holmesdale Natural History Club. 


1864. ( 20 


NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 


On the Highest Magnifying Power of 
the Microscope yet employed. 


In giving a very brief summary of 
my recent observations upon the 
mode of termination of the nerves 
in voluntary muscle, the editor of 
‘Cosmos,’ for August 28th, 1863, 
remarks :—‘‘ Nous regrettons pour 
notre compte que M. Beale n’ait 
pas dit dans sa note avec quel genre 
d’oculaires et avec quel jeu de len- 
tilles il a pu obtenir le prodigieux 
grossissement de 3,000 fois.” 

I propose in the present short 
communication to describe briefly 
how my drawings representing ob- 
jects magnified to this extent were 
obtained. In making drawings of 
microscopical objects, it is usual to 
represent the image the size it 
appears when thrown upon paper 
with the aid of the camera or 
neutral tint glass reflector at the 
distance of 10 inches from the eye, 
the arbitrary point at which the 
magnifying power of object-glasses 
is measured. If the image be taken 
at a point nearer to the eye it ap- 
pears smaller; while, at a greater 
distance, it of course appears much 
larger than at the arbitrary distance 
above stated. Large diagrams may 
indeed be made direct from the 
microscope, by placing the diagram 
paper at the distance of 3 feet or 
more from the eye, and tracing 
upon it with a long pencil the ob- 
ject as reflected from the neutral 
tint glass reflector. 

In practice, I have often found 
it almost impossible to represent, 
in drawings, lines as fine as those 
seen in the preparation. A certain 
coarseness is inevitable. The copied 


lines and markings appear rougher 
and thicker than the real ones. 
But this defect is to some extent 
removed by drawing the™® object 
somewhat larger than it appears to 
be magnified at the distance of 10 
inches from the eye; and, in order 
to obtain uniform results, I always 
draw the object the size it would 
appear if copied on the same level 
as the stage of the microscope. 
The scale for measurement is copied 
at precisely the same distance. A 
glass which at 10 inches is said to 
magnify 200 diameters will magnify 
215, and my high power, which was 
made for me two years since by 
Messrs. Powell and Lealand, instead 
of magnifying about 1,600 dia- 
meters, increases the image of the 
object to 1,800 diameters. By in- 
creasing the length of the tube of 
the microscope between 4 and 5 
inches, I obtain an amplification 
amounting to 3,000 diameters, and 
the y¢55 of an English inch becomes 
3 inches in length. 

With care in illumination, I have 
been able to see points in an object 
magnified with this power which I 
had failed to observe under a power 
of 2,000. It seems to me probable 
that I may succeed in increasing 
the power to 5,000 diameters ; and 
with this object I am trying different 
plans, the results of which shall be 
recorded shortly. The common 
paraffin lamp gives a very white and 
good light for working with these 
high magnifying powers. I have 
tried the lime light, but have as yet 
reaped no advantages from its use. 

So far I have certainly obtained 
better results by increasing the 
length of the tube of the microscope 


206 


than by increasing the magnifying 
power of the eyepiece, which ac- 
cords with the results of some 
experiments performed many years 
ago by Dr. Carpenter. Of course, 
the practical utility of increasing the 
magnifying power entirely depends 
upon the character of the specimen. 
Into the question of preparing spe- 
cimens I must not, however, now 
enter, further than to say that my 
specimens are immersed in the 
strongest glycerine that can be pro- 
cured. I never represent a struc- 
ture more highly magnified than is 
necessary to bring out the points; 
but I find that, with an improved 
method of preparation, I desire 
higher magnifying powers; and I 
am quite certain that great advan- 
tages will be reaped when powers 
far higher than any yet made or 
thought of shall be brought to bear 
upon many structures. The ques- 
tion of preparation is scarcely more 
than a mechanical one, and new and 
more exact means of preparation 
will soon follow improvements in 
the optical part of the microscope. 

It should be stated that many 
specimens of muscular fibre, nerve 
fibres, nerve cells, &c., have been 
prepared, so that they can be mag- 
nified 3,000 diameters, and points 
can be made out (as, for example, 
what appears a single fibre can be 
resolved into several) which cannot 
be seen, or, at any rate, have not 
been observed, by an ordinary mag- 
nifying power. 

The object-glass I have employed 
is the first twenty-sixth made for 
me by Messrs. Powell and Lealand, 
which is a most excellent working 
glass. That it defines exceedingly 
well, and admits plenty of light, is 
obvious from the fact that 1t will 
allow of the tube being increased in 
length. By a working glass I mean 
one that can be employed without 
trouble or difficulty, and does not 
require any elaborate arrangements 
with regard to illumination, adjust- 
ment, &c. In fact, I use it without 
even a condenser, employing only 
the common concave mirror. There 
is plenty of room for focussing, 


Notes and Correspondence. 


[ Jan. 


although, of course, specially thin 
glass or mica must be employed. 
I have made and published many 
drawings of tissues of the higher 
animals magnified with this glass, 
and it need scarcely be said, that 
as it can be brought to bear upon 
textures of this class (even bone 
and teeth), thin sections of which 
are obtained only with great diffi- 
culty, it must be readily applicable 
to other departments of microscopi- 
cal inquiry. 
Lionet S. Bratz, F.R.S. 
King’s College, London. 


Scientific Education and Natural- 
History Science in the Kingdom 
of Italy. 

Genoa, Nov. 18, 1863. 


THE state of science and scientific 
education in Italy at the present 
moment, when this country is on 
the point of emergence from political 
nonentity, and is beginning to feel 
that it is one of the great powers of 
Europe, possesses peculiar interest, 
and may well justify a few remarks 
in an English journal established 
to record the progress of science. 

Itself the birthplace of many de- 
partments of human knowledge, as 
well as of many of those men who 
have been most distinguished in 
science as well as art, Italy still 
contains, or has only very recently 
lost, men of European reputation in 
Physics, in Astronomy, in Geology, 
in Zoology, and in Botany; and 
though some of the most eminent 
of those now living have been 
diverted from their ordinary pur- 
suits by the pressing claims of po- 
litical events, and the absolute 
necessity that all true men should 
unite in securing the one great ob- 
ject of nationality and unity, there 
is abundant proof of healthy activity 
which in due season may be expected 
to yield great results. 

The Universities of Italy have 
gradually become lowered in general 
reputation, owing to the extreme 
facility afforded to very young men 
to pass examinations and obtain 


1864.] 


diplomas. Each seat of education 
has outbid its fellows in this respect 
till the result has become very 
serious, and a great effort is now 
being made to raise the standard of 
education throughout the country. 
The University of Pisa, always 
among the most celebrated, has 
especially recommended itself to 
observation for its efforts in this 
direction. At first the natural 
result was to frighten away so many 
students as to reduce the numbers 
very greatly ; but already it is found 
that the degree there conferred is 
much more valuable, and that it is 
worth while to take the additional 
trouble to pass. To Professor 
Matteucci, whose researches in elec- 
tricity and general physics, are as 
well known in England as in Italy 
and France, much of the credit of 
this is due. M. Matteucci has now 
left Pisa, and is established at Turin, 
where he has already occupied for 
some time the important post of 
Minister of Public Instruction. It 
is not unlikely that he may again 
be appointed, and it would seem 
that a more fit appointment could 
not be made. 

One of the latest improvements 
in Public Instruction has been the 
foundation of a normal school at 
Pisa, on the footing of the upper 
normal schools of France, but with 
the object of securing a really well- 
informed class of schoolmasters for 
the education of all classes through- 
out Italy. Of this establishment, 
Professor Villari, the able author of 
the ‘ Life of Savaronola,’ recently 
translated into English by Mr. L. 
Horner, is the director, and he is 
assisted by an excellent staff of pro- 
fessors in all departments. During 
the last academical year, the number 
of students was only about 20, but 
the entries for the year now com- 
mencing (November, 1863) are 
already much more numerous. 
Several of the students have passed 
their University examinations with 
honour, and are admitted to the 
normal school at the public expense. 
Others pay a sum of 80 francs 
(32, 4s.) per month during their 


Notes and Correspondence. 


207 


residence. All reside in the build- 
ing, and dine together as in an 
English college. The system adopted 
partakes both of the professorial 
system as carried out in Germany, 
and of the tutorial system common 
at Oxford and Cambridge. 

The public museums both at Pisa 
and Florence, are admirable. Both 
are particularly rich in wax prepara- 
tions, illustrative of Comparative 
Anatomy and Botany. The former 
is also rich in geological specimens. 
The various minerals and rocks of 
Tuscany, and the fossils of the 
Valley of the Arno are especially 
interesting, not only to the general 
traveller, but to the technical geolo- 
gist; for Italy is beyond all other 
countries in Europe that one in 
which the phenomena of metamor- 
phism can best be studied. The 
neighbourhood of Pisa, with the 
country alittle to the south towards 
Volterra, affords indeed the best 
key to the very difficult and com- 
plicated changes that have affected 
rocks of almost all kinds within 
periods of very various duration. 
In this part of the world, mineral 
character is no guide to the age of 
rocks, and fossils, though they exist 
and have proved extremely valuable 
in skilful hands, are so exceedingly 
rare and imperfect, that no traveller 
however acute, who trusted to his 
own observation, could hope to do 
much with them in a rapid journey. 
The labours of Professor Paolo Savi 
and Professor Meneghini have greatly 
tended to simplify and explain the 
matter, and assisted by the memoir 
and very admirable maps just pre- 
pared for publication by Professor 
Savi, no one need now waste his 
time. ‘lhe memoir in question is, 
however, published in a volume on 
the general statistics of the district, 
and is not altogether accessible. 

It is not generally known that 
this small corner of Italy around 
Pisa contains a tolerably complete 
series of formations. There are 
old palewozic schists greatly altered, 
but recognizable, overlaid by car- 
boniferous rocks, in which anthra- 
cite represents the coal. Over these 


208 


altered rocks is a good representa- 
tion of the trias, and the lower lias 
is seen in those wonderful beds of 
statuary and other marble that are 
so well known and highly esteemed. 
Above these, are jurassic rocks, and 
above these again neacomian sand- 
stones, while the chalk is seen in 
the <Alberese, a peculiar limestone 
sometimes approaching marble in 
colour, but not saccharoidal. Ter- 
tiaries of all ages abound in Tuscany, 
from the lowest nummulitic rocks 
to the most recent gravels. 

Tuscany abounds also in metals. 
With Elba close at hand, it may be 
supposed that there is no lack of 
iron. Copper ore, the purest and 
most valuable known, is found at 
Monte Catini, and in one or two 
other spots. At Monte Catini, the 
results have for the last 20 years 
proved as profitable as the deposit 
is remarkable. The copper ore is 
found in kidney-shaped lumps of 
sulphide of copper, mixed irregularly 
in a paste of soft, moist serpentinous 
material. The pockets containing 
the ore are sometimes large, but in 
the highest degree irregular. The 

-lode is a kind of vein in the altered 
voleanic rock of Tuscany, called 
gabro rosso, a singular mass of an- 
gular and rounded material. Mag- 
nesia has played a very important 
part in all the changes and modifi- 
cations that have taken place in it. 
To the presence of magnesia is due, 
among other things, the beautiful 
green marble called serpentine, of 
which there are so many varieties 
in Tuscany; and although the ser- 
pentine rock of the Lizard in Corn- 
wall is of very different appearance 
and hardness, the presence of the 
same mineral causes the peculiari- 
ties of both. 

Lead ore also is found in Tuscany, 
and deposits of some importance 
are worked in various places. The 
lead contains silver. Other metals 
(mercury among the number) are 
not wanting, and there seems a pro- 
spect of the metalliferous deposits 
of Italy soon becoming even more 
worked than in the days of ancient 
Rome, when its produce exceeded 


Notes and Correspondence. 


- stone. 


| Jan. 


that of any country known at that 
time. 

But the working of the marble 
quarries must always be one of the 
most important departments of mi- 
neral industry in northern Italy. 
No one who has not visited Italy 
can imagine the vast development 
of this industry. In Genoa—the 
city of palaces—rightly called the 
superb, marble of the most beau- 
tiful kind and excellent quality, 
of endless variety in colour and 
texture, is almost the only mate- 
rial used for construction. Mar- 
ble staircases, marble balustrades, 
marble pediments, and marble 
floors are seen in every hotel, and 
even in every private house. The 
churches are marble inside and out, 
the public buildings are of the same 
material. In the streets, on the 
piers, and above all, in the Campo 
Santo or Cemetery, wherever we 
may go, the marble is displayed in 
abundance. The same, to some 
extent, is the case at Milan, at Pisa, 
and in most of the other cities 
remarkable for architectural beauty 
or interesting in history. The 
geologist in such a country, and 
under such circumstances, is sure 
to find abundant matter for inquiry. 
The marvellous abundance of marble 
is the result of change or metamor- 
phic action on various beds of lime- 
These changes have origi- 
nated in the volcanic and other 
igneous causes traceable everywhere 
in this part of the world. Active 
volcanoes, in the south extinct, but 
perfect volcanic craters in the centre, 
and occasional earthquakes in the 
north of Italy, are or were the cause 
of the eruptions of sulphurous and 
other gases, and of hot aqueous va- 
pours loaded with mineral matter. 
These are common almost every- 
where, and it is these that have con- 
verted the limestones into marble, 
the clays into shales, and the sands 
into quartzite. Whether we take the 
veined and coloured marbles where 
the impurities or foreign ingredients 
still remain, or the true white and 
statuary marble where the foreign 
substances only occupy small vein- 


1864.] 


icles, or madri macchet, as they are 
here called, the general history is 
the same, and metamorphosis is the 
only cause to which we can reason- 
ably refer. 

In other departments of natural 
history, Italy —especially in the 
northern and central provinces—is 
not only rich, but is well represented 
in the principal museums. It is 
chiefly, however, in the preparations 
illustrating the comparative anatomy 
and physiology, both of animals and 
vegetables, that the extraordinary 
accuracy, ingenuity, and patience of 
the Italians can be best appreciated. 
These are truly wonderful, and they 
are quite without rival in Europe. 
Highly magnified representations of 
the developement ofa plant from the 
seed, a winged insect from the grub, 
or a chicken from the egg, are not 
unknown elsewhere, but at Florence 
and Pisa there is a profusion of 
illustrations truly marvellous. 

However we may consider the 
question, we shall find that the 
recent political changes in this part 
of the world are already bearing 
abundant fruit, in the liberation of 
the human intellect from the slavery 
that had so long weighed upon it. 
To say that there are great differ- 
ences of opinion, and that many 
persons even regret the old régime, 
is only to say in another way that 
the country is free. Everyone may 
and does safely and loudly express 
his own view of the government, 
and all proposed changes are freely 
discussed. It does not follow that 
the best measures are at once 
adopted, but this healthy and free 
discussion will certainly ensure the 
greatest ultimate good, while educa- 
tion and science in all depart- 
ments will not fail in securing 
their due share of attention when 
the excitement of politics has a 
little calmed down. ‘The acuteness 
of Italian intellect, and the elegance 
epually characteristic of this people, 
have still a great part to perform in 
the history of science. 

D. T. AnstepD, F.R.S. 


VOL. I. 


Notes and Correspondence. 


209 


Dahomey: its People and Customs. 
Wuypau, Sept. 2, 1863. 
Here Iam, on my return from Kana, 
where I was received by the King 
of Dahomey during the celebration 
of the “little customs ;” and I will 
now send you some information 
concerning this country. 

Whydah, or Ajudah, is the port 
of the kingdom, though about two 
miles distant from the coast. It 
has 8,000 or 10,000 inhabitants, 
governed by a “ yanogan,” who is, 
in his turn, ruled over by one of 
the princes of Dahomey. The in- 
habitants are robust, well formed— 
T might almost say handsome—with 
the exception of the head, which 
wants intelligence: that superior 
mark which the Creator appears to 
have denied to the negro race. 
There is, however, a wide difference 
between the morals of this people 
and those further to the south. 
Nothing is to be seen here calcu- 
lated to shock the eyes of a civilized 
man, nor anything objectionable to 
his ordinary habits. Nay, I can 
say more; there is positively in the 
Dahomeyans a sense of personal 
dignity. Unfortunately, one en- 
counters at every step traces of that 
Fetischism which arrests all pro- 
gress, and transforms a man natur- 
ally gentle into a brute beast. The 
principal deities worshipped by this 
people are—Lightning, or Fire of 
Heaven; the Boa, or Python; the 
Lion, the Tiger, and the Vampires. 

I visited the Temple of Serpents 
in this town, where thirty of these 
monstrous deities were asleep in 
various attitudes. Each day, at 
sunset, a priest brings them a cer- 
tain number of sheep, goats, fowls, 
&c., which are slaughtered in the 
temple, and then divided amongst 
the “gods.” Subsequently, during 
the night, they spread themselves 
about the town, entering the houses 
in various quarters in search of 
further offerings. It is forbidden, 
under penalty of death, to kill, 
wound, or even to strike one of 
these sacred serpents, or any other 
of the same species ; and only the 

P 


210 


priests possess the privilege of 
taking hold of them, for the purpose 
of reinstating them in the temple 
should they be found elsewhere. 

When a house is struck by light- 
ning, the master is obliged to pay 
a heavy tribute to the priests of the 
“Fire of Heaven ;” for such an event 
is always regarded as the denun- 
ciation of a great culprit. Should 
a man be struck by lightning, his 
body is cut in pieces, and sold by 
the priests to the populace, who 
devour this roasted flesh! The 
dwelling of the dead man is then 
pillaged and razed to the ground; 
and the Fetisch worshippers im- 
molate victims on its site, in order 
to appease the anger of the “ Fire 
of Heaven.” 

The Vampires may be found on 
trees in the vicinity of the Temple 
of Serpents ; there they are collected 
by millions, and after sunset they 
disperse through the gardens and 
over the surrounding country. 

On leaving Whydah for the inte- 
rior, the traveller at once observes 
that the land rises gradually through 
a succession of upheaved plateaux 
or downs, which run parallel to the 
sea from east to west, the surface 
soil being toa great extent inter- 
mixed with small rolled flints. 

The utmost elevation which I 
found between Whydah and Kana 
was 500 English feet, and that was 
at a village called Havy (? Havee), 
about halfway between the two 
towns. Although Kana is lower 
than this point, it is quite apparent 
that further towards the north the 
land again rises to such a degree, 
that the capital, Abomey, situated 
ten miles north-east of Kana, must 
be elevated to about the same 
height as Havy. From the infor- 
mation that I have obtained in 
various quarters concerning the in- 
terior, there must be a range of 
mountainsabout three days’ journey 
north of Abomey. However, this 
is a question on which I hope 
shortly to have ocular evidence. 


Notes and Correspondence. 


| Jan. 


The King received me cordially; 
but, in order to reach the palace, 
I had to pass several scaffolds, bear- 
ing the corpses of victims who had 
been immolated on the previous 
evening. Some were suspended 
by the feet, others were upright. 
During twenty days these horrible 
spectacles were renewed, with a few 
decapitations in the interval. 

Consul! Burton was more fortunate 
than I, for he only arrived at Kana 
two or three days before the King 
departed for the war, and after the 
conclusion of the sacrifices. It is 
a difficult matter to predict what 
Europe may gain from this king and 
his advisers. I believe, however, 
that if the abolition of the slave- 
trade be conceded (the very seat 
and centre of which is at this place 
—Whydah), there is a happier fu- 
ture in store for this land. 

It is with the view to obtain this 
concession that I am on the eve of 
my departure with your brave Com- 
modore Willmot, and we shall soon 
have a definite reply. If it be 
favourable, my journey of explora- 
tion will be suspended ; otherwise, 
T shall at once proceed northward. 
The concession of the abolition of 
the slave-trade in the kingdom of 
Dahomey is the more to be desired, 
inasmuch as it would put a stop 
to the depopulation of a country of 
undoubted fertility and natural 
wealth, and which is eminently 
adapted for the cultivation of 
cotton. 

If the King grants the abolition, 
he would be all the more ready to 
encourage the growth of that staple, 
in order to give employment to his 
people, who would then no longer 
be compelled to engage in war for 
the purpose of making prisoners, to 
be sold as slaves. 

This isa succinet account of my 
hasty impressions of Dahomey ; 
receive it as such as I am able to 
communicate. 

JULES GERARD. 


1864. | ( ot) 


THE GOLD MEDALLISTS OF THE SCIENCE AND ART DEPART- 
MENT OF THE COMMITTEE OF COUNCIL ON EDUCATION. 


Ir affords us great pleasure to give publicity to the names of those 
Students who succeeded in obtaining Gold Medals in Science at the 
Examination held by the above Department of the State last May in 
London and the provinces. 


Group I. Geometry, Mechanical Drawing, and Building Construction. 


Student’s Name. Age.| ‘School or Residence. Occupation, Name of Teacher, 


Rowden, William T, 23 | Trade School, Bristol.| Science Teacher. | Self-taught. 


Group. II. Theoretical and Applied Mechanics. 
No Gold Medal awarded. 
Group II]. Experimental Physics. 
DoueRrty, JOSHUA 26 | 180, Agnes-street, National Teacher, | Eardley, F. 
Belfast. 


Group IV. Chemistry Inorganic and Organic. 


GooGan, RICHARD 21 | North Main-street, Geologist. Hofmann, Dr., and 
Bandon. Dowling, J. 

O’SULLIVAN, CORNELIUS | 21 | South Main-street, Geologist. Hofmann, Dr., and 
Bandon. Dowling, J. 


Note.—Mr. O’Sullivan was very nearly equal to Mr. Googan, and having 
taken the Silver Medal last year he could not receive it again. He has therefore, 
under the exceptional circumstances, been awarded a Special Prize of Books of 
the value of 3. 

Group V. Geology and Mineralogy. 
No Gold Medal awarded. 


Groupe VI. Animal Physiology and Zoology. 
WILson, GEORGE 25 | 12, Stanley-street, | Student of Science. | Self-taught. 
| | Pimlico, London. 
Group VII. Vegetable Physiology and Systematic Botany. 


12, Stanley-street, | Student of Science. | Self-taught. 


WILSON, GEORGE 25 
Pimlico, London, 


Group VIII. Mining and Metallurgy. 
No Gold Medal awarded. 


The first-named of these Students (Mr. Rowden) received only a Certi- 
ficate, as he does not belong to the Classes entitled to receive Medals. The 
following is the Government Regulation concerning the Medals generally : 
—‘‘ The Queen’s Medals which are offered for competition throughout the 
United Kingdom at the General Examination of Science Schools and 
Classes held each year in May consist of one Gold Medal for each group of 
subjects, and one Silver and two Bronze for each subject. All persons 
wherever taught may compete, the only restriction being that the Medals 
cannot be taken by Middle Class Students who are more than seventeen 
years of age. Middle Class Students above seventeen years of age who 
would otherwise have taken the Medal receive an Honorary Certificate 
instead.” 


( 212 ) 


Books received for Webicw. 


From Messrs. Blackwood & Sons :— 


PuysicaL GrocrapHy (Introductory Text-Book of). By David Page, 
E.R.S.E., F.G.8., &. 193 pp. 1863. 


From Messrs. John Churchill & Sons :— 


QUALITATIVE CHEmIcaL ANALysis (A System of Instructionin). By Dr. C. R. 
Fresenius, Professor of Chemistry, Wiesbaden. Edited by J. Lloyd 
Bullock, F.C.S. 6th English Edition. 360 pp. Coloured Plate of Spec- 
trum Analysis. 1863. 

Torics or THE Day (Medical, Social, and Scientific). By James Ansley 
Hingeston, M.R.C.S., L.S.A. 400 pp. 1863. 


From Messrs. Longman & Co. :— 


Manual oF THE Mrrattomws. By James Apjohn, M.D., F.R.S., M.R.LA., 
Professor of Chemistry in the University of Dublin. 600 pp. 1863. (One 
of Galbraith & Haughton’s Scientific Manuals. ) 


From Mr. Lovell Reeve :-— 


Dictionary oF Narurat History TERMS WITH THEIR DERIVATIONS : including 
the various Orders, Genera, and Species. By David H. McNicoll, M.D., 
M.R.C.P. 590 pp. 1863. 


From Mr. Van Voorst :— 


Fiora oF MariporougH, with notices of the Birds, and a sketch of the 
Geological Features of the Neighbourhood, with a Map. 153 pp. 

Fiora oF Surrey ; or, a Catalogue of the Flowering Plants and Ferns found 
in the County, with the Localities of the Rarer, Species. From the 
Manuscripts of the late J. D. Salmon, F.L.S., and from other sources. 
Compiled for the Holmesdale Natural History Club, Reigate. By James 
Alexander Brewer. 391 pp. 

THE Frrsr Princretes or NATuRAL Pamosopny. By William Thynne Lynn, 
B.A. Lond., F.R.A.S., of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. 100 pp. 


From the Editor :— 


Tue Ipis. A Magazine of General Ornithology. Edited by P. L. Sclater, 
M.A., Ph.D., F.R.S., Sec. Z.S., F.L.8., &c., &c. Vol.ITV. 1862. 392 pp., 
with 13 coloured Lithographs. (N. Triibner & Co.) 


From the Authors :— 


OpxutTHALMoscopic SurcERY (A Manual of), being a Practical Treatise on the 
Use of the Ophthalmoscope, &c. By Jabez Hoge, F.L.S, &c., &e. 3rd 
edition. Numerous Chromo-lithographs. 296 pp. (J. Churchill & Sons.) 
1863. 

Heat rn 17s RELATIONS TO WATER AND STEAM. By Charles Wye Williams, 
A.LC.E. 2nd edition. 220 pp. (Longman & Co.) 1861. 

OBSERVATIONAL AsTRONOMY, and Guide to the Use of the Telescope. By a 
Clergyman. Edited by J.T. Slugg. 96 pp. (Simpkin & Co.) 1862. 

THE Stars AND THE TrELEscorr, By J.T. Slugg. (Simpkin & Co.) 1862, 


LONDON: PRINTED BY W, CLOWES AMD SONS, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS, 


Quarterly Journal of Science N° 2, 


e 
SS 
oT 


M & N Hanhart. Imp 


THE QUARTERLY 


JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 


APRIL, 1864. 


ORIGINAL ARTICLES. 


THE MAMMALS OF MADAGASCAR. 


By P. L. Scuarsr, M.A., Ph.D., F.R.S., Secretary of the Zoological 
Society of London. 


OreGanio beings are not scattered broadcast over the earth’s surface 
without regularity or arrangement, as the casual observer might sup- 
pose, nor are they distributed according to the variations of climate 
or of any other physical external agent, although the latter have, un- 
questionably, much influence in modifying their forms. But each 
species (or assemblage of similar individuals), whether of the animal 
or vegetable kingdom, is found to occupy a certain definite and con- 
tinuous geographical area on the earth. In like manner, each genus, 
or assemblage of species, each family, or assemblage of genera, and 
each order, or assemblage of families, may be said to be subject to 
similar laws, as regards its geographical distribution,—although, as 
might have been supposed, the areas occupied by the higher groups 
are usually larger, and in some cases co-extensive with the earth’s 
surface. 

It thus happens that the various parts of the world are charac- 
terized by possessing special groups of animals and vegetables, and 
that, as a general rule, such tracts of land as are most nearly con- 
tiguous have their Faune and Flore most nearly resembling one 
another ; while, vice versa, those that are farthest asunder are inhabited 
by most different forms of animal and vegetable life. When any 
exception to this rule occurs, and two adjacent lands possess dis- 
similar forms, or two regions far apart exhibit similar forms, it is the 
task of the student of geographical distribution to give some reason 
why this has come about, and so to make the “exception prove the 
rule.” 

In the present paper I propose to devote a short space to the 
examination of one of the best known and strangest of these anomalies 

VOL. I. Q 


214 Original Articles. | April, 


in geographical distribution—namely, that presented to us by the 
Fauna of the Island of Madagascar. Madagascar being immediately 
‘contiguous to the eastern coast of Africa, and separated from it by a 
channel in one place only some 200 miles across, in which, moreover, 
there are several intermediate islands, while it is very far removed 
from India and America, ought, according to generally-received rules, 
to exhibit a Fauna of a purely African type. But this, as is well 
known to naturalists, is not the case. The numerous Mammals of the 
orders Ruminantia, Pachydermata, and Proboscidea, so characteristic 
of the Aithiopian Fauna, are entirely absent from Madagascar. The 
same is the case with the larger species of Carnivora, which are found 
throughout the African continent, but do not extend into Madagascar. 
Again, the highly-organized types of Quadrumana, which prevail in 
the forests of the mainland, are utterly wanting in the neighbouring 
island, their place being there occupied by several genera of the inferior 
family of Lemurs. In the like manner, I shall be able to show that 
similar irregularities prevail to a greater or lesser extent in every other 
part of the series of Mammals, and that, in short, the anomalies pre- 
sented to us by the forms of life prevalent in this island are so striking, 
that claims have been put forward in its favour to be considered as a 
distinct primary geographical region of the earth.* 

But let us take the Orders pf Mammalia as they are generally 
recognized, one by one, in order that we may examine more carefully 
the affinities of each genus of them included in the list of Madagascarian 
Mammals. To do this, it will be most convenient to refer to the cata- 
logue of the Vertebrates of Madagascar lately published by M. Frangois 
Pollen, in the ‘ Nederlandsch Tijdschrift voor de Dierkunde;’f this 
being the only general article bearing upon the subject that has yet 
appeared. M. Pollen’s list is a compilation for his own use, as 
being about to visit Madagascar, of what has been recorded by previous 
authorities on the subject. Amongst such authorities, the most im- 
portant, as regards Mammals, is certainly an article by M. Victor 
Seganzin, in the third volume of the ‘Memoirs of the Society of the 
Museum of Natural History of Strasburg.’ M. Sganzin was the com- 
mandant of the French settlement of Sainte-Marie, on the north-east 
coast of Madagascar, in 1831 and 1832, and obtained on that island 
and on the adjoining coast of Madagascar proofs of the existence of 
about a hundred Vertebrate animals, concerning which he gives us 
notes, without, however, in many cases, any precise determination of the 
species. Long before his time, it is true, De Flacourt and Sonnerat 


* The most natural primary divisions of the earth as regards Zoology are, as 
has been shown in the ‘ Journal of Proceedings of the Linnean Society’ (Zoology), 
ii. p. 130, and elsewhere, (1) The Neotropical region, comprising South America, 
Mexico, and the West Indies; (2) The Nearctic, including the rest ef America ; 
(3) The Palwarctic, composed of Europe, Africa north of the Sahara, and 
Northern Asia; (4) The A?thiopian, which contains the rest of Africa, Arabia, 
and Madagascar; (5) The Indian, consisting of Southern Asia and the western 
half of the Malay Archipelago; and (6) The Australian, which comprises the 
eastern portion of the Malay Archipelago, Australia, and the Pacific Islands. 

t+ ‘Nederlandsch Tijdschrift voor de Dierkunde,’ Amsterdam, 1863, vol. i. 
p. 277. 


1864. |} Sonarmr on the Mammals of Madagascar. 215 


had published narratives of their voyages to Madagascar, and the 
latter had made known to science several of the most remarkable types 
of the island ;* but neither of these explorers has furnished any general 
indications as to the character of its Mammalian Fauna. In 1833, 
three French naturalists — Bernier, Goudot, and Rousseau — visited 
Madagascar, and it is to the labours of these energetic collectors on the 
eastern coast, and to those of Dr. W. Peters, of Berlin, on the western 
coast, that science is chiefly indebted for the progress that has lately 
been made towards the compilation of a list of the Mammals of this 
island, which, however, as far as our present knowledge extends, only 
embraces some 49 species—namely, Quadrumana 28, Carnivora 5, 
Chiroptera 5, Rodentia 1, Insectivora 9, Pachydermata 1. 

To begin then with the order Quadrumana, the most remarkable and 
most characteristic type of Madagascarian Mammals here presents itself 
at once at the head of the list. The Lemurs are universally recog- 
nized among naturalists as forming a separate and distinct group of 
Quadrumanous Mammals. And of the Lemurs nearly thirty different 
species, embracing eight generic forms, are found in Madagascar, 
whilst all Africa only contains some eleven or twelve species of these 
animals, and the Indian region not more than three. This will be 
better seen by the subjoined table, in which the distribution of the 
genera of the family of Lemurs and the approximate number of the 
known species of each genus are given— 


Table of the Distribution of the Lemuride. 


aoe ena: AFRICA. MADAGASCAR, ASIA, 
1. Indris (2) + 
Tndrisinze 2, Propithecus (1) 
3. Avahis (1) 
4. Lemur (16) 
5. Hapalemur (2) 
6. Lepilemur (1) 
Lemurine 7. Chirogaleus (2) 
8. Perodicticus (2) 
9. Nycticebus (2) 
10. Loris (1) 
11. Microcebus (2 
Galaginz { 12. Galago (9) - 
Tarsiinee | 13. Tarsius (1) 


Moreover, as the whole number of Mammals at present known to 
exist in Madagascar does not amount to fifty, we have this very remark- 


* De Flacourt’s ‘Histoire de la Grande Ile de Madagascar,’ and Sonnerat’s 
‘ Voyage aux Indes Orientales.’ 

+ N.B.—The numbers in figures placed after the generic names in the table 
give the (in some cases approximate) number of species of the genus. Until very 
recently but one species of Indris was known to science ; but M. Vinson has lately 
discovered, and described in the ‘Annales des Sciences Naturelles’ (Zool. xix. 
p. 253), a second from the forest of Alanamazoatrao—which he has proposed to 
eall Indris albus. 

Q 2 


216 Original Articles. | April, 


able fact—quite unparalleled, as far as is hitherto known, in any other 
Fauna—that nearly two-thirds of the whole number of known species 
of the Mammals of this island are members of one peculiar group of 
Quadrumana. 

Again, when we come to examine the Lemuride of Madagascar, and 
to compare them with their brethren in Africa and India, we find that 
they present us with no less than eight different generic types—all 
distinct from those found in the two latter countries. 

The genera Indris, Propithecus, and Avahis constitute a section of 
Lemuride per se, easily distinguished from the rest of the family by 
having only five molar teeth on each side of the jaw, and only two (in- 
stead of four) inferior incisors. No genus with this form of dentition is 
found either in Africa or Asia. The true Lemurine are also most fully 
developed in Madagascar, the typical genus Lemur being numerous in 
species, and, as is stated by travellers, likewise in individuals. In Africa 
this sub-family is represented by the abnormal form Perodicticus—a 
recently-discovered second species of which is likewise considered by 
Dr. Gray* as entitled to generic rank. In India two allied genera of 
Lemurine are found—Nycticebus and Loris—likewise difficult to con- 
nect satisfactorily with the more typical members of the group, but 
presenting many indications of alliance to Perodicticus. 

The third sub-family of the Lemuride is essentialiy African —con- 
sisting of the genus Galago, with eight or nine species dispersed over 
various parts of that continent, while Microcebus, with two or three 
imperfectly-known species, takes its place in Madagascar. 

The next form we meet with as we descend the series of Madagascar 
Mammals, is the celebrated Aye-aye (Chiromys Madagascariensis), an 
animal so anomalous in its structure, that although it has been now 
conclusively proved that its nearest allies are amongst the Lemurs,t 
even the illustrious Cuvier referred it to the widely-distant order of 
Rodents. The Aye-aye is pronounced by Professor Owen to be more 
nearly allied to some of the African Galagos than to any other living 
form. It may be, however, remarked that the Tarsier of the Indian 
Archipelago (Tarsius spectrum) presents certain points in its structure 
which likewise show a remote affinity to this extraordinary type. 

The second order of Mammals—the Bats or Chiroptera, have, as 
far as our present knowledge goes, only five representatives in Ma- 
dagascar. ‘T'wo of these belong to the Frugivorous family Pteropodide 
—and curiously enough to the Indian, not to the African section of the 
group. One of them indeed (P. Edwardsiz) is so clearly allied to the 
common Pt. medius of continental India, as to have been very con- 
stantly confounded with it. t 

The three known species of insectivorous Bats of Madagascar 
(Rhinolophus Commersonii, Vespertilio Madagascariensis and Emballonura 


* See Dr. Gray’s ‘Revision of the Species of Lemurian Animals.’ Proce. 
Zool. Soc. 1863, p. 129. : 

+ See Prof. Owen’s Memoir ‘On the Aye-aye.” Trans. Zool. Soe. v. pt. 2 
(1863). 

t As to the real distinctness of these species, see Peters, ‘Zool. Reise n, 
Mossambique,’ vol. i. p. 22. 


1864. | Scnater on the Mammals of Madagascar. 217 


Madagascariensis) supply us with no very precise indications as to their 
geographical affinities. 

In the next order of Mammals the Insectivora, of which nine species 
are known to inhabit Madagascar, we again find a very peculiar group of 
types, consisting of the genera Centetes, Hriculus, and Echinogale. 
These little animals, though generally associated with the Hedge-hogs 
(Erinaceus), to which in their external appearance they present much 
resemblance, have been recently declared by Dr. Peters—who has 
devoted much attention to the /nsectivora—to be most nearly allied to 
the American genus Solenodon!* So to find their nearest affines we 
have to cross the whole (present) continent of Africa and the At- 
lantic Ocean to the West Indian Islands, where the only two known 
species of Solenodon occur. 

Besides the Centetine the Insectivora of Madagascar consist of two 
species of Shrew (Sorex)—a form widely distributed in the Old, and 
northern portion of the New World, and a singular little animal, at 
present very imperfectly known, which was described by M. Doyére 
in 1835 under the name of Hupleres Goudoti. The Eupleres Goudoti 
is stated to agree in its dentition with the moles (Talpa), to which 
genus also it would likewise seem to present some resemblance in its 
habits ; but its general external conformation is much more like that 
of a small vermiform Carnivore, and its describer considers it to con- 
stitute the type of a new family of Insectivora, leading off towards the 
Carnivora. 

The order Carnivora again presents us with three types peculiar to 
the island—Cryptoprocta, Galidia and Galidictis. These, however, all 
belong to the family Viverrine—a group peculiar to the Old World, and 
of which several allied genera inhabit the adjoming parts of Africa. It 
is not, therefore, necessary to look “across the Atlantic” for the 
nearest relatives to the Madagascarian Carnivora. Strangely enough, 
the nearly universally distributed types Felis and Canis seem utterly 
unrepresented in this Fauna. 

Of Rodents only one species, I believe, has yet been registered as 
found in Madagascar. This is a squirrel of the genus Sciuwrus— 
which, as far as it is known, exhibits African affinities. Rats and mice, 
indeed, there are in Madagascar, as in nearly every other habitable 
portion of the globe where man has penetrated, but these are of the 
well-known European species, and must be put into the same category 
as the cats, dogs, and oxen which have been introduced into and flourish 
in the island. 

The important order of Ruminants, which is so greatly developed on 
the opposite coast of Africa, appear to be wholly wanting in the indi- 
genous Fauna of Madagascar. While Antelopes of numerous species 
abound in every part, whether plain or forest, of the adjoining conti- 
nent, and the Giraffe and Buffalo are likewise everywhere characteristic 
features of the Althiopian Mammal-fauna, not one of those creatures is © 
known to occur in Madagascar, and this fact alone would serve to 


* Cf. Peters, ‘ Ueber die Saiigethier-gattung, Solenodon. Abh. Acad. 
Berlin, 1868. 


218 Original Articles. | April, 


mark out the wide difference between these two creations as they stand 
at present. The same is nearly the case as regards the next order—that 
of Pachyderms. The Hippopotamus, so abundant on the opposite coast of 
Mozambique, is not found in Madagascar. Had Madagascar ever formed 
part of Africa this would hardly have been the case. The genus Equus, 
well represented in Southern Africa by the Zebras and Quaggas, the 
Hyrax and the Rhinoceros, is likewise wanting; and of the Artio- 
dactyles only a single species—namely, the South African Riverhog 
(Potamocherus Africanus)—is stated to inhabit Madagascar. But 
although M. Sganzin has positively identified this species as a Mada- 
gascarian animal, I cannot but think it rather doubtful ; in the first 
place, because this is the only exception to the general rule of 
specific (and almost generic) difference between the Mammals of 
Madagascar and Africa; and secondly, because Dr. Peters tells us he 
could obtain no indications of the existence of this Pig upon the oppo- 
site coast of Mozambique. However, until the contrary is proved, it is 
only fair to assume M. Sganzin’s statement to be correct, and to include 
this Riverhog in the list of Madagascarian Mammals. 

Having thus given a cursory view of some of the more salient 
features of the Mammal-creation of Madagascar let us see what deduc- 
tions we can gather from them as to its origin—taking, of course, for 
granted, the derivative hypothesis of the origin of species—at present, 
the only theory by which the otherwise inexplicable facts of geographical 
distribution can be explained. Of course it would be more satis- 
factory in a case like the present to have before us a summary of 
the knowledge we possess concerning every part of the Fauna and Flora 
of Madagascar, but as space does not permit this, let us see what we 
can make out from the Mammals alone. 

The following deductions may, perhaps, be arrived at from what we 
have before us :— 

1. Madagascar has never been connected with Africa, as it at present 
exists. ‘This would seem probable from the absence of certain all-per- 
vading Aithiopian types in Madagascar, such as Antilope, Hippopotamus, 
Felis, &c. But, on the other hand, the presence of Lemurs in Africa 
renders it certain that Africa, as it at present exists, contains land that 
once formed part of Madagascar. 

2. Madagascar and the Mascarene Islands (which are universally 
acknowledged to belong to the same category) must have remained 
for a long epoch separated from every other part of the globe, in order 
to have acquired the many peculiarities now exhibited in their Mammal- 
fauna—e.g. Lemur, Chiromys, Eupleres, Centetes, &e.—-to be elaborated 
by the gradual modification of pre-existing forms. 

3. Some land-connection must have existed in former ages be- 
tween Madagascar and India, whereon the original stock, whence the 
present Lemuride of Africa, Madagascar, and India are descended, 
flourished. 

4, It must be likewise allowed that some sort of connection must 
also have existed between Madagascar and land which now forms part 
of the New World—in order to permit the derivation of the Cente- 


1864. | Herscugn on the Solar Spots. 219 


tine from a common stock with the Solenodon,* and to account for 
the fact that the Lemuride, as a body, are certainly more nearly allied 
to the weaker forms of American monkeys than to any of the Simiide 
of the Old World. 

To conclude, therefore, granted the hypothesis of the derivative 
origin of species, the anomalies of the Mammal-fauna of Madagascar 
can best be explained by supposing that, anterior to the existence of 
Africa in its present shape, a large continent occupied parts of the 
Atlantic and Indian Ocean stretching out towards (what is now) America 
on the west, and to India and its islands on the east; that this con- 
tinent was broken up into islands, of which some became amalgamated 
with the present continent of Africa, and some possibly with what is 
now Asia—and that in Madagascar and the Mascarene Islands we have 
existing relics of this great continent, for which as the original focus of 
the “ Stirps Lemurum,” I should propose the name Lemuria ! 


EXPLANATION OF THE PLATE. 


The accompanying sketch by Mr. Wolf will serve to illustrate the more 
remarkable types of the Mammal-kind of Madagascar. On the summit of the 
trees are Lemurs of different species (Lemur leucomystax, L. varius, L. catta, and 
L. xanthomystaz). In the centre is the Aye-aye ; on the ground to the right is 
one of the remarkable Carnivores of the island (Galidictis vittata) staring at 
it; on the left is the little Hchinogale telfairi, endeavouring to make its escape 
from such an extraordinary assemblage. In the background may be seen the 
celebrated Traveller’s-tree (Urania speciosa), and other marked forms of Mada- 
gascarian vegetation. 


ON THE SOLAR SPOTS. 
By Siz Joun F. W. Herscuet, Bart., K.H., D.C.L., F.R.S. 


Tuer physical constitution of the sun, and the nature of the source 
from which its expenditure of light and heat is supplied, must be 
regarded as by far the most important astronomical problem which 
remains unresolved, connected as it is not only with the maintenance 
of all animated existence, but as a matter of speculative interest with 
every branch of physical science; since there is not one which has 
not to be laid under contribution in support or confutation of the 
various theories which have been, and will probably be henceforward, 
proposed to account for it. Apart from the knowledge of the dimen- 
sions and mean density of the sun which we derive from the great 
fact of planetary Astronomy, from its presumed connection with the 
Zodiacal light, and from the appendages to its disc, which become 
visible in total eclipses, and which demonstrate the existence of a 
solar atmosphere extending to a vast distance beyond the general 


* This single case, it must be reasonably allowed, would be hardly sufficient 
for the foundation of so startling a supposition; but the presence in Madagascar 
of American forms of Serpents (Xiphosoma, Heterodon, Philodryas, and Lepto- 
deira), of Iguanoid Lizards, and even of American Insects, necessitates some such 
hypothesis. 


220 Original Articles. | April, 


luminous surface or photosphere, we have little or nothing to guide us 
in this inquiry but the telescopic examination of its surface, which 
reveals to us, besides a general texture of a very peculiar kind, the 
existence of dark spots, temporary in their duration, holding no fixed 
position with respect to its poles and equator, and presenting, in other 
respects, no analogy to those appearances on the planets which indicate 
the existence of local peculiarities on their solid globes, or of con- 
ditions in their atmosphere as to clouds and clear sky which obtain 
in our own. These spots, ever since their complete and recognized 
discovery as such by Fabricius, Galileo, and Scheiner, in 1611 (for 
though occasionally seen before the invention of the telescope, they 
had hitherto been taken for Mercury or Venus in inferior conjunction), 
have always been examined with great though desultory interest : and 
it is only since the year 1843, when Schwabe announced his important 
discovery of the periodicity of their occurrence, that the desirableness 
of keeping up an unbroken record, a complete diary, in fact, of the 
appearances presented by the solar disc, supplying by observations in 
different places the lacunz left by cloudy weather in any one, has been 
recognized. 

During the years antecedent to this epoch, however, a vast amount 
of interesting information had been gathered as to their dimensions 
and forms, their penumbree and umbree (or, as they were sometimes 
called, nuclei,) the facule or veins of brighter light which accompany 
and surround them, or which exist detached and remote from spots ; 
their law of distribution over the surface; their generation, duration, 
and extinction; their appearances, disappearances, and reappearances, 
as carried round with the globe of the sun by its rotation on its axis, 
&c : all particulars very necessary to be borne in mind in reference 
to their physical explanation, as well as to what may be called their 
descriptive history, and of which a brief réswmé may not be thought 
irrelevant as introductory to the more especial subject of this notice, 
which is intended to draw attention to the conclusions which may be 
deduced from certain recent observations of their movements in longi- 
tude and latitude in reference to the equator of the sun’s globe. 

But, first, we have a few words to say on the conditions requisite 
for viewing the sun with effect, and for delineating or photographing 
its spots, which will not be thought out of place by many of that 
numerous class of observers who, with telescopes or other apparatus 
competent to do good service, are without much experience in this 
special line of observation. A very convenient mode of viewing them 
is by projecting the image of the sun in a darkened room, on a white 
screen. This, in its rudest form, was the method followed by Kepler, 
who used only a small hole in a shutter, without a lens, and was thus 
enabled to see a spot on November 29, 1606, and another on May 18, 
1607 (0.8.), which he also took for Mercury (then, however, not in 
transit, and not even in inferior conjunction). If a lens be used to 
bring the rays to a focus, the image, of course, is much improved. 
Still more if it be achromatic : and if in place of a single lens a good 
telescope of moderate focal length be used, and the eye-piece drawn 
out somewhat beyond the focus for parallel rays, an image of a high 


1864. | Tfurscuun on the Solar Spots. 221 


degree of perfection is procured, which may be impressed photo- 
graphically or delineated manually. The former is the mode practised 
at the Kew Observatory by Mr. De La Rue, and we believe by most other 
helio-photographers : the latter is understood to be the origin of those 
exquisite drawings laid before the Royal Astronomical Society by 
Mr. Howlitt. One improvement only seems yet wanting to render 
either of these modes of procedure as satisfactory as actual vision 
through the telescope—viz. in the place of the ordinary telescopic 
eye-piece to substitute an achromatic and aplanatic object-glass of 
short focus and sufficiently large aperture, having the radii of the 
surfaces of its two lenses calculated on the principles laid down in my 
paper (‘ Phil. Trans.,’ 1821) for the construction of such an object- 
glass. The radii so calculated afford a lens, aplanatic not merely for 
parallel rays, but for all distances of the radiant point, so that when 
inverted, or placed with its flint lens towards the light, and used as a 
microscope, it produces neither colour nor spherical aberration, and is 
thus excellently fitted for projecting a magnified image, perfect not 
only as to the form, but as to the colour, of the spots, and on a scale of 
any desired enlargement, by a mere change of focus and corresponding 
alteration of the screen’s distance. 

When the telescope is used as a telescope, the great brightness and 
intense heat of the sun require to be subdued, to make observation 
possible. It is a common mistake to suppose that this can be done by 
merely contracting the aperture of the object-glass by a circular dia- 
phragm placed before it. In practice this is fatal to distinct vision. 
Ceteris paribus, in telescopic vision, the sharpness of definition is in the 
direct ratio of the angle (within moderate limits) which the object-glass 
subtends at its focus. Any attempt to evade this law by stopping out 
the light by concentric annuli will be found to issue in worse confusion. 
To use the full aperture of the telescope is of paramount necessity either 
in viewing the sun or planets. If the extinction of the light is effected 
by coloured giasses, the best combinations I have yet found are: Ist, 
that of two plane glasses of a shade between brown and violet, with one 
of a grass-green hue interposed: or 2nd, of two green glasses, with a 
blue one coloured by cobalt between them. These allow scarcely any 
rays of the spectrum to pass but the yellow and less refrangible green ; 
and they cut off almost all the heat. The perfection of vision is at- 
tained by using only the extreme red rays; but glasses which transmit 
these cannot be used on account of the heat they allow to pass. What-_ 
ever combination of glasses be used, they are, however, apt to crack and 
fly to pieces through the heat which they do intercept. Hence the ne- 
cessity of either limiting the field of view by a metal screen with a 
small hole in the focus of the object-glass, as recommended for trial 
by Wilson, in 1774, and as practised with excellent effect by Mr. 
Dawes ; or of some construction of the telescope itself, which, in the 
act of forming the image, shall suppress a very large percentage of 
the whole incident light, without preference of colour. Such is the 
object of the ‘“Helioscope” described in my “Cape Observations,” * 


* (1847), page 436. 


222 Original Articles. | April, 


which utilizes for the formation of the image only about one 900th part 
of the incident rays, and if a greater diminution be desired, it may be 
obtained by a polarizing eye-piece. I have reason to believe that this 
construction will ere long receive a full and satisfactory trial at the 
hands of one of our most distinguished solar observers and practical 
mechanists. In default of a glass-reflecting speculum suchas this con- 
struction requires, and of the prism recommended for a second reflexion, 
I have used (vide locum citatum) a plane glass, roughened at the back, 
interposed obliquely, so as to intercept the converging rays before form- 
ing the first image, and reflect them through the eye-piece of a New- 
tonian telescope with great advantage. Mr. Hodgson* has recommended, 
and used successfully, a similar contrivance, with a refracting one. 
Spots on the sun have frequently been seen with the naked eye, by 
taking advantage of its proximity to the horizon, or of the intervention 
of light clouds. Instances of the kind are recorded by the annalists 
before the invention of telescopes—in A.D. 807 and 1160; and since 
by Galileo himself, by D’Arquier (April 15, 1764 ; January 30, 1767 ; 
June 6, 1763), by Sir William Herschel (April 17, 1779, September 2, 
1792), &e. Only the bare existence of a spot, however, can be so dis- 
cerned. No details of course can be distinguished. When viewed with 
telescopes, the spots are seen to consist of two very broadly distin- 
guished shades of darkness: that of the interior and smaller portions, 
or umbre, being so dark as to be called in common parlance black 
(considerably less so, however, than the body of Mercury or Venus 
seen in transit, or the moon during a solar eclipse); the exterior and 
larger (which usually, but not always, completely surrounds the umbra) 
of what would be termed in painting a half-shade, and therefore called 
the penumbra. Occasionally, but rarely in large spots, this is alto- 
gether absent. But whenever it exists the line of demarcation between 
the shades is sharp and unequivocal. So, at least, I have invariably 
found it, and whenever a gradation of tint from one to the other has 
been thought to have been perceived by other observers, I am disposed 
to attribute it to the optical mixture of the images of the ragged edges 
of the penumbra with the black ground on which they are projected on 
the retina arising from imperfect definition. The point is of extreme 
importance in the physical theory of the spots. So marked a distinc- 
tion is altogether adverse to the idea of a luminous gas or fluid, inde- 
finitely miscible with, or soluble in, a non-luminous transparent atmo- 
sphere ; while it agrees with that of an aggregation of the luminous 
matter in masses of some considerable size, and some certain degree of 
consistency, suspended or floating at a level determined by their specific 
gravity in a non-luminous fluid ; be it gas, vapour, liquid, or that in- 
termediate state of gradual transition from liquid to vapour, which the 
experiments of Cagniard dela Tour have placed visibly before us ; and 
which, when we consider the high temperature throughout the solar atmo- 
sphere, and the enormous pressure at the surface of its solid globe (if it 
have any such) we cannot but believe to be realized on the grandest scale 
in solar physics. And this is strongly corroborated by a certain streaky 


* Royal Astronomical Society’s Monthly Notices, Dec. 8, 1854. 


1864. | Henscunn on the Solar Spots. 223 


or furrowed appearance in the penumbre, directed always radially to or 
from the centre of the umbra, as if rifted, and allowing the black ground 
on which they are seen projected to appear through the chinks (see 
Fig. 3): an appearance likened in certain cases by Mr. Dawes to “ bits 
of straw,” and by Mr. Nasmyth asserted to be distinctly referable to 
certain fusiform, lanceolate, or “‘ willow-leafed” objects of definite size 
and shape, superposed in general like scales, covering one another par- 
tially (see Fig. 5), but in the penumbra, radially arranged, of which he 
conceives the whole luminous surface of the sun to consist.* It is not 
meant to assert that either the penumbre or umbrz are devoid of all 
gradation of light. Both have darker and lighter shades, but 
(especially as regards the umbrze) within far narrower limits of varia- 
tion. Within the latter, indeed, which, up to a recent period, most ob- 
servers, after Sir William Herschel, lad agreed to regard as openings 
through which the dark body of the solar globe could be seen, Mr. 
Dawes, by the application of his diaphragm eye-piece already mentioned, 
has disclosed the existence of a third, and still deeper definite shade of 
darkness, constituting, as it were, a nucleus, or umbra of the second 
order (see Fig. 3), to which we propose henceforward to restrict the name 
of “nucleus.” Between the penumbra, too, and the general brightness 
of the photosphere, a suddenness of transition exists, less marked, in- 
deed, than that between it and the nucleus, and less rigidly preserved, 
but yet on the whole exceedingly striking. And the whole series of 
phenomena strongly suggests the notion of three envelopes or veils 
between the exterior transparent atmosphere and the sun itself, the 
two outer being luminous, the inner probably only seen by reflected 
light ;—each capable of being partially removed, either by some emana- 
tion or upsurging movement from below, or denudation from above, 
leaving a central opening, over which, when the denuding cause has 
ceased its action, the luminous strata tend to return, and spread them- 
selves equally. Even in such central opening, however, the darkness 
is probably only relative, and, could the surrounding glare be com- 
pletely extinguished, the light of the central space would probably 
equal or exceed that of the brighter incandescence of our furnaces. It 
is inconceivable indeed, that the actual surface of the solar globe (if 
there be any such definite surface), surrounded as it is by an enceinte of 
such a temperature as that of the photosphere, should be otherwise 
than in a state of the most vivid incandescence: and that it should 
appear no brighter than it does is not the least inexplicable feature of 
solar physics. Can it be that the interposition of mixed metallic 
vapours, each specifically opaque to definite rays of the spectrum be- 
tween the body and the penumbral envelope may by their joint absorp- 
tion, cut off nearly the whole of the light of the former? Ignited, 
transparent, and colourless liquids or gases, it should be observed, 
give off no light from their interior. 

The forms of the spots are extremely irregular; of the penumbra 

* Other observers, as I have recently been informed, consider Mr. Nasmyth’s 


“‘ willow-leaf” figures as too slender and pointed, and liken the forms rather to 
that of rice-grains. 


224 Original Articles. | April, 


indeed excessively so. As there occur umbre without penumbre, so 
penumbre occur without umbre, but such are usually only branches or 
outlying portions of groups, or the remains of a spot in the act of 
obliteration when the umbra has disappeared. In the great majority 
of cases many umbre are surrounded and connected into a group by a 
common penumbra. This indeed is almost always the case with large 
spots. The umbre, when large, affect more compact and rounded forms 
than the penumbre, and the interior nuclet of Mr. Dawes still more so. 
On the whole there is a certain tendency to the bizarre in all the forms, 
which though indescribable in words is highly characteristic. One of 
Mr. Howlitt’s drawings offers a strange approximation to the complete 
form of a human skeleton. A form not uncommon, especially towards 
the subsidence of a period of solar activity, is that of a tadpole with a 
large irregular head consisting of a penumbra and several umbre, and 
a curved penumbral tail dotted with smaller ones (see Figs. 4, 8). This 
form of spot has been noticed by some observers, among others by 
Picard in 1671, as recalling the outline of a scorpion (Fig. 6). The 
larger umbre are often crossed (Fig. 1), or nearly crossed (Fig. 2), by 
narrow bridges of light, rarely penumbral, most usually of the full 
brilliancy of the photosphere, or even surpassing it. In many cases 
they are irregularly rounded on three sides, and sharply cut as if 
snipped by scissors on the fourth, and to such sharp edges there is 
often no penumbral border. ‘Lastly, spots are much more commonly 
connected in groups than quite insulated,and very frequently affect linear 
sequences, oblique to the parallel of solar latitude in which they occur ; 
the line of direction being towards a point in the sun’s equator preceding 
the situation of the spot in longitude (see Fig. 7). 

Large spots, or groups, are almost always attended by neighbouring 
facule, which are streaks, or vein-like appearances, more or less crooked 
and branching, of brighter light than the general photosphere. They 
are much more conspicuous, however, near the borders of the visible 
disc than towards its centre, a fact strongly indicative of their eleva- 
tion, as ridges or heaps of the luminous matter, which so rising above 
the denser regions of the circumfused atmosphere, have their light 
proportionally less enfeebled by its absorption. On the other hand they 
are never traced fairly up to the actual edge of the dise—where the 
absorption of the solar atmosphere is so great as to extinguish (according 
to Chacornac) nearly half the light—a proof that their elevation is far 
from commensurate with the extent of that atmosphere, and that they are 
not identical with the “red flames” seen on the limb of the sun in total 
eclipses. Indeed the latter appear indiscriminately round every portion 
of the dise, whereas the facule are never seen in the sun’s polar regions. 
Neither is the connection of the spots with facule one of reciprocity, 
for the latter are often seen where no spots exist. 

When spots on the sun’s surface are viewed from day to day, they 
are seen to undergo great changes in form, size, and relative situation 
inter se, as well as to be carried round by a common movement ; 
evidently due to the sun’s rotation on its axis in the same direction, 
and nearly in the same plane as that of the planetary movements ; and 


Urnal, 


arlerly, 


Sd 


fanhart 


Hi 


FIGURES FO 


hel 


3 W.Herscl 


Imp? 


Vi 
oy fy 
Be at 
: ‘ 
* 
rt 
t i 
: y « 


1864. | Herscunn on the Solar Spots. 225 


from this latter movement, by tracing the apparent paths of individual 
spots across the disc, the time of that rotation was early concluded, 
approximately by Galileo himself, and with more exactness by the use 
of micrometric measures by his successors—as well as the position of 
its axis in space, or, which comes to the same thing, the inclination of 
its equator to the ecliptic and the longitude of its ascending and 
descending nodes, As regards these latter particulars, the results 
arrived at by various observers and computists, especially the more 
modern ones (Lalande, Fixlmillner, Bohm, Laugier, and Carrington), 
are in as good accordance as could be expected, and may be stated at 
7° 15’ for the inclination of the axis, and 73° 40’ for the longitude of 
the ascending node for 1850; so that the north pole of the sun’s axis 
points nearly to the star + Draconis, and the south to a Plutei. As 
regards the time of rotation, however, the disagreement is more con- 
siderable, for a reason which will presently appear. 

Few spots, and those only very large ones or groups of such, are 
permanent enough to be traced through more than one or two succes- 
sive revolutions of the sun. Instances of three or four returns are 
extremely rare. Schwabe, however, in 1840, saw the same spot eight 
times in the middle of its course over the disc, having made seven full 
revolutions between May 11 and November 16. Single spots, or 
small groups, undergo such changes in a few days as to be hardly 
recognizable, and many originate and die out during a single transit, 
The origin of a spot when it can be observed, is usually traceable to 
some of those minute pores, or dots, which stipple the sun’s surface, and 
which begin to increase, to assume an wmbral blackness, and acquire a 
visible and at first very irregular and changeable shape. It is not 
till it has attained some measurable size that a penumbra begins to be 
formed, a circumstance strongly favouring the origination of the spot in 
a disturbance from below, upward ;—vice versd, as the spots decay, they 
become bridged across, the umbree divide, diminish in size, and close up, 
leaving the penumbre, which by degrees also contract and disappear. 
The evanescence of a spot is usually more gradual than its formation. 
According to Professor Peters and Mr. Carrington, neighbouring 
groups of spots show a tendency to recede from one another. 

The changes undergone in a few hours by large spots, or among 
groups, are such as to alter visibly their shapes and relative situations, 
and from day to day to transform them entirely. Professor Wolf 
observed one on March 10, 1861, which in the short interval of 
1h. 17m. underwent, not merely visible but enormous changes, altering 
its whole aspect. And when it is remembered that a single second on 
the sun’s surface (seen from the earth) corresponds to 46. miles linear 
measure, and a square second (almost the minimum visibile) to upwards 
of 20,000 square miles, we need not to be told that such changes imply 
movements of a rapidity to which our fiercest hurricanes offer no ap- 
proach ; so that the term “ viscous,” which has been applied by some to 
the fluid in which the photosphere floats, is in the last degree map- 
propriate. Mr. Dawes and Mr. Birt have observed the umbre of spots 
in some cases to rotate as it were slowly on their centres. 


226 Original Articles. [April 


The earliest observers of the solar spots were led to notice the fact 
of their total absence in the circumpolar regions of the sun’s surface, 
and we find it already remarked by Scheiner that their appearance is 
confined to a zone extending to 30° or 35° in latitude on either side of 
his equator, All subsequent observation has confirmed this. Only 
one fully-authenticated observation (by M. Peters, in 1846) is ad- 
duced of a spot in so high a North latitude as 50°, and a double one 
has been observed by Mr. Carrington in 44° §. The equator itself is, 
however, rarely visited by them, and this paucity usually extends over 
an equatorial zone, from 8° N. to 8° 8. latitude. From these limits 
to 20° latitude on either side extends the region of their most frequent 
occurrence. Moreover it is no uncommon thing in very spotty states 
of the sun to observe some one parallel of latitude dotted out as it 
were on the disc by a more or less continuous line of spots extending 
across or nearly across the whole disc, and that occasionally in both 
hemispheres. (See Fig. 7.) 

No one meridian of the sun, however, is found to be especially 
abundant in them, nor has observation yet pointed out any particular 
locality on that globe, at or near which a spot more frequently breaks 
out than at any other on the same parallel, a circumstance conclusive 
against their owing their origin to volcanic eruptions or any simply 
local causes. 

The sun is not equally spotted at all times. Many months and 
sometimes whole years have elapsed without the notice of a spot. In 
others, for months, nay years together, they have been remarkable for 
number and magnitude. It seems to have been a very general belief up 
to the epoch of Professor Schwabe’s observations already mentioned, that 
this variety was purely casual, and altogether irregular. But the evidence 
obtained by M. Schwabe, observing from 1826 to 1860, on an average 
300 days per annum, during each of which the number of groups and 
single spots was registered, clearly established a periodicity. Thus, in 
1833, 1848, 1856, very few groups were seen, and on nearly half the 
days of observation the sun was spotless ; while in 1828, 1837, 1848, 
1859, and 1860, the number of groups was extraordinary, and not one 
spotless day occurred; while the intermediate years exhibited a 
regular alternate increase and decrease. A period from ten to twelve 
years in duration was thus indicated. It became therefore exceedingly 
interesting to ascertain, by the collection and comparison of all the ob- 
servations recorded of the sun’s state since the first discovery of the 
spots, whether this alteration of periods of excitement and quiescence 
would be corroborated or not. This task (one of no slight labour) has 
been accomplished with extraordinary devotion and perseverance by 
Dr. Rudolf Wolf, Professor of Astronomy at Zurich, who in a series of 
Essays communicated to and published by the Zurich Society of Na- 
tural Philosophy, has collected from every available source the whole 
literature of the subject, and subjected the totality of the recorded ob- 
servations to a most careful and searching scrutiny. In so doing he 
has been enabled to assign, on what appears to us sufficient evidence in 
general, and in most cases decisive, the following epochs of minima 


1864. ] Hersouen on the Solar Spots. 227 


of solar activity (as evinced by the production of spots), with the inter- 
vals elapsed between each, viz. :— 


Minima, | : | Mitae, 
at _ Intervals. | ane Intervals, 
Se Sra i eee ay Years, 
1610°8 8-9? SS a 
1619:0 : 17450 i 
24. 15°0? 10°7 
1634°0 11:0 1755°7 Tee 
1645-0 10-0 | 1766-5 as 
aoe eet Oe wali Wee ee moo 
1666°0 1784°8 
37 12-5 | 98° 13-7 
1679°5 10:0 | 1798°5 12-0 
1689°5 8-5 1810°5 12°7 
1698-0 . 1823°2 j 
14-0 29, 10°6 
1712-0 1833°8 
92. 11:0 : 10°2 
1723:°0 10-5 1844°0 122 
V733=5 1856°2 


The mean interval is 112, or, considering that the two first epochs 
are necessarily somewhat uncertain, very nearly 11” 3th, or nine 
complete periods in a century ; and the mean epoch 1799:24, which is 
so nearly 1800-0, that as a convenient date for memory the commence- 
ment of the terminal year of each century may be taken as a starting 
point. The comparison of epochs of maximum activity leads to a 
similar conclusion as to the length of the average period; but these 
epochs are less definitely marked, and subject to greater deviations from 
their average places than the minima which, themselves, as is evident 
from the above synopsis, are subject to pretty considerable irregu- 
larities. Generally speaking there appears a tendency in the maxima 
to anticipate the middle time between the consecutive minima, the 
interval 11°11 being divided into two unequal sub-intervals of 4°-77, 
and 6°34. 

Professor Wolf estimates the solar activity on any day by adding 
together the number of individual spots counted on the disc and ten 
times the number of groups. This is to a certain extent arbitrary. 
But some rule must be adopted for calculation, and it would not be 
easy to propose one less open to objection. Taking the total so obtained 
for each day for the measure of that day’s activity, and thence calcula- 
ting the mean yearly activity, and the mean during each period, he has 
arrived at some very striking and remarkable conclusions, which 
may be thus stated. Ist. If a series of equal distances be marked 
off in a line to represent years, and on the middle of each an ordinate 
erected representing the mean annual activity, their extremities be- 
ing joined by a curve; this will, of course, exhibit a series of waves 
averaging 11-11 years in breadth. Now it is found that the summits 
of these waves (and also their depressions) are of very unequal heights, 
and that (regarding their summits only) the curve connecting these 
exhibits again a series of larger waves, occupying, from summit to 
summit, a breadth of about 56 years, or (?) five times the length of the 
smaller period, the maximum value of 7s ordinate being nearly double 
of the minimum. In other words, besides the shorter period of 11-11 


228 } Original Articles. | April, 


years in which the solar activity fluctuates from nil, or nearly, so to a 
maximum and back again, it is subject to another and larger period of 
56 years (55°55 ?), during which the extent of the former fluctuation is 
nearly doubled. The maximum of this greater fluctuation may pro- 
visionally be placed about the years 1780 and 1836. 2nd. Another 
conclusion hardly less interesting is, that in adjacent or nearly adjacent 
11-year periods of unequal length, a greater degree of activity during 
the shorter tends to compensate in the total number of spots produced, 
for a less energy in the longer. 

These results are in a high degree enigmatical, and up to the 
present time no clear account of them has been given. Were the spots 
sufficiently large and numerous to produce any considerable defalcation 
of light they would place the sun at once in the class of variable stars, 
which present distinct and marked analogies in respect of their laws 
of periodicity and sub-periodicity, such as at all events point toa 
common explanation of the two phenomena. Meanwhile it must be 
noted that in the planetary revolutions we find no such periods as 112 
and 552 years, and although both Professors Wolf and Schmidt have 
bestowed some pains on the inquiry whether the application of equa- 
tions or terms depending on the heliocentric longitudes of the planets 
may not eliminate some portion of the observed irregularities in the 
recurrence of the minima of the 11-year period, it does not yet appear 
that any dependable result of this kind has been arrived at. Indeed, 
the data have not sufficient precision, nor does the series of observations 
embrace a sufficient time to lead us to expect it. 

As regards the number of spots in each year and in different 
months of the same year, however, Dr. Wolf (‘ Mittheilungen,’ No. X.) 
seems to have satisfied himself from the examination of Schwabe’s 
observations from 1826 to 1848 that sub-periods depending on the 
revolutions of the Earth and of Venus do really exist. Thus, he finds 
a perceptibly greater degree of apparent activity to prevail annually 
on the average of months of September..... January, than in the 
other months of each year—and again by projecting all the results in 
a continuous curve he finds in it a series of small undulations suc- 
ceeding each other at an average interval of 7°65 months, or 0°637 
year. Now the periodic time of Venus (225 days) reduced to a fraction 
of the year is 0°616, a coincidence certainly near enough to warrant 
some considerable suspicion of a physical connection. 

Yet more enigmatical is the connection which has been considered 
to subsist between the mean annual abundance of solar spots and the 
extent of mean annual fluctuation observable in the magnetic elements 
which determine the position of the needle. Dr. Lamont, of Munich, 
it would appear, was the first who noticed a periodical increase and 
decrease in the annual amount of variation of the magnetic declina- 
tion-—the period assigned by him being about ten years. In his 
‘Resultate der Mag. Obs. zu Miinchen,’ published in 1846, he states 
the amount of the mean daily variation in declination for the eleven 
years from 1834 to 1845 inclusive, which exhibit an increase from 
8-25 in 1834 to 1290 in 1836, whence a gradual and steady decline to 
7°41 in 1844. And from this (which as we now perceive falls in per- 


1864. | Henrscuen on the Solar Spot 229 


fectly with tho increase and decrease of the spots in that mterval, but 
without reference to them) he drew the conclusion above mentioned. A 
similar result was announced in 1852 by General Sabine, and extended to 
all the magnetic elements—connecting the periodicity with that of the 
spots, but assuming a period of ten years in accordance with M. 
Schwabe’s first conclusion—and to this period of magnetic change 
General Sabine we believe is still disposed to adhere. Professor 
Wolf, however, who has instituted the same system of inquiry into all 
available observations of magnetic declination, finds this element at 
least (so far as dependable observations exist) to vary in so perfect 
accordance with his law of solar activity that a table of its mean annual 
amounts as estimated in the manner above stated is convertible by a 
mere change of scale and the use of a multiplier constant for each 
magnetic observatory, into a table of mean decimal variations for the 
same years ineach. It will be recollected, however, that the earlier 
data here are sparingly scattered, and it would be premature to assert 
the absolute generality of this conclusion in the face of that to which 
the Astronomer Royal has been led by his recent elaborate discus- 
sion of the Greenwich magnetic observations from 1841 to 1857, viz. : 
that from the rapid decrease of dimension in the projected curves for 
the several years from 1848 to 1857, their forms remaining the same 
he is led to believe that in this interval “some great cosmical change 
has come upon the earth affecting terrestrial magnetism.” We should 
not pass quite unnoticed, however, that, granting the correctness of 
the epoch of maximum (1836) of Dr. Wolfs longer period of 56 years, 
this precise interval of time would fall upon the most rapid downward 
sweep of his average curve of maxima during its progress from the 
maximum of 1836 to that of 1892. 

A connection between the periodicity of the spots and the recurrence of 
great displays of aurora borealis has also been surmised, and was, indeed, 
suggested as a possibility by Mairan more than a century ago. The 
recent researches of Professor Fritz, grounded on a diligent assemblage 
and collection of recorded auroras instituted by Dr. Wolf, the late 
Professor Olmsted, and others, have placed this connection in a very 
distinct light, and shown not only that the 11-year period of the spots 
has its parallel in the annual frequency of auroras, both in respect of 
number and the epochs of minimum, but also that the long period of 
56 years is represented in that phenomenon, and, in fact, agrees better 
in indicating epochs of extraordinary abundance and paucity than a 
longer period of 65 years proposed by Olmsted, without reference to 
the spots. To dilate on the steps of this inquiry would lead us beyond 
our limits, and we hasten to the consideration of another class of 
phenomena, to which observations of Mr. Carrington, from 1853 to 
1861, recently published with the liberal aid of a grant from the Royal 
Society, have given a very prominent degree of interest, as affording at 
length a glimpse—if not of the physical cause in which the spots 
originate, at least of the working of a mechanism through which that 
cause may possibly produce its effect. 

We have already noticed, that while the results obtained by 
different observers and computists as to the position of the sun’s axis of 

VOL. I. R 


230 Original Articles. [ April, 


rotation derived from the paths of the spots across his disc agree on 
the whole satisfactorily, no such good accordance is found between the 
times of rotation so deduced. Galileo concluded from his observations 
(of course rudely) a synodic period of 28 days ; Scheiner, in 1630, of 26 
or 27, corresponding to a sidereal period of 254, or thereabouts ; 
Cassini, 25°59; Lalande, 25°42; Laugier, as a mean result, 25°34; 
Kyseus, 25°09 ; and Boehm, 25°32; the discordance between which is 
too great to be considered satisfactory. Observers, moreover, had 
noticed that, not only different spots gave different results, but that the 
same spot observed in several successive revolutions gave results greatly 
at variance with each other. Thus the observations of M. Laugier 
afforded periods varying from 24°88 to 26°25 days; and Professor 
Fearnley of Christiania, from observations of a very remarkable spot 
in 1857, which presented itself three times on the disc, deduced a 
series. of periods from its passages across and reappearances on the dise, 
of 25°46, 25°67, 25°83, 25-87, and 26°23 days, respectively and succes- 
sively. Such differences are far too great to have arisen from error of 
observation, and can only be attributed to proper motion of the spots 
‘themselves relative to the body of the sun, arising from their floating in 
the solar atmosphere, of which their relative change of heliographical 
situation suffices of itself to indicate the movement. This conclusion 
was drawn by M. Peters, from an elaborate series of observations made 
in 1845-6, in which he first clearly pointed out that the period of 
rotation deduced from such observations is that of the sun’s atmosphere, 
not of its globe, and is affected, for any particular spot, by whatever 
atmospheric drift, permanent or temporary, may subsist in the region 
occupied by it. Thus a way was opened by assiduous observations of 
the spots to a knowledge of the existence and laws (if any) of the solar 
atmospheric currents. About the same time was put forth by the 
author of this notice, a surmise, from the law of distribution of the 
spots in two tropical belts, with an intermediate spotless equatorial 
zone, that their origin might perhaps be sought in regular solar winds, 
analogous in their essential features to our trade-winds, and owing 
their origin to a different rate of emission of heat in the equatorial and 
polar regions, and a consequent difference of temperature in the two 
regions.* On the occasion of the spot-minimum of 1855-6, Mr. Car- 
rington, who from 1858 downwards had been assiduously and sys- 
tematically observing them, was led to make a very important remark 
as to the distribution of the spots in latitude. He found that, as the 
epoch of the minimum drew on, their average heliographical latitude 
decreased; the higher latitudes beyond 20° N. and S. becoming 
deserted, while the equatorial zone became comparatively more and 
more frequented by them; and this went on steadily till the epoch of 
the minimum was attained. After this a sudden and most decided 
change took place. The equator was deserted, and on the reappear- 
ance of the spots their average latitudes, N. and 8., were found to 
exceed 20°, the intermediate zone being now as remarkable for their 
relative paucity as it was before for their relative abundance. On 


* «Results of Cape Observations, 1847.’ 


1864. | Herscurr on the Solar Spots. 231 


searching former records, Dr. Wolf ascertained from the observations 
of Professor Boehm in 1833-4-5- 6, including the minimum of 1833-4, 
that the same phenomenon had then also occurred, the average lati- 
tudes of the spots in 1833 having been 9° 9’, while in 183 4, the year 
immediately subsequent to the minimum, it had risen by a similar 
sudden spr ing to 25° 0’, after which (as was also the case in Mr, Car- 
rington’s observations) it gradually declined to the normal state. 
Whether this be a general rule, remains to be seen. If so, it cannot 
but stand in immediate and most important connection with the 
periodicity itself, as well as with the physical process in which the 
spots originate. Meanwhile, however, an opportunity was thus afforded 
of determining the sun’s per iod of rotation by a great many equatorial 
spots, as well as by those in high latitudes. The results have been 
computed and synoptically tabulated with consummate skill and dili- 
gence by Mr. Carrington, in the extensive and laborious work already 
cited, and lead to the following general and highly-remarkable con- 
clusion—viz. that the period of rotation as deduced from spots in 
different latitudes increases with the latitude so far as 50° (beyond 
which no observations are attainable), or, in other words, that the 
equatorial regions of the photosphere revolve considerably faster than 
the polar. According to the law of dependence between the rotatory 
velocity and the corresponding latitude assigned by Mr. Carrington,* 
the difference amounts to no less than 5:89 days, the sidereal revolution 
at the equator being 30°86 days, and at the pole (supposing the same 
law carried on up to the pole) 24:97 days. At 50° hel. lat., the revo- 
lution would be completed in 28°36 days. 

Let us now consider what is implied in the law so disclosed. This 
will depend much on the supposition we may make respecting the 
rotation of the interior globe, of which we are left in complete 
ignorance. As extreme hypotheses we may suppose its rotation to be 
performed in the least of the above-named times, or in the greatest ; 
or, as a mezzo termine, in the intermediate period last mentioned. 

I. On the first hypothesis, the equator and the photosphere above 
it will be relatively at rest, and we shall have in analogy to the state 
of things prevalent here on earth, a region of equatorial calm, not 
much disturbed for some small number of degrees, &c., to the North 
or South. As the latitude increases, the photosphere, revolving in 
continually longer and longer time, will lag more and more behind the 
surface of the globe for the time beneath, the result being of course 
what we should call an “ East t wind,” or relative current from East 
to West, increasing in intensity with the increase of latitude, and 
attaining, according to Mr. Carrington’s formula, a maximum of in- 
tensity (estimated by the linear amount of momentary retardation) at 

* Mr. Carrington’s formula for the amount of diurnal rotatory movement in 
longitude for a spot in latitude 7 is 865’— 165’ (sin. 1)3, which is not very dif- 
ferent from 700/ + 165! (log. 2)?, which, howev er, he repudiates as representing 
the observations less closely. 

+ Great and habitual confusion arises from the use of the words East, West, 
Easterly, Westerly, as indicating direction. By an East wind, we would be under- 
stood to mean a wind blowing from the East; by an Easterly current or drift, 
whether of air or water, one which sets from West towards the Rast. . 

Ra 


232 Original Articles. [April, 


52° 49' hel. lat.: that is to say, almost exactly at the latitude where 
the spots cease to afford us any further information. Its velocity 
estimated as a surface current at this latitude would be 357 miles per 
hour. 

There is a considerable analogy in such a system of movements to 
our N.E. and §.E. trade-winds. These also are nal in intensity on the 
equator, and increase in strength with the latitude, up to a certain 
maximum. ‘This, it is true, occurs in a considerably lower latitude than 
538°, but in our ignorance of the law of distribution of temperature over 
the sun’s surface, this can hardly be considered a fatal objection, 
especially when coupled with the very moderate velocity (for such a 
globe as the sun) assigned as their maximum. ‘To render it ap- 
plicable, the photosphere (within the maculiferous region) must be 
assumed to float, and be entirely contained in the indraft current (that 
which sets towards the sun’s equator), and this must also be (within 
that region) the wpper current, to provide for the carrying back into 
the circulation and redistribution of its matter (perhaps in a less 
luminous state) over the general surface, by the lower: constituting 
possibly the lower envelope which forms the penumbra of a spot; the 
spot itself, both umbra and penumbra, being a region in which, owing 
to some cause of disturbance, the movement of the lower current is 
arrested, and thrown into eddies and ripples. In this view of things, 
the temperature of the equatorial atmosphere must be supposed 
generally lower than that of the polar, which is not incompatible with, 
but on the contrary may be caused by, a more copious emission of heat 
from the former region, which, as Professor Secchi assures us, is really 
the case. 

II. On the second of our two extreme hypotheses, that which makes 
the globe of the sun revolve in 30%:86, the conclusion is very ob- 
vious. As the solar atmosphere must then in its entirety revolve 
quicker than the enclosed globe. there must prevail at every point of 
the surface of the latter a steady and uniform West wind, increasing 
regularly in intensity from nil at the poles, up to 880 miles per hour 
at the equator. As this current must continually tend to accelerate 
the rotation of the globe by friction, which by the law of reaction must 
tend to induce a state of relative quiescence, while yet the exterior 
current is maintained unabated—-this can only be by a force ab extra, 
and we have nothing to fall back upon for such a force but the friction 
of external matter circulating round the sun according to the laws of 
planetary motion, and that of the zodiacal light (the plane of whose 
greatest extension according to the best account we have of it, coin- 
cides with the sun’s equator) is ready at hand. In that case between 
a rotation in 25 days, that of the photosphere, and 3 hours that of 
planetary matter revolving freely at 1-10th of the sun’s radius above its 
surface, 7. e. between a velocity of 4,609 miles per hour in the former, 
and 1,012,000 in the latter case, every intermediate gradation of 
velocity must subsist, while between the photosphere and the globe a 
difference of velocity of only 880 miles per hour exists. 

However enormous this velocity of the external matter, and what- 
ever the density we may attribute to it, we have to accept this last- 


1864. | Henrscuen on the Solar Spots. 233 


mentioned acceleration in the (no doubt exceedingly rare) matter of the 
solar atmosphere at the level of the photosphere, as the measure of the 
final result of its impact and friction, And on the theory of the frictional 
generation of the sun’s heat, it is the amount of vis viva so delivered 
into the sun to which we have to look for the maintenance of its supply 
of heat. It would be superfluous to adduce arguments, to show the 
utter inadequacy of the cause to produce the effect. If this be all, the 
origin of the solar heat is as much a mystery as ever. 

III. The intermediate hypothesis may be very summarily dismissed. 
It has not the merits of either extreme, and is in contradiction to 
both. It supposes a permanent west wind on the equator, and is there- 
fore inconsistent with any Htesian theory (of a system of trades and 
anti-trades)—and a permanent set of the whole atmosphere, beyond a 
given latitude, to the westward, equally contradictory to the theory of 
an external drift, the result of planetary circulation. 

Between the two extreme hypotheses there would seem to exist a 
crucial means of discrimination. The first undoubtedly seems to 
presume an average tendency of the spots towards the sun’s equator, 
while the latter involves no conclusion either to that or the contrary 
effect. On this point however, observation is not very positive. Pro- 
fessor Peters is of opinion that there 7s such a tendency, while Mr. 
Carrington seems to think the contrary. His synoptic table (Observation 
of Solar Spots, p. 220) exhibits an average, though very small prepon- 
derance, in favour of a general movement towards the poles, on either side 
of the equator—but the individual differences, to whatever cause 
attributable are so very much greater, as to destroy all confidence in 
sucha conclusion. From the result of Professor Fearnley’s observations 
on the spot of 1857, whose periods of return went on successively 
increasing on each reappearance of the spot, it may fairly be concluded 
that the spot was receding from the equator. Unfortunately I have not 
been able to ascertain whether such was really the case. 

Mr. Carrington puts forth a surmise (p. 248) whether some part of 
the irregularity in the maculiferous activity of the sun may not arise 
from the action of Jupiter on the zodiacal light. To appretiate the 
probability of this we have only to consider—1st. That the zodiacal 
light can hardly extend beyond the orbit of the earth—assuredly not 
its denser portions. 2nd. That its medial plane is that of the sun’s 
equator, which is inclined 5° or 6° to the orbit of Jupiter, so that it is 
only when near their common node that any action, even on the 
infinitely attenuated portion of it which may reach so far, can take 
place. And 3rd. That whatever be the form of the zodiacal light in 
section, we have no reason to believe it other than circular in plan. 

Let us suppose, however (and such a supposition has not been 
deemed inadmissible in attempting to account for the periodical return 
of meteors), the existence of an elliptic ring of vaporous, nebulous, or 
small planetary matter, with such a major semiaxis (4°979) as cor- 
responds to a periodic time of each of its particles == 11-11 years; of 
such eccentricity as to bring its perihelion within the limits of the 
solar envelopes; and revolving either in the plane of the ecliptic or 
in some other plane at a more considerable inclination to the sun’s 


234 Original Articles. [| April, 


equator. Let it be further assumed (still in analogy with assumptions 
not regarded as unreasonable in the meteoriferous ring), that the dis- 
tribution of the circulating matter in it is not uniform—that 1é has a 
maximum and minimum of density at nearly, but not quite, opposite 
points, and no great regularity of gradation between them. It is very 
conceivable that the matter of such a ring introducing itself with 
planetary velocity into the upper and rarer regions of the sun’s atmo- 
sphere, at an incidence oblique to its regular and uniform equatorial drift, 
might create such disturbances as, either acting directly on the photo- 
sphere, or intermediately through a series of vortices or irregular move- 
ments propagated through the general atmosphere, should break its 
continuity and give rise to spots, conforming in respect of their 
abundance and magnitude to the required law of periodic recurrence. 
If the change of density from the maximum to the minimum were 
gradual, but from the minimum to the maximum more abrupt, so as to 
allow the disturbances to subside gradually, and recommence ab- 
ruptly—the fresh and violent impulse would be delivered first of all 
on a region remote from the equator (by reason of the obliquity of the 
ring), and would give rise to a recommencement of the spots in com- 
paratively high latitudes. 

If the section of such a ring as we have supposed at its aphelion 
were nil, the period of 11:11 years would be strictly carried out; the 
maxima and minima would succeed each other with perfect regularity, 
and the paucity and abundance of the spots in the several phases of the 
same period would follow a fixed ratio. But if not, the several parts of the 
ring would not revolve in precisely equal times—the period of 11-11 years 
would be that of some dominant medial line, or common axis of all the 
sections in which a considerable majority of its matter was contained— 
and the want of perfect coincidence of the other revolutions would 
more or less confuse, without obliterating the law of periodicity, which, 
supposing the difference to be comprised within narrow limits, might 
still stand out very prominently. Nowit might happen that there were 
two such medial lines, or more copiously stocked ellipses, each having 
a& maximum and minimum of density, and that their difference of 
periodic times should be such as to bring round a conjunction of their 
maxima in 56 or any other considerable number of years: and thus 
would arise a phenomenon the exact parallel of Dr. Wolf’s long period 
and his series of greater and lesser maxima. 

Tt will, of course, be objected that the resistance of the solar atmo- 
sphere would retard and ultimately destroy such a ring. But we must 
bear in mind the extreme tenuity of this atmosphere in its upper regions, 
and that our ring need not consist of mere vaporous matter. It might 
be a collection of exceedingly small planetules, which, however thinly 
dispersed over an immense space in aphelio and in the remoter parts of 
their orbits, would become crowded together in perihelio, acting as it 
were by a joint rush to produce the disturbance, but each individually 
suffering a resistance infinitesimal compared to its inertia. The comet 
of 1843 passed within the region we are contemplating, and its motion 
was not destroyed. 

The orbits of our planetules would in fact be, par ewcellence, 


1864. | Samugnson on Steam Navigation. 235 


cometary ; they would surround the sun very closely for nearly half 
its circumference ; and if their common perihelion should occur in or 
near the longitude which the earth has in December, a preponderance 
of spots in the antumn and winter months would be far from im- 
probable. 

Our ring might lie in the plane of the ecliptic or near it, and so 
might intersect the orbit of the Harth, or Venus, or Jupiter. Of the 
influence of such intersection we may conjecture much, but can discern 
nothing distinctly ; and our readers may be disposed to think that we 
have advanced far enough already into the regions of conjecture. 


STEAM NAVIGATION, ITS RISE, PROGRESS, AND 
PROSPECTS. 


By Martin Samvrtson, Member of the Institute of Civil Engineers. 


Tr seldom occurs to the active minds engaged in the consideration 
of man’s age, and his relations to the lower animals, that, in order to 
arrive at accurate conclusions upon these subjects, it is necessary, not 
only to study the traces he has left behind him in the earth’s strata, 
and the history of his recent physical development, but also to direct 
the attention to the method in which he has executed plans that seem 
to have been prompted by some superhuman—nay, why need we hesi- 
tate to say—Divine agency. 

How does it happen that throughout the thousands of years in the 
historic record, as well as in the ages before the supposed date of his 
creation, during which we are now taught to believe that man existed 
in dark ignorance, not the remotest idea appears to have occurred to 
him of the practicability of rendering the physical forces subservient 
to his will; and that up to the commencement of the present century, 
his utmost attainments were unable to rescue him from the power of 
the elements? For it is only an affair of yesterday that he was bound 
to go or stay, to lie becalmed or be driven he knew not whither across 
the boundless main, as it pleased the volition of the tempest. 

And again, dismissing for the present the consideration of the 
marvellous strides which were made in the new locomotive enterprise 
after it was once fairly started, is it not a matter for reflection, as we 
look abroad over the nations of the earth, to find perhaps side by side 
with the Leviathan (for it is more than probable that she may one day 
be ploughing her way across the Pacific Ocean) the hollowed-out trunk 
of a tree, the primitive boat, filled with naked savages and propelled 
by paddles which, with the boat itself, may have been shaped by means 
of the serrated bone of some predaceous fish ? 

Who will venture, with such a contrast before his eyes to-day, to 
assert that man—that is, reasoning man—is not a creature of yesterday ? 

It appears to us to be the Creator’s intention, just as He has pre- 
served for us the fossil remains of extinct species of animals, in order 


236 Original Articles. | April, 


to afford us a retrospective glance over the early history of the globe 
and its animated freight, to have retained also, fresh and living before 
our eyes, the illustrations of aboriginal barbarism in the persons of 
men accompanied by their primitive apphances, so that we may not 
excuse ourselves, through ignorance of the past, from seeking to afford 
a worthy example, and to mould the minds of future generations. 

These are indeed interesting subjects for the consideration of 
ethnologists and anthropologists ; but unfortunately (or perhaps we 
should say fortunately for our readers) we are unable to proceed 
with such inquiries, for we are reminded that we have undertaken, 
in the space of a few brief pages, to furnish a retrospect of the 
past history of Steam Navigation, and to indicate, in as many lines, 
what we believe to be its future prospects. Nor have we, in the 
performance of this task, to overcome the last-named difficulty alone ; 
that is, of condensing into a few pages the history of what we shall 
term a scientific art, upon which many volumes, some of them of no 
mean proportions, have been written. There is still another fence 
between our readers and ourselves, and that is one in which we shall 
seek only to break a gap for the purpose of opening a commu- 
nication with those who are likely to be interested in our brief story. 
Should the heads of this narrative have the effect, as we trust they 
may, of whetting their appetites, and of causing them to long for 
deeper draughts from the sources whence we have drawn, then indeed 
they must widen the passage for themselves, and effect an entrance 
into our field ; for it would be impossible for us to drag all our tech- 
nicalities through the narrow aperture which enables the practical man 
of science to hold converse with the popular readér, or the tyro in 
knowledge. 

Steam Navigation has, during the brief period of its existence (for 
its history extends but over half a century), attained a degree of per- 
fection which may not be excelled for generations to come. It has 
linked, more closely the tropics and the poles, the old world and the 
new; and, with the exception, perhaps, of the Electric Telegraph, 
there is no modern invention that has effected more in the cause of 
civilization than the engine for marine locomotion. Even in its 
relation to Electric Telegraphy, everyone must admit that it has 
been the immediate precursor, if not the instigator, of that power ; 
for what was left to man after he had succeeded in holding communi- 
cation with his fellows thousands of miles away, in the course of a few 
days, converting him who was a stranger in distant climes into an 
immediate neighbour—what remained for him, we say, but to contrive 
the means of bringing this one still nearer, for the purpose of convers- 
ing with him as though they abode under the same roof? Was it not 
over the well-trodden path of the Millers, the Fultons, the Watts, and 
the Stephensons, that Wheatstone conceived the idea of winging his 
flight ? 

Indeed, with the discovery of steam navigation there commenced 
quite a new era in the history of our race. Many physical and mecha- 
nical difficulties had to be overcome before sufficient progress was 
made in the art to make it the means of extending the commerce of 


1864. | SamvELson on Steam Navigation. 237 


the world, of nourishing the poor with better food, or of providing 
fresh comforts and luxuries for the rich; but greatly as we may plume 
ourselves as Englishmen upon the share we have had in its rapid 
development, still it behoves us, in the spirit of impartial chroniclers, 
to award the merit of the first discovery not to one of our own nation, 
but to an intelligent and enterprising foreigner—a Spaniard. 

Perhaps the earliest account we have of a vessel being propelled 
by steam power is contained in some manuscripts in the archives of 
Salamanca; these appear to prove that in the year 1543 a naval 
captain, named Don Blasco de Garray, invented a machine moved by 
steam, and capable of propelling ships independently of oars or sails. 
The apparatus referred to was fitted to a vessel of about 200 tons, 
called ‘ La Santissima Trinidada,’ and an experiment was conducted in 
Barcelona Roads on the 17th June, 1543, in the presence of the Emperor 
Charles V., his son, Philip [., and many illustrious persons, which 
resulted in the ship’s attaining a speed of one league per hour; but the 
apparatus appears to have been condemned, and no further attention 
was given to it, on account of the apprehension of explosion from the 
boiler, and the great complexity and expense of the machine ; although 
the Emperor is stated to have reimbursed De Garray for all the 
expenses he had incurred in making his experiment. 

In 1736, Jonathan Hull took out a patent for applying the steam- 
engine as a motive power to propel ships; and quoting from the 
description of the invention, we have the following :—“ It has been 
demonstrated that when the air is driven out of a vessel of 30 inches dia- 
ineter, the atmosphere will press on it to the weight of 4 tons 16 ewt. ; 
and when proper instruments are applied to it, it must drive a vessel 
with great force.” He also described the machinery for working a pair 
of paddle-wheels, and a drawing was given, representing a tug towing 
a two-decker against the wind, this tug having a chimney from which 
smoke issued, and in the after part of the boat was an engine working 
two paddle-wheels attached to spars abaft each quarter. But the 
steam engine was at this time in a very imperfect state, so that no 
practical success was attained, although a vast number of experiments 
were made by many ingenious men. 

It was not until the towering genius of Watt had made the steam- 
engine the complete and elegant machine that it now is, that steam 
navigation began to exhibit any signs of success; and we therefore pass 
over the various experiments (many of them unsuccessful) which were 
made, until we come to those of William Patrick Miller, who in 1787 
took out a patent for paddle-wheels (very similar to those at present 
used) for propelling vessels ; and a Mr. Symington having about this 
time patented a new application of the steam-engine, was introduced to 
Mr. Miller; and they between them contrived to make a small steamer, 
which moved at the rate of five miles per hour; but this was little 
more than a toy, as the cylinder was only 4 inches diameter. It may 
be interesting to the reader to know that the engine last referred to 
may be seen in the South Kensington Museum. 

In 1788, John Fitch obtained a patent for the application of steam 
to navigation in the states of Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, 


238 Original Articles. [ April, 


and Delaware ; he induced several moneyed men to assist him, and after 
a considerable outlay, constructed a steam-boat, which, however, only 
attained a speed of 3 miles an hour. The shareholders were, notwith- 
standing, induced to make another trial; and a second vessel was 
completed, which went 8 miles an hour. 

Another American, James Ramsey, had also taken out a patent, 
and in 1788 he came over to England, where he induced a wealthy 
American merchant to join him in building a steam-boat ; but Ramsey 
died before its completion. The vessel was finished and afloat in 
1793, when she made several trips on the Thames, effecting about 
4. knots per hour. 

In the year 1801, Lord Dundas, a large proprietor in the Forth 
and Clyde Canal, employed Mr. Symington to conduct a series of expe- 
riments on steam-boats, in order that they might be substituted for the 
horses which were used for drawing the canal boats. These experi- 
ments resulted in the construction of the first practical steam-boat, 
named the ‘Charlotte Dundas.’ The particulars of the trial of this 
boat are described as follows :— 

“‘ Having previously made various experiments, in March, 1802, at 
Lock No. 20, Lord Dundas, the great patron and steam-boat promoter, 
along with Archibald Spur, Esq., of Elderslie, and several gentlemen 
of their acquaintance, being on board the steam-boat, took in tow two 
loaded vessels, the ‘Active’ and ‘ Huphemia’ of Grangeworth, Gow 
and Ephine masters, each upwards of 70 tons burden, and with great 
ease carried them through the long reach of the Forth and Clyde 
Canal to Port Dundas, a distance of 193 miles, in six hours, although 
during the whole time it blew a very strong breeze right ahead, so 
much so that no other vessel could move to windward in the canal 
that day.” 

This placed beyond a doubt the utility of the steamer in canals 
and rivers, and ultimately on the seas. In spite, however, of the great 
success of this experiment, objections were raised by the proprietors 
of the navigation to the use of steam-boats, fearful lest the banks of 
the canal would suffer from the wash of the undulation produced by 
the paddle-wheels. The ‘Charlotte Dundas’ was therefore laid aside, 
and, with very few exceptions, no further experiments have been made 
with steam navigation in canals; where such has been the case, the 
screw has been resorted to. 

In 1806, Robert Fulton, an American engineer, commenced a 
steam-boat, which was completed in 1807, and destined to run between 
New York and Albany, a distance of 120 miles, which she accom- 
plished in about 380 hours. The terror and surprise of the people at 
Albany was very great when they saw this strange ship approaching 
them, and is thus described by an American journalist :— 

“She had the most terrific appearance from other vessels that were 
navigating the river. The steamer, as many do now in America, used 
dry pine wood for fuel, which sent forth a column of ignited vapour 
many feet above the flue; and whenever the fire was stirred, a galaxy 
of sparks flew off, and in the night had a very beautiful appearance. 
Notwithstanding the wind and tide were averse to its approach, they 


1864. | SamvELson on Steam Navigation. 239 


saw with astonishment that it was rapidly coming towards them ; and 
when it came so near that the noise of the machinery and paddles was 
heard, the crews in some instances shrunk beneath their decks from 
the terrific sight, and left their vessels to go ashore; while others 
prostrated themselves and besought Providence to protect them from 
the approach of the horrible monster which was marching on the tide, 
and lighting its path by the fire which it vomited.” 

She was called the ‘ Clermont,’ and was the first steamer which, as 
well as being a practical success, remunerated her owners. 

About this time, a countryman of Fulton’s, John Cox Stevens, had 
completed a steamer; but as Fulton had obtained the exclusive right 
of navigating the waters of the state of New York, Stevens boldly 
determined to convey his ship to the Delaware by sea: he was thus 
the first who took a steam-boat to sea. Fulton had much prejudice to 
overcome in introducing steam navigation, but the Americans soon 
became aware of the immense commercial advantage that must result 
from its adoption, and accordingly steamers multiplied with great 
rapidity, so that in the year 1821 there were not less than 300 steamers 
at work in America. 

Returning again to England, it was not until the year 1812 that 
steam navigation was brought into practical use in this country, when 
Mr. Henry Bell started on the Clyde a small steam-boat, called the 
‘Comet.’ She was only 40 feet long, 10 feet 6 inches beam, and of 
33 horse-power. There was nothing novel in this small boat, and, in 
fact, Symington’s ‘ Charlotte Dundas,’ which has already been referred 
to, was a far more perfect steamer than either Fulton’s ‘Clermont’ or 
Bell’s ‘Comet ;’ but great merit is due to Bell that he succeeded in 
establishing steam navigation in this country, just as Fulton had done 
in America. ‘Tio Symington, however, is due the honour of having 
constructed the first practical steam -boat. 

From this time the number of steam-boats began to augment with 
astonishing rapidity, not on the Clyde alone, but on many of the prin- 
cipal rivers of England. The steam navigation of rivers having now 
become an established fact, enterprise soon determined that steamers 
should be sent to sea. Accordingly, in 1815, the ‘Rob Roy,’ a 
steamer of 90 tons and 30 horse-power commenced running between 
Glasgow and Belfast, and was therefore the first regular sea-going 
steamer in England. 

In 1816, several wealthy men formed a company for the purpose 
of establishing a line of steamers between Dublin and Holyhead; they 
had two built, the ‘ Britannia’ and ‘ Hibernia,’ both of 107 tons and 
20 horse-power. In this early stage of steam navigation they accom- 
plished the run with tolerable regularity, but the defects in the form 
of the ships and the imperfection of the machinery caused them even- 
tually to be placed on one side. The problem of making successful 
sea-going steamers being now thoroughly solved, they began rapidly to 
increase their numbers, and steam navigation quickly extended to 
other countries, France, Russia, and Holland all pressing forward to 
participate in the grand invention. It would be needless to enumerate 


240 Original Articles. [ April, 


the various steamers which now made their appearance in every part 
of this country, 

The first regular steamer which plied on the Thames was the 
‘Margery,’ of 70 tons and 14 horse-power. She made the trip from 
London to Gravesend in one day, returning the next; but another 
steamer, called the ‘ Thames,’ soon eclipsed her performance, making 
the trip there and back in the same day. 

In 1822, a company was formed, with the bold idea of establishing 
a steam communication with India by what is so well known as the 
Overland Route. It became necessary that steamers should be placed 
in the Red Sea to meet those coming from England, and accordingly a 
vessel called the ‘Enterprise’ was built and launched by Messrs. 
Gordon of Deptford, in February, 1825; she was rigged as a three- 
masted lugger, and was fitted with engines of 120 horse-power, by 
Messrs. Maudslay. The boiler was of copper, and in one piece, 
weighing 32 tons; her consumption of fuel was about 12 tons per 24 
hours. She sailed from Falmouth deeply laden with coal for the 
voyage, on the 16th August, 1825, and arrived in Diamond Harbour, 
Bengal, 7th December, the distance being 13,700 miles; which was 
therefore accomplished in 118 days, whereof 63 were under steam and 
40 under sail, the remaining ten days having been occupied in cleaning 
her boiler at St. Thomas and in coaling at the Cape. The result of 
this experiment was very disappointing, both to the public and the 
shareholders, as they had anticipated that less than 80 days would 
have sufliced for the voyage. Government, however, bought the ship 
for 40,0001, so that the enterprising speculator lost but little ; she 
was used in the Burmese war with great success. Although, however, 
the ‘Enterprise’ had not realized the expectation of the projectors, 
we cannot but regard her as a success, for she was in a great measure 
the pioneer in long steam sea-voyages. 

In 1827, Government established a line of steamers between Fal- 
mouth and the Mediterranean ; these vessels averaged throughout the 
year 73 knots per hour. At Bombay, in 1830, a steamer was built of 
400 tons burthen and 160 horse-power, named the ‘ Hugh Lindsay,’ 
with the object of establishing steam communication between Bombay 
and Suez; and on the 20th March she started from Bombay, and 
reached Aden (where a coaling station had been provided) on the 7th 
April, and thence to Suez, where she arrived on the 29th May. This 
voyage fulfilled its object in showing the practicability of a rapid 
steam communication with Europe, and eventually led to the establish- 
ment of the Peninsular and Oriental Company. 

In 1836, a company was incorporated at Bristol with the magnifi- 
cent project of Transatlantic steam navigation. Hitherto, no steamers 
of any great magnitude had been constructed, and those which had 
made long voyages had depended on their sails as much as on their 
steam power; but this company, which was called the Great Western 
Steam Navigation Company, felt convinced that to convey passengers 
and mails with regularity, they must depend on their steam power 
only. To accomplish this, hovvever, the ship would be compelled to 


1864. | SamvELSON on Steam Navigation. 241 


carry a very large quantity of coal, and must be provided with great 
engine power; she would therefore have to be constructed of such 
dimensions as would enable her to comply with these requirements ; 
hence they determined. to build a ship of wood, called the ‘ Great 
Western.’ 

She was built at Bristol in the year 1837, by Mr. William Patterson ; 
her principal dimensions being 212 feet by 35 feet beam and 84 feet 
deep. These dimensions were at that time considered gigantic, and 
the idea of being able to make a steamer of these proportions (that is 
to say, of so great a length in comparison with her breadth) to cross 
the Atlantic with safety was scouted by many scientific men as utterly 
impracticable ; one of the great objections raised being that such a 
ship must inevitably break her back when poised between two waves, 
the middle being unsupported. Dr. Lardner was the foremost amongst 
the scientific men of the day who proved most satisfactorily to “ him- 
self” that the ‘Great Western’ must be an utter failure, both from a 
scientific point of view and also as a mercantile speculation ; and yet 
Lardner has compiled many really useful works, and has manifested 
considerable intelligence on most subjects with which he has dealt. 
It certainly shows us how easily scientific theorists, arguing from 
assumed data and not from experiment, are led to make the most posi- 
tive assertions, which prove to be wide of the actual results; at the 
same time we must not forget that sound practice can only be acquired 
in conjunction with, or assisted by, sound theory; the latter should, 
however, always be deduced from careful experiment. 

In spite of the forebodings of Dr. Lardner and other wise pro- 
phets, the ‘Great Western’ was built and successfully launched, being 
at that time regarded as a greater wonder than is the unfortunate 
‘Great Eastern’ at this day. 

She was fitted with side lever-engines of 420 horse-power, manu- 
factured by Messrs. Maudslay, Sons, and Field, of London; the 
cylinders were 74 inches diameter, with a stroke of 7 feet ; the paddle- 
wheels were 28 feet diameter, the paddle-boards being 10 feet long, 
2 feet wide, and 20 in number. At length this wonder of steam-ships 
was ready for sea, and on the 8th April, 1857, she started on her first 
voyage across the Atlantic, with only 7 passengers on board. The 
run to New York was accomplished in 15 days 10 hours, which was 
certainly for that time a very remarkable performance; and towards 
the end of May she made her appearance in England with 66 passen- 
gers, having performed the voyage in 14 days; thereby falsifying the 
sage predictions of those worthy philosophers who had so confidentially 
prophesied her incapacity to cross the Atlantic Ocean. She continued 
to run with the greatest success, weathering the most tremendous gales, 
and proving herself to be what might well be called, even in these 
advanced days of steam navigation, a most satisfactory ship. As a 
specimen of sound shipbuilding, good engineering, and mercantile 
prosperity, she was an unexceptionable undertaking. She was econo- 
mical with her coal, burning from 36 to 42 tons per day, or about 4 to 
43lbs. per indicated horse-power per hour, a consumption of fuel quite 
as economical as that of the average of steamers at the present time, 


242 Original Ariicles. | April, 


so that we have not effected much in the economy of fuel within the 
last twenty-five years. 

This admirable steamer was broken up only a few years since in 
the Thames. 

By a strange coincidence, a steamer called the ‘ Sirius’ started on 
the same day with the ‘Great Western,—the 8th April; she also 
was designed with the same object as the ‘Great Western,’ but she 
occupied 19 days in making the voyage from Cork to New York, not- 
withstanding that she was aided by her sails; so that to the ‘ Great 
Western’ is due the glory of having first completed a successful trans- 
atlantic voyage, and she crossed the Atlantic no less than 84 times 
between her first voyage and the year 1844. 

The complete success of the ‘ Great Western’ led the directors of 
the Great Western Steam-Ship Company, under the advice of the late 
Mr. Brunel, to greatly extend their former efforts, and a steamer of 
colossal dimensions was projected as being likely to prove a propor- 
tionately greater success, both as a ship and as a mercantile speculation. 
The celebrated steamer ‘ Great Britain’ was the result of this deter- 
mination. But at this time the use of iron in preference to wood for 
shipbuilding purposes was strongly advocated by many able men, and 
several iron steamers had already been most successfully constructed ; 
hence, after careful investigation into the comparative merits of iron 
and wood, and with the advice of Mr. Brunel, it was resolved that the 
new ship should be built of iron. Her principal dimensions are— 
length between perpendiculars, 289 feet; breadth, 51 feet; depth, 
323 feet; tonnage, 3,433 old measurement. The keel of the vessel 
was laid in July, 1839, and she was launched in the presence of his 
Royal Highness the late Prince Consort, 19th July, 1843.* At that 
time she was considered of gigantic proportions, and we cannot but 
admire the bold enterprise and masterly conception of the projectors. 
She naturally excited intense curiosity, and was visited by immense 
numbers of spectators, including shipbuilders, engineers, naval officers, 
and distinguished savants of every nation. At this time Mr. Smith 
had most satisfactorily developed the fitness of the screw as a propeller 
for steam-ships in the elaborate experiments of the ‘ Archimedes’ and 
H.M.S. ‘ Rattler.’ It was with the latter vessel that an interesting 
experiment was tried, for the purpose of comparison between the screw 
and paddle-wheels as propellers. The ‘ Rattler’ was precisely the 
same form and power as the ‘ Polyphemus’ paddle-steamer. The two 
ships were tied together, and steamed away as rapidly as they could ; 
the result being that the ‘ Polyphemus’ had to give in to her rival, the 
‘Rattler. Mr. Brunel, in consequence, strongly advocated the appli- 
cation of the screw to the ‘ Great Britain,’ and it was finally determined 
that she should be fitted with one. She was therefore provided with 
very ponderous machinery of 1,000 horse-power ; the engines consist- 


* A period of four years. What would become of Steam Navigation, and in 
fact, of the commerce of this country if shipbuilding had remained stationary in 
this particular? ‘There are now firms in England who can, zn one year, execute 
orders for vesscls in the aggregate amounting to six times the tonnage of the 
‘Great Britain.’ - 


1864. | SamuEtson on Steam Navigation. 243 


ing of 4 cylinders, 88 inches diameter and 6 feet stroke ; on the shaft 
of the engines a great drum, 18 feet diameter, was fixed, and the screw 
shaft was also provided with a drum 6 feet diameter, and the motion 
was communicated from the engine to the screw shaft by means of four 
chains, so that the screw made three revolutions to one of the engine. 
She had six masts, with iron rigging, as offering less resistance to a 
head wind than the ordinary rigging. The mid-ship section of the 
ship is of a peculiar form, the sides falling in very much, so that at a 
light draught she would not be nearly so broad at her water-line as at 
a deeper immersion; but before she left the works it was deemed 
advisable to put her machinery on board. The effect of this was tht 
she was brought to her bearings at the greatest beam, and having to 
pass through a lock, it was found that the widest part of the ship came 
in contact with it, and it was necessary to widen the upper portion of 
the lock to enable the vessel to pass through into the river. At last 
she started on her trial trip, and her machinery and propeller gave the 
greatest satisfaction. She made the voyage across the Atlantic in the 
most successful manner until she was unfortunately stranded in Dun- 
drum Bay, where she lay a whole winter ; but by the unceasing efforts 
of Captain Claxton and Mr. Bremner, she was at length raised, removed 
from her perilous situation, and taken to Liverpool, where she was 
thoroughly repaired. Her machinery having been most seriously 
injured, it was taken out and replaced by a pair of oscillating geared 
engines, by Messrs. John Penn and Son, of 500 horse-power, or only 
half the power with which she was originally provided ; but with 
these new engines she accomplished even a greater speed under steam 
than she had attained with the old machinery, which was altogether 
disproportionate to her size. Her rig was also altered, and she is now 
ship-rigged, and as handsome as any steamer entering the port of 
Liverpool. She has made some of the fastest voyages to Australia and 
back on record, and may fairly be deemed one of the most successful 
and splendid steamers ever built. 

The ‘ Great Western’ having led the way, there were soon plenty 
of followers, and magnificent steamers began to multiply, amongst 
which we may mention the ‘ British Queen’ and the ‘ President,’ the 
total loss of which was such a terrible disaster in the early days of 
transatlantic steam navigation. Then we have the splendid fleet of 
the West India Mail Company; the Collins’ line, with its ‘ Arctic,’ 
‘ Pacific,’ ‘ Baltic, ‘ Atlantic, &c. ; the Cunard line, with its ‘ Acadia,’ 
‘ Asia,’ ‘ Arabia,’ and the magnificent ‘ Persia’ and ‘Scotia.’ The 
‘Persia’ constituted another great advance in size and speed. This 
magnificent steamer was built by Mr. Robert Napier, of Glasgow, and 
was launched the 3rd July, 1855; her extreme length is 3889 feet ; 
breadth 45 feet, and over the paddle-boxes 71 feet 6 inches, and her 
depth 31 feet 6 inches. She is fitted with side-lever engines of 850 
horse-power ; cylinders 1004 inches diameter, with a stroke of 10 feet ; 
she has eight boilers, with five furnaces in each; and her paddle- 
wheels are 38 feet 6 inches diameter, the floats being 10 feet 8 inches 
by 2 feet, and 28 in number. She carries 1,200 tons of coal, and her 
displacement at 22 feet draught is 5,400 tons. 


244 Original Articles, [| April, 


The ‘ Scotia’ is a sister-ship, but a little larger. 

Then we have the superb fleet of the Peninsular and Oriental 
Company—the ‘Pera,’ ‘ Ceylon,’ ‘ Massilia,’ ‘ Delta,’ ‘Simla;’ and 
for this Company also was built the magnificent screw - steamer 
‘ Himalaya,’ by Messrs. C. J. Mare and Co., in 18538; her extreme 
length being 372 feet ; breadth for tonnage 46 feet 2 inches, and depth 
of hold 24 feet 9 inches; she is fitted with horizontal-trunk engines, 
by Messrs. J. Penn and Son; cylinder 84 inches diameter, and 3 feet 
6 inches stroke; her propeller is 18 feet diameter, and 28 feet pitch. 
She was purchased by Government for a transport ship during the 
Crimean war, and on one occasion she conveyed 418 troops and 
372 horses from Liverpool to Constantinople, a distance of 3,620 miles 
in a little over 14 days, although she partly lay-to from stress of 
weather between Cape St. Vincent and Gibraltar. 

We now arrive at a period in the history of steam navigation to 
which it is impossible to refer without a passing word of reflection. 
In the beginning of this article we spoke of the extraordinary enter- 
prises that Man has from time to time undertaken, as it were, by 
inspiration ; and if, in this respect, there be one more marked than 
any other, illustrating at the same time the active restlessness of his 
reasoning nature, it is the undertaking we have now to record, namely, 
the construction of the ‘Leviathan, or, as she is at present called, 
the ‘Great Hastern.’ 

In days of yore, the “wonders of the world” presented indelible 
records of Man’s superstition, of his artistic taste, and of his prowess 
in war; and we have surviving to the present time the Sphinx, the 
ruins of beautiful temples, the Great Wall of China, &c.; all enter- 
prises of the same essential nature. The construction of the ‘ Levia- 
than’ is, however, not only characteristic of the great attribute of our 
age, namely, utilitarian enterprise, but it has developed the minds of 
men in a new direction, and thus led to a greatly-extended application 
of the physical forces. The origin of the idea which led to the 
building of the great ship was this :— 

All the steamers to which reference has been made, great as they 
were, could not carry sufficient coal for a very long voyage without 
deviating so much from the direct route to obtain fresh supplies of 
fuel at the coaling stations, as to greatly lengthen the voyage; thus 
in steaming round the Cape to India or Australia they would have to 
call at St. Vincent, the Cape of Good Hope, and the Mauritius, to 
obtain coal, which had to be sent out to those places. Hence steamers 
which have accomplished the voyage to Australia in a very short 
time have lost immense sums of money through the ruinous price of 
fuel at these stations, in spite of their having both a full cargo and 
complement of passengers; and in extra long voyages fast-sailing 
clippers have altogether beaten the steamers, inasmuch as they have 
effected the passage to Australia in quite as short time as the fastest 
steamers. 

Brunel therefore proposed that a ship should be built of such 
dimensions as would enable her to carry sufficient coal for the longest 
voyage ; and as the cost of this coal at home would be about one-third 


1864. | Samurtson on Steam Navigation. 245 


of the average price paid on the voyage to Australia for ordinary 
steamers, she would be worked with far greater economy than other 
boats, besides making the voyage in a much shorter period. It was 
with this object that the ‘Great Eastern’ was projected. 

This gigantic vessel was constructed by Mr. John Scott Russell, 
under the superintendence and direction of Mr. Brunel; her prin- 
cipal dimensions being 691 feet extreme length; 680 feet between the 
perpendiculars; breadth across paddle-boxes, 118 feet; breadth of 
hull, 83 feet; depth, 58 feet; and her tonnage by the old measure- 
ment, 22,500 tons; she has stowage for 6,000 tons of cargo, and her 
coal-bunkers will hold 12,000 tons. She is built on what is termed 
the cellular principle, being similar in construction to the tubes of 
the Menai Bridge, so that she is virtually a double ship, or one vessel 
placed inside of another, with partitions running fore and aft between 
her two “skins.” She is divided into twelve water-tight compart- 
ments, and the weight of iron in the hull is 8,000 tons. She is pro- 
pelled by a combination of paddle-wheels and screw. The engines 
for working the paddles consist of four oscillating cylinders 74 inches 
diameter and 14 feet stroke, each cylinder complete weighing 38 tons ; 
they are of 1,000 nominal, or 3,558 indicated horse-power. The 
paddle-wheels are 56 feet diameter, and the floats are 15 feet by 3 feet, 
and 30 in number. The screw-engines consist also of four cylinders 
86 inches diameter and 4 feet stroke, and are of 1,600 nominal, or 
4,610 indicated horse-power; the screw is 24 feet diameter, and 
44 feet pitch. The boilers for this stupendous machinery are ten in 
number, each boiler weighing upwards of 50 tons; four of them drive 
the paddle-engine, and six the screw. She has also powerful auxiliary 
engines for turning the screw when under sail, and has no less than 
ten donkey-engines for pumping, and for various other purposes. 

She possesses accommodation for 800 first-class passengers, 2,000 
second-class, and 1,200 third-class; and her principal saloon is 100 feet 
long, 36 feet wide, and 13 feet high. The consumption of coal 
amounts to 12¢ tons per hour, and the greatest speed by paddles 
and screw separately is as follows :—Paddles alone, 8 knots; screw 
alone, 9 knots; giving the screw a decided preference over the paddles. 
The cubic feet in paddle engine-room, including boiler space, is 
116,000; and the cubic feet in the screw engine-room, including boiler 
space, is 112,000; mean draught of water, 23 feet 85 inches; mean 
effective diameter of paddles, 48 feet 7$ inches ; mean slip of paddles, 
17-4 per cent.; mean slip of screw, 17-9 per cent.; mean consumption 
of coal per hour, 12+ tons; mean miles per hour, 14713; coal consumed 
per indicated horse-power, 54 lbs.; ditto per nominal horse-power, 
112 lbs.; greatest distance run in 24 hours, 360 miles; mean revo- 
lution of paddles per minute, 10%; of screw, 563; mean displacement, 
19,2733 tons; or, with 5,000 tons of coals on board at 24 feet 
10 inches draught, 20,940 tons. 

As a specimen of expert workmanship and strength the ‘ Great 
Eastern’ has never been excelled. 

The following particulars of length and beam of some of the 

VOL. I. s 


246 Original Articles. - [ April, 


principal transatlantic and war steamers will give a general idea of 
the size of the monster steamer last alluded to. 


Comparative Dimensions of a few of the Largest Steamers. 


Built, Length, Breadth. 
Great Western . . J1888 First Atlantic steamer . . 236 36 
Great Britain . « 1844 First Ocean screw steamer . 322 51 
lathlbaeyom cos solo dish ho Ge oo Gg Bo GR) ate 
IRETSIAN las Mise Cel emlSDO oe be ereeetate eee 0) ecoaty OOD 
Duke of Wellington. 1855  First-rate line-of-battle ship . 240 60 
Warrior >) = « L860) Iron=plateditrisate: <<.) ocUmoS 
(Given OR ey, ee AUS Bog wollte te Geo oo Gi diel) Se 


In order, however, more fully to illustrate the great difference in 
size between the first successful transatlantic steamer, the ‘ Great 
Western,’ and the last, the ‘Great Eastern,’ as well as to afford some 
idea of the intermediate steps in the progress of steam navigation, the 
accompanying plate will be of some service. It exhibits also the 
difference in the general construction of the hull of the vessels; the 
smaller ‘midship section representing the usual system of construction, 
and the larger one showing the cellular method adopted in the ‘ Great 
Eastern.’ 

Being the largest steamer afloat, we have felt ourselves justified in 
entering rather more fully into the details of the construction of the 
‘Great Eastern, —the more so as it is probable that she will remain 
unrivalled for many years to come. Independently of her size, she is 
throughout one of the finest specimens of naval architecture and 
mechanical genius extant, doing credit alike to her constructor and 
designer. The ‘Great Eastern, in common with many of the works of 
Mr. Brunel, is rather an illustration of the talent and energy which can 
be brought to bear upon mechanical science than, so far, a success from 
a mercantile’ point of view; in fact, Mr. Brunel has throughout the 
whole of his life been an example of genius without practical results. 
We have only to look at the various works executed by his father 
and himself to exemplify this ; the Thames Tunnel to wit, the Great 
Western Railway works, the Box Tunnel, the Harbro’ cutting, and 
last, though not least, the Great Eastern, a scientific success, but so 
far a mercantile failure. This vessel is so much in advance of the 
age and the conveniences which it affords, and the expenses in case 
of repair from damage or otherwise are necessarily so exorbitant, that 
few if any speculators can be found to embark a considerable amount 
of capital in her as an investment. ‘There is no wet or dry dock at 
present in existence sufficiently large to admit her; consequently, 
when the most ordinary repairs are necessary, and even when the 
vessel requires painting, she has to be laid aground, and from the 
peculiarity of her form, having no keel, (as will be seen from the ac- 
companying sketch,) it is impossible to get to her bottom without 
excavating the ground from beneath her. The expenses of loading 
and unloading too, are serious items in the working of so large a ship, 
and can only be compensated by long voyages ; for what may be called 


Quarterly Journal of Science, N° 2. 


PERSIA 


LencTH 
| LAUNCHED | 


GREAT WESTERN 
GREAT BRITAIN 

PERSIA i 850 
GREAT EASTERN [58 2800 


GREAT BRITAIN ENLARGED MIDSHIP SECTIONS 
oF 


GREAT WESTERN & GREAT EASTERN 


GREAT WESTERN 


5 


1864. | SamvueEnson on Steam Navigation. 247 


her terminal expenses would thus be only incurred at longer intervals 
than in short voyages. As we progress, however, in the construction of 
docks and other necessary naval works, they will no doubt be so enlarged 
and by degrees be of such a class as to admit a vessel the size of, or 
even larger than the ‘Great Eastern;’ for we fully believe that we 
are not yet at the extreme limit of size: another quarter of a century 
will, in our opinion, see vessels of even a larger tonnage than the ‘ Great 
Eastern’ afloat. This will, however, take many years, and in the 
meantime the precursors of enlarged views have had to pay the penalty 
of their hardihood, as was the case in a minor degree with reference 
to the steamer ‘ Enterprise’ before alluded to. 

Of the ultimate commercial success of the ‘ Great Eastern’ we 
entertain no doubt whatever, but this can only be realized by what 
may be termed single-handed enterprise, and through her employment 
on a long voyage, such as that to Australia or India. It will be 
dependent too upon a modification in the propelling power of the 
vessel, as well as upon the price at which she can now be obtained. 
In January last this magnificent ship was put up to public auction by 
the mortgagees, and although a reserve price of only 130,000/. was 
placed upon her, the highest bid was 50,0001. Probably before these 
pages go to press she may have been soid without reserve for a sum 
under 100,000/.;* and it is only when we recollect that she originally 
cost above three quarters of a million of money, that we are able to 
realize the terrible sacrifice which has been made by the present 
proprietors. Much honour and eredit is, however, die to those 
whose enterprise induced them to embark in the speculation in the 
first instance, and who thereby rendered patent to the world the feasi- 
bility of constructing a vessel of dimensions so much greater than any 
previous attempt in naval architecture. 

It will be easy now for those who have witnessed the failure in a 
mercantile sense to come forward and profit by the experience of the 
past, and to remedy those defects or errors which rendered the specu- 
lation so ruinous in the first instance; and probably the first step 
which will be taken when the vessel changes hands, will be to remove 
the paddle engines and alter her rig. For it will be seen from the 
foregoing statements that although her speed is increased by the 
application of the paddle and screw engines combined, it is not 
commensurate with the expense at which such additional speed is 
acquired. When the paddles alone are employed, a mean speed of 
8 knots is obtained ; and with screw and paddle combined, 14 knots 
under the most favourable circumstances; whereas the vessel will 
make 9 knots per hour with the screw engines alone. 

The saving in one important item of expenditure—namely, fuel— 
would be so considerable, and the change, if it were effected, would so 


* Whilst this article is passing through the press, we are apprised that the 
‘Great Eastern’.was ‘“ knocked down” for 25,000U., and a new company, of which 
Mr. Thomas Brassey, jun., is the leading director, advertises that it has purchased 
the vessel, and the bonds upon her inclusive, for 97,350/.; this new company 
having been the purchasers of her at auction. A dispute has, however, arisen as 
to who is the rightful owner, another bidder haying put in a claim to her. 

s 2 


248 Original Articles. [ April, 


obviously constitute the difference between a commercial failure and a 
pecuniary success, that it appears hardly necessary for us to enter into 
minute details. It is easy to calculate that with her screw alone at 
work, the 12,000 tons of coals which she carried would nearly sufiice 
for a 70 days’ voyage, but the most striking and at the same time familiar 
mode of exhibiting the enormous advantages which she would thus 
possess over any existing transatlantic paddle boat, will be to compare 
her, under her new conditions, with the ‘ Persia,’ showing the relative 
consumption of fuel and the carrying capacity of each steamer. 

With her paddle engines removed, the ‘Great Eastern’ would 
carry about 7,400 tons of measurement goods, and 12,000 tons of coal 
(more cargo and less coal in proportion). She would burn about 200 
tons of coal per diem, and steam 9 knots per hour. The ‘ Persia’ 
carries 1,257 tons of measurement goods, and 1,700 tons of coal, and, 
burning about 150 tons per day, attains an average speed of 12 knots 
per hour. Thus, if we were to take into consideration the increased 
speed attained by the ‘Persia’ over the ‘Great Eastern,’ we should 
have to take the quasi-consumption of the latter, not at 200, but at 
260 tons per day.* 

Now let us compare the work as it would be performed by the two 
boats, with the coal required by each, and we shall find that,— 


The ‘ Perst,’ carrying 1,257 tons of goods, and consuming 150 
tons coal per day, burns 270 ibs. of coal per day for every 
ton of goods carried by her. 

Whilst the ‘Great Eastern,’ carrying 7,400 tons of goods, and 
consuming 268 tons of coal per day, would only burn 81 Ibs. 
of coal per day for every ton of goods carried. 


This comparative statement exhibits in a general manner how great 
is the advantage of a screw over a paddle steamer for trading purposes, 
but as far as the ‘ Great Eastern’ is concerned, we do not hesitate to say 
that with appropriate internal arrangements she could be made to carry 
at least 10,000 tons of measurement goods; that with the screw alone 
and a suitable rig, she would, in an average state of the weather, attain 
a speed of 10 knots an hour; whilst with a good wind she would keep 
pace with, if not outstrip, the fastest paddle steamer afloat. A compa- 
rison of the transatlantic mail paddle boats, supported by a subsidy, 
with the screw boats in the same service not so endowed, would further 
confirm the statement of the superior economy of the screw. 

Once more, too, we would repeat that, instead of believing. with 
many, that her designer and builder have exceeded the legitimate 
dimensions of a manageable steam-vessel, we hold that not a few of 


* Throughout this paper we have avoided technical details which might be 
obscure to the general reader; but we think it right here to say, that im this com- 
parison between the ‘Great Eastern,’ without paddle engines, and the ‘Persia,’ 
we have duly considered the difference between an increase of cargo and the 
weight of the engines removed; also the bearing of the greater size and weight 
of the ‘Great Eastern,’ in relation to her locomotive power ; the ‘‘ lively” nature 
of cargo, compared with the dead weight of the engines removed; and the 
antagonistic action between paddle and screw ; but we have only given our deduc- 
tions in general terms. 


1864. | Samuntson on Steam Navigation. 249 


our readers will live to see steamers of much larger proportions; and 
most confidently do we predict a brighter future for the noble vessel 
now lying idle in the river Mersey. 

It has been impossible, in the limited space at our disposal, to give 
even a tolerably perfect sketch of the progress of steam navigation ; 
but in order to afford our readers some idea of the vast mercantile steam 
navy that has been called into existence through the insatiable demands 
of commerce, we may mention that there are at present employed upon 
one great Ocean route alone, namely, from Liverpool and Glasgow to 
the continent of North America, 100,000 tons of steam shipping, all 
created, in addition to vessels that have been lost, since the ‘ Great 
Western’ was launched ; and that there is furthermore a large fleet of 
additional steamers now in course of construction. 

But we have thus far spoken only of our mercantile steam navy, 
and have said nothing concerning the armaments of our country. 

It is indeed unnecessary that we should do so. That governments 
are slow to move, and that ours did not follow in the wake of the 
merchant service with any great alacrity, is well known to our readers. 
They are aware also that having once commenced, the Admiralty added 
year by year to our steam fleet; and we may say without boasting that 
in both services we have outstripped our neighbours as completely as 
when wooden walls protected old England. 

But we pass over this portion of the subject without regret or 
apology, quite content to leave its treatment to other and abler pens 
than ours. 

We have endeavoured to render as intelligible as it is possible for 
one accustomed rather to building, than to writing about steamers, the 
theme with which we have been called upon to deal ; and have only to 
remark, in conclusion, that our industry was not originated for warlike 
purposes, although it was afterwards thus applied, or we should rather 
say misapplied ; for had the first steam-boat been endowed with life and 
speech, we are sure that her earliest sentences would not have been 
those of anger or defiance, but that she would have proclaimed, as did 
later the Atlantic telegraph, “‘ Glory to God in the highest, on earth 
peace and good-will towards men.” 


Nore—Much additional and interesting information on the subject of Steam 
Navigation will be found in ‘Steinitz’s History of the Ship’ (Longmans), and 
Captain Claxton’s Pamphlet on the ‘Great Britain.’ We have to acknowledge 
our obligations to John Scott Russell, Esq., to the owners of some of the trans- 
atlantic steamers, to Henry A. Bright, Esq. (Messrs. Gibbs, Bright, and Co., 
owners of the ‘Great Britain’), and to many other friends, for valuable information 
supplied to us. 


250 Original Articles. | April, 


THE FOSSIL SKULL CONTROVERSY. 


ON HUMAN CRANIA ALLIED IN ANATOMICAL CHARACTERS 
TO THE ENGIS AND NEANDERTHAL SKULLS. 


By mie Turner, M.B., F.R.S.E., Senior Demonstrator of Anatomy 
in the University of Edinbur eh. 


Or the various crania which during the last few years have come under 
the notice of the geologist and anatomist, few, perhaps, have excited 
so much interest as those fragments of two human skulls which, from 
the localities where they were found, have been named the Engis and 
Neanderthal skulls. The lengthened descriptions given of them in the 
recent works of Sir C. Lyell ‘On the Antiquity of Man,’ and of Professor 
Huxley ‘On Man’s Place in Nature,’ and the light which they have 
been supposed to cast on the solution of the great problem of the 
antiquity of the human race, have caused a large amount of attention 
to be directed to them. Not only have the various circumstances 
connected with their discovery, the geological conditions under which 
they were found, and their association or non-association with various 
animal bones, been carefully noted, but their shape, proportions, and 
general anatomical characters have been minutely studied. 


Tae Hnars Cranium. 


This skull was discovered by the persevering researches of Dr. 
Schmerling in the Engis cave, in the province of Liége, in Belgium. 
It was found with other fragments of human bones, covered by a layer 
of stalagmite, and along with it were imbedded the bones of various 
extinct animals, as the mammoth, the woolly rhinoceros, and the cave 
bear. Dr. Schmerling regarded it as cotemporaneous with those 
animals, and from independent researches into the geological relations 
of the locality, the same opinion has been arrived at by Sir C. Lyell. 

The skull is a fragment, but the vault of the cranium is preserved. 
It is to all appearance that of an adult male. Mr. Huxley has care- 
fully described and figured it in both the works above referred to, and 
has come to the following conclusions respecting it. That there is 
nothing in its character to give any trustworthy clue to the Race to 
which it might appertain, for though some of its contours and measure- 
ments agree well with some Australian skulls, yet others agree equally 
well with some Eur opean crania; that there is no mark of “degradation 
about it; that it is a fair average human skull, which might have be- 
longed to a philosopher, or might have contained the thoughtless 
brains of a savage. 

The skull with which I am going to compare it was sent to the 
Anatomical Museum of the University of Edinburgh some months 
back by Mr. Henry Duckworth, F.G.S. It was found by him in the 
summer of 1861, when on a visit to St. Acheuil, near Amiens. “ It lay 
about six feet from the surface, in a deposit termed by the quarrymen 
the ‘Découvert’ bed, which deposit appeared like a narrow vein or 


1864. | Turner on the Fossil Skull Controversy. 251 


band of marly sand and small flints, dividing, at an angle of say 45°, 
the vegetable or brick earth on one side from the black flint deposit 
on the other.” As various remains of the Roman and Gallo-Roman 
age have been found in this locality, it is possible that the skull may 
be as old as that period, but there is no evidence that it belonged to 
an earlier time. The skull is a fragment, but possesses almost the 
same bones as the Engis cranium. It is the skull of an adult, and 
from its faintly-marked ridges and supra-orbital processes is either a 
female, or a male whose muscular development was feeble. The bones 
possess no unusual thickness or density, such as one not unfrequently 
sees in the crania of savage nations. They are, however, some- 
what friable, of a pale yellowish-brown colour, and much deprived of 
their animal matter. Numerous linear excavations due to the action 
of the roots of the plants in the soil are on their outer surface.* 
The different regions of the cranium are well proportioned to each 
other, and there are no marks of degradation about it. The strong 
resemblance in external form between this cranium from St. Acheuil 
and the Engis skull at once struck me, and careful comparative 
measurements have confirmed my first impressions. The Engis skull 
is, indeed, somewhat larger, but the proportions between the corre- 
sponding parts of the two crania are closely preserved. 


= nie Longi- Inter- Hor. 
Frontal | Parietal | Occipital | aS . os 
SKULL. Length. TeeGlin, || Gacoalin, |) Beeline | tudinal meatoid Circum- 
| | Arc. Arc, ference, 
Pens | | ——— 
* 7.5 i—4 lo Ad od 
Engis . - Cn 44, I eats Or | 13-75 | 13: 20°7 
| 
St. Acheuil. | 7-1 | 4:1 | 5-1 | 4:1 | 12:2 | 11:8 | 19-6 


The length of the Engis skull is to its breadth as 100 to 70, that 
of the St. Acheuil cranium as 100 to 71. If my supposition be correct 
that the latter is a female, the difference in size may, perhaps, be 
regarded as merely a sexual difference. The St. Acheuil skull is some- 
what more convex posteriorly in its upper occipital region; but, as a 
rule, the contours of the two crania so closely resemble each other, 
that one might almost look upon the one from St. Acheuil as a reduced 
copy of the Engis skull.t 


* The interpretation of this appearance was made for me by my friend, Pro- 
fessor Rolleston, of Oxford; and since my attention was directed to it, I have not 
unfrequently noted a corresponding appearance in bones which have been buried 
at no great distance from the surface. : 

+ The measurements of the Engis skull have been taken from a cast supplied 
by Mr. Gregory, of Golden Square, London. 

+ A minor structural difference consists in the presence of a small triquetral 
or inter-parietal bone in the St. Acheuil cranium; but such a bone, although at 
one time supposed to possess, is now known to have no especial value as an index 
of race character. I have, for example, seen it in two Australian crania, ina 
Malay, a Hindoo, a North American Indian, a Chilian Indian, a Ceylonese, a 
Scotch, and a French cranium. It can no longer be regarded as a distinctive 
peculiarity of the Peruvian skull. 


252 Original Articles, [ April, 


A question of much interest at once suggests itself by this com- 
parison. Are we to regard the occupant of the Belgian cavern as of 
the same race as the dweller on the banks of the Somme? ‘The geo- 
graphical distance between the two localities is not great, but the 
geological distance as regards time between the cotemporary of the 
mammoth and woolly rhinoceros and the inhabitant of the North of 
France at a period not more remote than the Gallo-Roman age is, as 
all present evidence indicates, indeed enormous. The answer to the 
above question, then, will doubtless be regulated by the opinion which 
may be entertained of the value of cranial characters, as an element in 
ethnical comparison. Many ethnologists of eminence consider, and 
with much reason, the form of the skull as one of the most important 
tests to be employed in determining the affinities of races, for the 
crania of individuals of the same race possess a strong general resem- 
blance throughout long periods of time. But whatever opinion may 
be formed of the identity or non-identity as regards race of the two 
individuals to whom these crania belonged, there can, I think, be no 
doubt that, as this skull from St. Acheuil proves, the cranial confor- 
mation, and presumably the cerebral conformation also, of the geolo- 
gically ancient Belgian was in no respect inferior to this inhabitant 
of France during a period in its history not more distant than the 
Gallo-Roman time. 


Tue NEANDERTHAL SKULL. 


The circumstances connected with the discovery of this cranium 
have been so well detailed by Dr. Fuhlrott, Professor Schaaffhausen, 
and Sir C. Lyell, and its anatomical characters have been so carefully 
described and figured by Professor Schaaffhausen, Mr. Busk, and Mr. 
Huxley, that it is needless forme to enter into any detailed descrip- 
tion of them, more especially since Professor King has already placed 
many of the most important facts connected with it before the readers 
of this Journal in the number for January. My object will be suffi- 
ciently carried out if I especially discuss those features in its struc- 
ture which either are, or are supposed to be, its peculiar character- 
istics, and which are considered to distinguish it from all other known 
human crania. 

The skull, when looked at even by one not skilled in human ana- 
tomy, is seen to possess remarkable features, The flattened vertex, 
the low retreating forehead and strongly projecting supra-orbital 
ridges, at once attract attention, and show that it is an exceptional 
form of human cranium. To these more obvious characters Mr. 
Huxley has added yet another, in the shape of the occipital region, 
which he looks upon as even more striking to the anatomical eye. 

The consideration of these peculiarities, together with some others 
of minor importance, has led Professor King to look upon the being 
to whom this cranium belonged as specifically, nay more, as generi- 
cally, distinct from man. But in coming to this conclusion, that 
observer appears to me to have estimated far too lightly the amount 
of variation to which the human body is subject, in the structure and 
arrangement of its constituent parts. J allude not merely to diverg- 


1864. ] Turner on the Fossil Skull Controversy. 253 


ences in the conformation of corresponding parts of the bodies of men 
of different races, but of individuals of the same race; variations 
which, though they may be great enough to constitute large and im- 
portant individual differences, are still not sufficient to warrant our 
assuming the absence of those characters which are especially and 
distinctively human. I refer not only to those variations in the form 
of the features, the colour of the skin, and the nature of the hair, 
which are discernible on an external examination of the body, but to 
those deeper or internal differences affecting the origin and distribution 
of the blood-vessels, the extent of attachment of the muscles, the 
non-formation in some cases of muscles usually present, and in other 
cases the development of new muscles. Similarly, the bones them- 
selves may exhibit great variations in the size of their ridges and 
processes ; and in some individuals processes may even occur which do 
not generally enter into the formation of the human skeleton.* All 
these afford illustrations of such a great amount of variability as to 
cause the careful human anatomist to hesitate, if an unusual structure 
or arrangement in a part evidently human were shown him, before he 
ventured to pronounce such structure or arrangement to be an indi- 
cation that the being in whom it occurred was either a distinct species 
of man, or a form transitional between man and the lower animals. 

The Neanderthal skull unquestionably possesses a very remarkable 
shape, one which sufficiently distinguishes it from other known crania. 
But we must inquire whether its anatomical characters are altogether 
exceptional. Is it not possible, in carefully examining an extensive 
collection of skulls, such as are presented to the anatomist in a large 
museum or dissecting-room, to find crania closely allied to it in some 
of those features which are regarded as most distinctive? I have, 
during the past year, directed much attention to this matter, and have 
examined numerous crania, both of savage and European nations. 
The points in the Neanderthal skull which I have most closely com- 
pared with other crania, have been—Ist, the projection of the supra- 
orbital ridges and glabella; 2nd, the receding forehead; 3rd, the 
shape of the occipital region. 

The supra-orbital ridges in the Neanderthal skull are characterized 
not only by their great projection forward, but by their rounded 
massive form. They extend outwards as far as the external orbital 
processes, and they run into each other across the middle line at the 
prominent glabella. Their extent and projection, as is clearly shown 
in the figure (from a photograph by Dr. Fuhlrott) in Mr. Huxley’s 
work, are due to the excessive development of the frontal sinuses. 


* It may be sufficient to mention here the occasional development on the 
occipital bone of an additional process called paramastoid, and of a process, 
the supra-condyloid, springing from the humerus a short distance above the 
inner condyle. An elaborate description of all the different forms which the latter 
process presents in Man and a comparison of their arrangement in certain of the 
Mammalia, as in many Quadrumana, Carnivora, Marsupialia, &c., is given by 
Gruber, in the ‘Mém. de l Acad. Imp. de St. Pétersbourg, vol. viii. 1859. 

+ These sinuses are cavities in the frontal bone due to a want of parallelism 
between the two plates, of which the bone is constructed. They contain air, and 
communicate with the nose. 


254 Original Articles. | April, 


In attempting, however, to form a correct estimate of this projection, 
it is necessary to bear in mind that the absence of the bones of the 
face, more especially of the nasal, malar, and upper jaw bones, tends to 
give a more marked character to it than would probably have been 
the case had they been present. 

Professor Schaaffhausen, in his remarks on this skull, states that in 
the principal European museums there are no crania which can be 
compared with it in the amount of this supra-orbital projection ; 
but he refers to various craniological memoirs, in which cases have 
been recorded of a considerable, though not so great a projection in 
this region, more particularly in the skulls of ancient and modern 
barbarous races. Mr. Huxley also, in his critical account of this 
cranium, alludes to the supra-orbital projection in Australian skulls, 
though this is not unfrequently due to a solid bony growth, the 
frontal sinuses being undeveloped. Mr. Busk has also figured the 
cranium of a red Indian,* and a skull from Borreby, in Denmark, 
stated to be of the Stone period, in which these ridges project con- 
siderably. In the Ethnological collection in the Anatomical Museum 
of the University of Edinburgh, are also several crania, in which they 
constitute a striking feature. Some of the New Zealand and Tas- 
mania crania, for example, are cases in point. But this character is 
by no means confined, as it appears to have been far too generally 
believed, either to the crania of modern savage races, or to those 
former denizens of these islands and of continental Europe, the men 
of the Stone period, of the age of Iron or of Bronze. It is a character 
which occasionally crops out, as it were, not only in the men, but the 
women even, of the British Islands at the present day, and at times 
attains a prominence which, though not quite equalling, yet is but 
little removed from that in the Neanderthal skull. I have now7 before 
me three modern British crania, and the cast of a fourth (Fig 1) in the 
Museum of the College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (No. 34), in which 
it may be studied. In the whole of these skulls, the prominence of 
the glabella and supra-orbital ridges is most strikingly marked, 
especially in the extent to which they project forward, though none 
of them exhibit so massive a form at the external orbital processes as 
the Neanderthal skull. In two of the crania more particularly (one 
of which is that of an old woman, Fig 2), there is a deep depression 
at the root of the nose, such as to all appearance the Neanderthal skull 
possessed when in its perfect state. 

The low retreating forehead is a character which presents much 
variety in human crania In the one from the Neander valley it is con- 
siderable ; but as Mr. Huxley has remarked, the supra-orbital projection 
causes the forehead to appear still lower and more retreating than it 
really is. But what the true slope of the forehead may have been, there 
is now some difficulty in accurately determining, on account of the frag- 
mentary nature of the skull, rendering it difficult to say what was the true 
position of the head. The influence which a change in the position of 
the head exercises on the slope of the forehead, either in adding to or sub- 

* ‘Nat. Hist. Review,’ vol. i. pl. v. 
+ The figures refer to the accompanying plate. 


1864. | Turnun on the Fossil Skull Controversy. 255 


tracting from it, is illustrated by the different appearance it presents in 
the figures of this cranium given by Sir C. Lyell and Mr. Huxley. I 
have now before me a modern British skull which closely approaches 
it, nay, is rather more flattened in the frontal region on account of 
the very faintly marked condition of the frontal eminences. I may 
refer here also to. a fragment of a skull, perhaps that of an old monk, in 
the collection of Christ Church, Oxford (shown me by Professor Rolles- 
ton), and to the cast of the cranium of Archbishop Dunbar (obiit 1547), 
in the Museum of the Scottish Society of Antiquaries, in both of which 
there is a remarkably flattened and retreating forehead. 

Professor King lays great stress upon the coexistence of the pro- 
jecting supra-orbital ridges and retreating forehead in the Neanderthal 
skull; more especially with regard to the part of the frontal bone, 
which is intersected by a line drawn at right angles to the glabello- 
occipital line through the infero-anterior angles of the two outer 
orbital processes. I cannot but think that if Professor King, instead 
of selecting for his comparison such a recent human skull as the one 
he figures in Plate 2, Fig. 5,* had taken a human skull presenting in 
combination a retreating forehead and projecting ridges (such as 
represented in Fig. 1), he would have found that no great difference 
existed between it and the Neanderthal skull in the amount of frontal 
bone cut off by such a line. 

I have already stated that Professor Huxley attaches much 
importance to the shape of the Neanderthal skull in its occipital 
region. He describes the squamous part of the occipital bone as 
sloping obliquely upward and forward from the protuberance and 
superior curved line, so that when the glabello-occipital line is made 
horizontal, the occipital protuberance occupies the extreme posterior 
end of the skull, and the lambdoidal suture is situated well on the 
upper surface of the cranium; as a result of which the posterior lobe 
of the brain would have been flattened and diminished. 

But if this mode of description be adopted, it must be borne in 
mind that the upward and forward slope is not that of a plane surface. 
For the squamous plate of the bone possesses a curved surface with 
the convexity projecting backwards and upwards, though this con- 
vexity is undoubtedly much smaller than the greater majority of 
well-formed crania exhibit. ‘Then again I find, from measurements 
of the cast of this skull, that the greatest antero-posterior diameter is 
not included in a line drawn between the glabella and occipital pro- 
tuberance, but in a line drawn from the glabella to a point in the 
squamous part of the occiput, about half-an-inch above the protuber- 
ance; though whether this point may in this individual have been the 
most projecting part of the head posteriorly, it is impossible to say, 
on account of the difficulty of placing this fragment of a skull in its 
natural position. 

But to follow out the method which we have hitherto pursued in 
this investigation, let us now, by a comparison of this part of the 
Neanderthal skull with the corresponding region in other human 


* Jan. No. ‘Quarterly Journal of Science.’ 


256 Original Articles. [ April, 


crania, see what value is to be attached to its configuration as an 
especial character. Messrs. Busk and Huxley have already shown, 
that in the Danish Borreby skull, and in some Australian crania, 
the occipital region presents a form closely allied to the Neanderthal 
skull itself. Additional evidence of this correspondence is supplied 
by the Australian and Tasmanian crania in the Edinburgh University 
Anatomical Museum, in one of the former of which the squamous plate 
is nearly flat, and forms almost a right angle with the surface of the 
bone below the curved line. But it is not with these savage races only 
that this comparison can be made. An examination of a considerable 
number of modern British crania has shown me that a large amount of 
variation occurs in them in the form of this region, and in the extent 
of the posterior convexity of the squamous part of the occipital bone. 
And it would be quite possible to arrange, from materials to which I 
have access, a series of modern British skulls, in which this variation 
may be traced from a well-marked posterior occipital bulging to a 
configuration of the upper occipital region, closely approaching the 
form of the Neanderthal skull. Inthe skull-cap represented in Fig. 3, 
the diminished occipital conyexity is almost equal to that of the 
last-named cranium.* 

Professor Schaaffhausen regards the unusual development of the 
frontal sinuses, supra-orbital ridges, and glabella, as unquestionably 
typical race-characters, and not as an individual or pathological 
deformity. 'T'o accept such a view, however, it would be necessary to 
show that a great projection in the supra-orbital region possesses a 
definite ethnical value. But this, I would submit, is an inconstant 
feature, for great variations in the size of these ridges are exhibited 
by the crania of barbarous races, both ancient and modern, in which 
such projections have been seen. The series of New Zealand, 
Australian, and Negro crania, in the Ethnological Collection in the 
Edinburgh University Anatomical Museum, exhibits considerable 
diversities in this respect. Again, in the beautifully illustrated 
‘Crania Britannica’ of Messrs. Davies and Thurnham, whilst some of 
the ancient British crania depicted present a considerable projection 
above the orbits, in others, again, it is but shghtly marked.| And as 
we all know that no great prominence occurs as a rule in the modern 
British skull, yet, as the specimens already alluded to (p. 254) prove, 
an amount of projection may occasionally occur not much inferior to 
that in the Neanderthal skull. 

To attempt, then, to found, as Schaaffhausen has done, a typical 
race-character on so variable a feature, or to build a chief argument 
in favour of the distinct specific, nay even generic, character of a skull, 
as Professor King has done, ona solitary cranium in which such largely- 
developed supra-orbital ridges occur, does not appear to me to be 
warranted by the facts at our disposal. Mere massiveness—the 


* In the University Anatomical Museum is the skull (B. 5) of a modern 
patriotic Greek, picked up on the plain between Athens and the Pireeus, in which. 
this configuration of the occipital region is most strikingly marked. 

+ Compare, for example, the Ballidon Moor, Uley, and Kennet crania with 
those from Middleton Moor, Long Lowe, and Littleton Drew. 


1864. | Turner on the Fossil Skull Controversy. 257 


possession of greater bulk in this region in an individual skull—is not 
in itself a feature on which to base any specific distinction. As 
well might we attempt to draw specific characters from a greater or 
less development of the mastoid processes. To give anything like 
value to such a character, it ought to be shown to be possessed by the 
majority at least of the skulls of a given race Keeping in view, then, 
the amount of variation which this projection admits of in the crania 
of known races, and in the absence of any skulls cotemporaneous with 
the one from the Neanderthal with which to compare it, we should 
hesitate before expressing an opinion that it is an ethnical rather than 
an individual character. 

Amongst the various speculations which have been hazarded, as to 
the nature and mental capabilities of the man to whom this singular 
skull appertained, there is one expressed in the inquiry, “ But may 
he not have been an idiot?” In the absence of any definite in- 
formation, it is alike impossible to prove either that he was an 
idiot or a sane person. I have, however, compared the skull with 
the crania of three idiots, and find not only considerable diversities 
between its form and theirs, but in the form which the idiot cranium 
itself may present. In one of the idiot’s skulls the forehead is low and 
retreating, and the supra-orbital ridges are large, but the external 
measurements and internal capacity are so small as to place it amongst 
the microcephali. Now the Neanderthal skull cannot be regarded as 
microcephalic, either in its external measurement or internal capacity. 
It possesses an extreme length of 8 inches when measured from the 
glabella to the most projecting point of the occiput, and of 7-2 when 
the measurement is taken between the frontal eminences and the cor- 
responding occipital eminences, which latter diameter is of greater 
value than the former as an index of cranial capacity, because it 
eliminates the supra-orbital projection and frontal sinuses. Its greatest 
breadth is 5:9 inches. Its present capacity is 65 cubic inches; but 
its capacity in the original condition is estimated by Mr. Huxley at 
75 cubic inches, which is the average capacity given by Morton for 
Polynesian and Hottentot skulls. 

Amongst modern European crania, the average cranial capacity is 
considerably higher than this. Professor Welcker, of Halle,* from 
careful measurements of 80 normal, male, adult German crania, has 
placed the mean capacity at 884 cubic inches. But whilst the 
maximum of these crania rose as high as 109 cubic inches, the 
minimum sank as low as 74:4 cubic inches, a capacity scarcely so 
great as the estimate made of the Neanderthal skull ; and the capacity 
of two others was only 78 and 78:6 cubic inches. Again, Professor 
Huschke,} from the measurements of 21 male German crania, has 
found their average capacity to be 88°17 cubic inches; but the 
smallest of these skulls was no more than 73°1 cubic inches, which 
is nearly two cubic inches smaller than the Neanderthal skull. Thus 
though the estimated capacity of this cranium is less than the 


* © Untersuchungen ueber Wachsthum und Bau des Menschl. Schaedels,’ 1862, 
p. 30. 
+ Schaedel, Hirn, und Seele, 1854, p. 47. 


258 ; Original Articles. | April, 


European mean, yet modern male German crania have been measured, 
which closely approach, and even sink below it. The possession of 
strong supra-orbital ridges, a low retreating forehead, and a diminished 
occipital convexity, is not therefore necessarily incompatible with an 
amount of brain space larger than that yielded by some modern Euro- 
pean crania (which such experienced craniologists as Huschke and 
Welcker looked upon as normal), if the space lost in the frontal and 
occipital regions is compensated for by increased growth in another 
direction. And in the Neanderthal skull this compensation appears 
to have been provided in the parietal region, which is nearly three- 
tenths of an inch wider than that given by Mr. Busk as the mean 
breadth of the European skull.* But the skull, No. 34, Edinburgh 
College of Surgeons’ Museum (Fig. 1), yields us still more striking 
testimony of the occasional co-existence even of enormous cranial 
capacity with projecting supra-orbital ridges, a low forehead, and 
diminished occipital convexity. Its capacity is 117 cubic inches, which 
is three cubic inches greater than that of the most capacious skull I can 
find recorded.t And like the Neanderthal, it has its greatest breadth 
close to the squamous suture, and not at the parietal eminences. 
The cast of the skull of King Robert the Bruce also, copies of which 
may be found in many museums, shows that that valiant and sagacious 
monarch had, along with a retreating forehead, a large and capacious 
cranium. 

From the comparison which has thus been instituted, I have no 
hesitation in saying that, although we may not be able to produce 
another skull possessing a combination of all those characters which 
are regarded as so distinctive of the Neanderthal skull, yet the 
examination of an extensive series of crania will show us that these 
characters are closely paralleled, not only in the crania of many 
savage races now existing, but even in those of modern European 
nations. 

How cautious, therefore, ought we to be in generalizing either as 
to the pithecoid affinities or psychical endowments of the man to 
whom it appertained. It is as yet but an isolated specimen; of its 
history prior to the day of its discovery, we are altogether ignorant ; 
its geological age even is quite uncertain. In coming to any conclu- 
sion, therefore, we have no facts to guide us, save those which are 
furnished by an examination of its structural characters. And what- 
ever marks of degradation these may exhibit, yet they are closely 
paralleled in the crania of some of the men, and women too, now 
living and moving in our midst. 


* «Med. Times and Gazette,’ April 12,1862. Mr. Busk places the mean 
breadth of European ecrania at 5°65. 

t+ The capacity of the largest cranium measured by Welcker was 114 cubic 
inches; that of the largest measured by Huschke, 109+75 cubic inches, 


Homha 


X 


1864.] Carrenrer on Correlation of Physical and Vital Forces. 259 


ON THE APPLICATION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF “CON- 
SERVATION OF FORCE” TO PHYSIOLOGY. 


Parr II. (conclusion): The Relations of Light and Heat to the Vital 
Forces of Animals. 


By Wit11am B. Carrenter, M.D., F.R.S., F.LS., F.G.S. 


Tose of our readers who accompanied us through the first part of our 
inquiry are aware that it was our object to show, that as Force is 
never lost in the Inorganic World, so Force is never created in the 
Organic ; but that those various operations of Vegetable life which are 
sometimes vaguely attributed to the agency of an occult “ Vital Prin- 
ciple,” and are referred by more exact thinkers to certain Vital Forces 
inherent in the organism of the Plant, are really sustained by Solar 
Light and Heat. These, we have argued, supply to each germ the 
whole power by which it builds itself up, at the expense of the materials 
it draws from the Inorganic Universe, into the complete organism ; 
while the mode in which that power is exerted (generally as Vital 
Force, specially as the determining cause of the form peculiar to each 
type) depends upon the ‘germinal capacity’ or directive agency in- 
herent in each particular germ. The first stage in this constructive 
operation consists in the production of certain Organic Compounds of 
a purely Chemical nature—such as gum, starch, sugar, chlorophyll, oil, 
and albumen—at the expense of the oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and 
nitrogen, derived from the Water, Carbonic Acid, and Ammonia of the 
atmosphere; whilst the second consists in the further elevation of a 
portion of these organic compounds to the rank of Organized Tissue pos- 
sessing attributes distinctively Vital. Of the whole amount of Organic 
Compounds generated by the Plant, it is but a comparatively small 
part (a) that undergoes this progressive metamorphosis into living 
tissue. Another small proportion (b) undergoes a retrograde meta- 
morphosis, by which the original binary components are reproduced; and 
in this descent of Organic Compounds to the lower plane, the power 
consumed in their elevation is given forth in the form of Heat and 
Organizing Force (as is specially seen in Germination), which help to 
raise the portion a to a higher level. But by far the larger part (c) of 
the Organic Compounds generated by Plants remains stored up in their 
fabric, without undergoing any further elevation; and it is at the 
expense of these, rather than of the actual tissues of Plants, that the 
life of Animals is sustained. 

When, instead of yielding up any portion of its substance for the 
sustenance of Animals, the entire Vegetable organism undergoes retro- 
grade metamorphosis, it not only gives back to the Inorganic World 
the binary compounds from which it derived its own constituents, but 
in the descent of the several components of its fabric to that simple con- 
dition—whether by ordinary combustion (as in the burning of Coal) or 
by slow decay—it gives out the equivalents of the Light and Heat by 
which they were elevated in the first instance. 

In applying these views to the interpretation of the phenomena of 


260 Original Articles. [ April, 


Animal life, we find ourselves, at the commencement of our inquiry, 
on a higher platform (so to speak) than that from which we had to 
ascend in watching the constructive processes of the Plant. For, 
whilst the Plant had first to prepare the pabulum for its developmental 
operations, the Animal has this already provided for it, not only at the 
earliest phase of its development, but during the whole period of its 
existence ; and all its manifestations of Vital activity are dependent upon 
a constant and adequate supply of the same pabulum. The first of these 
manifestations is, as in the Plant, the building-up of the organism by 
the appropriation of material supplied from external sources under the 
directive agency of the germ. The ovum of the Animal, like the seed 
of the Plant, contains a store of appropriate nutriment previously 
elaborated by the parent; and this store suffices for the development 
of the embryo, up to the period at which it can obtain and digest ali- 
mentary materials for itself. That period occurs, in the different 
tribes of animals, at very dissimilar stages of the entire developmental 
process. In many of the lower classes, the embryo comes forth from 
the egg, and commences its independent existence, in a condition 
which, as compared with the adult form, would be as if a Human 
embryo were to be thrown upon the world to obtain its own subsist- 
ence only a few weeks after conception; and its whole subsequent 
growth and development takes place at the expense of the nutriment 
which it ingests for itself. We have examples of this in the class of 
Insects, many of which come forth from the egg in the state of ex- 
tremely simple and minute worms, having scarcely any power of move- 
ment, but an extraordinary voracity. The eggs having been deposited 
in situations fitted to afford an ample supply of appropriate nutriment 
(those of the Flesh-fly, for example, being laid in carcases, and those 
of the Cabbage-Butterfly upon a cabbage-leaf), each larva on its emer- 
sion is as well provided with alimentary material as if it had been 
furnished with a large supplemental yolk of its own; and by availing 
itself of this, it speedily grows to many hundred or even many thou- 
sand times its original size, without making any considerable advance 
in development. But having thus laid up in its tissues a large addi- 
tional store of material, it passes into a state which, so far as the ex- 
ternal manifestations of life are concerned, is one of torpor, but which 
is really one of great developmental activity : for it is during the pupa 
state that those new parts are evolved, which are characteristic of the 
perfect Insect, and of which scarcely a trace was discoverable in the 
larva; so that the assumption of this state may be likened in many 
respects to a re-entrance of the larva into the ovum. On its termina- 
tion, the Imago or perfect Insect comes forth complete in all its 
parts, and soon manifests the locomotive and sensorial powers by which 
it is specially distinguished, and of which the extraordinary predomi- 
nance seems to justify our regarding Insects as the types of purely 
Animal life. There are some Insects whose Imago-life has but a very 
short duration, the performance of the generative act being apparently 
the only object of this state of their existence: and such for the most 
part take no food whatever after their final emersion, their vital acti- 
vity being maintained, for the short period it endures, by the material 


1864.] Canpnntrer on Correlation of Physical and Vital Forces. 261 


assimilated during their larva state.* But those whose period of 
activity is prolonged, and upon whose energy there are extraordinary 
demands, are scarcely less voracious in their imago than in their larva- 
condition ; the food they consume not being applied to the increase of 
their bodies, which grow very little after the assumption of the imago- 
state, but chiefly to their maintenance ; no inconsiderable portion of it, 
however, being appropriated in the female to the production of ova, 
the entire mass of which deposited by a single individual is sometimes 
enormous. That the performance of the generative act involves not 
merely a consumption of material, but a special expenditure of force, 
appears from a fact to be presently stated, corresponding to that 
already noticed in regard to Plants. 

Now if we look for the source of the various forms of Vital force, 
—which may be distinguished as constructive, sensori-motor, and 
generative,—that are manifested in the different stages of the life of an 
Insect, we find them to lie, on the one hand, in the Heat with which 
the organism is’supplied from external sources, and, on the other, in 
the Food provided for it. The agency of Heat, as the moving power 
of the constructive operations, is even mere distinctly shown in the 
development of the larva within the egg, and in the development of 
the imago within its pupa-case, than it is in the germinating seed ; 
the rate of each of these processes being strictly regulated by the 
temperature to which the organism is subjected. Thus ova which are 
ordinarily not hatched until the leaves suitable for the food of their 
larvee have been put forth, may be made, by artificial heat, to produce 
a brood in the winter; whilst on the other hand, if they be kept at a 
low temperature, their hatching may be retarded almost indefinitely 
without the destruction of their vitality. The same is true of the pupa- 
state ; and it is remarkable that during the latter part of that state, in 
which the developmental process goes on with extraordinary rapidity, 
there is in certain Insects a special provision for an elevation of the 
temperature of the embryo by a process resembling incubation. 
Whether, in addition to the heat imparted from without, there is any 
addition of force developed within (as in the germinating seed) by the 
return of a part of the organic constituents of the food to the condition 
of binary compounds, cannot at present be stated with confidence: the 
probability is, however, that such a retrograde metamorphosis does 
take place, adequate evidence of its occurrence during the incubation 
of the Bird’s egg being afforded by the liberation of carbonic acid, 
which is there found to be an essential condition of the developmental 
process.—During the larva-state there is very little power of main- 
taining an independent temperature, so that the sustenance of Vital 
Activity is still mainly due to the heat supplied from without. But 
in the active state of the perfect Insect there is a production of heat 


* Tt is not a little curious that in the tribe of Rotifera, or Wheel-animalcules, 
all the males yet discovered are entirely destitute of digestive apparatus, and 
are thus incapable of taking any food whatever; so that not only the whole of 
their development within the egg, but the whole of their active life after their 
emersion from it, is carried on at the expense of the store of yolk provided by the 
parent. 

VOL. I. dh 


262 Original Articles. [ April, 


quite comparable to that of warm-blooded animals; and this is effected 
by the retrograde metamorphosis of certain organic constituents of the 
food, of which we find the expression in the exhalation of carbonic 
acid and water. Thus the food of Animals becomes an internal 
source of heat, which may render them independent of external 
temperature.—Further, a like retrograde metamorphosis of certain 
constituents of the food is the source of that sensori-motor power which 
is the peculiar characteristic of the Animal organism ; for on the one 
hand the demand for food, on the other the amount of metamorphosis 
indicated by the quantity of carbonic acid exhaled, bear a very close 
relation to the quantity of that power which is put forth. This 
relation is peculiarly manifest in Insects, since their conditions of 
activity and repose present a greater contrast in their respective rates 
of metamorphosis, than do those of any other animals.— Of the exercise 
of generative force we have no similar measure ; but that it is only a 
special modification of ordinary vital activity appears from this 
circumstance, that the life of those Insects which ordinarily die very 
soon after sexual congress and the deposition of the ova, may be con- 
siderably prolonged if the sexes be kept apart so that congress cannot 
take place. Moreover, it has been shown by recent inquiries into the 
Agamic reproduction of Insects and other animals, that the process of 
Generation differs far less from those Reproductive acts which must 
be referred to the category of the ordinary Nutritive processes, than 
had been previously supposed. 

Thus, then, we find that in the Animal organism the demand for 
food has reference not merely to its use asa material for the con- 
struction of the fabric; food serves also as a generator of force; and 
this force may be of various kinds,—Heat and Motor-power being the 
principal but by no means the only modes under which it manifests 
itself. We shall now inquire what there is peculiar in the sources of 
the Vital Force which animates the organisms of the higher animals at 
different stages of Life. 

That the developmental force which occasions the evolution of the 
germ in the higher Vertebrata is really supplied by the Heat to which 
the ovum is subjected, may be regarded as a fact established beyond 
all question. In Frogs and other Amphibia, which have no special 
means of imparting a high temperature to their eggs, the rate 
of development (which in the early stages can be readily deter- 
mined with great exactness) is entirely governed by the degree of 
warmth to which the ovum is subjected. But in Serpents there is a 
peculiar provision for supplying heat; the female performing a kind 
of incubation upon her eggs, and generating in her own body a tem- 
perature much above that of the surrounding air.* In Birds, the 
developmental process can only be maintained by the steady appli- 
cation of external warmth, and this to a degree much higher than that 


* In the Viper the eggs are usually retained within the oviduct until they are 
hatched. In the Python, which recently went through the process of incubation 
in the Zoological Gardens, the eggs were imbedded in the coils of the body ; the 
temperature to which they were subjected (as ascertained by a thermometer placed 
in the midst of them) averaging 90° F., whilst that of the cage averaged 60° F. 


1864.] Carrrentur on Correlation of Physical and Vital Forces. 263 


which is needed in the case of cold-blooded animals; and we may 
notice two results of this application as very significant of the 
dynamical relation between Heat and Developmental Force,—first, 
that the period required for the evolution of the germ into the mature 
embryo is nearly constant, each species having a definite period of 
incubation,—and second, that the grade of development attained by 
the embryo before its emersion is relatively much higher than it is in 
cold-blooded Vertebrata, generally; the only instances in which 
anything like the same stage is attained without a special incubation, 
being those in which (as in the Turtle and Crocodile) the eggs are 
hatched under the influence of a high external temperature. This 
higher development is attained at the expense of a much greater 
consumption of nutrient material; the store laid up in the “food yolk” 
and “ albumen” of the Bird’s egg being many times greater in propor- 
tion to the size of the animal which laid it, than that contained in the 
whole egg of a Frog or a Fish. There is evidence in that liberation 
of carbonic acid which has been ascertained to go on in the egg (as 
in the germinating seed) during the whole of the developmental 
process, that the return of a portion of the organic substances pro- 
vided for the sustenance of the embryo, to the condition ‘of simple 
binary compounds, is an essential condition of the process ; and since 
it can scarcely be supposed that the object of this metamorphosis can 
be to furnish heat (an ample supply of that force being afforded by 
the body of the parent), it seems not unlikely that its purpose is to 
supply a force that concurs with the heat received from without in 
maintaining the process of organization. 

The development of the embryo within the body, in the Mam- 
malia, imparts to it a steady temperature equivalent to that of the 
parent itself ; and in all save the implacental Orders of this class, that 
development is carried still further than in Birds, the new-born Mam- 
mal being yet more complete in all its parts, and its size bearing a 
larger proportion to that of its parent, than even in Birds. It is 
doubtless owing in great part to the constancy of the temperature to 
which the embryo is subjected, that its rate of development (as shown 
by the fixed term of utero-gestation) is so uniform. The supply of 
organizable material here afforded by the ovum itself is very small, 
and suffices only for the very earliest stage of the constructive process ; 
but a special provision is very soon made for the nutrition of the 
embryo by materials directly supplied by the parent ; and the imbi- 
bition of these takes the place, during the whole remainder of fcetal 
life, of the appropriation of the materials supplied in the bird’s egg 
by the “food yolk” and “albumen.” To what extent a retrograde 
metamorphosis of nutrient material takes place in the foetal Mammal, 
we have no precise means of determining; since the products of that 
metamorphosis are probably for the most part imparted (through the 
placental circulation) to the blood of the mother, and got rid of 
through her excretory apparatus. But sufficient evidence of such a 
metamorphosis is afforded by the presence of urea in the amniotic 
fluid and of biliary matter in the intestines, to make it probable that 
it takes place not less actively (to say the least) in the foetal Mammal 

T 2 


264 Original Articles. | April, 


than it does in the Chick in ovo. Indeed, it is impossible to study 
the growth of any of the higher organisms,—which not merely con- 
sists in the formation of new parts, but also involves a vast amount 
of interstitial change—without perceiving that in the remodelling 
which is incessantly going on, the parts first formed must be removed 
to make way for those which have to take their place. And such 
removal can scarcely be accomplished without a retrograde metamor- 
phosis, which, as in the numerous cases already referred to, may be 
considered with great probability as setting free constructive force to 
be applied in the production of new tissue. 

If, now, we pass on from the intra-uterine life of the Mammalian 
organism to that period of its existence which intervenes between birth 
and maturity, we see that a temporary provision is made in the acts of 
lactation and nursing for affording both food and warmth to the young 
creature, which is at first incapable of adequately providing itself 
with aliment, or of resisting external cold without fostering aid. And 
we notice that the offspring of Man remains longer dependent upon 
parental care than that of any other Mammal, in accordance with the 
higher grade of development to be ultimately attained. But when the 
period of infancy has passed, the child that is adequately supplied 
with food, and is protected by the clothing which makes up for the 
deficiency of other tegumentary covering, ought to be able to maintain 
its own heat, save in an extremely depressed temperature ; and this it 
does by the metamorphosis of organic substances, partly derived 
from its own fabric, and partly supplied directly by the food, into 
binary compounds. During the whole period of growth and develop- 
ment, we find the producing power at its highest point; the circula- 
tion of blood being more rapid, and the amount of carbonic acid 
generated and thrown off being much greater in proportion to the bulk 
of the body, than at any subsequent period of life. We find, too, in 
the large amount of other excretions, the evidence of a rapid metamor- 
phosis of tissue; and it can hardly be questioned (if our general doc- 
trines be well founded) that the constructive force that operates in the 
completion of the fabric will be derived in part from the heat so 
largely generated by chemical change, and in part from the descent 
which a portion of the fabric itself is continually making from the 
higher plane of organized tissue to the lower plane of dead matter. 
This high measure of vital activity can only be sustained by an ample 
supply of food; which thus supplies both material for the construe- 
tion of the organism, and the force by whose agency that construction 
isaccomplished. How completely dependent the constructive process 
still is upon Heat, is shown by the phenomena of reparation in cold- 
blooded animals; since not only can thé rate at which they take place 
be experimentally shown to bear a direct relation to the temperature 
to which these animals are subjected, but it has been ascertained that 
any extraordinary act of reparation (such as the reproduction of a limb 
in the Salamander) will only be performed under the influence of a 
temperature much higher than that required for the maintenance of 
the ordinary vital activity. After the maturity of the organism has 
been attained, there is no longer any call for a larger measure of con- 


1864.] Carrnnrer on Correlation of Physical and Vital Forces, 265 


structive force than is required for the maintenance of its integrity ; 
but there seems evidence that even then the required force has to be 
supplied by a retrograde metamorphosis of a portion of the constituents 
of the food, over and above that which serves to generate Animal 
Heat. For it has been experimentally found that, in the ordinary life 
of an adult Mammal, the quantity of food necessary to keep the body 
in its normal condition is nearly twice that which would be required 
to supply the “waste” of the organism, as measured by the total 
amount of excreta when food is withheld; and hence it seems almost 
certain that the descent of a portion of the organic constituents of this 
food to the lower level of simple binary compounds is a necessary 
condition of the elevation of another portion to the state of living 
organized tissue. 

The conditions of Animal existence, moreover, involve a constant 
expenditure of Motor force through the instrumentality of the Nervo- 
muscular apparatus ; and the exercise of the purely Psychical powers, 
through the instrumentality of the brain, constitutes a further expen- 
diture of force, even when no bodily exertion is made as its result. 
We have now to consider the conditions under which these forces are 
developed, and the sources from which they are derived. 

The doctrine at present commonly received among Physiologists 
upon these points may be stated as follows :—The functional activity 
of the nervous and muscular apparatuses involves, as its necessary 
condition, the disintegration of their tissues; the components of 
which, uniting with the oxygen of the blood, enter into new and 
simpler combinations, which are ultimately eliminated from the body 
by the excretory operations. In such a retrograde metamorphosis of 
tissue, we have two sources of the liberation of force ;—first, its 
descent from the condition of living, to that of dead matter, involving 
a liberation of that force which was originally concerned in its organi- 
zation ;*—and second, the further descent of its complex organic com- 
ponents to the lower plane of simple binary compounds. If we trace 
back these forces to their proximate source, we find both of them in 
the food at the expense of which the Animal organism is constructed ; 
for besides supplying the material of the tissues, a portion of that food 
(as already shown) becomes the source, in its retrograde metamor- 
phosis, of the production of the Heat which supplies the constructive 
power, whilst another portion may afford, by a lke descent, a yet more 
direct supply of organizing force. And thus we find in the action of 
Solar Light and Heat upon Plants—whereby they are enabled not 


* It was by Liebig (‘Animal Chemistry, 1842,) that the doctrine was first 
distinctly promulgated which had been already more vaguely affirmed by various 
Physiologists, that every production of motion by an Animal involves a pro- 
portional disintegration of muscular substance. But he seems to have regarded 
the motor force produced as the expression only of the vital force by which the 
tissue was previously animated; and to have looked upon its disintegration by 
oxygenation as simply a consequence of its death. The doctrine of the ‘“ Corre- 
lation of Forces” being at that time undeveloped, he was not prepared to 
recognize a source of Motor power in the ulterior chemical changes which the 
substance of the muscle undergoes ; but seems to have regarded them as only 
concerned in the production of Heat. 


266 Original Articles. | April, 


merely to extend themselves almost without limit, but also to accu- 
mulate in their substance a store of Organic Compounds for the con- 
sumption of animals—the ultimate source not only of the materials 
required by animals for their nutrition, but also of the forces of various 
kinds which these exert. 

Recent investigations have rendered it doubtful, however, whether 
the doctrine that every exertion of the functional power of the nervo- 
muscular apparatus involves the disintegration of a certain equivalent 
amount of tissue, really expresses the whole truth. It has been main- 
tained, on the basis of carefully conducted experiments, in the first 
place, that the amount of work done by an animal may be greater than 
can be accounted for by the ultimate metamorphosis of the azotized 
constituents of its food, their mechanical equivalent being estimated by 
the heat producible by the combustion of the carbon and oxygen which 
they contain ;* and secondly, that whilst there is not a constant re- 
lation (as affirmed by Liebig) between the amount of motor force 
produced and the amount of disintegration of muscular tissue repre- 
sented by the appearance of urea in the urine, such a constant relation 
does exist between the development of motor force and the increase of 
carbonic acid in the expired air, as shows that between these two phe- 
nomena there is a most intimate relationship.| And the concurrence 
of these independent indications seems to justify the inference that 
motor force may be developed, like Heat, by the metamorphosis of con- 
stituents of food which are not converted into living tissue ;—an in- 
ference which so fully harmonizes with the doctrine of the direct 
convertibility of these two forces, now established as one of the surest 
results of Physical investigation, as to have in itself no inherent im- 
probability. Of the conditions which determine the generation of 
motor force, on the one hand, from the disintegration of muscular 
tissue, on the other from the metamorphosis of the components of the 
food, nothing definite can at present be stated ; but we seem to have a 
typical example of the former in the parturient action of the Uterus, 
whose muscular substance, built up for this one effort, forthwith 
undergoes a rapid retrograde metamorphosis ; whilst it can scarcely 
be regarded as improbable that the constant activity of the Heart 
and of the Respiratory muscles, which gives them no opportunity of 
renovation by rest, is sustained not so much by the continual renewal 
of their substance (of which renewal there is no histological evidence 
whatever) as by a metamorphosis of matters external to themselves, 
supplying a force which is manifested through their instrumentality. 


To sum up: The Life of Man, or of any of the higher Animals, 
essentially consists in the manifestation of Forces of various kinds, of 
which the organism is the instrument ; and these Forces are developed 


* This view has been expressed to the author by two very high authorities, 
Prof. Helmholtz and Prof. William Thomson, independently of each other, as 
an almost necessary inference from the data furnished by the experiments of 
Dr. Joule. 

+ On these last points reference is especially made to the recent experiments 
of Dr. Edward Smith. 


1864. | Vorxoxcer on Milk, and Dairy Arrangements. 267 


by the retrograde metamorphosis of the Organic Compounds generated 
by the instrumentality of the Plant, whereby they ultimately return 
to the simple binary forms (water, carbonic acid, and ammonia,) 
which serve as the essential food of vegetables. Of these Organic 
Compounds, one portion (a) is converted into the substance of the 
living body, by a constructive force which (in so far as it is not sup- 
plied by the direct agency of external heat) is developed by the retro- 
grade metamorphosis of another portion (b) of the food. And whilst 
the ultimate descent of the first-named portion (a) to the simple 
condition from which it was originally drawn, becomes one source of 
the peculiarly Animal powers—the psychical and the motor—exerted 
by the organism, another source of these may be found in a like 
metamorphosis of a further portion (c) of the food which has never 
been converted into living tissue. 

Thus, during the whole Life of the Animal, the organism is restoring 
to the world around both the materials and the forces which it draws 
from it; and after its death this restoration is completed, as in Plants, 
by the final decomposition of its substance. But there is this marked 
contrast between the two kingdoms of Organic nature in their material 
and dynamical relations to the Inorganic world,—that whilst the Vege- 
table is constantly engaged (so to speak) in raising its component 
materials from a lower plane to the higher, by means of the power 
which it draws from the solar rays, the Animal, whilst raising one por- 
tion of these to a still higher level by the descent of another portion 
to a lower, ultimately lets down the whole of what the Plant had 
raised ; in so doing, however, giving back to the universe, in the form 
of Heat and Motion, the equivalent of the Light and Heat which the 
Plant had taken from it. 


ON MILK, AND DAIRY ARRANGEMENTS. 


By Dr. Aveustus VortcKer, Consulting Chemist to the Royal 
Agricultural Society of England. 


Amone the alimentary materials so bountifully supplied to man, 
there are few that may rank in importance by the side of the fluid 
whose constitution we are about to examine. Distinguished by a just 
combination of flesh-forming and fat-prodncing elements, with those 
salines which are best adapted for preserving the solution of the solid 
materials ; remarkable for the facility with which the digestive system 
appropriates its nutriment; time-honoured as the support of helpless 
infaney ; symbolical of mildness and sweetness, its very simplicity 
would seem a claim to its exemption alike from suspicion or inquiry ; 
but, alas! for the materialism of the age, its value may be repre- 
sented by so many pence, its mildness is perverted by adulteration, 
and the food of babes is too often suggestive of chalk and water, with 
a judicious thickening of brains and treacle. Milk, like everything 
else, being reducible to a question of money, we do not hesitate to 


268 Original Articles, | April, 


adopt means to ensure, as far as possible, that we obtain our money’s 
worth. Professing, as we do, a decided preference for the healthy 
and natural fluid, over any artificial representation of it, however 
superior in the estimation of the vendor, we call in the aid of 
science, to inform us what we ought to have, even if it gives us, 
at the same time, the miserable satisfaction of knowing that we have 
it not. 

General Composition and Characters of Milk.— Milk is the secre- 
tion derived from the blood supplied to the mammary gland of the 
female animal, of the class mammalia. It is never produced im any 
quantity until after parturition; but during the latter part of utero- 
gestation it occurs In appreciable amounts, and instances are on record 
where it has been obtained from the gland of an animal previous to 
impregnation. The fluid secreted before parturition, and for some 
time afterwards, is called Colostrum, and contains a number of large 
corpuscules, filled with oil globules, distinguished as the ‘“ Colostrum 
Corpuscules.” 

Milk is white in colour, opaque, and has an agreeable sweetish 
taste ; the odour is faint, but peculiar. 

Its density is greater than that of water. Cows’ milk, of good 
quality, has a specific gravity of about 1030; human milk 1020; 
Goats’ and ewes’ milk 1035 to 1042, and asses’ milk 1019, compared 
with water at 1000. 

The chemical reaction seems to be in a measure dependent upon 
the food, as might reasonably be expected, Carnivora giving milk 
possessing an acid reaction, and Herbivora an alkaline milk. Al- 
though apparently homogeneous, it may be separated into cream 
(which consists of oil globules, formed by thin envelopes of casein 
(curd), enclosing the fats of butter), curd, or casein, albumen, milk- 
sugar, and mineral matters, consisting chiefly of phosphate of lime and 
magnesia, as bone, earth, and salts of potassium and sodium, with 
some oxide of iron. 

Cream — varies in composition, according to the circumstances 
under which it is produced. Four different samples analysed in my 
laboratory yielded the following results :— 


I. 10 Il. IV. 
Water. . 74°46 64-80 56°50 61°67 
Butter (pure Tatty mutters) : 18°18 25°40 31°57 33°43 
*Casein .« , 2°69 ; Noe 2°62 
Milsusar oe tek aos | JT | 84H] T.56 
Mineral “natters (ash) pepo Oe 0 59 2°19 3°49 0°72 
: 100° 00 100-00 100-00 100°00 
* Containing nitrogen . 43 3g. O06 So. G9 “42 


Cream is lighter than milk, but slightly denser than pure water ; 
consequently it sinks in distilled water. No. 1 was skimmed off after 
standing for 15 hours, and was found to have a specific gravity of 
10194 at 62° Fahr. The specific gravity of two other samples of 


1864. | Vornoxer on Milk, and Dairy Arrangements. 269 


cream which stood 48 hours was 1:0127 at 62° Fahr., and 1°0129 at 
62° Fahr. Rich cream, | find, has a lower specific gravity than thin 
cream mixed with a good deal of milk, such as the sample analysed 
under No. 1. 

No. 2 may be taken as representing the composition of cream of 
average richness. It then contains about one-fourth its weight of 
pure butter. 

These differences in the composition of cream fully explain the 
variable quantities of butter which are produced by a given bulk of 
cream. 

On an average, one quart of good cream yields from 13 to 15 ounces 
of commercial butter. When very rich in fat, it will yield rather 
more. Thus Mr. Horsfall states that a quart of cream yielded 1 Ib. of 
butter when the cows were at grass, and 22 to 24 ounces when they 
were housed and fed on rape-cake, bran, and other substances rich in 
oil. 

The portions of cream which first rise, are thin, but rich in fat ; 
this is due to the rupture of some of the oil globules during the milk- 
ing, and subsequent agitation to which milk is exposed; the light 
fatty contents thus liberated naturally rise quickly to the top of the 
vessel in which the milk is set. 

Good and poor milk differ mainly in the proportion of cream 
present ; the appearance may not be much varied, except in extreme 
cases; consequently, for the determination of the quality, more 
reliable tests are required than the mere inspection of the fluid; and 
as a preparatory step to the consideration of the evidences afforded by 
the specific gravity under various conditions, a few observations 
may be offered upon the microscopic examination of milk in health 
and disease.* 

Microscopic Examination of Milk in Health and Disease.—It must be 
some consolation to those who delight in miserable anticipations of 
dreadful mixtures in their daily food, to know that we possess a 
method of detecting, with absolute certainty, those combinations of 
“brains, chalk, and starch,” a haunting suspicion of which makes the 
morning and evening meal distasteful. 

Without positively asserting that such adulterations never exist, 
we may aver that we have never met with an instance. Foreign 
matters, of a nature unsavoury enough, and even unwholesome, we 
sometimes find, but they are the consequences of a diseased condition, 
or of an absence of common cleanliness. Such things as particles of 
dirt, from the milker’s hands or the cow’s udder, and cuticular scales 
from the same sources, are common enough. Globules of pus and 
blood discs are also found less frequently, but still oftener than we 
like to believe. It will not be thought that the microscope should be 
the companion to the breakfast-table : but in all cases where there is 
the least cause for suspicion, its revelations are infallible, and set at 
rest the doubt that is worse than certainty. 


» * The substance of the remarks on the microscopic appearance and the illustra- 
tions have been kindly contributed by my friend and former colleague, Professor 
G. T. Brown. 


270 Original Articles. | April, 


Good milk, under a tolerably high power, presents the appearance 
seen in our sketch (Fig. 1). Clustering masses of oil globules, the 
majority of uniform size, may be observed interspersed with a few 
larger, and a number of smaller ones, some being no more than fat 
granules of extreme minuteness. As occasional objects we may 
expect a few dirt particles, epithelial scales, or now and then two or 
three hairs. The appearance of the milk globules is so characteristic, 
that adventitious matters are in most cases discovered at once. 


Fie. 1.—Healthy Milk, 


From the number of oil globules collected together we may form 
some idea of the richness of the milk examined ; but the microscope is 
not the best instrument for testing the proportion of oil globules in any 
given specimen, as in even very poor milk they will probably be col- 
lected in some parts of the field in sufficient numbers to lead to an 
erroneous judgment. In our illustration (Fig. 2) is represented a 
drop of milk so diluted with water as to be nearly transparent. The 
oil globules are seen in considerable numbers, although not in such 
masses as we find in the undiluted fluid. In portions of the specimen 
we should find the quantity apparently much increased by the natural 
flow of them to the most dependent part, and at a is an epithelial 
scale, of which occasionally small masses are discovered. 


° 2 fe) Oo) . (eZ 
90,2 copa? ss 0 Oye 
16) f eS 
0,8. gee oO, & 
o ye) o Oc 
© he? O } 
q P 0°. On 
R e 2 Mi ‘ O. os X QO 
fe) a) 0 
G ° 
: 9 ry Ge eh 4 
f) = Q 


Fig. 2.—Healthy Milk lergely diluted with Water. 


1864. | Vorioxer on Milk, and Dairy Arrangements. 271 


In the event of pus, or blood, being mingled with the milk, it is 
evident that the gland is diseased ; such elements could hardly be 
introduced by accident, and of a certainty would not be so intention- 
ally. The appearance of the pus globule is very marked, as will be 
seen by reference to our drawing (Fig. 3, a). The faint outline, com- 
pared with the well-marked boundary of the oil globule, with the 
granular character and greater size, will be sufficiently distinctive ; 
further evidence may be obtained by the addition of a small quantity 
of acetic acid, under whose action the nuclei of the pus cells soon 
become apparent, as at b and c, while the cell wall is gradually dis- 
solved. 


Fie. 3.—Milk with Pus. 


The detection of blood discs is not so easy, for although they 
are essentially different from milk globules, their shape is materially 
altered by combination with the milk, which causes them to swell up 
and lose their peculiar dark centre. After the specimen, however, has 
been allowed to dry on the glass, the characteristic appearance is 
restored, and the blood dises are then very easily recognized. 

The last Figure (4) represents blood discs in the milk, after being 


Fic. 4.—Milk with Blood. 


272 Original Articles. [ April, 


allowed to remain for some hours on the glass. At a there are five 
of them, and others will be seen among the milk globules. Some of 
the blood discs have assumed a stellate form, but the dark centre is 
equally apparent in each. 

On the subject of the Adulteration of Milk, and the means of Detection, 
nearly every writer mentions a number of materials said to be used 
in London, and other large towns, for the purpose of so improving the 
colour and consistency of milk that the water added to increase the 
bulk may not be so readily discovered. Whatever skill the milkman 
of the olden time may have possessed in this departinent of his trade, 
it seems to us that he of the present day is deficient in the modesty 
which afflicted his predecessor. We find now, at any rate, the 
*cerulean fluid” poured unblushingly into our jugs without an effort 
to disguise the sophistication, which, however harmless, not the less 
defrauds us of our due percentage of the coveted cream. So honestly, 
indeed, is the practice indulged in that we know more than one dairy- 
man of tender conscience who professes to supply milk of undoubted 
quality for the consumption of invalids and babies, while the robust 
are treated to an attenuation of the most unsubstantial kind. 

The prevalent system of adulteration, we are convinced, consists 
in the admixture of water. Where the demand at certain seasons par- 
ticularly exceeds the supply, the cow with the iron tail never fails 
to meet all demands however, unreasonable, and doubtless deserves 
the reputation, so long ago acquired, of being the milkman’s best 
friend. 

Besides the intentional dilution of milk, there is a natural dilution 
dependent upon the derangement of the secretive function by the food, 
as is the case when such matters are supplied as distillery waste, 
bran mashes, grass from irrigated meadows, mangold tops, and acid 
slops, obtained by allowing barley meal, cabbage leaves, and other 
vegetable matters mixed with a great deal of water to pass through 
the lactic acid fermentation. The effect of such food is to induce the 
secretion of a large amount of water, and thus of necessity a poor 
quality of milk. 

Whether the dilution of milk be intentional, or the result of 
certain influences acting upon the system, is to the consumer a matter 
of secondary importance, the great question being with him whether 
the milk is of good or bad quality. - 

My own experience leads me to conclude that a specimen of milk 
is rich when it contains 12 per cent. of solid matters, and about 3 
per cent. of pure fat ; anything above this is of extra rich quality. 

Good average milk contains 10 to 11 per cent. of dry matter, and 
about 22 per cent. of pure fat. It yields 9 to 10 per cent. of cream. 

Poor milk, whether naturally or artificially diluted, contains 90 
per cent. of water, and less than 2 per cent. of pure fat, ana yields 
only 4 to 8 per cent. of cream. 

For the purpose of determining the quality of milk, numerous 
instruments have been at various times invented ; some of them are of 
doubtful utility, and nearly all require great tact on the part of the 
manipulator. 


1864. ] Vorroxer on Milk, and Dairy Arrangements. 273 

Hydrometers, or lactometers, specially adjusted for testing milk, 
may be obtained at a cheap rate at the philosophical instrument 
makers, and although not capable of furnishing evidence of so exact 
a nature as would be obtained by analysis, these are, nevertheless, very 
much more useful indicators than anyone would be inclined to believe, 
who did not know how far the specific gravity of milk is a test of its 
quality. 

The lactometer was never intended to indicate the relative 
richness of good samples of milk, but to point out whether samples 
of a fair or doubtful appearance had been watered, or were of a 
naturally defective composition; and this purpose it satisfactorily 
fulfils. 

Experiments were instituted in my laboratory for the purpose of 
ascertaining the influence of dilution upon the specific gravity, and 
the quantity of cream thrown up. Water being the standard at 1000 ; 
cream 1012 to 1019, and good milk 1:0820; the temperature being 
always 62° Fahr. 


The following results were obtained :— 


Percentage 
Specific of Cream 
Gravity. in bulk, 


Pure milk at 62° Fahr. . . 6 6 2 1:0320 ; 112i 
PA and 10 per cent. of water at 629 Fahr.  1:0315 5 10 
9 


a 2 .3 a 1°0305 > 9 
” 30 ” ” 1:0290 e 8 
i 40 a4 Z 10190 . 6 
~ 50 5 i-0160° 2 aes 


Experiments made upon milk after being skimmed gave the 
following :— 


Specific 

Gravity. 

Skim milk . : : : 5 : : 5 1:0350 
3; with 10 per cent. water : ° 5 1-0320 

- 20 i. i , 3 1°0265 

7 30 S 5 . . 1°0248 

2 40 Be é ‘ . 10210 

a9 50 ” . : 2 10180 


From these investigations it appears :— 


1. That good new milk has a specific gravity of about 1-030. 

2. That skim milk is a little more dense, being about 1-034. 

3. That milk which hasa specific gravity of 1-025 or less, is 
mixed with water, or naturally very poor. 

4, That when milk is deprived of about 10 per cent. of cream, and 
the original volume is made up by 10 per cent. of water, the specific 
gravity of such skimmed and watered milk is about the same as that 
of good new milk; this circumstance, however, does not constitute any 
serious objection to the hydrometer, as milk skimmed to that extent 
cannot be mixed with water without becoming so blue and transparent, 
that no instrument would be required to detect the adulteration. 

5. That when unskimmed milk is mixed with only 20 per cent. of 


274 Original Articles. [ April, 


water, the admixture is indicated at once by the specific gravity of 
about 1:025. 

6. That for these reasons the hydrometer or “lactometer” which 
gives the specific gravity of milk is well adapted for detecting the 
admixture of water, or to show an unusually poor quality of the un- 
adulterated milk. 


1. Circumstances affecting the Quality and Quantity of the Milk.— 
The period of the milking at which the sample is taken. During 
the process of milking, that which is first drawn off is thin and 
poor, and gives little cream: improving during the flow—the last 
drawn—the “strippings’’—is the richest in quality, yielding better 
cream, and consequently more butter. 

Experiments by Reisct and Pelligot have established the fact that 
considerably more solid matter and pure fat are contained in the milk 
last drawn from the udder. 

This superior richness of the last-drawn milk has an important 
bearing upon the question of milking machines. The new American 
cow-milking machine fails to strip the udder, according to the united 
testimony of all who have tried it. Such a fundamental defect must 
militate against its general introduction into England, and has led to 
its disuse in the United States, as I am informed by the secretary of 
one of the most influential State Agricultural Societies, 

It has, to my own knowledge, been tried by several .excellent 
judges, who remain silent as to its merits, not liking to accept the 
unpleasant office of condemning and declining, as judicious men, to 
bestow undeserved praise. 


2. Distance from the time of Calving.—The first milk, or colostrum, 
is thicker and yellower than ordinary milk, coagulates by heating, and 
contains an unusually large quantity of casein or curd. 

Tn ten or twelve days from the time of calving, the milk assumes 
its ordinary condition, and the flow then becomes very plentiful ; but 
after a month, or thereabouts, the yield gradually diminishes until 
the animal runs dry, usually in about ten months, unless when suc- 
culent and stimulating food is given to excite the continuance of the 
secretion for a longer time. 


3. Season of the Year and Food.—In the spring and early part of 
summer milk is abundant, and of good flavour. As the season 
advances the supply is diminished, but becomes richer in butter. 
The same quantity of milk which in August scarcely yielded 3 per 
cent. of pure butter and 5 per cent. of curd, in November produced 
41 per cent. of butter and 33 per cent. of curd. 

A series of observations, made for the purpose of ascertaining the 
variations in the quality of the milk on the same farm throughout the 
year, convinced me that the supply of food was chiefly concerned, the 
richness or poverty of the diet being in all cases represented by the 
quality of the milk yielded. 

In November and December the cows had meal-nut oil given to 
them, which is the refuse left after pressing ground kernels of the 
palm-nut. This substance, when of good quality, not too hardly 


1864. ] Vorxoxnr on Milk, and Dairy Arrangements. 275 


pressed, is very nutritious and rich in fat,* and was found to exercise 
a decided influence upon the proportion of butter in the milk. 

Brewers’ grains are generally considered to possess a peculiarly 
stimulating effect upon the formation of the mammary gland. M. 
Struckman, of Wartburg in Germany, in 1855, published some feeding 
experiments, the results of which are of such practical importance as 
to justify an analysis of them here. 

Four good and four bad cows were selected, and the diet included 
brewers’ grains, mangolds, oat-straw, and rape-cake. 

*“ Most milk was produced by 5% lbs. of rape-cake, 36 lbs. of 
mangolds, and 25 Ibs. of oat-straw daily to each animal.” 

A reduction of 9-10ths lb. of rape-cake led to a decrease of 6°55 
litres per cow daily ; thus 1 Ib. of rape-cake represcnts an average of 
11 1b. of milk. A diminution of 6 lbs. of grains was followed by a 
reduction of 6-72 litres of milk; thus 1lb. of grains appears to have 
produced } lb. of milk. 

When 18 lbs. of brewers’ grains were replaced by 43 lbs. of rape- 
cake, the yield of milk was nearly the same; accordingly, 1 Ib. of 
rape-cake was equal to 4 lbs. of grains, in its power of producing milk. 

Rape-cake produced milk richer in butter; grains, however, pro- 
duced butter of more delicate flavour. 

Du. g the experiments, the superior cows were found to be most 
influenced by the changes of food. In the inferior animals the yield 
was tolerably uniform, notwithstanding they were subjected to the 
same dietetic changes. 


4, Morning and Evening Milk.—Popular opinion ascribes to the 
morning’s milk a superiority in quality. Observations on this point do 
not sanction the conclusion, but rather tend to establish the conviction 
that the quality of the milk depends upon the food supplied some 
hours before the cows are milked. 

If the food during the day has been plentiful and good, and the 
evening’s food innutritious and scanty, the evening milk is of superior 
quality to that drawn on the following morning. Should the cows 
eet a good supply of rich food in the evening, after having been 
stunted or fed on poor food during the day, the following morning’s 
milk will be of a higher quality than that of the preceding evening. 

Out of thirty-two samples of morning and evening milk, I found 
the morning’s produce to be richer in four cases, and poorer in eight 
cases ; whilst in four instances there was no perceptible difference. 


* Composition of Palm-nut Kernel-meal, by the Author. 


No. 1. No. 2. 

Water . . Z : . . : ~ 9°85 7:01 
Fatty matters 5 : : 5 5 a Bole! 22°45 
+ Albuminous compounds (flesh-forming matters) . 16°43 12°90 
Gum, sugar, and digestible fibre : - 26°60 26°61 
Woody fibre (cellulose). : g : 6 BOGE! 27°70 
{Mineral matters (ash) —. . : ; - 3:40 3°33 


100*00 = 100-00 
+ Containing nitrogen : . - 2°63 2°02 
{ Containing sand. ; - - 63 97 


276 Original Articles. | April, 


5. Breed and Size of the Animal.—It may be accepted as a fact, 
that animals which indicate a peculiar aptitude to fatten, are not likely 
to be distinguished as milkers ; we do not assume that physiologically 
the two qualifications are incompatible, rather preferring the alter- 
native conclusion that so much attention has been devoted to the 
selection of stock possessing the requisite qualities for feeding, that 
the milking capabilities have been passively ignored by the breeder. 
Pure Shorthorns, as a breed, are commonly objected to on the ground 
of their deficiency in this respect, although the circumstances of some 
families of pure bred animals being celebrated for the amount and 
quality of their milk, would seem to indicate that the stigma is too 
indiscriminately affixed to this breed. 

The Yorkshire cow, essentially a Shorthorn, is the favourite of 
cowkeepers in London and other large towns, surpassing all others in 
the quantity of its yield, although the quality loses by comparison 
with that of smaller breeds. 

If breeders would make it an object to cultivate both the feeding 
and milking qualities, there is nothing in previous experience opposed 
to a successful result. 

Small breeds, or small individuals of large breeds, usually give a 
better quality of milk from the same food than large ones. The 
larger animals giving a better return in quantity, and furnishing more 
meat for the butcher, are, however, more profitable. 

Where good quality is the main object, Alderneys perhaps will 
give most satisfaction, for they give richer cream than any other breed 
in common use in thiscountry. The small Kerry cow, and the minia- 
ture Breton, produce extremely rich milk in quantity proportioned to 
their size. 

For dairy purposes in cheese districts the Ayrshire are justly cele- 
brated ; indeed they seem to possess more completely than other 
breeds the power of converting the elements of food into cheese and 
butter ; they do not, on the other hand, lay on fat and flesh well. 

A cow of this breed bought by the Duke of Atholl from Mr. Wallace, 
Kirklandholm, produced from April 11, 1860, to April 11, 1861, 
13,456 lbs., or about 1305 gallons of milk, which at 8d. per gallon 
would be worth 431. 10s. 

For general dairy purposes Shorthorns are probably the most use- 
ful. The dairy farmer will naturally select those that are more dis- 
tinguished for milking qualities than for their tendency to fatten, at 
the same time not losing sight of the latter qualification, which will 
tell when the animals are no longer profitable for his dairy. 

Health, Constitution, and Age might be enlarged upon as cireum- 
stances affecting the composition and quality of the milk: their in- 
fluence, however, is too obvious to require more than a passing 
mention. 


On Datry ARRANGEMENTS. 


Aspect.—Our great aim should. be to secure a position favourable 
for the preservation of dryness and uniformity of temperature all the 
year round. The best aspect is one facing the north, although this 


1864. } Vortoker on Milk, and Dairy Arrangements. 277 


cannot be considered essential so long as the room can be kept dry, 
well ventilated, and protected by blinds from the direct rays of the 
sun. 

Construction.— With the intent to secure the coolness which every- 
one knows to be desirable in summer, the dairy is sometimes built at 
a lower level than the ground. Underground dairies, however, are 
frequently damp ; so that on a clay soil it is better to choose the lesser 
of two evils, and to build on a level with the ground. 

In such localities, it is well to put a drain all round the 
building. 

The walls should be thick, and if of stone, lined inside with brick. 
Presuming the dairy to be a separate structure, the roof should be 
covered with straw, which, being a bad conductor, best ensures a uni- 
form temperature. Stonesfield slates or similar limestone flag-stones, 
or if these cannot be procured, common red tiles should be used in 
preference to black roofing slates, which, being good conductors, be- 
come very hot in summer. The floor should be of stone: large flag- 
stones well set in cement appear to me preferable to ornamental or 
common small tiles; as it is an object to lessen the number of cracks 
in which water may lodge, rendering the floor constantly wet. 

Ventilation—A great defect in many of the dairies in England is 
the want of proper ventilation. This is a fertile source of dampness, 
so especially detrimental to the preservation of milk. One of the most 
effectual and inexpensive means of providing for a renewal of air, is to 
put up a perforated zine grating 3 or 4 inches broad, which may be 
carried all along the tops of the windows. Im addition, a whole 
window made to open and shut may be furnished with perforated gal- 
vanized sheet zinc. 

Recourse may be had to more elaborate appliances ; but the more 
complicated the apparatus the more difficult it will be to keep it in 
working order in the hands of the dairy attendants. 

Temperature.—An equable heat being necessary in winter, it is best 
supplied by hot-water pipes; since, with a stove or open fire, it will 
be impossible to regulate the degree with sufficient nicety. Too much 
heat favours decomposition, and too little is unfavourable to the rapid 
separation of the cream. 

A temperature not higher than 65° nor lower than 60° Fahr. is 
most conducive to the rising of the milk globules. 

An accurate thermometer should be kept in the dairy; and on no 
account should the temperature be allowed to fall below 55°. Atten- 
tion should be directed to the maintenance of a uniform degree of 
60 as far as it is possible under all circumstances. 

Benches of slate or marble are superior to wooden ones; but 
should economical considerations lead to the selection of wood, it 
should be painted, in order that any milk accidentally spilled may 
be readily removed. Milk easily penetrates a material so porous as 
wood, and is not readily removed. Cold water is quite ineffective, 
and even after the use of hot water, enough milk may remain in 
porous wood to generate an active ferment. 

Milk-pails which are made of bright tin are decidedly better 

VOL, I. U 


278 Original Articles. + Fie [ April, 


than wooden ones; unless great pains are bestowed in scouring the 
latter with boiling water, they taint the milk very quickly : tin pails 
can be always kept sweet and bright. 

Pans should be constructed of glass, tinned iron or well-glazed 
earthenware ; all porous materials are objectionable. Zine pans are 
said to throw up more cream than those of other material; but zine 
is readily oxidized, and like brass and tinned copper, however 
unobjectionable when kept clean, it may, in the hands of careless dairy- 
maids, furnish enough poison to injure the health of the consumer. 
Glass pans are easily kept clean, and well adapted for keeping milk 
and cream in a sweet condition. They are of course more liable to 
be broken, and therefore more expensive in the end than tin pans. 

Deep pans are objectionable, as the quicker the cream can be 
made to rise, the sweeter it will be when used for churning, and the 
greater also will be the yield. of butter according to Sennart’s 
experiments. 

Some allow the cream to become sour before they remove it; but, 
although in this state it appears more bulky, and of thicker con- 
sistency, it does not produce so much, nor so good a quality, of butter. 

Shallow vessels are better than deep pans for another reason. If 
the milk is drawn from the cow into a shallow tinned-iron pan, the 
milk is soon reduced from 90° to 60°, and then, in a good dairy may 
be kept from thirty-six to forty-eight hours at a season when, in 
deeper vessels, it would soon turn sour. 

Before the milk is put into pans it should be run through a strain- 
ing-cloth. The accompanying sketch (Figs. 5 and 6) represents a vessel 
made of tinned-iron, with the straining-cloth tied round the spout. 


Cleanliness.—In no department of human industry is cleanliness 
more emphatically a virtue than in everything connected with the 
dairy. ‘Too much attention cannot be bestowed upon the room itself, 
as well as upon the pails, pans, and other utensils. 


1864. } Vortoxer on Milk, and Dairy Arrangements. 279 


The injudicious and wasteful employment of water must be depre- 
cated. However convenient a good supply undoubtedly is, it must 
not be forgotten that a damp floor and moist atmosphere are to the 
last degree injurious. Whatever water is used should be scalding hot, 
and its evaporation assisted by a current of air. All the utensils 
should be washed without delay, instead of being set aside until 
wanted. The dairy-maid should not show her zeal for keeping the 
dairy clean by splashing water about. Above all, she should prevent 
men or women entering her domain with dirty shoes, or in any way 
bringing dirt into the dairy. 

In wet weather the introduction of dirt may be unavoidable, but it 
may be reduced to a minimum by having a good scraper and rough door- 
mat at the entrance, as well as a pair of wooden shoes, which may be 
easily slipped on and off, for each man who brings in the milk. 

Anyone who doubts the efficacy of these simple means should 
visit North Brabant, which is justly celebrated for its excellent butter. 
Dairies, which are models for cleanliness, can be seen, not here and 
there, but almost universally throughout the district. It is, we are 
quite aware, difficult to ensure the proper conduct of a dairy with all 
the requisite exactitude, but the trouble is well bestowed, and cleanli- 
ness, like any other virtue, is its own reward. 


Ga2805y) [April 


PROCEEDINGS OF METROPOLITAN SOCIETIES.* 


THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY. 


THE contributions to the transactions of this Society have been, during 
the period which we are about to chronicle—namely, the months of 
November, December, and January—of an extremely interesting cha- 
racter, and the subject to which the largest amount of new information 
has been added is the physical character of the Sun. 

Let us state by way of preface, however, that at the first meeting 
of the session, November 13, 1863, the business of the meeting com- 
menced with an announcemeut from the chairman, Dr. Lee, V.P. (who 
presided in the absence of the President, the Astronomer Royal), to 
the effect that an Anglo-French astronomical treaty had been made, 
the contracting parties being M. Le Verrier, the director of the Paris 
Observatory, on the one side, and our own Astronomer Royal on the 
other ; the object of which is so to divide the large amount of work 
that is usually exacted from national observatories between the two 
establishments so that, whilst nothing important is omitted, the astro- 
nomical observer shall have some relief at those seasons when the re- 
quirements of science press peculiarly heavy upon him. 

The observations of the Moon, as our readers are aware, have ever 
been followed at the Greenwich Observatory with unfailing assiduity. 
Whilst that body passes the meridian in the evening, the addition of 
the planetary observations only adds to the labour of the Observatory 
in proportion to the number of observations ; but when the moon is a 
morning observation, the evening observations of the planets add a 
very oppressive labour. In order to diminish this oppression on the 
staff, an arrangement of the following kind has been made between the 
directors of the two Observatories :—The Paris Observatory undertakes 
the planetary observations from full moon to new moon, the Greenwich 
Observatory those from new moon to full moon. The small planets 
are, with some few exceptions, observed only between the hours 10 
and 13, solar time. It is to be hoped that this example will be fol- 
lowed, not only by public Observatories, but by the many private 
establishments which are in the habit of doing good work. A very 
great amount of labour and time is no doubt wasted through the want 
of combined effort. 

We must, however, for the present pass over the papers read at the 
November meeting, and refer to two by the Rev. W. R. Dawes, at 
those of December and January, on “ The Telescopic Appearance of the 
Hiterior Envelope of the Sun and of its Spots.” 

Solar physics always command a great deal of interest, and the name 

* Our limited space, and still incomplete organization, necessitate the post- 
ponement of articles on the Proceedings of two or three Metropolitan Scientific 
Societies, 


1864. | The Royal Astronomical Society. 281 


of Mr. Dawes is so well known in that particular field of research that 
any paper from him on the subject is heard with respect. The author 
commenced by pointing out the danger there was that observers, fur- 
nished with the more powerful telescopes now generally in use for 
solar inspection, would consider as new discoveries what was really only 
the revelation of superior telescopic power ; but which remained un- 
revealed in the diminished apertures formerly in use. This would be 
more likely the case where new names have been applied by a recent 
observer to phenomena long familiar to others, though previously un- 
named. Mr. Dawes has therefore considered it advisable to describe 
very minutely appearances which were observed long ago, that the 
new observer should know precisely what has already been seen in 
good instruments. Such an explanation was undoubtedly needed, as 
it is calculated to save much anxiety to the unpractised observer. 

With regard to the ‘ mottled’ appearance of the solar surfice, which 
is familiar to every observer, but in the description of which so many, 
and, to our minds, fanciful images have been used, Mr. Dawes makes 
the following remarks :—“ Examined with a large aperture, such as 6 
or 8 inches, it becomes evident that the surface is principally made up 
of luminous masses, imperfectly separated from each other by rows of 
minute dark dots,—the intervals between these dots being extremely 
small, and occupied by a substance decidedly less luminous than the 
general surface.” . . . “This gives the impression of a division between 
the luminous masses, especially with a comparatively low power, which, 
however, when best seen with high powers, is found to be never com- 
plete.” . . . “The masses thus incompletely separated are of almost 
every variety of irregular form ;—the rarest of all, perhaps, being that 
which is conveyed tomy mind by Mr. Nasmyth’s appellation of ‘ willow- 
leaves ; viz. long, narrow, and pointed.” * ... “Indeed the only situ- 
ation in which I have usually noticed them to assume anything like 
that shape, is in the immediate vicinity of considerable spots, on 
their penumbre, and frequently projecting beyond it irregularly for a 
small distance on to the wmbra. 

Mr. Dawes negatives the opinion, held by Sir John Herschel, amongst 
others, and mentioned in his Outlines, that the minute dark dots are 
ever in a state of change. He believes, from his own experience, that 
when observers have fancied they detected change, it was due to the 
influence of atmospheric action. There is, however, an exception to 
this state of quietude, “in the immediate vicinity of spots which are 


* At the next meeting of the Society, a letter from Mr. Nasmyth to Mr. 
Hodgson was read, in which the former gentleman made the plows remarks 
concerning the “ willow leaves” :— 

“The filaments in question are seen, and appear well defined, at the edges of 
the luminous surface where it overhangs the ‘ penumbra,’ as also in the details of 
the penumbra itself, and most especially are they seen clearly defined in the 
details of ‘the bridges,’ as I term those bright streaks which are so frequently 
seen stretching across from side to side over the dark spot. So far as I have yet 
had an opportunity of estimating their actual magnitude, their average length 
appears to be about 1,000 miles, the width about 100.’ 

“There appears no definite or symmetrical arrangement in the manner in 
which they are scattered over the surface of the sun; they appear to lie across 
each other in all possible’ variety of directions.” 


282 Proceedings of Metropolitan Societies. | April, 


either rapidly enlarging or closing. Jt is under these circumstances 
especially that the luminous masses are found to become more elongated. 
This is also more remarkably the case when they are preparing for a 
rush across a chasm, and thus forming those luminous bridges which 
so often intersect considerable spots.” 

After detailing some more facts connected with the formation of 
these luminous bridges, the author draws attention to the distinction 
between the true or blacker nucleus, and the wmbra. In almost all 
large spots the former is found to occupy some portion of the latter ; 
and the author thinks that the establishment of the fact of the exist- 
ence or absence of such black nucleus is “ sufficient to determine, or 
at least to throw much light upon the origin of the spot; and that 
the origin of those in which the nucleus exists is widely different from 
the origin of those from which it is absent.” 

The author’s second paper on the same subject, delivered in January, 
was to some extent a recapitulation of the first, after which he proceeded 
to communicate further details concerning the solar spots. 

These he divides into two classes, which he names the profouneé and 
the superficial ; and thus describes the characteristics of each. 

“The profound.—In this class I should include those which give 
evidence of involving all the visible envelopes, the disturbance being 
observable through them all, and down to what appears to be the body 
of the sun itself.” 

“The superficial spots—These appear, from the general tenour of 
my observations, to be almost always produced by convulsions of some 
kind in the photosphere itself, or at a small depth below it. But, 
from the extraordinary variety of the effects, I confess that I am not 
prepared to add anything to the suggestions already advanced as to the 
character of those convulsions, or the means by which they may be 
produced.” 

With regard to the probable formation of the profound spots, Mr. 
Dawes arrives at the following conclusions :— 

“An immense volume of some non-inflammable gas, discharged 
with prodigious force from the body of the sun by volcanic or some 
similar agency, bursts through the cloudy stratum, rolling back on all 
sides the displaced portion of that stratum, and producing that heaped-up 
appearance at its inner and lighter edge. The black hole produced 
in the stratum by this volcanic eruption forms the nucleus of the spot.” 
** Having passed through the cloudy stratum, the evolved gas comes 
within the influence of the heating power of the self-luminous penum- 
bral stratum ; and being greatly expanded thereby, its increased volume 
removes a far larger area of this second stratum than of the first ; thus 
laying bare a considerable portion of the upper surface of the cloudy 
stratum, and producing the wmbra of the spot. Here, too, the rolling 
back of the removed portion causes a heaped-up and brighter appear- 
ance at the inner edge of the penumbra. Being still further heated, and 
expanded by approaching the photosphere, a similar effect is produced 
upon this upper stratum, but to a far greater extent; and a much 
larger portion of the photosphere is thrown off on all sides, which 
being, as before, rolled back upon the rest, gives the appearance of a 


1864. } The Royal Astronomical Society. 283 


heaping-up of the luminous masses at the extreme edge of the spot.” . . 
“The rotary motion of a profound spot may be produced by the 
exploded gas having acquired a whirlwind sort of action, and thus 
carrying round the parts of the different strata affected by it in the 
same direction.” 

At the close of the paper Mr. Dawes gives as an addendum some 
extracts from an elaborate paper by Sir William Herschel, printed in 
volume XCI. of the ‘ Philosophical Transactions,’ in which the observa- 
tions of many years are discussed ; and which seem in many particulars 
to bear out the observations of Mr. Dawes. 

Next to the sun, the moon is perhaps the most interesting body 
to the amateur observer, and we generally have a paper of some kind 
about her at one or more meetings during the session. Mr. Birt did 
not fail with his favourite topic at the first meeting, and gave the 
Fellows a paper on the Extension of Lunar Nomenciature. Many 
craters still remain on our maps unnamed, whilst there are several that 
have been altogether omitted, and that too on our best lunar maps. 
These latter Mr. Birt has laid down; whilst to those wanting names 
he has, in conjunction with Dr. Lee, of Hartwell, given designations. 
A list is appended of the spots so named, with their numbers (in 
accordance with those adopted by the Rev. T. W. Webb), together 
with the selenographical longitudes and latitudes of each. 

The moon also furnished the subject of a paper by the Rev. H. C. 
Key, entitled “ On Certain Depressions on the Moon’s Western Limb ;” 
and as the paper contains some observations of a novel character, we 
shall treat somewhat more fully of the subject. The author does not 
mean the general depressions on the moon’s surface, but as he himself 
expresses it, “of depressions of large area—not of comparatively 
small gullies, lying between elevated ranges, which are constantly to 
be seen projected on the limb, but of vast tracts, the general level of 
which lies very considerably beneath the mean level of the moon’s 
surface.” Mr. Key took great pains to satisfy himself that the instru- 
ment was in proper adjustment, and that the phenomenon he observed 
was not due to any defect in the telescope. Perhaps the best way of 
showing our readers the extraordinary nature of these depressions, will 
be to present them with a copy of the drawing illustrating the paper in 
question. 


The circumstanées of the discovery are thus related :—‘‘ Having 
mounted my new 12-inch glass speculum, I had for some time past 


234 Proceedings of Metropolitan Societies. | April, 


been making experiments with it, in the unsilvered state, wpon celes- 
tial objects, with the view of ascertaining how far a diminution of light 
and consequently of the evils of irradiation, combined with a large 
aperture, might be of advantage in particular cases. For this purpose, 
on the 20th of September, at about 6 p.m, before the sun had set, t 
turned the telescope upon the moon, then a few hours past her first 
quarter. I had no sooner focussed the telescope (power 120) than I was 
astounded at observing that the limb of the moon was entirely out of 
shape; that it was, in fact, irregularly polygonal, as if several large 
segments had been cut off the spherical limb—not the terminator.” 

Upon observing these remarkable appearances the author wrote to 
his friend, Mr. Webb, who, on examination. at once detected them ; and 
proved their existence beyond a doubt by the use of the wire of the 
micrometer. Subsequently, September 25th, when Mr. Key again ex- 
amined the limb he was only able to trace a very faint appearance of 
a depression. From this circumstance the author is led to believe that 
the maximum visibility of these depressions only lasts for a short 
period; and that the effect of irrad‘ation would render their detection in 
ordinary instruments extremely difficult. 

Now that this extraordinary phenomenon has been once discovered, 
it is to be hoped that observers will direct their attention to so interest- 
ing a subject, and will provide themselves with instruments calculated 
to exhibit more perfectly the true form of the limb. For this object 
Mr. Key strongly urges the adoption of the plain, in addition to the 
silvered speculum. We should state that the drawing was made from 
memory the following day, and although it but represents roughly the 
positions of the depressions, he does not consider them exaggerated. 
The deepest depression below the surface of the moon he estimates at 
about 25 miles. 

A paper, “ On the Origin of the apparent Luminous Band which, in par- 
tial Eclipses of the Sun, has been seen to surround the Visible Portion of the 
Moon’s Limb,” was communicated to the Society by G. B. Airy, Astro- 
nomer Royal. The object of this paper was “to show, by optical 
investigation, that no refraction can cause a change in the apparent 
brightness of the surface viewed.” As the paper was necessarily of a 
purely mathematical character, we shall content ourselves with merely 
giving our readers its general results. Having arrived, from this 
treatment of the subject, at the conclusion that ‘ refraction by a lunar 
atmosphere cannot explain the more luminous band which appears to 
surround the moon’s limb where it crosses the sun’s disc,” the author 
goes on to state his opinions on its real origin in very positive terms : 
‘‘T have. no difficulty in explaining to myself the origin of the luminous 
band in question. It is strictly an ocular nervous phenomenon ; not 
properly subjective, but sensational—a mere effect of contrast. I have 
seen it so frequently under circumstances very different from these, 
that I cannot have the smallest doubt on the matter.” 

In this paper the author entertains views antagonistic to those 
previously expressed by Professor Challis, in a paper contained in the 
‘Monthly Notice, June 12, 1863, and at the mecting in January last 
Professor Challis communicated a paper “ On the Calculation of an 


1864. ] The Royal Astronomical Society. 285 


Optical Effect of Atmospheric Refraction,’ which is, in fact, a reply 
to Mr. Airy’s. The latter observer, in his argument, assumed the 
effect of an atmosphere to be analogous to that of a convex lens, and on 
this assumption investigated the case mathematically. But Professor 
Challis contends that the courses of rays passing through a medium 
of variable density, like the atmosphere, cannot be similar to those 
passing through a convex lens; and that, therefore, in investigating 
the point at issue, respect must be had to the variation of the refractive 
index, in passing from one point of the medium to another. 

The Astronomer Royal has also contributed a few remarks on the 
amount of light given by the moon at the greatest stage of the 1863 
June 1 eclipse. As this eclipse, from the cloudless state of the sky, 
was very generally an object of observation, we give the Astronomer 
Royal’s remarks in full : — 

“The state of sky and of atmosphere was exceedingly favourable 
for observation of the lunar eclipse of last night. At the time of 
greatest obscuration, I carefully compared the light of the moon with 
that of several neighbouring stars. This I could do with considerable 
accuracy, by observing the objects with the eye unarmed, as my near- 
sightedness converts every object into a broad luminous disc, and there 
is no essential difference in the appearance of the moon and of a star, 
excepting in the quantity of light. In this manner I found that the 
light of the moon considerably exceeded that of Antares, sensibly 
exceeded that of Spica, and somewhat exceeded that of 2 Ophiuchi, but 
was a very little less than that of « Aquile. 

* Tt will be remarked that the moon’s centre was 22’ distant from 
the centre of the shadow at the time of conjunction in R.A., so that 
the moon was not very deeply plunged in the umbra. Had the eclipse 
been central, the light would have been much less.” 


We have to notice briefly the following papers, communicated at 
the meetings of November, December, and January; to which our 
limited space prevents our making a more lengthened reference :— 

F. Abbott, Esq., communicated some observations on the variable 
star 7 Argus. This same 7 Argus has been an object of scrutiny by 
other astronomers, and to whom it has caused some perplexity, and, 
amongst others, by Sir John Herschel, when at the Cape, with an 18- 
inch reflector. On that occasion, Sir John wrote in the following 
terms :—‘“ No part of this Nebula shows any sign of resolution into 
stars.” The form of the Nebula amongst which the star was situated is, 
as our readers are aware, figured in the ‘ Outlines of Astronomy’ in the 
shape of a dumb-bell, the star appearing of the first magnitude, and 
situated in its most dense part. It now seems that, although the star is 
in the dark space, out of the Nebula, which has altered in form, it only 
appears as a body of the sixth magnitude. These changes, both in 
Nebula and star, have taken place between 1858, the date of Sir John’s 
observations, and last year, when Mr. Abbott examined it. The 
author suggests that the variability of the star might be occasioned by 
the interference of the nebulosity surrounding it. 

A letter was read from Mr. Higgens, addressed to Admiral Smyth, 


286 Proceedings of Metropolitan Societies. | April, 


in which the writer forwarded some notes on the two component stars 
of 95 Herculis. The instruments used were a 31-inch acromatie with 
80, and a 4-inch with 115: both by Cooke of York. Mr. Higgens 
observed these stars in April, May, and August last, and witnessed 
some remarkable changes in their apparent colour. From the fact of 
both stars appearing to change their colour simultaneously, the Astro- 
nomer Royal thought it implied some possible change in the telescope. 

Capt. Noble, and C. L. Prince, Hsq., communicated their observa- 
tions of Venus at the Inferior Conjunction ; the latter gentleman also 
his observations of the occultation of « Cancri by the Moon, on the 
26th April 1863. 

Sir A. Lang sent some observations made in the Island of St. 
Croix, at the rising of the sun, with a view to determine the Refrac- 
tion: also, some notes on remarkable sun-spots in 1862-63. 

The elements of the new Minor Planet (9, 10th magnitude, dis- 
covered by Mr. Watson, Director of the Ann Arbour Observatory, 
were also given. 

An extract from a letter to Mr. De La Rue, from Dr. Winnecke, 
was read, which went to show the probability of the variableness of 
light of some of the feebler stars about the neighbourhood of the Tra- 
pezium in the great Nebula of Orion. 

The translation of a paper by P. A. Hansen, “ Calculation of the 
Sun’s Parallax from the Lunar Theory,” was communicated by Mr. Airy. 
The result gave 8.9159 as the Parallax. = 

Results of the meridional observations of small Planets, Angelina 
64 and Cybele 63); also occultation of stars by the Moon; and 
Phenomena of Jupiter’s satellites; made at the Royal Observatory, 
were given by the Astronomer Royal. 

New Elements of Leto were communicated by Dr. Luther, of 
Berlin. 

The Elements and Ephemeris of Comet IV, and notes of observa- 
tions of Comet IV and V, 1863, by H. Romberg, were communicated 
by J. G. Barclay, Esq., at whose observatory they were made. 

Mr. E. J. Stone presented a paper, “ On the Motion of the Solar 
System in Space,’ forming a supplement to one on the same subject 
read by the Astronomer Royal, at the meeting, March 11, 1859. 

“On the Eclipses recorded in the Ancient Chinese Historical Work 
called Chun Tsew,” is the title of a paper by the Assistant Secretary, 
J. Williams, Esq. “The Chun Tsew,” writes Mr. Williams, “is said 
to be the only work really written by Kung Foo Tze, or, as we call 
him, Confucius ; the other treatises attributed to him having been com- 
piled by his disciples, either during his lifetime, or, as in the last of 
them, some years after his death. It treats of the history of Le Kwo, 
or Confederated Nations, into which China was divided during the 
during the Chow Dynasty, viz. between 1122 and 255 B. 0.” 

“The period of this history is from 722 to 479 B.c., being an 
interval of about 242 years, during the latter part of which Confucius 
flourished.” . . . “The account of each eclipse is but little more than 
a brief mention of its occurrence at a certain time.” 


1864. | The Chemical Society. 287 


Mr. Williams presents us with a specimen as follows :—‘ In the 
fifty-eighth year of the thirty-second cycle, in the fifty-first year of the 
Emperor King Wang, of the Chow Dynasty, the third year of Yin 
Kung, Prince of Loo, in the spring, the second moon, on the day called 
then T'sze, there was an eclipse of the sun.” This date answers to 
720 B.C. 

A complete list of all such eclipses, with the year B. 0., and month 
and day answering to the Chinese dates, is added. The days have 
been computed by Ideler’s method, but Mr. Williams warns his read- 
ers that they must only be considered as approximate. 

Mr. E. J. Stone presented a Memoir, entitled “ Proper Motions of 
the Stars of the Greenwich Seven-year Catalogue of 2,022 Stars for 1860, 
not included in the Greenwich Twelve and Six-year Catalogues, deduced 
by Comparison with the Results of Bradley's Observations, as given in 
Bessel’s Fundamenta Astronomie.” This Memoir forms a continua- 
tion to those by Mr. Main.* 

J. R. Hind, Esq., communicated a note, “ On the Variable Nebula 
in Taurus ;” in which he records that, on the 12th of December, no 
trace of the Nebula could be seen either by himself or Assistant, 
although the atmosphere was in a most favourable condition for Astro- 
nomical observation. 

M. G. de Pontécoulant communicated a paper “ Sur le Coefficient 
de lV Equation Parallactique déduit de la Théorie,’ suggested by some 
notes by Mr. Stone and M. Hansen in a former volume of the “ Notices.” 
The paper did not present any point of general practical interest. 

At the November meeting, M. Léon Foucault, M. Knowalski, 
M. Winnecke, and Prof. G. P. Bond, were duly elected Associates of 
the Society. With one or two unimportant omissions, we think we 
have here communicated to our readers the pith of the proceedings of 
the Royal Astronomical Society. 


THE CHEMICAL SOCIETY. 


Up to the present time, the proceedings of the Chemical Society, 
during this quarter, have been destitute of any especial interest. The 
law of the absorption of mixed gases in water has become an im- 
portant subject of inquiry since Bunsen has proposed absorption as 
a method of analysis. A promising chemist, Mr. W. M. Watts, has 
experimented with mixtures of ammonia and hydrogen, and of sul- 
phurous and carbonic acid, principally with the view of testing the 
truth of Dalton’s conclusion, that each gas is retained in water by the 
pressure of gas of its own kind; no other gas with which it may be 
mixed having any permanent influence in this respect. The results 
of Mr. Watts’ experiments have led him to the conclusion that the 
proportion of mixed gases absorbed is not in accordance with Dalton’s 
simple law. 


* See vols. xix. and xxviii. of the Transactions of the Society. 


288 Proceedings of Metropolitan Societies. [ April, 


A contribution to physiological chemistry, on the vexed question of 
the colouring matter of urine, was communicated by Dr. Thudicum, who 
believes that he has isolated both the pigmentary and odorous princi- 
ples of this secretion. The former body he designates wrochrome, the 
latter, otto of urine. In the absence of any analysis of these bodies, 
and without an exact knowledge of the manner in which they are to be 
obtained, the question, “ What is the colouring matter of the renal 
secretion?” may be still considered open, unless, with Dr. Harley, we 
believe it to have been settled by Scherer. This distinguished chemist 
and physiologist succeeded in isolating a red matter, to which he gave 
the name of urohematin, since it presented a close analogy to the 
colouring matter of the blood, by containing an appreciable amount of 
iron. Scherer considered the body to result from this disorganization 
of the blood corpuscles, the waste of which was eliminated from the 
system in this form. This is an ingenious theory, and the question 
deserves further examination. Dr. Thudicum finds the merest trace of 
iron in his urochrome ; but we must wait fora more complete account 
of the author’s researches. 


The formation of new bodies, by the abstraction from other bodies 
of certain elements or molecules of elements, and substituting for these 
certain other elements or groups of elements, the resulting compounds 
having well-defined and characteristic individualities ; and further 
than this, the production of natural from artificial substances (like the 
formation of tartaric acid from dibromosuccinic, by Mr. Perkin), by 
successive substitutions, may rank among the greatest triumphs of 
human ingenuity. Perhaps the most prolific parent of artificial bases 
has been Dr. Hoffmann, whose skill in effecting the transformations is 
only equalled by the lucidity with which he explains them. 

Apropos to a paper on Acetanilide, by Mr. C. G. Williams, the 
Chemical Society recently heard from Dr. Hoffmann a short account 
of a series of new creations, obtained by. the action of chloroform on 
aniline, and of pentachloride of phosphorus ona mixture of aniline and 
acetanilide —the first of an infinite series of bodies which may be pro- 
duced by similar reactions on similarly-constituted substances. ‘The 
names of these new bodies, diphenyl-formyl-diamine, and diphenyl- 
acyl-diamine, show them to be of interest only to advanced chemists. 
New instances of conversion were brought forward at the same meet- 
ing, malic acid having been converted into malonic, and propionic 
acid into succinic, by Kolbe and by Muller. 


The question, “‘ What is the best form in which nitrogen and phos- 
phorus can be applied as manure to plants ?” has engaged the attention 
of many minds; but perhaps the most original experiments made on 
the subject, have been those of M. Ville, recently described to the 
Chemical Society by Dr. Hoffmann. M. Ville has, however, come to 
the conclusion that none of the compounds of phosphorus and nitrogen 
answer better than those in common use—phosphorice acid and ammonia. 
It will be of interest to farmers who study chemistry, to learn that 
ethylamine and methylamine seemed to produce no better results than 
their prototype ammonia. 


1864. | The Chemical Society. | 289 


At the meeting on March 3rd, a very interesting paper on the non- 
metallic impurities in Refined Copper, by Mr. Abel, was read. The 
metallic impurities in copper had been fully treated of in previous 
contributions by the same author. The impurities mentioned in the 
present paper are Oxygen, Sulphur, and Selenium. Oxygen exists in 
copper in the form of a suboxide of the metal, which is soluble in the 
fused copper. The exact quantitative determination of the oxygen 
was a matter of extreme difficulty, but the process now given by Mr. 
Abel makes it a comparatively simple matter. Pure copper decom- 
poses nitrate of silver, the latter metal being deposited, and a corre- 
sponding amount of nitrate of copper being formed. When, however, 
suboxide of copper is present a subsidiary action takes place, and inso- 
luble basic nitrate of copper is formed. The author, therefore, con- 
verts a known weight of the copper into nitrate by digesting with a 
neutral solution of nitrate of silver, collects and washes the silver and 
basic nitrate of copper on a filter, and subsequently digests with a 
known volume of weak standard sulphuric acid (one part to a hundred 
of water) to dissolve the basic nitrate of copper formed. The propor- 
tion of sulphuric acid neutralized in this operation is ascertamed by 
means of a standard solution of carbonate of soda, and the amount of 
oxygen or suboxide of copper is calculated therefrom. In the course 
of these experiments it was noticed that the physical structure of the 
metal afforded some indication of the amount of oxygen. Ingots Which 
exhibited depressions on the upper surface were invariably found to 
contain more oxygen than those which weye flat. The amount of 
oxygen present in Kapunda copper, we may add, was found to vary 
from -12 to -33 per cent. In Swansea copper in different stages of 
manufacture, Mr. Abel found the amount of oxygen to vary from 0°42 
per cent. in “ Dry” Copper, to 0:03 per cent. in “ Over poled.” While 
looking for carbon the author found selenium in copper, but in an 
excessively minute quantity, 0-003 per cent. It is worth mentioning 
that Mr. Abel could find no evidence of a combination of copper and 
carbon. Sulphur was found in very small quantity, but neither phos- 
phorus nor nitrogen could be detected. Silicon might be present in a 
portion of inclosed slag, but not in combination with the metal. 


At the same meeting a communication on the Synthesis of Leucic 
acid, was made by Dr. Frankland. Leucie acid has been obtained 
by the author synthetically, by the substitution of one atom of oxygen 
in oxalic acid, by two atoms of ethyl. This was effected by acting 
on oxalic ether with zinc ethyl. 


290 Proceedings of Metropolitan Societies. [ April, 


THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 


Srvcr the Anniversary of last year some very important and interesting 
papers have been contributed to the Proceedings of this Society, most 
of them suggesting new interpretations of known facts, but some also 
referring to phenomena hitherto unknown or, at any rate, never before 
explained. The field over which the researches embodied in these 
various memoirs extends is a wide one, including as it does the follow- 
ing subjects :—(1) Breaksin the Succession of the British Paleozoic 
Strata; (2) Fossil Estheriz ; (3) Relation of the Permian Fauna and 
Flora to those of the Carboniferous Period ; (4) Origin of the Parallel 
Roads of Glen Roy ; (5) River-action ; (6) Geology of the West Indian 
Islands ; (7) The Abbeville Jaw and the associated Flint Implements ; 
(8) Geology of the Eastern Archipelago, besides a number of other 
questions, of either more special or merely local interest. 

1. The subject of the Anniversary Address of the President of the 
Society, Professor Ramsay, reminds every geologist how imperfect is 
our knowledge of the rock-formations which constitute the crust of the 
earth, the theme being “Breaks in the Succession of the British 
Paleozoic Strata.’ It is, moreover, one upon which no author has 
before written systematically, although many have described particular 
breaks incidentally when treating of other subjects. 

“ Breaks in Succession” are defined by Professor Ramsay to be 
“those physical interruptions in stratification marked by the uncon- 
formity of an upper formation to one immediately underlying it, or, 
when such visible unconformity is wanting, by a sudden change in the 
fossils characteristic of the underlying and overlying formations ;” but 
he immediately afterwards introduces a necessary limitation, stating 
that he only applies his argument “to those cases in which the upper 
formation is next in time to that which underlies it, according to our 
present knowledge of the order of succession.” Now these breaks are 
as good evidences of the lapse of time as a series of strata would be. 

Before the publication of this address few geologists would have 
admitted the existence of as many as ten physical breaks, as above de- 
fined, in the primary rocks of Britain, yet Professor Ramsay, in a series 
of very lucid arguments, shows the existence of at least that number of 
gaps in our palozoic series, and also that they are accompanied (ex- 
cept in one case, where the rocks are almost barren) by “great and 
remarkable changes in the number and nature of the fossils.” He also 
discusses the questions arising out of a consideration of this coinci- 
dence, especially the old notion that entire faunas had been suddenly 
destroyed, and the theory of Professor E. Forbes (lately revived in 
another shape by Professor Huxley) respecting the contemporaneity of 
strata; together with Mr. Darwin’s hypothesis of the origin of species, 
of which he appears to be a warm advocate. 

The conclusion to which he arrives respecting the lapse of time 
represented by these breaks is rather startling ; and although no geolo- 
gist is better qualified than Professor Ramsay to judge of the value 
of such gaps, yet one cannot help thinking that he has somewhat 


1864. | The Geological Society. : 991 


exaggerated their importance. However, we give this conclusion in 
his own words :— 

“ Believing that the causes that produced physical changes were 
much the same in former times as now, both in kind and intensity, 
(speaking generally, when spread over long epochs), then the upheaving, 
contorting and dislocation of the strata, and the vast denudations they un- 
derwent before resubmergence, generally represent a period of time longer 
than that occupied respectively by the deposition of the formation disturbed, 
or of that which overlies it unconformably. 

“Tn the present state of our knowledge these things cannot be 
proved, but we may strongly suspect them to be probably true, and if 
they are so, then it follows that the periods of time stratigraphically un- 
represented during the Paleozoic epoch were much longer than those of 
which the various formations of that epoch bear witness.” 

2. A paper by Professor Rupert Jones on “ Fossil Hstherie and their 
Distribution” may be viewed as an abstract of, though differing some- 
what in scope from, his “‘ Monograph of the fossil Estherie” published 
by the Paleontographical Society. It is a very favourable specimen of 
philosophical paleontology, and shows that the diligent study of an 
apparently small subject may lead to large results. 

Besides the endeavour to fix definitely the ages of the several de- 
posits in which Estherie occur, by means of the little fossils themselves, 
assisted by concurrent testimony drawn from other sources, the chief 
object of the paper is to prove that the fossil Estherie, like their recent 
congeners, inhabited fresh and brackish water. The successful manner 
in which the author manages to dispose of apparently associated marine 
shells is not a little instructive, as it shows the necessity of scrupulously 
exact observations respecting the particular bed in which a fossil is 
found, most of these marine shells being shown to occur either a little 
above or a little below the Hstheriw; and the same with regard to 
erystals of salt. Even in the case of a Lingula occurring in the same 
bed as an Hstheria, Professor Jones is at no loss, for he finds that the 
Lingula “in successive beds appears smaller and smaller in size, until 
it is dwarfed and disappearing, when Estheria minuta comes in; as if 
more and more fresh water invaded the area, unfavourably to the 
Lingule and ultimately bringing in the Estherie.” 

3. The relation of the Permian fauna and flora to those of the Car- 
boniferous period has of late years been fruitful of discussion, most 
geologists being now inclined to regard the Permian as the concluding 
portion of the Carboniferous epoch. 

Ina paper on the Lower Carboniferous Brachiopoda of Nova Scotia, 
Mr. Davidson gives an excellent account of the present state of this 
question, and adds many new facts in favour of the view that the Per- 
mian is not really a group distinct from the Carboniferous. 

Sir R. I. Murchison also enters somewhat fully into this question 
in a paper on the Permian rocks of Bohemia; but, were it not for the 
_ proverbial affection which every father bears towards his own children, 
it would be difficult to understand why this veteran geologist should 
so strenuously oppose a view which, besides being supported by nearly 
all the geologists and paleontologists ,;who have specially studied the 


292 - Proceedings of Metropolitan Societies. | April, 


subject, appears scarcely assailable by arguments drawn from strati- 
graphical details, but must be decided by means of the fossils. 

- 4. The next paper especially worthy of notice, is that by Mr. 
Jamieson, on the “Origin of the Parallel Roads of Glen Roy,” a ques- 
tion which, as everybody knows, has hitherto bafiled, more or less, 
every attempt at its solution. 

The view advocated by Mr. Jamieson was suggestively propounded 
by Agassiz many years ago, but has been until now almost ignored. 
According to this theory, the “parallel roads,” or terraces, are the 
beaches of glacier-lakes; and Mr. Jamieson finds that it is the only 
one which will account for all the facts, and which is not inconsistent 
with collateral phenomena. He also brings forward some new facts in 
corroboration of Agassiz’s theory, especially the coincidence between 
the heights of the lines and those of certain “ cols ” (the latter being, 
strictly speaking, a few feet the lower), and the evidences of glaciers 
having formerly blocked up the mouth of Glen Roy. 

Now, the existence of a glacier-lake depends, firstly, upon that of a 
glacier damming up the mouth of the valley; and, secondly, upon 
there being no other outlet for the water. 

The following may, therefore, be considered the sequence of events 
described by Mr. Jamieson :— 

Glaciers from the Great Glen, Corry N’Eoin, Glen Treig, &c., 
blocked up the mouths of Glen Roy and Glen Spean, the last-mentioned 
glacier projecting into Glen Roy, and thus cutting off the connection of 
that valley with the “cols” just noticed ; accordingly a glacier-lake was 
formed in Glen Roy, and the beach forming the uppermost line was 
deposited ; the Glen Treig glacier then shrank so as to open out the 
higher col—that of Glen Glaster— thus causing the lowering of the 
level of the water in Glen Roy ; and then the middle terrace, or road, 
was deposited; the Glen Treig glacier then shrank again, until it 
withdrew out of Glen Spean, and that valley being now clear, the water 
escaped at Makoul; then, at about the level of that outlet, the lowest 
terrace was deposited. 

In a similar manner Mr. Jamieson accounts for the “roads” in 
certain smaller glens; and he also shows why some of them stop or 
are indistinct at certain points ; and, altogether, his explanations are 
so simple and so natural that the inducement is very great to believe 
tuat this much-debated question is at last settled. 

5. River-action is illustrated in a most mteresting paper, by Mr. 
Fergusson, on “ Recent Changes in the Delta of the Ganges,” and also 
in another on the Nile, by Dr. Leith Adams. Mr. Fergusson begins 
by enunciating certain principles of river-action, the first of which is, 
‘all rivers oscillate in curves, whose extent is directly proportionate to 
the quantity of water flowing through the rivers ;” but a certain loose- 
ness in the author’s mode of expression renders it necessary to be care- 
ful not to give a too literal interpretation to some of his sentences ; 
for instance, in this particular case, he evidently means to say that 
this principle is true when all other conditions are equal, for shortly 
afterwards he observes, that the extent or radius of the curves (ceteris 
paribus, understood, as before) is “ directly proportioned to the slope of 


1864. | The Geological Society. 293 


the bed of the river.” After illustrating these propositions, he next 
discusses the tendency of rivers flowing in alluvial soils to raise their 
banks, and thus to confine themselves in their beds ; and he explains 
the process by means of which this result is brought about somewhat 
differently from Sir Charles Lyell and other writers, as he calls in the 
aid of “backwaters,” or large bodies of still water in the low lands 
beyond the banks of the river, the effect of their existence being that 
the overflowing water of the river is forced to deposit its silt as soon 
as it meets them, which is, in the wet season, soon after it leaves the 
river. In the particular case of the Ganges, Mr. Fergusson is doubt- 
less right ; but it is extremely hazardous to generalize from a solitary 
instance. The secular elevation of deltas, and many other interesting 
subjects, are then treated; and the author also describes in detail the 
principal changes that have taken place, during the historic period, in 
the delta of the Ganges; that is to say, the changes in the courses, 
directions, outlets, &c., of the various rivers, the alteration in the slope 
of their beds, and many other phenomena, all showing the magnitude 
of the results brought about by river-action, and the rapidity of the 
changes, as well as the mutual dependence of the different rivers of 
the same valley. Indeed, we may consider that in the Valley of the 
Ganges there is being played a natural game of chess on a gigantic 
scale ; the valley itself is the chessboard, the rivers are the pieces, 
while the producers of the changes—water and mud—are the players. 
The effect of a move of any particular river in any direction in altering 
the relations of the rest, and the many other ways in which the con- 
nection of the various rivers is shown, together with the laws which 
regulate these changes, and river-action generally, are very curious, 
and deserve more attention from the geologist than they have hitherto 
received, 

The chief object of Dr. Leith Adams’s paper is to prove that the 
Nile has at a comparatively recent period flowed at a much higher 
level than it now does, at any rate north of the second cataract. The 
evidence upon which this conclusion rests consists chiefly of the occur- 
rence of fluviatile shells at high levels. These shells were found in 
beds of alluvium forming terraces on the banks of the river, and they 
belong, according to Mr. 8. P. Woodward, to six species, namely— 
Unio lithophagus, Cyrena fluminalis, Aitheria semilunata (Nile oysters), 
Tridina Nilotica, Paludina bulimoides, and Bulimus pullus. The first 
species is doubtful, the next four all live in the Nile at the present 
day, and the last probably occurs in the neighbourhood. ‘They were 
found at all heights, up to aé least 120 feet above the highest Nile of 
the present time. 

Dr. Adams gives a sketch of the physical structure of the Nile 
Valley, and notices the collateral evidence in support of his conclusions 
to be derived from the position of ancient temples, tombs, and other 
monuments, striving to prove not only that the Nile above the second 
cataract formerly flowed at a much higher level than it now does, but 
also that the primeval river was much larger and more rapid than the 
Nile of the present day. 

This paper is certainly an important contribution to the history of 

VOL. I. x 


294 Proceedings of Metropolitan Societies. [April, 


the Nile; but it should not be forgotten, although it appears to have 
been almost lost sight of, that Russegger discovered fluviatile shells at 
high levels in the Nile Valley more than five-and-twenty years ago. 

6. Much light has been thrown upon the geology of the West Indian 
Islands in two papers (or, rather, two parts of one paper) by Dr. 
Duncan “On the Fossil Corals of the West Indian Islands,” and one 
by Mr. J. Carrick Moore “ On some Tertiary Shells from Jamaica.” 

Many years ago Mr. Carrick Moore suggested that the separation 
of the Caribbean Sea from the Pacific Ocean was not so complete in 
early Tertiary times as it now is, and the chief result of the papers 
just mentioned is that they prove, almost to demonstration, that this 
separation was not complete until long after the commencement of the 
Tertiary period. 

Tt may be useful to give a synopsis of this argument, as it is an 
extremely good specimen of the manner in which the paleontologist 
infers the character and the date of changes that have occurred on the 
surface of the earth in geological periods. In most of the West Indian 
Tslands certain strata occur containing shells and corals which, at first 
sight, appear (especially the shells) to resemble those now living in the 
Caribbean Sea ; but, when closely examined and compared, they are 
found to be nearly all distinct. Furthermore, a careful comparison of 
them with recent fossil species from different localities shows that, 
while many of them resemble or are identical with species found in the 
Miocene beds of Europe, others bear the same relation to forms now 
living in the Pacific Ocean, a very small proportion (especially of 
corals) being allied to, or identical with, Caribbean species. It there- 
fore follows, granting the usual postulates of paleontology, that the 
deposits are approximately of the age of the Miocene beds of Europe, 
and that, at or about the time when the animals lived, the remains of 
which occur fossil in these strata, there was free communication between 
the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. 

Dr. Duncan also discusses many other interesting points, such as it 
ean easily be understood the determination of no fewer than 76 species 
of fossil corals from such a region would suggest to the mind of a 
paleontologist ; but it is here quite impossible to do more than draw 
attention to his valuable papers. 

7. The Abbeville jaw and the associated flint implements have 
attracted so much attention, and the circumstances attending their dis- 
covery have already been so often explained, that a knowledge of them 
may be fairly assumed in discussing Mr. Prestwich’s paper ‘“ On the 

‘Section at Moulin Quignon, Abbeville, and on the peculiar character 
of some of the flint implements recently discovered there.” It is 
absolutely refreshing to read a paper in which the identical pit in 
which the jaw was found is described, but which contains merely a few 
passing allusions to that redoubted relic of, possibly, man’s antiquity, 
but, much more probably, of his cupidity and deceitfulness. 

The question of the authenticity of the jaw and of certain asso- 
ciated flint implements is as complicated as that of Schleswig-Holstein 
itself, and is still less likely ever to be satisfactorily settled. Even the 
author of this paper, one of our most competent observers, after devoting 


1864. - The Geological Society. 295 


several pages to the endeavour to prove the authenticity of the flint 
implements, appends a postscript to his communication for the purpose 
of stating that he is now convinced of their fraudulent nature,—an 
opinion, by-the-bye, which he originally held. So also Dr. Falconer 
and others have first been advocates of one view, then of the other, 
and sometimes have gone back again to their original opinion. 

Setting aside the jaw and the flint implements, Mr. Prestwich’s 
paper has an independent value, on account of the lucid discussion it 
contains respecting the manner in which the gravels of the Valley of 
the Somme were deposited. The author gives theoretical sections of 
the valley at the time of the formation, and at that of the emergence, 
of the high-level valley-gravels, as well as at the time of the formation 
of the lower-level valley- gravels, and an actual section of the valley at 
the present time; he thus shows that the high-level gravels are the 
older ; that the valley has been chiefly formed by the river itself, from 
which also and from floating ice the gravels and loess were deposited ; 
and that, whatever difference of opinion may exist respecting certain 
flint implements, others, the genuineness of which cannot be questioned, 
have been found in situ from time to time during the last fifteen years, 
in some of the oldest of the high-level gravels of the ancient Valley of 
the Somme. 

8. The geology of the Eastern Archipelago is illustrated by three 
papers, two of which, namely, “On the Geology and Mineralogy of 
Borneo and the adjacent Islands,” by M. de Groot, and “ Notes to 
accompany some Fossils from Japan,’ by Captain Bullock, are merely 
explanatory notes sent with specimens, while the third—‘‘ On some 
Tertiary Mollusca from Mount Séla, in the Island of Japan,” by Mr. 
H. M. Jenkins,—is a description of some of the specimens referred to 
in the first-named communication. 

As Mr. Jenkins observes, Java has hitherto been a terra incognita 
to the geologist, and it is therefore interesting to have, at last, a definite 
age assigned to some of the Tertiary beds of that island, with the data 
before us upon which the conclusion rests. The author considers the 
fossils he describes to be of late Miocene date, though they have until 
now been considered Eocene, but not upon any very tangible grounds ; 
he also discusses several questions arising out of a consideration of 
these Javan specimens, endeavouring to show that some portion of the 
so-called Nummulitic formation of India is also Miocene, in this view 
being supported by Dr. Duncan in a note on the Scindian fossil corals. 
He also advances the hypothesis, not without a certain amount of 
evidence in favour of it, that the Miocene fauna of the middle and 
south of Europe emigrated eastwards into the Indian Ocean. Basing 
his argument upon this view he strives to show that, with a representa- 
tive fauna (on the principle enunciated by Professor E. Forbes), a 
series of Tertiary beds in the east would be newer than their apparant 
equivalents in Europe—a conclusion which is very important if it be 
true, but which at present requires confirmation; the same may also 
be said of the assertion that a tropical representative of the Pliocene 
formation of Europe could not be distinguished from a late Miocene 
formation. 

x 2 


296 Proceedings of Metropolitan Societies. | April, 


Among the many meritorious papers of less general interest may 
be mentioned the following :—“On the Middle and Upper Lias of 
the Dorsetshire Coast,’ by Mr. H. C. H. Day; “ On some Ichthyolites 
from New South Wales,” by Sir P. G. Egerton; “ On a Hyzena-den 
at Wookey Hole,” by Mr. W. Boyd Dawkins; “On the Original Na- 
ture and Subsequent Alteration of Mica-schist,” by Mr. H. C. Sorby ; 
“On a new Species of Dendrerpeton and on the Dermal Coverings of 
certain Carboniferous Reptiles,” by Dr. J. W. Dawson; “On the 
Upper Old Red Sandstone and Upper Devonian Rocks,” by Mr. J. W. 
Salter ; “On the Older Rocks of Bavaria and Bohemia,” by Sir R. I. 
Murchison ; “On the Skiddaw State Series,” by Professor R. Hark- 
ness; with many others. 

Judging from the number of new Fellows elected during the past 
year, the society must be in a very flourishing condition. We notice 
the following well-known names among those of the newly-elected 
Fellows :—I] Commendatore Devincenzi, Minister of Agriculture and 
Commerce of the Kingdom of Italy; Nicholas Kendall, Esq., M.P., 
Member of the Royal Commission of Mines; the Rev. Charles 
Kingsley, M.A., Professor: of Modern History in the University of 
Cambridge; James Fergusson, Esq., F.R.S., author of the History of 
Modern Architecture, &c.; J. F. Iselin, Esq., M.A., Inspector of 
Science-Schools; E. J. Routh, Esq., M.A., Fellow of St. John’s Col- 
lege, Cambridge. 

A Class of foreign correspondents—to include not more than forty 
foreign geologists—has lately been instituted, and the lists of those 
already elected include the names of very many foreigners of note. 


THE MICROSCOPICAL SOCIETY. 


Dr. Lionet Bratz has, during the past quarter, read before the 
members of this Society a paper of such great interest to physiolo- 
gists, that we feel justified in devoting the chief portion of our 
limited space to an account of its leading features. It will no doubt 
be reported in detail in the ‘Quarterly Journal, devoted to the 
progress of Microscopical Science. 

In continuation of his reports on this and kindred subjects, Dr. 
Beale communicated a very valuable paper on the Germinal Matter of 
the Blood, with remarks upon the formation of Fibrin. The author 
described all germinal matter as being soft or semifluid, and always of 
the spherical form, unless otherwise distorted by external agency. 
White blood-corpuscles, and the numerous small colourless corpuscles 
which Dr. Beale described in a former paper to the Society, consisting 
principally of living or germinal matter, are of a spherical form. 
In the blood of man and the higher animals, and we may add in the 
fluids of nearly all Invertebrata also, there exist a great number of 
these minute granular particles, of the same general appearance and 
refractive power as the matter of which the white blood-corpuscles are 


1864. | The Microscopical Society. 297 


composed. It has been shown that both the red and white corpuscles 
of the blood vary very considerably in size; and Dr. Beale has 
satisfied himself that some, if not all the minute granular particles 
described by him, grow into white and red corpuscles. He also sees 
no reason why corpuscles may not exist in the blood, of such a size 
as to be actually invisible to the human eye, even when assisted with 
the powerful adjunct of a 25th objective. The granular particles 
absorb nutriment from the medium in which they float, and undergo 
numerous subdivisons, producing other similar granules destined to 
become blood-corpuscles. The motive power which enables the 
granules thus to subdivide, has no connection with the nucleus or 
nuclear matter, but resides solely in the so-called “ basis-substance,” 
which is the semi-transparent matter forming the mass of the cell. 
This “ basis-substance” is not a simple fluid, but consists of very 
minute, colourless particles, free to move upon each other; and Dr. 
Beale believes this motive-power to be an inherent and peculiar 
property of living matter. In cases of inflammation, as, for instance, 
where the capillaries in the foot of the Frog are thus affected, the 
germinal matter is more able to absorb nutrient substance on account 
of the retarded circulation. Hence it is that white corpuscles are so 
abundant in vessels subjected to inflammatory action, masses of clot 
having been observed, which consist of little else but white 
corpuscles. The author, however, does not consider that this 
development from granules of germinal matter is the only mode in 
which white blood-corpuscles are formed. In the development of 
the blood-vessels, the general opinion is that cells become stellate, and 
that the processes formed by the contiguous cells meet together ; and 
thus, it is conceived, the cavities of the adjacent cells become 
connected together by tubes. Dr. Beale has already contested this 
inference and endeavoured to show that, so far from any coalescence 
between cells taking place, the communicating tubes, which are, of 
course, the incipient blood-vessels, are formed by the separation or 
moving away from each other of ‘cells’ which were originally 
contiguous. The walls of the tubes thus formed contain germinal 
matter, which is supposed to be not unfrequently detached in 
small masses, thus giving rise to small corpuscles of a similar nature 
to that of the white corpuscles. The increase of the production of 
white corpuscles is favoured in all conditions in which the access of 
pabulum to these masses of germinal or lining matter is increased. 
In connection with this view of the production of blood-corpuscles, 
Dr. Beale has been led to a theory of the origin of exudations, which 
differs both from that held by those who support the “ exudation 
theory,’ and those who uphold the “cell theory.” He considers 
that portions of the granular bodies in the blood may pass through 
the walls of capillary vessels, and then being surrounded by a 
suitable pabulum, increase and multiply by subdivision, producing 
sometimes clear fluids, at other times viscid, corpusculated masses. 
The question of the coagulation of the blood, which has been so 
much and so variously agitated of late, is also touched upon by the 
author. When discussing the anatomy of the red blood-corpuscles 


298 Proceedings of Metropolitan Societies. | April, 


in a former paper he endeavoured to show that the coloured matter 
bears to the colourless or living germinal matter the same relation as 
formed material in other cases bears to germinal matter. It is formed 
from it, or rather results from changes occurring in it. If the living 
or eerminal matter die, slowly and natur ally (as when in the circula- 
ting fluid of the body), the red colouring matter is one of the 
substances resulting from its death. Numerous facts render it almost 
certain that these and other masses of germinal matter give rise to 
different substances, according to the conditions under which the 
particles cease to exhibit vital phenomena. The production of the 
material we know as fibrin is due to the death of minute particles of 
the living matter of the white and small colourless corpuscles, which 
takes place, under ordinary circumstances, when blood escapes from 
the vessels of the living body ; in fact it is one of the consequences 
of the first decomposition which the blood undergoes after death. 
Such decomposition may occur, under certain circumstances, in the 
body itself. The action of ammonia on the blood, after death, is 
considered by Dr. Beale to be such as to keep the fibrin once pro- 
duced in a state of diffusion throughout the mass; but he by no means 
considers its presence in the living blood as demonstrated, regarding, 
as he does, the theory he has propounded sufficient to account for the 
phenomena of coagulation without its interpolation. Neither is Dr. 
Beale at all inclined to assent to the views of Professor Lister, whose 
researches he, however, mentions with great deference. The theory 
propounded by that gentleman, that living substances, such as the 
walls of blood-vessels, &c., have not the power of separating fibrin 
from the blood, while external matters of an inanimate nature possess 
that property, is, he observes, unwarranted by our present knowledge, 
such an assertion as to the properties of living and inert bodies being 
as yet unsupported by conclusive proof. At the conclusion of his 
paper Dr. Beale remarked upon the unfairness displayed by those 
engaged in writing reviews upon the works of observers in this 
country—who, he says, are too wont to dwell upon the observations of 
foreign investigators to the neglect of those of their own countrymen. 

Dr. Lander, of the Royal Navy, has communicated a paper on 
Marine Diatomacee found at Hong-Kong, with descriptions of new 
species. The species described belong to the genus Cheetoceros—and 
are very abundant in the harbour of Hong-Kong. Several species are 
enumerated. 

Mr. D. E. Goddard has described a new form of mounting-table. 
It consists of a piece of brass 12 inches long and 3 inches broad and 
13th of an inch thick, a large space is punched out in the centre of the 
usual form of microscope slides. The table is supported by four legs, 
and a spirit-lamp can be placed beneath, thus enabling the operator 
conveniently to moderate the amount of heat used. The table is likely 
to be much employed by those who indulge in such accessory apparatus, 
though it cannot be said to be a necessary or even an important piece 
of mechanism. 


1864. | The Royal Society. 299 


THE ROYAL SOCIETY. 


Tux papers read before the Royal Society during the past quarter have 
been of their usual varied character. They embrace the whole circle 
of the sciences, but the communications to which we shall chiefly allude 
in these pages are those relating to natural and physical science. 
Among these we find one of a very abstract nature, “On the Condition, 
Extent, and Realization of a Perfectly Musical Scale on Instruments 
with Fixed Tones,” by Mr. Ellis. It was a very recondite paper, which 
could only be made intelligible to those profoundly acquainted with 
the science of music and by the help of extended diagrams. 

Chemists have taken but a small share in the proceedings of the 
Royal Society this quarter. Dr. Stenhouse contributed a short paper 
on Rubia munjista or the Madder of the East Indies, in continuation of 
& paper communicated to the Society last year. Among the new facts 
contained in this paper was the analysis of the colouring principle of 
Kast India madder, to which Dr. Stenhouse has given the name of Mun- 
jistine. He found it to be closely allied in composition to the colouring 
- matters obtained from Turkey, and Continental madders. Munjistine, 
though existing in larger quantity in Munjeet, than Alizarine in 
the best Naples madder, has unfortunately much less tinctorial power, 
and consequently the value of East India madder as a dye stuff is much 
smaller than that of either Turkey or Naples. From the purpurine of 
munjeet Dr. Stenhouse has produced a new dye, by dissolving it in 
ammonia, and allowing the solution to rest in a warm place for about 
a month, occasionally replacing the ammonia and water lost by evapo- 
ration. The purpurine disappears, and a new colouring matter is formed 
which dyes unmordanted silk and wool of a fine rose colour, but will 
not dye even mordanted vegetable fibre. The author gives the name 
purpureine to this new dye. 

A paper of great scientific interest on the Acids of the Lactic series 
was communicated by Messrs. Frankland and Duppa. 

Terrestrial magnetism now attracts a large share of attention, and 
the results of the observations made will some day lead to important 
consequences. At present we must reckon among the curiosities of 
science, the mysterious connection which seems to exist between the 
magnetism of our earth and the spots on the sun. Dr. Wolf, of 
Zurich, has gone over a table of the magnetic variations observed at 
Greenwich for several years, and compared it with his own observations 
of sun-spots, finding the years which show the greatest magnetic devia- 
tions to have been richest in sun spots. 

The beautiful self-recording magnetographs at Kew have been 
adopted in the Observatory at Lisbon, and Senhor Capello, of the 
Lisbon, and Mr. Stewart of the Kew, Observatories, now send to the 
Royal Society the results of a comparison of certain traces produced 
simultaneously at the two places, during the magnetic disturbances in 
July last year. It seems that when the Kew and Lisbon curves are 
compared together, a very striking similarity is found to exist between 
the horizontal force, one perhaps less striking between the declination 


300 Proceedings of Metropolitan Societies. [April, 


curves, and very little likeness between the vertical-force curves. 
The curves of vertical force are indeed nearly quite dissimilar. The 
peaks and hollows of the Kew curves were generally (simultaneously) 
reproduced at Lisbon, but in an opposite direction, a sudden augmen- 
tation of the vertical force at Kew corresponding to a diminution at 
Lisbon, and vice versa. 

When Captain Maguire was at Point Barrow during the winters 
1852-53 and 1853-54, he made hourly observations of the magnetic 
declination. Similar observations were made by Captain (now Sir 
Leopold) M‘Clintock, at Port Kennedy, 1,200 miles distant from Point 
Barrow, during the winter 1858-59. The learned President of the 
Royal Society, who may be considered the parent of this branch of 
science, has compared the results of these two series of observations in 
a paper communicated to the Society. 'The first point established is 
that the action of any disturbing force on the declination-magnet is 
less at Port Kennedy than at Point Barrow, that is, less at the station 
nearest to the points of 90° dip. The indication accords with the fact 
of the greater frequency of the aurora at Point Barrow. A remarkable 
correspondence is pointed out between the maxima of easterly and 
westerly deflection observed at the two stations. The maximum of 
easterly deflection occurred at the same hour of absolute time, the 
maximum of westerly at the same hour of local time. At Port Kennedy 
the normal direction of the magnet is 35° east of south : at Point Bar- 
row 41° to the west of north: the contrast at the two stations is there- 
fore nearly as great as can exist in any part of the globe, wanting only 
6° of 180°, or of being diametrically opposite. 

A few anatomical papers have been communicated during the past 
quarter. Mr. R. Lee contributed a paper on the Distribution of the 
Nerves in an Anencephalous Foetus which he dissected, and in which 
he found the. distribution quitenormal. Professor Huxley made a com- 
munication on the Osteology of the genus Glyptodon. Mr. J. W. 
Hulke sent a contribution on the Minute Anatomy of the Retina of the 
Amphibia and Reptiles. 

The last consisted of descriptions of the intimate structure of the 
retina of the Frog, Black and Yellow Salamander, Turtle, Land and 
Water Tortoises, Spanish Gecko, Blindworm, and Common Snake. 
In all seven layers are recognizable. Reckoning from the outer or 
choroidal surface of the retina these are: the Bacillary, the Layer of 
Outer Granules, the Inter-granular Layer, the Layer of Inner 
Granules, the Granular or Grey-nervous Layer, the Ganglionic Layer, 
and that of the optic nerve-fibres. The elements of the Bacillary 
Layer are remarkable for their large size, they are the bodies known 
as the Rods, and the Cones or Bulbs. There are good grounds for 
believing them to be the percipient elements. They consist of two 
segments, an outer or shaft, and an inner or body, the junction of 
which is marked by a bright transverse line. The shaft is a long 
rectangle in the rods; smaller and slightly conical in the lines. The 
body is flask or spindle shaped, and mostly smaller than the shaft in 
the Rods; more decidedly flask-shaped and larger than the shaft in the 
Cones. One of the “Outer Granules” is always associated with the 


1864. | The Royal Society. 301 


inner end of the body in both Rods and Cones, and may be regarded 
as an integral part of it; the number of “Outer Granules” con- 
sequently equals that of the Rods and Cones. These “Granules” are 
large circular cells, mostly containing a central nucleus in which they 
differ from the “Inner Granules.” A very delicate fibre runs inwards 
from the inner end of the Rod and Cone body, not from the Outer 
Granule enclosed in this, as some think. This Mr. Hulke has traced 
through the intermediate layers to the inner part of the Granular 
Layer in the neighbourhood of the Ganglion cells. The “Inner 
Granules” are round or polygonal cells, more numerous than the 
“Outer Granules.” The Ganglion cells are mostly multipolar; some 
of their processes join those of neighbouring cells, others join the 
bundles of optic nerve-fibres, and a third set bend outwards into the 
Granular Layer. In the Frog and Gecko Mr. Hulke has traced optic 
nerye-fibres passing outwards through Ganglionic into the Granular 
Layer. The author prefers the term Granular to that of Grey- 
nervous for the broad layer which lies between the Ganglionic Layer 
and that of the Inner Granules, as it correctly describes its appearance 
under a low power, and has no respect to the nature of the tissue, 
which he regards as connective and not nervous. A high power 
demonstrates a closely-woven web in part derived from the fibres travers- 
ing it in a radial direction discovered by Miller. The Inter-granular 
Layer he also regards as a looser web of coarser connective tissue. 
The orderly arrangement of the respective layers and of the cell- 
elements in each is maintained by a framework of connective tissue, 
which consist of a homogeneous membrane bounding the inner 
surface of the retina; of the system of fibres discovered by Miller, 
arising from the outer surface of this membrane and traversing all the 
layers in a radial direction to end upon the inner surface of a 
fenestrated homogeneous membrane, which receives the Rod and line- 
bodies ; and lastly, of a delicate web in connection with these fibres, 
which preserves the disposition of the cells when in the several layers. 
These radial fibres are not looked on by the author as the link between 
the Rods and Cones, the percipient, and the optic nerve-fibres, the 
conducting elements of the retina: the view held by Muller, Kolliker, 
and some others. The true link he considers to be the fibre passing 
inwards from the inner end of the Rod- and Cone-bedy, which also has 
a radial direction, but is to be distinguished from Mullers’ fibre. 

Another paper of mixed chemical, physiological and optical 
interest was communicated by Professor Stokes. It has been supposed 
that biliverdin, the green colouring matter of bile, and chlorophyll, the 
ereen colouring matter of plants, are identical. An optico-chemical 
analysis of these bodies, however, shows them to be perfectly distinct. 
Chlorophyll is a compound body—a mixture of four substances—two 
yellow and two green, all possessing distinctive optical properties. It is 
extremely difficult to separate these bodies by chemical means, but 
they may be obtained in approximate state of purity. |The phyllo- 
cyanine and phylloxanthine of Frémy, Professor Stokes shows to be 
what we may call products of decomposition. 

A very valuable account of some Experiments made to determine 


302 Proceedings of Metropolitan Societies. | April, 


the effects of impact, vibratory action, and a long-continued change 
of load on wrought-iron girders was contributed to the Royal Society 
by Dr. Fairbairn. The experiments were undertaken in order to 
ascertain the extent to which a bridge or girder of wrought iron may 
be strained without injury to its ultimate powers of resistance, or the 
exact amount of load to which a bridge may be subjected without 
endangering its safety. 

To give tables of the experiments would occupy too much space, 
but we may give the results arrived at. It follows from them that 
wrought-iron girders of ordinary construction are not safe when sub- 
mitted to violent disturbances equivalent to one-third the weight that 
would break them. They, however, exhibit wonderful tenacity when 
subjected to the same treatment with one-fourth the load ; and assuming 
that an iron-girder bridge will bear with this load 12,000,000 changes 
without injury, it is clear that it would require 328 years at the rate 
of 100 changes a day before its security was affected. It would, how- 
ever, Dr. Fairbairn adds, be dangerous to risk a load of one-third the 
breaking weight upon bridges of this description, as according to the 
last experiment, the beam broke with 313,000 changes ; or a period of 
eight years, at the same rate as before would be sufficient to break it. 
But the same beam had before been submitted to 3,000,000 changes 
with one-fourth the load, and it might be that during these experi- 
ments it had undergone a gradual deterioration which must some time, 
however remote, have terminated in fracture. 

The girder experimented on, we may add, was a wrought-iron plate 
beam of the ordinary form, having a sectional top area nearly double 
that of the bottom. 

An abstract of an abstract would give a very imperfect notion of 
the ideas propounded by the Rey. Joseph Bayma ‘On Molecular 
Mechanics,” a new science, by which the author proposes to solve, 
**a problem which includes all branches of physics, and which may be 
enunciated in general terms, as follows :— 

‘From the knowledge we gain of certain properties of natural sub- 
stances by observation and experiment, to determine the intrinsic consti- 
tution of these bodies, and the laws according to which they ought to act, 
and be acted upon in any hypothesis whatever.’ There is no explaining 
a science like that of ‘ Molecular Mechanics,” as succinctly as 
Mme. De Stael once requested some German philosopher to explain 
his system—* Dites-moi votre systéme dans wn mot.” We must wait for 
the author’s volumes. 

Two short papers, one by Mr. Prestwich “On some further Evidence 
bearing on the Excavation of the Valley of the Somme by River 
Action ;” and another by the Rev. §. Haughton, “On the Joint 
System of Ireland and Cornwall,” make up the geological contributions 
to the Royal Society during the first two months of the present year. 


1864. | The Royal Institution. 308 


THE ROYAL INSTITUTION OF GREAT BRITAIN. 


Tun scientific lectures at the Royal Institution have been of varied 
interest. In the first, on January 22, Mr. Grove, Q.C., gave an ac- 
count of those curious experiments “On Boiling Water,’ which are 
now well known to all scientific men. Mr. Grove’s experiments are 
confessedly but a continuation of those of M. Donny, of Brussels, who 
found that when water has been deprived of air, it no longer boils in 
the ordinary sense of that word, but exhibits the singular phenomenon 
of an occasional burst of vapour, the water in the intervals attaining a 
temperature higher than 212° Fahr. The principal result of Mr. 
Groye’s investigations goes to prove the almost absolute impossibility 
of depriving water of all air; for however long, and under whatever 
conditions, water is submitted to heat, there is still found in it a very 
minute proportion of nitrogen. The lecturer hinted at some possible 
chemical connection between nitrogen and water, the preponderating 
substances on the surface of our planet, and the possibility of nitrogen 
not being merely the inert diluent it is commonly supposed. 

Simple boiling, in the sense of a liquid expanded by heat into its 
vapour without being decomposed or having permanent gas eliminated 
from it, the lecturer believed to be unknown. Boiling (ebullition), 
therefore, is not the result of merely raising a liquid to a given tem- 
perature, but something much more complex. 

To describe the experiments of Mr. Grove would occupy too much 
space, and we can only indicate the results, which went to show that 
chemical purity is a thing almost unattainable, and that in nature 
everything can be found in anything if carefully sought. Bromine 
when boiled, however long, always yielded oxygen; phosphorus in- 
variably gave phosphuretted hydrogen; and sulphur, sulphuretted 
hydrogen, probably from the decomposition of water contained, which 
might lead to the supposition that a minute portion of oxygen, “hydro- 
gen, or of water is inseparable from these substances, and if boiled to 
absolute dryness, a minute portion of the gas would be left for each 
ebullition. 

Mr. Grove further alluded to the effects of intense heat on simple 
and compound bodies, showing how the latter are decomposed, and the 
former undergo some molecular change, as phosphorus into its allo- 
tropic condition and oxygen into ozone. These facts showed that the 
effects of heat are not so simple as commonly supposed. In by far 
the greater number of cases, possibly in all, it is not mere expansion 
into vapour which is produced, but there is further a chemical or 
molecular change. 

As regards the phenomenon of ebullition, Mr. Grove believes that no 
one has seen this take place without permanent gas being liberated, 
and that what is termed boiling arises from the extrication of a bubble 
of permanent gas, either by chemical decomposition of the liquid, or 
by the separ: ation of some eas associated in minute quantity with the 
liquid, and from which human means have hitherto failed to purge it, 


304 Proceedings of Metropolitan Societies. [ April, 


[These experiments of Mr. Grove probably explain the difficulty 
which working engineers have noticed of getting up steam with sur- 
face condensed water, and suggest the aeration of such water before it 
is again passed into the boiler. Mr. Grove asserts that water exposed 
to air takes it up as a sponge does water; but under some circum- 
stances it may not absorb enough to produce steady ebullition. | 

On January 29, Dr. Frankland lectured on the Glacial Epoch. As, 
however, this discourse will be treated at length in our Geological 
Chronicle, we shall content ourselves with a brief sketch of Dr. Frank- 
land’s physical theory. All our readers are acquainted with the evi- 
dences of glacier action on the surface of our earth, and the various 
hypotheses upon which the formation of glaciers has been explained. 
Dr. Frankland advanced a new theory, and conjectures that the sole 
cause of the phenomena of the glacial epoch was a higher temperature of 
the ocean, than that which obtains at present. Since the earth appears 
to be slowly cooling, it is conceivable that there was a time (not geo- 
logically distant) when the waters of the ocean existed in the atmosphere 
as aqueous vapour, as it may in Jupiter and Venus at the present day. 
After the formation of the ocean, the lecturer showed that the land must 
have cooled more rapidly than the sea. At this part of the subject, he 
alluded to some unpublished experiments of Dr. Tyndall, which prove the 
extraordinary intranscalency of aqueous vapour to rays of heat issuing 
from water. He showed also the comparative facility with which radiant 
heat passes from granite through most air. Thus we have a state of 
things tending much more to the conservation of the heat of the water, 
than to the retention of that of the land; and therefore, while the 
ocean retained a temperature considerably higher than at present, 
the mountainous regions of the earth had undergone a considerably 
greater refrigeration. ‘The evaporation from the ocean would, there- 
fore, have been greater than at present, and this increased evaporation 
must have been attended by increased precipitation, which would 
suffice to supply the higher portions of the land with that gigantic 
ice-burthen, which groaned down the mountain slopes during the 
glacial epoch. But as the oceanic temperature was higher, why was 
not the atmosphere warmer at greater elevations, and the snow-line 
raised? In answering this question, Dr. Frankland showed that the 
height of the snow-line essentially depends upon the amount of pre- 
cipitation and accumulation of snow during the cold season, and not 
upon mean temperature. The mean temperature of land under exten- 
sive surfaces of snow must have been reduced, notwithstanding that 
the amount of heat in activity on the surface of the earth was greater 
during the glacial epoch than at present. The course of events, there- 
fore, must have been as follows :—-Whilst the ocean maintained a high 
temperature, the snow-line floated above the summits of the mountains ; 
but with the reduction of the oceanic temperature it gradually de- 
scended, enveloping peak after peak, until, during the glacial epoch, it 
attained its lowest depression, whence it again rose, owing to dimi- 
nished evaporation, to its present position. 

On February 12, Dr.Wanklyn delivered a lecture “ On the Synthesis 
of Organic Bodies,” giving a brief account of the labours of Wohler, 


co 


1864. | The Royal Institution. 05 
Pelouze, Kolbe, and Berthelot, in this most promising and interesting 
department of chemical research. 

On the 18th, Mr. Savory lectured “On Dreaming and Somnam- 
bulism in their relation to the Functions of certain Nerve Centres.” 
The actions of the body are variously classed as excito-motor, sensori- 
motor, and ideo-motor, the nerve centres employed in these actions 
being particular parts of the brain. Sleep is to the brain what rest 
is to the other parts of the body, and dreams result from the imperfect 
exercise of the hemispheres when only in a state of partial repose. 
Somnambulism results from the activity of the sensorium while the 
hemispheres are at rest. Dreaming is more common than somnam- 
bulism, because the cerebral lobes are most liable to variation from the 
quantity and quality of blood supplied to them, and from the influence 
of stimulants, narcotics, &e. In profound sleep no actions but excito- 
motor, or involuntary, such as the movements of respiration and of the 
heart, are performed ; and these are reduced in force and frequency. 
In dreaming, ideas are aroused, and impressions either subjective or 
objective are produced. If the latter, it shows that the sensorium must 
be in partial activity. In somnambulism, the actions are sensori- 
motory, and the sensorium is in full activity. The above is the 
merest outline of a very eloquent lecture, which was concluded by 
some observations on the beneficial moral effects that may possibly be 
derived from a study of our dreams. They may in fact become the 
means of showing us what we really are. 

On February 26, Mr. Prestwich lectured “On the Quaternary Flint 
Implements of Abbeville, Amiens, Hoxne, &¢.; their Geological Posi- 
tion and History.” In his address (fully reported in our Geological 
Chronicle), the lecturer says he is convinced that the flint implements 
are the genuine work of man’s hands, and that their being found along 
with the remains of extinct animals, necessitates bringing the date of 
these animals forward, as much as carrying back that of man. He 
believes we have no data to decide definitely on the age of these re- 
mains; but thinks we are not warranted in assuming the length of 
time alleged. 

The interesting and important lecture of Professor Stokes, upon 
the ‘‘ Discrimination of Organic Bodies by their Optical Properties,” 
must for the present be postponed. 


306 Proceedings of Metropolitan Societies. | April, 


THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 


One of the most interesting papers communicated to this Society 
during this session, was by Mr Alfred Newton, on the discovery of a 
mummy of the Great Auk (Alca impennis), in Funk or Penguin Island, 
170 miles north of St. John’s, Newfoundland. it appears that ever 
since the publication of Mr. Yarrell’s ‘ History of British Birds,’ 
containing his account of the Alca impennis, wherein was cited 
M. Audubon’s statement that that species bred on an island in the 
neighbourhood of Newfoundland, the attention of British ornitho- 
logists has been directed to that colony, in the hope of obtaining 
thence specimens of this rare and curious bird. The Great Auk was 
known to the sailors engaged in the Newfoundland cod fisheries, as 
the Penguin, so far back as the year 1670, and the few that have been 
seen within the last sixty years or so, are spoken of as “‘ Penguins.” 
A Mr. Wolley had ascertained these facts, and feeling convinced that 
specimens of the bird were yet to be obtained, determined to work out 
its history. Meanwhile Professor Steenstrup published (Videnskabelige 
Meddelelser, 1855, pp. 83-116) an account of the Alcea impennis, in 
connection with the discovery of its bones in great abundance on 
Funk or Penguin Island, by Herr Stuvitz. The author of the paper, 
Mr. Newton, feeling great confidence in Herr Stuvitz’s statements, 
immediately set about corresponding with every one he could hear of 
in Newfoundland likely to assist him in obtaining any of these much- 
prized remains of the Great Auk. At last, after considerable delay, by 
the conjoint labours of the Rey. Reginald Johnson, of Fogo, and the 
Bishop of Newfoundland, Mr. Newton has succeeded in inducing Mr. 
N. R. Vail, a gentleman of scientific taste, to make application to Mr. 
Glindon, who is removing the soil from Penguin Island, on account of 
its containing large quantities of phosphatic manure, and who has 
ordered his men there employed to use their best endeavours to ob- 
tain the bones of the Penguin. Amongst numerous other remains, the 
mummy was found which Mr. Newton exhibited. It seems to have 
been deeply buried, being, says the Bishop of Newfoundland, ‘‘ four feet 
below the surface, and under two feet of ice.” The skeleton is not quite 
perfect ; but when it is remembered what a rarity any bones of the bird 
are, and that the nearest approach to a perfect skeleton of the Great 
Auk, viz. that in the Jardin des Plantes, is wanting in many respects, 
the importance of Mr. Newton’s discovery will be appreciated. Be- 
sides the skeleton in the Jardin des Plantes, there are two specimens 
of this bird in the Museum at Copenhagen—dissected with a view to 
show the various organs. In many museums specimens of bones from 
various parts of the body exist—as at Christiania, the Royal College 
of Surgeons, Berlin, and elsewhere. There are altogether sixty-three 
or sixty-four stuffed skins of the Alea impennis known to exist; many 
of these contained parts of the skeleton, which have in some cases been 
removed without injuring the skin. Mr. Newton expressed his inten- 
tion of placing the specimen he had so perseveringly obtained in the 


1864. | The Zoological Society. 307 


the hands of Professor Owen, from whom an account of the bird’s 
osteology was anticipated. 


Mr. A. R. Wallace has contributed a very interesting paper on the 
birds inhabiting the islands of Timor, Flores, and Lombock, with de- 
scriptions of new species. The chain of islands of which Timor is 
the last, extends along the east of Java, and forms a natural subdivi- 
sion of the Malayan Archipelago. The soil of these islands is very 
dry ; active volcanoes are still at work in them, and their origin is 
probably volcanic. The vegetation consists of spiny and prickly 
shrubs, the dense forests and luxuriant growths of most equatorial 
regions being quite unknown. During five months, Mr. Wallace ob- 
tained 112 species of birds from Timor—the number of species known 
altogether being 118; from Flores he obtained 86 species ; from Lom- 
bock, 63 species; from Sumbawa no collection was made; and the 
island of Bali belongs to the Indian region, and is therefore not con- 
sidered in connection with the Malayan groups. The total number of 
species of birds known to inhabit the Timorean sub-group is 186, 
and Mi. Wallace makes some interesting comparisons, from the data 
he has obtained, with the avifauna of the neighbouring islands, which 
he has so successfully investigated. The presence in the Timorese 
avifauna of a large number of Australian representative species, and 
the fact that the species peculiar to Timor approach the Australian 
types, though at the same time the Javan forms are very abundant and 
there are few birds of the Javan type which are not identical with 
species of that island, leads Mr. Wallace to infer that the island was 
more anciently populated from Australia, while the Javian forms have 
appeared later, and partially extinguished the Australian types. Timor 
is now nearly 20 miles by sea from Java, while 300 miles separate it 
from Australia. A large sandbank however extends from the north 
coast of that continent to within 20 miles of Timor, and Mr. Wallace 
believes it probable that this sandbank is owing to the submergence of 
the land not very long since. It is not likely that an absolute con- 
nection by land existed between Timor and Australia, since but one 
Marsupial, and that of a Moluccan type, is found in the island. Yet 
we must assume a much closer approximation to the continent, in order 
to enable us to understand how it happens that though the birds of 
these islands are, on the whole, almost as much Indian as Australian, 
yet the apparently endemic species have such a preponderating Austra- 
lian character. 


A list of birds from Damara land, collected by Mr. Anderson, has 
been communicated by Mr. T. H. Gurney. The same gentleman com- 
municated a list of a small collection of birds from Huaheima, one of 
the Society Islands. The birds were obtained for Mr. Gurney by Mr. 
T. H. Wodehouse, H.B.M. consul at Raiatea. 


Among the new species of Mammalia described before the Society 
during the past quarter, is a new squirrel from Natal, which Dr. Gray 
proposes to call Sciwrus ornatus ; also a new species of seal from the 
west coast of North America, which Dr. Gray has named Halocyon 
Richardii. 


308 Proceedings of Metropolitan Societies. | April, 


Mr. Flower has been dissecting the Echidna, which lately died at 
the Gardens in Regent’s Park, and has communicated a paper on its 
cerebral anatomy. He finds that the corpora quadrigemina does not, 
as has been stated by Owen and others, differ materially in this mono- 
trema from the ordinary structure of this part of the brain in other 
Mammals. 


The fishes of the inland rivers and lakes of many countries are so 
little known, and the circumstances under which they exist are so 
varied and peculiar, that in nearly every district new and local species 
are to found. Captain Dow has lately transmitted to England a col- 
lection of thirty-one species obtained from Central America, among 
which Dr. Giinther has determined several new species of great interest 
which he has described to the Society. 


An addition to the 1,200 species of Helix is made by Dr. T. E. 
Cox, who describes a species from Port Denison, N.E. Australia, as 
Helix Forbesti. Mr. Frank Buckland, who has done such good work 
for our salmon and trout, and also tried to show us a live porpoise in 
London, has turned his attention to oysters, and has addressed a com- 
munication to the Society, in which he advocates the introduction of the 
American Ostrea Virginica into the seas of this country. 

Mr. H. T. B. Hancock is performing some experiments on the sup- 
posed electrical powers of Octopus, by means of a specimen in the 
Society’s gardens. 


1864.] ( 309 ) 


CHRONICLES OF SCIENCE. 


I. AGRICULTURE. 


Aumost every department of farm management is in active operation 
during the first months of the year. Land drainage and autumnal 
tillage have put the fallows in the best condition for deriving fertility 
from the atmosphere. The direct application of manures to the crop 
becomes useful and economical as the season of growth commences. 
Seedtime brings under discussion the various methods at our command 
for plant improvement. The continuance of stall-feeding on winter 
food keeps the whole subject of the meat manufacture before the mind 
of the farmer. And the lambing and calving season recalls for his 
consideration all those points on which the theory and practice of the 
improvement of his live-stock depend. It is in the order of these 
several departments of farm practice that we write the agricultural 
record of the first three months of 1864. 

1. A dry winter had very early in the season put the tillage work 
of our arable farms unusually forward ; and the periods of severe frost 
which towards the end of winter were experienced have been of the 
greatest service on all well-drained clays. It is on such lands espe- 
cially that the steam cultivation of the previous autumn proves supe- 
rior to the ordinary horse tillage, which on such soils interferes very 
materially with the drainage of the land. 

The extension of this steam cultivation is the great agricultural 
event of late years, and though comparatively little is heard of it 
during the winter months, yet it is then especially that its advantages 
are seen and realized. Fields which have hitherto been kept dry by 
steep surface lands or ridges and frequent intervening furrows, as well 
as by the ordinary underground drains, are now left flat and dry, torn 
up roughly before winter by the engine-drawn cultivator. 

The drainage of stiff clay soils has, indeed, till now been rarely 
thoroughly effected. ‘Trenches have, indeed, been dug some 3 or 4 
feet deep and 7 or 8 yards apart, and through pipes placed in them it 
has been expected that all the rain which falls upon the field will find 
its way, after gradual penetration, through the soil and subsoil, and 
filtration by every particle of all this three or four foot deep mass of earth. 
But after this the upper layer of this mass has hitherto been cultivated 
in a way which interposes between it and the lower layers what is 
practically an impervious floor. Three or four ploughings of grain 
stubbles before the succeeding peas and beans, the passage of long 
teams of cattle on the floor over which the soil, and under which the 
subsoil lies is an effectual induration. This floor is fatal to land 
drainage, and therefore to fertility. It must be broken up, and this 
can be done effectually only by steam power. Every month of March 

VOL. I, : 


310 Chronicles of Science. [ April, 


for several years we have walked over hundreds of acres of stiff clay 
land—land needing four horses to the plough—drained and smashed 
up by steam power before winter, between whose surface and the drains 
no such floor exists. It has trodden dry, and has then been lying in 
as wholesome a condition as it is possible for land to exhibit at this 
season. The only tillage which it has had has been a one-way culti- 
vation, or grubbing by steam power 8 or 9 inches deep during 
the previous dry weather of October or November. And this land has 
thus been left a treasure-box whose lock has been effectually picked, 
of whose stores, made thus accessible, it only needs that use be made 
by planting well-selected living seed, in order that the utmost fertility 
may be exhibited at harvest time. Steam cultivation, after drains have 
been dug and placed, is the way to ensure good drainage. Tillage by 
steam power, under such circumstances, is the true picklock by which 
the exhaustless stores of food for plants present in all clay soils, lying 
now inaccessible, may be laid open to the roots of plants. The break- 
ing up of the floor, which horse cultivation lays immediately below 
the surface, and the breaking up of soil and subsoil, with the exposure 
of the whole to air and rain on its way downwards to the drain, will 
yet exert a marvellous influence on fertility. Hitherto the progress of 
events has been all to the advantage of the lighter soils. The use of 
guano and of artificial manures, and the extension of liberal feeding 
in the sheep-fold, have all been especially to the advantage of our 
sands and lighter loams. The application of steam power as the 
auxiliary of land drainage gives now the turn of advantage to the 
owners and occupiers of our clays; and whereas by marling, sheep- 
feeding, and artificial manuring the lighter soils have till now been 
foremost in the march of agricultural improvement, thus contributing 
more than any other to that increased produce of food which English 
fields have of late provided, we may now expect that by drainage and 
effective tillage the stiffer lands will take their turn in front, making 
the most rapid progress, yielding the largest produce, the most profit, 
and the highest rent. 

All these considerations, and others connected with the best rota- 
tions of cropping for clay soils, were discussed at the meeting of the 
English Agricultural Society on March 16th, when Mr. A. Hughes of 
Thorness, Isle of Wight, read a paper on the Cultivation and Ma- 
nagement of Clay Farms. 

2. At a previous meeting of the same Society, Mr. Lawes of Roth- 
amstead had read a paper on the Value of common Salt as a Manure. 
Its reputation as a fertilizer has, as he believes, hitherto stood too high. 
It has been said to increase the production of grain, and to improve 
the quality of straw. It is believed to have great effect especially 
on crops, such as mangold-wurzel, which are of marine origin. It is 
said to fix ammonia in the soil, and also to preserve moisture in dry 
seasons. Mr. Lawes’s own experiments have satisfied him that it is of 
little use. 

The two plots of land, A and B, on which these experiments had been 
tried had both received exactly the same amount of artificial manure, 
but A, unlike B, reecived, during 1851,1852, and 1853, 3 ewt. of common 


1864. | Agriculture, 311 


salt per acre per annum in addition to the other manures. The paral- 
lel is exact with that exception. The mean produce of 1848, 1849, 
and 1850, the years previous to the application of salt, was 32} or 324 
bushels per acre in each case; showing that the crops of wheat were 
extremely alike. There was, in fact, no difference between them, 
Again, in 1851, 1852, and 1853, the years in which A received 3 ewt. 
of salt per acre per annum and B did not, the produce of wheat per 
acre was almost exactly the same. During the next ten years also the 
produce was again nearly alike. The produce of the sixteen years was 
in each case 374 bushels, showing that in the yield there was no trace 
whatever of the action of the 9 cwt. of common salt. Some persons 
think that, although salt may not increase the quantity of produce, 
yet it improves its quality. What, then, was the weight of the produce 
per bushel? In the first three years the weight was a little higher in 
A than in B; in the second three years, when the salt was applied—the 
difference was again slightly in favour of A, though not so much as it 
was before ; and in the next ten years the weights per bushel were almost 
exactly alike. The total produce of the first three years was 5,988 lbs. 
against 5,976 lbs.—a difference of only a few pounds. In the three 
years when salt was used the produce was, as nearly as possible, the 
same; and in the ten years after salt was applied, the produce was 
7,799 Ibs, against 7,811 lbs.—again a difference of only a few pounds. 
In the total produce of the whole period of sixteen years the difference 
was only 12 lbs.—7,222 Ibs. against 7,234 lbs. Salt is supposed to 
strengthen straw, and to improve its quality. In the first period, 
before salt was applied, there was 57 lbs. and a fraction against 56 Ibs. 
of grain to 100 lbs. of straw; therefore A was in that case rather supe- 
rior to B. In the next period there was 42°6 lbs. against 41-7 lbs., 
there being again a slight difference in favour of A. Practically 
there was no difference in the proportions of corn and straw, taking 
the whole period. 

For mangold-wurzels, of which Mr. Lawes grows annually about 15 
acres, he has been in the habit, which is prevalent, of applying a few 
ewts. of salt with the guano which he uses along with a half-dressing 
of dung. But an experiment last year showed that the crop was 
unaltered where no salt had been applied, and was diminished where 
a double allowance of salt had been added. Of course the experience 
of a single locality will not determine the truth for all England. But 
Rothampstead, in Hertfordshire, is sufficiently inland to make one 
expect that there the full effect of salt as a manure would be seen. 
Though, however, there are undoubted instances where salt has been 
_ applied with advantage as a manure, yet in an island such as ours, 
swept annually by Atlantic storms, it can rarely be the case that the 
common salt of the soil is the body in minimo, whose quantity, accord- 
ing to the accepted theory of manures, rules the crop. 

A recent lecture on Artificial Manures, by Professor Anderson, the 
chemist to the Highland and Agricultural Society, has directed atten- 
tion to the prices charged for Lawson’s so-called phospho-guano, and 
for ordinary superphosphates. The phospho-guano, as sold, is the 
result of treating, with a comparatively small quantity = sulphuric 

Y 


312 Chronicles of Science. | April, 


acid, the natural rock deposit which is imported from Monk’s Island 
and other islets in its neighbourhood. Certain reports, by Liebig, 
Voelcker, and Anderson, of the merits of this substance as a manure, 
which had been drawn up at the request of Messrs. Lawson to be 
used as affidavits in connection with a suit brought against them 
in the Court of Chancery, by Messrs. Thomson, Bonar, and Co., 
agents for the sale of Peruvian guano, have of late been largely used 
by them as a trade advertisement, and a good deal of angry feeling 
has been excited amongst the manufacturers of the cheaper superphos- 
phates by this quotation of ea parte statements on high authority 
against them. The upshot of the discussion, which has been carried 
on chiefly in the columns of the Scottish agricultural journals, appears 
to be the admission, on all hands, that it matters not for the agricultural 
effect of it what may have been the origin, whether mineral or animal, 
of the soluble superphosphate of lime which exists in any manure; 
though as regards the remainder of the substance, which has not been 
acted on by the acid used, but remains in the original condition of 
neutral phosphate, it is a useful manure in the case of the Monk's Island 
deposit, and still more so in the case of bones, but it is entirely 
valueless in the case of the ordinary coprolite, which is the source of 
most of the cheap superphosphates in the market. The tendency of the 
discussion will undoubtedly tend ultimately to bring down the present 
high price charged for the phospho-guano, and assimilate it more 
nearly to the prices charged for ordinary superphosphate. 

The imports of manuring substances during the past year, which 
have been lately published, show a considerable increase under the 
head of bones and guano, but a large diminution under the head of 
nitres. The figures are as follow :— 


Imports. 1862. 1863, 

Tons. Tons. 
Bones, whether burnt or not . 67,230 77,492 
Guano bee eas. esol ecsie ntot ety odnts 141,636 233,574 
SHITE oO 6 6. 9 0 Oo 22,162 20,225 
(OQwlorte mings 5 G 5s ao oO o 39,716 26,990 


3. We come now to such facts of our current agricultural history 
as are classed under the general subject of plant growth. Perhaps the 
leading fact under this head is the growing conviction that, thanks to 
manuring and sheep-feeding on our light soils, and to drainage and 
better tillage on our clays, the fertility of the arable lands of this coun- 
try has of late been rapidly advancing, while that of the pasture lands 
has been stationary. In Gloucestershire a recent inquiry, helped by 
the records of a Cotswold farm which had been kept for nearly a 
hundred years, led clearly to this conclusion. Wheat had on that farm 
doubled its produce per acre since the latter part of last century ; 
barley and oats had not increased correspondingly ; but green crops 


1864. | Agriculture. 313 


had largely increased in productiveness, and a much larger quantity 
of meat is now made per acre than formerly. And this was found to 
contrast most glaringly with the condition of the dairy districts of the 
same county which do not now keep more stock, or yield more cheese, 
and butter, and bacon, than they used to do thirty years ago. 

Another fact of some interest under this head, is the extension of 
the growth of flax during the past year. In Ireland, the following has 
been the acreage of this crop during some past years :— 


1860. | 1861. | 1862, 1863. 


Acres of Flax . 128,444 | 147,866 | 150,312 213,992 


The promotion of flax culture in England is creating a good deal 
of attention. And in many country towns, meetings have been held 
for the establishment of flax retteries, which, as offering a market for 
the produce, is necessary as a first step towards the extension of flax 
cultivation. 

The subject of plant improvement, and especially that of our 
cereals, has been a good deal under discussion in our agricultural 
journals, Mr. Shirreff, of Haddington, to whom we owe many of our 
best sorts of wheat and oats, seems to consider that the work of plant 
improvement is exclusively natural, and that all that we can do is, in 
effect, to keep a sharp look-out, and whenever we see in any natural 
sort or variety the qualities we want, take care of the plant, and 
multiply it as fast as we can. 

Mr. Hallett, of Brighton, on the other hand, who advertises at such 
enormous prices what he calls a “a pedigree” wheat, believes in the 
power of improving a plant by cultivation. He chooses a promising 
ear of Wheat—plants takes that plant of the series 
which is best—chooses its best ear—again plants all cts seeds—again 
chooses the best plant, best ear, 
harvests thus obtained, during which, as he alleges, the plants and 
ears have annually improved upon his hands, he takes the ultimate 
produce as the parents of the grain which he shall offer for sale, and 
multiplies it by thin seeding and careful cultivation as fast as he can 
—and so by-and-by the ‘‘ Z family,” or some other of long lineage, is 
offered to the “ faithful,’ for they alone will venture its price, at per- 
haps one or two guineas a bushel! 

There is probably less difference between these gentlemen than they 
admit. Both select the best natural origin they can find—both are 
confident that the progeny will be like the parent—both believe in the 
fixity of character of the resultant grain; the one, however, thinking 
that the character is fixed in the origin, and the other, that it is fixed 
in the successive annual growths of ‘the sort in question. 

Neither will deny the “immense folly of carelessness in the selection 
of our seed—and both may well wonder at farmers who when they 
want a good Cabbage, Mangold, or Turnip, take care to choose a good 


314 Chronicles of Science. | April, 


plant as the parent of the seed they use, yet the moment they 
approach the cereals, at once neglect the principle which in the other | 
case they know to be efficient and correct. 

A good deal of excitement has prevailed in Ireland and elsewhere, 
owing to an unusual liability on the part of the Swedish turnip to 
degenerate into a Rape-like plant, sending all its growth into leaf and 
stem and refusing to form a bulb. An action against the seedsman 
for damages, on the plea that the seed was at fault, resulted in a 
verdict for the defendant, the jury being unable to resist the evidence 
of the mischief being due to other causes. I1t appears that the 
circumstances of the soil may so differ in the same field that rows of 
plants, from seed sown out of the same seed-box from end to end 
across it, shall in some places exhibit uniformly good bulbs and 
elsewhere nothing but leaf and stem. It appears to us that even here 
a good deal of responsibility rests with the seedinan, and seed grown 
from successive generations of well-selected plants would have that 
power of resisting the mischievous influence of circumstances and of 
producing good bulbs in spite of them, according to a long continued 
habitude and bent, which Swede seed grown at hap-hazard is found 
to want. 

Seed-time calls to our remembrance the invention of Mr. Smith’s 
(of Woolston) capital combined seed drill and cultivator for draught 
by steam power. It is being extensively used this spring and will no 
doubt come largely into operation as a most efficient tool for sowing 
wheat upon a clean bean stubble, and even occasionally for planting 
beans upon a clean wheat stubble—certainly for sowing barley after 
the sheepfold—at one operation. It is the latest illustration that we 
have of the way in which steam power is applicable both to the 
economizing of farm labour and to the increase of its efficiency. 

The character of the wonderful harvest with which England was 
last year blest, appears from the following classification of the reports 
regarding it from all parts of the country which have been published 
by the ‘Mark Lane Express.’ It will be seen what an immense pre- 
ponderance of the reports regarding the wheat crop declare it to have 
been over average. 


REPORTS. | Wheat. Barley. Oats. 
Under average . . | 5 55 65 
AAVELaEO el a 3) «| 96 245 268 
Over average. . . | 523 261 200 


4. We have now to refer to points connected with the meat manu- 
facture. The high price of beef, mutton, and wool have all tended to 
promote in a wonderful degree the extension of the practice of high 
feeding, which has of late years enormously grown. No great increase of 
the imports of oilcakes, on which the chief dependence has been hitherto 
placed, seems from the following figures to be possible. 


1864. ] Agriculture. 315 


The following are the imports of Linseed and of Linseed cakes 
during the past six years :— 


Linseed . «% qrs. 1,017,844 1,270,911 1,330,623) 1,160,270) 1,088,472'1,104,578 


| 1858. | 1359, | 1860. | 1861, 1862, 1863. 
| 
| | 
Oil cakes. . tons ele gas 


1oss26 113,725 101,156 88,566 


On the other hand there is a growing conviction of the extent of 
fraud by adulteration, to which the purchaser of these cakes is liable. 
The consequence is a probably unprecedented consumption of home- 
grown grain; and to this the low prices of barley and of wheat have no 
doubt contributed. Whenever the price of grain or whole meal is one- 
eighth, or thereabouts, that of meat, it is profitable to use it as food for fat- 
tening stock. And of course there is a great additional advantage besides 
. the mere sale at a good price of inferior grain which is derived from this 
method of their disposal. The enrichment of the manure which is thus 
affected is an additional profit of great value. To how large an extent 
this is made use of, let the following example suffice to show. It relates 
to a farm on the edge of Woking Common, over which we lately walked, 
where the soil is naturally extremely poor, but made wonderfully pro- 
ductive by a large consumption of purchased food for fattening stock. 
On about 500 acres of this poor sandy land, close on the edge of what 
may be called the dreariest waste in the island, a herd of 50 to 70 cows 
is milked for the London market ; a dry flock of Hampshire Downs, 
varying from 200 to 400 head, is fed; and hogs, ranging in number 
from 1,500 to 2,000 per annum, are fattened up to 10 or 12 scores a 
piece. All this is done so long as meat and bacon are at ordinary prices, 
with a small profit; but the principal advantage no doubt is, that the 
naturally poor soil of the farm is thus made capable of growing 5 
quarters of wheat, 5 or 6 of barley, and 30 to 40 tons of mangold-wur- 
zel per acre. The swine, bought at 5 to 7 score a piece, are kept till 
10 or 12, making meat at the rate of rather more than 1 Ib. a day, and 
receiving half a peck of meal daily upon an average, viz. one-half barley 
meal, and the rest wheat, Indian corn, lentils, peas, beans, buck-wheat, 
or whatever else is cheapest. 

Of course, with such a great quantity of stock to feed, purchases of 
food are very large; 500 up to 1,000 bushels of grain are used weekly ; 
and the annual return of meat—12,000 lbs. of mutton, 150,000 Ibs. of 
bacon, and about 40,000 gallons of milk—equal in all to 200,000 Ibs. 
of meat per annum—amounts to a manufacture of 400 Ibs. of meat per 
acre — which is, we believe, quite unparalleled. 

The effect is seen in the high artificial fertility of this naturally 
poor land. The large quantity of rich manure, deep cultivation, and 
sheep-treading, are the three agencies employed, and their success, 
unaided, as in other pure sandy districts, by any possibility of marl- 
ing or claying the land, has been unequivocal. No contrast is so 
great as that existing between the luxuriant growth of the fields on the 


316 Chronicles of Science. [ April, 


Hoebridge Farm, near Woking, and the utter worthlessness of the waste 
close by. 

The principal point of recent interest, however, under our present 
head, during the present quarter, undoubtedly has been the introduction 
by the Government of the Bill for permitting the use of malt, free of 
duty, as food for sheep and cattle. Whatever the satisfaction with 
reference to this measure may be, taking it in some degree to indicate 
that the Government may hereafter be willing to reconsider the whole 
subject of the malt tax, there can be little doubt nevertheless that it is 
in the meantime an utterly worthless concession to the agricultural 
interest. There are cheaper foods already at our command than ever 
malt, duty free, will be—and the mixture of the malt with linseed meal, 
which is one of the safeguards which the Bill provides against those 
frauds against the revenue which it will facilitate, is no improvement 
of the material for use in either feeding-stall or sheep-fold. 

5. The value of pure-bred stock in the market, which indicates 
their intrinsic merits in the eye of judges, has lately received a singular 
illustration in high prices realized at the sales at Towneley and at 
Sarsden of the short-horn herds which have grown up under the manage- 
ment of Colonel Towneley and the late Mr. Langston, M.P., respectively. 
The success of the former herd especially which has been in existence 
only during the past fifteen years, has been extraordinary. During 
that time more than 2,000/. have been won as prizes, besides 22 cups, 
2 “challenge” cups, 26 gold medals, and more than 10 others of silver 
and bronze. 

The only other point to be noticed in our present agricultural 
chronicle, is the excitement which prevails on the subject of contagious 
disease amongst our live-stock. Notwithstanding that the mischief is 
in all pr obability exaggerated, yet it is bad enough to justify a certain 
amount of interference and supervision by the Government; and a 
measure has accordingly been introduced into Parliament forbidding 
the turning out of stock afflicted with certain specified contagious 
diseases into public places ; enabling the Secretary of State to forbid, 
if necessary, the removal of cattle or sheep from any infected district ; 
and requiring all carriers to provide cleaned carriages for the convey- 
ance of stock, &c. This, with another measure dealing in a similar 
spirit with imported live-stock, has been referred to a select —s 
mittee of the House of Commons. 

It appears that we have 8,000,000 of cattle, 40,000,000 of es 
and 4,300,000 pigs in the United Kingdom, and that the annual mor- 
tality by disease is 5 per cent. of the cattle, 4 per cent. of the sheep, 
and in Ireland 10 per cent. of the pigs. The total value of live-stock 
destroyed by disease last year is thus believed to have been 6,120,0001. 
In addition to this their owners had to suffer the loss of condition in 
the animals which have recovered, and the general public undoubtedly 
suffer considerably from the consumption of the meat of animals 
slaughtered when in a diseased condition. These appear to be suffi- 
ciently urgent reasons for Government interference. 


1864. | Botany and Vegetable Physiology. 317 


II. BOTANY AND VEGETABLE PHYSIOLOGY. 


Tue prizes offered by the French Academy in this department of 
science call attention to subjects of great importance in vegetable 
physiology, and are three in number; the first Bourdin prize, postponed 
from 1861 to 1866, March 31st, is for an essay to determine by ana- 
tomical research, if there exists in the structure of the stems of vege- 
tables the characters belonging to the large natural families, and thus 
agreeing with those deduced from the organs of reproduction. Any 
comparative work on the branches and stems will be admitted to com- 
petition. Another prize, postponed from 1860, to September 1, 1865, 
and to consist of a gold medal, value 3,000 francs, will be given for 
the determination experimentally of the causes in the inequality of 
absorption by different vegetables of the solutions of the various kinds 
of salt which the earth contains, and to recognize by anatomical study 
of the roots, the connection which may exist between the tissues which 
constitute them, and the matter which they absorb or give out. A 
prize, also standing over from 1859, is now offered for 1866 ‘for the 
study of vessels of the latex, or proper juice, of vegetables, considered 
in a double aspect from their distribution in the different organs of 
plants, and particularly their affinities and connections with the lymph- 
atic or spiral vessels, as well as with the fibres of the plant.” 

The prizes awarded in vegetable physiology at the annual meeting of 
the Academy, were, first, the grand prize of 3,000 francs, “to discover 
what the changes are which take place during germination in the consti- 
tution of the tissues of the vegetable embryo and perisperm, and in the 
matter which these tissues contain.” Dr. Arthur Gris, assistant-natur- 
alist to the Museum, obtained the award. The Barbier prize was equally 
divided between M. Jules Lepére, of Pondicherry, and M. Veillard, a 
naval surgeon ; the first having presented a paper on the study of the 
different medicaments used in India, and comparisons of them with 
those which our European plants furnish; also, researches into the 
Hydrocotyle Asiatica, and its use in medicine. The second writer 
‘presented a work relating to the medicinal and alimentary plants in- 
digenous to New Caledonia, throwing light upon the therapeutic use 
of vegetables as yet but little known, but studied in two most impor- 
tant colonies, by officers attached to the naval medical service of 
France. 

A prize awarded for a chemical rather than for a botanical subject 
may be alluded to here. M. Bouffé received 1,500 francs reward for 
his natural green (vert nature), a mixture of picric acid and Guignet’s 
chrome green, intended to replace the arsenical greens, so much sought 
after on account of their beauty and brilliancy, but so dangerous to the 
makers of artificial flowers. 

While upon the subject of prizes we may mention that the Royal 
Horticultural Society of London, in order to foster the study of 
scientific botany, has offered the following prizes for botanical col- 
lections :—1. One silver and two bronze medals for the three best 


318 Chronicles of Science. | April, 


collections of dried wild plants of each separate county, classified ac- 
cording to the natural system. 2. Three gold medals for the best 
three of all the collections out of all the several county collections. 
These collections must be arranged according to a natural method, and 
be accompanied by a list arranged according to the same method, with 
the species numbered. ‘The collector is to follow some work on 
British botany, such as Babington, Hooker and Arnott, or Bentham, 
stating the work adopted. The collections must be delivered on or 
before 81st December, 1864, to the Secretary of the Royal Horticul- 
tural Society. Further, the Society will present a gold medal to every 
exhibitor of a new species of plant found growing in the United King- 
dom. We need hardly point out that these regulations offer an excel- 
lent opportunity to the members of the various Field Naturalists’ Clubs 
which are scattered throughout the kingdom, and we anticipate that 
the stimulus thus publicly offered by the Royal Horticultural Society 
will be productive of the most beneficial results. 


At the January sitting of the Academy of Sciences of Vienna, M. 
Ettingshausen exhibited a work about to be published under the title 
of ‘ Photographic Album of the Flora of Austria, being at the same 
time a Manual of Botany.’ This is the first time that the photogra- 
phic reproduction of vegetables has been attempted as a new and im- 
portant means of botanical instruction. Hitherto it has been found 
impossible to obtain good photographs of plants, the images being black 
simple sketches without shade, on account of the green colour of the 
objects. Last year, the author, in giving an account of the recent 
progress of what he terms autophysiotypie, communicated to the 
Academy that at the Imperial Printing Office they had been able not 
only to obtain good photographs of plants, but also to engrave them 
so as to reproduce them by printing. The work above alluded to is 
the realization of this beautiful method. It embraces a complete 
selection of characteristic species of all the families of the Austrian 
flora, and interspersed with the text are the photographic portraits of 
hundreds of plants, just in the manner of woodcuts. M. Ettingshausen 
has also presented a memoir on the nervation of ferns, illustrated by 
the process of autophysiotypie. 


Mr. J. Hill of Cambridge, Mass., gives an account of some obser- 
vations upon the compass plant (Silphium laciniatum) which he found 
growing wild near Chicago, last autumn. The field had once been 
ploughed, and sowed with Timothy grass, and there was a grove a few 
rods to the east. Notwithstanding these unfavourable circumstances, 
he took a rough measurement of thirty plants, without selection, as 
follows :—Holding a card over each plant with its edge parallel to the 
central line of his own shadow, he marked upon the card a short 
line parallel to each leaf of the plant. Measuring afterwards the angle 
which each mark made with the edge of the card, and subtracting from 
each angle the azimuth of the sun for the estimated central time of ob- 
servation, he obtained the following results. Only one plant, bearing 
four old leaves, gave an average angle with the meridian of more than 
34° Their mean was 18° W. The remaining twenty-nine plants 


1864. | Botany and Vegetable Physiology. 319 


bore ninety-one leaves, which made with the meridian the following 
angles, viz.— Seven made angles greater than 35°; fifteen, angles be- 
tween 35° and 20°; sixteen, angles between 20° and 8°; twenty-eight, 
angles between 8° and 1°; and twenty-five, angles less than 1°. Of the 
sixty-nine angles less than 20°, the mean is N. 33' H., i.e. about half 
a degree east of the meridian. The error of azimuth, from want of 
means to determine the time accurately, may have been as much as 
three times this quantity. One half the leaves bore within about half 
a point of N., and two-thirds within one point. The magnetic declina- 
tion was about 6° E., and the observations were made when the sun 
was about on the magnetic meridian. 


Henna (Lawsonia inermis), a plant which has been so long used in 
Keypt as a cosmetic and dye stuff, has been introduced into com- 
merce by MM. Gillet and Tabourin, of Lyons. According to the 
‘Coloriste Industriel,’ the researches of these chemists show that the 
active colouring principle is nothing more than a peculiar kind of 
tannic acid, which they propose to call hennatannic acid. The dried 
leaves of henna contain half their weight of this substance. The plant 
is, it appears, particularly useful for imparting to silk the different 
shades of black, the colours so obtained being very beautiful and per- 
manent. 


At the Academy of Sciences of Vienna Dr. de Vry exhibited some 
beautifully-crystallized resin of the upas tree (Antiaris toxicaria), also 
the upas poison itself in a crystallizable state. He regarded the 
poison as a Glycosite, that did not act upon the stomach as a violent 
poison, perhaps not as a poison at all, and possessed poisonous pro- 
perties only when brought into immediate contact with the blood. He 
had convinced himself by repeated personal experiment that the stories 
of the poisonous atmosphere of the upas tree are fabulous. 


Further investigations into the milk vessels of Leontodon (the com- 
mon dandelion) by Dr. August Vogt, of Vienna, show that the inter- 
cellular substance occurring in the root consists chiefly of pectose, the 
same substance which occurs in unripe fruits, and in turnips and car- 
rots ; so that itis not a secretion, but a product of conversion of the cel- 
lulose of the cell-membranes, of a chemical nature. The milk vessels 
occurring in the dandelion are amongst the most ramified which occur 
anywhere in plants, springing from main stems, then ramifying and 
forming ultimately large reticulated systems around the woody nucleus. 
On examining into their origin, it appears that their main stems are 
produced by the amalgamation of the so-called conducting cells 
which accompany the bundles of milk vessels, and probably constitute 
the organ for conducting back the juices elaborated in the leaves. 
This fusion is induced by the conversion into pectose of the mem- 
branes of the cells, consisting at first more or less entirely of cellulose. 


Some interesting observations have been made by Henrici on the 
functions of roots in supplying water to the plant, and on the develop- 
ment under certain conditions of special roots destined for this pur- 
pose, to explain the frequent occurrence of plants sending roots into 


320 Chronicles of Science. . | April, 


wells, cisterns, drain-pipes, &c., where they exist in continual contact 
with a body of water. In drain-pipes the roots of plants usually con- 
sidered to be free from aquatic tendencies, such as rape (brassica), 
sometimes accumulate to a surprising extent. Henrici surmised 
that the roots which most cultivated plants send down deep into the 
soil, even when the soil is by no means porous or inviting, are de- 
signed especially to bring up water from the subsoil for the use of the 
plant. He devised an experiment for the purpose of establishing the 
truth of these views, by planting a young raspberry in a funnel filled 
with garden soil, the neck of the funnel dipping into water from which 
“it was separated by a paper filter. Roots penetrated the soil and the 
filter, and became water-roots, which being ultimately cut away, and 
the plant put into soil and placed in a conservatory it grew vigorously. 
Henrici considers that he has proved that plants extend a portion of 
their roots into the subsoil, chiefly for the purpose of gathering sup- 
plies of water. 


III. CHEMISTRY. 


Cremicat science has made steady progress during the past quarter. 
Not only do the proceedings of the various learned societies 
chronicled in these pages, the Royal, Chemical, and Royal Institution, 
show that our chief workers have not been idle, but the records of 
progress which we are about to give, are also evidence of important 
advancements which find their way to the public through other 
channels than the leading societies. 

Deserving perhaps the foremost place, stand the researches of 
Professor Graham, Master of the Mint, on the Molecular Mobility of 
Gases. The researches of this philosopher on liquid diffusion must 
be fresh in the memory of every chemist, resulting as they did in the 
introduction of a new and most valuable means of analysis into the 
laboratory. The present investigations* prove that the same laws 
which he has already shown to apply to liquids in their passage 
through porous diaphragms, likewise influence gaseous bodies. In 
researches of this character the difficulty has been to find a porous 
body whose structure was sufliciently compact to prevent the pas- 
sage of the gas en masse, but yet to permit its molecules to have 
free movement. ‘Thin plates of compressed black-lead have at last 
been found to possess the desired property, and by employing this 
material as the porous septum in the diffusiometer several remarkable 
results have been obtained. Space will not permit us to give even 
a brief abstract of the whole of this important paper, we will, there- 
fore, content ourselves with drawing attention to one or two of the 
most striking results. The separation of the gases of the atmo- 
sphere by transmission through a porous material has a peculiar 
interest, although from the nearness of the densities of oxygen and 

: reer a Transactions,’ part ii. 1863; and ‘ Philosophical Magazine,’ 
xxv1. 409, 


1864.] Chemistry. 321 


nitrogen no great separation can be effected by this method; the 
diffusive velocity of two gases being inversely as the square roots 
of their densities, nitrogen exceeds oxygen in activity by about 
6-7 per cent. By experiment, about three-fourths of the theoretical 
separation was actually obtained, and other experiments were then 
instituted, with a view of ascertaining what would be the effect of 
other porous bodies, such as stucco, or earthenware, on atmospheric 
gases, and the result shows that all porous masses, however loose 
their texture, will have some effect in separating mixed gases, moving 
through them under pressure. The air entering a room by perco- 
lation through a wall of brick, or a coat of plaster, will thus become 
richer in nitrogen, in a certain small measure, than the external 
atmosphere. Where such a small difference of specific gravities 
exists the separation of gases is a severe trial to the powers of the 
atmolyser, but with greater disparities of density the separation may 
become very considerable. When an explosive mixture of one 
volume of oxygen and two volumes of hydrogen are transmitted, the 
result is very striking, the hydrogen diminishes from 66°66 to 9°3 
per cent., and the gas ceases to be explosive, a lighted taper burning 
in it as in pure oxygen. In other experiments on the diffusion of 
carbonic acid into_air, the remarkable result was discovered that in 
perfectly still air its molecules spontaneously alter their position, 
and move to a distance of half a metre in any direction in the course 
of five or six minutes, whilst the molecules of hydrogen disperse 
themselves to the distance of a third of a metre in a single minute. 
The Professor considers that such a moleeular movement may become 
an agency of considerable power in distributing heat throughout the 
atmosphere. 


The new element Cesium has been the subject of further investiga- 
tion by Bunsen ;* he separates it from Rubidium by converting the 
two metals into tartrates, and adding a sufficient excess of tartaric 
acid te convert the rubidium into bi-tartrate whilst the cesium salt 
remains neutral. The mixture is then exposed in a funnel to an 
atmosphere saturated with moisture, when the neutral cesium salt 
deliquesces and runs through, while the acid rubidium salt remains 
behind. Bunsen has deduced, from cesium compounds so purified, 
the equivalent 132-99; whilst Johnson and Allen, working with very 
much larger quantities of material than Bunsen was able to obtain, 
deduced the number 133-03. These fully authorize the use of the 
round number 133 as expressing the combining proportion of this 
element. 

The very rare metal Vanadium is likely to be somewhat more 
available for scientific research, if not for practical applications, now 
that Riley + has found it to occur in the Wiltshire oolitic iron ore and 
in the pig-iron smelted from it. He finds that this pig-iron will 
readily furnish any quantity of vanadium with tolerable facility ; it 
appears to contain more vanadium than that made from the Taberg 


* Poggendorf’s ‘ Annalen,’ cxix. 1. 
+ ‘Journal of the Chemical Society,’ New Series, ii. 21, 


322 Chronicles of Science. [ April, 


ore in Sweden, and it is supposed that this is the first time that this 
metal has been found in English pig-iron. 


A note on the Quantitative Determination of Sulphur by Dr. D.S. 
Price,* deserves notice, as it draws attention to a source of error 
which is very liable to be overlooked by analysts. He finds that 
the ordinary method of estimating sulphur, by fusion with nitre over 
gas, 1s liable to error in consequence of the coal gas giving sulphur to 
the contents of the crucible. Experiments show that nitre, which 
before fusion was free from sulphur, contained an appreciable 
quantity after exposure to a gas flame for three quarters of an hour. 


Perhaps one of the most important problems in analytical 
chemistry is to obtain the reagents of that exceptional purity which 
is absolutely necessary in many researches. In _ toxicological 
inquiries it is, of course, of vital importance that the sulphuric acid 
should be free from that very common impurity arsenic, and chemists 
will on this account be glad to know of a method by which this difficult 
problemn can be solved. The method of distillation as ordinarily 
practised is of no value, but it may be made available with the modi- 
fications introduced by MM. Bussy and Buigne.t These chemists 
have shown that when the arsenic exists in the state of arsenious acid 
it distils over, but when it is present as arsenic acid the whole remains 
behind in the retort. Upon boiling the suspected acid with a little 
nitric acid, or, as Maxwell Lyte proposes,t by adding a little bichromate 
of potash and then distilling, the product will be perfectly free from 
arsenic. 


A new pigment, which appears likely to afford a ready means of 
preserving iron and other metals, has recently been introduced in 
Paris by M. Oudry, of the Auteuil electro-metallurgic works. Pure 
copper is first precipitated by the galvanic process, and it is then 
reduced to an impalpable powder. This powder is then mixed with 
a preparation of spirit and used as ordinary paint. The articles 
coated in this way have all the appearance of electro-bronze, while the 
cost is less than one-sixth ; it is likely to last from eight to ten years, 
and beautiful effects are produced by means of a dressing of acidified 
solutions and pure copper powder. 


A patent has recently been entered by M. Clavel for modifying the 
beautiful blue dyes obtained from coal tar, so as to render them 
soluble in water. He dissolves the dye in fuming sulphuric acid and 
then dilutes the solution considerably, passing steam im at the same 
time. The colouring matter is then precipitated in flocculi by the 
addition of common salt ; upon washing the salt out, the dye remains 
perfectly soluble in water. Whilst speaking of these aniline dyes we 
may mention with pleasure that the parent to whom they all owe their 
origin, Dr. Hofmann, has been honoured by the Jecker Prize of 5,000 
francs, given by the Paris Academy of Sciences, for his researches on 
artificial organic alkalies. 

* «Chemical News,’ viii. 285. 
+ ‘Journal de Pharmacie et de Chimie,’ xliv. 177. 
t ‘Chemical News,’ ix. 98, 


1864. | Chemistry. 223 


In these days of falsification it may be of some interest to give a 
simple test for artificially-coloured wines, which we owe to Blume. 
He saturates a piece of bread crumb with the wine to be tested and 
places it in a plate full of water. If the wine is artificially coloured, 
the water very soon becomes reddish violet, but if the colouring 
matter is natural, the water, after a quarter or half an hour, is but very 
little coloured, and a slight opalescence only is perceptible. 


From its ready liberation of sulphurous acid, hyposulphite of soda 
is likely to become a valuable bleaching agent; M. Artus has applied 
it very successfully to the bleaching of sponges. He first washes 
them in a weak solution of caustic soda, and then, after thorough 
rinsing with water, transfers them to a weak mixture of hyposulphite 
of soda and dilute hydrochloric acid. In a short time the sponges 
become nearly white, without having their valuable qualities injured in 
the least; they are then to be taken out and well washed. 


The Calabar bean has been well investigated physiologically in 
this country, but the alkaloid, to which it owes its wonderful property 
of contracting the pupil of the eye, has only very recently been isolated 
by MM. Jobst and Hesse;* they have given it the name of Phyto- 
stigmine, and as yet have only found it in the cotyledon. It is a 
brownish-yellow amorphous mass, easily soluble in ether, alcohol, and 
benzol, and slightly soluble in cold water. Its aqueous solution has 
a decidedly alkaline reaction. It produces very strong contraction of 
the pupil, and one curious fact observed, is that the poison produces 
contraction of the pupil when applied to recently-dead animals. Now 
that Calabar bean is so extensively used by ophthalmic surgeons, the 
isolation of its active principle cannot fail to be of value. 


Poison bottles and poison corks, poison caps and poison stoppers, 
have all successively been tried, with the object of preventing careless 
or sleepy nurses from giving medicines out of the wrong bottles and 
thereby poisoning their patients ; but they are all open to the objec- 
tion that when the liquid for which they have been originally used is 
exhausted, the very nice-locking bottle is generally replenished with 
eau de cologne, tincture of senna, or such-like innocent compounds, and 
the object of having a peculiarly-contrived bottle is thereby defeated. 
Perhaps the most unobjectionable of all these attempts to substitute 
a mechanical contrivance for ordinary caution and common sense, has 
been recently brought forward by Mr. Thonger before the Phar- 
maceutical Society. It consistsof a patent label having a border of 
sand-paper round it, thus appealing strongly to the sense of touch, 
which it is presumed will warn the holder that danger is near. These 
labels are applicable to dispensing bottles and to the smallest phials, 
and possess an advantage over any other contrivance, as they can 
be stuck on any vessel, and as readily removed when the poisonous 
contents are done with and the bottle is required for something else. 


The Society of Medical Sciences of Brussels some time ago offered 
a prize for the discovery of a substitute for the Cinchona alkaloids. 


* ¢Annalen der Chem. und Pharm.’ exxix. 115. 


324 Chronicles of Science.  [-Ape, 


The silver medal has recently been awarded to Dr. Leriche for his 
memoir on the Employment of Tannin as a substitute for Cinchona. 
He arrives at the conclusion that pure tannic acid is an excellent 
antiperiodic, and possesses real efficacy in the treatment of all 
intermittent fevers of a simple quotidian type. Now that we are 
threatened by some alarmists with a Quinine famine, the discovery of 
anything which can be used to supplement, or replace, this invaluable 
drug is of the very highest importance. 


IV. GEOLOGY AND PALHONTOLOGY. 


TE past quarter has not been unmarked by some important attempts 
at progress, and amongst these Professor Frankland’s effort to evolve a 
Meteorological theory for the causation of the Glacial era will, whether 
accepted by geologists or not, rank as one of the best towards a 
solution of this recent and remarkable geological period. But as in 
mathematical demonstrations everything depends on the basis taken, 
so in that excellent chemist’s hypothesis the correctness of his con- 
clusions is dependent upon the establishment of the assumptions upon 
which his hypothesis is built—namely, on the actual existence of an 
internal molten core within our earth, and the gradual cooling down of 
our planet from an original incandescent state. The argument Dr. 
Frankland holds is, that the formation of glaciers is a true process of 
distillation, requiring heat as much as cold for its due performance. 
The produce of a still would be diminished, not increased, by an abso- 
lute reduction of temperature, and it is a wider differentiation of tem- 
perature that is required to stimulate its operation into fuller activity. 
The great natural Glacial apparatus is divisible into three parts—the 
evaporator, the condenser, and the receiver. The ocean supplies the 
vapour, the mountains are the ice-bearers or receivers, but the dry air 
of the upper region of the atmosphere, which permits the free radiation 
into space of the heat from aqueous vapour, is the true condenser. The 
sole cause of the phenomena of the Glacial period, then, Professor 
Frankland believes, was a higher temperature of the ocean than obtains 
at present, and the greater differentiation brought about by the differ- 
ence of the rates of cooling of the water of the sea and of the rock- 
masses of the terrestrial crust. According to his notions, all the waters 
of the ocean primarily existed in the atmosphere as vapour, and with 
the gradual cooling of the earth they were first allowed to be deposited 
upon it in a thermal liquid state, and subsequently these ocean-waters 
have been gradually reduced to their present temperature—the glacial 
phenomena occurring during the later stages of this cooling operation. 
Those effects were brought about chiefly by two causes—the high 
specific heat of water compared with granite and other rocks, and the 
comparative facility with which radiant heat escapes from such rocks 
through moist air. The amounts of heat associated with equal weights 
of water and granite are as 5 to 1, or, if equal volumes be taken, water 


1864. | Geology and Paleontology. 325 


requires to lose twice as much heat as granite in order to cool through 
the same number of degrees. But in regard to the escape of radiant- 
heat through moist air, there is a high degree of difference between them, 
Tt seems that radiant heat will not pass from a given substance through 
the vapour of that substance so rapidly as it will through dry air or a 
vaporous medium of any other substance; and just as the vapour of 
sodium cuts off the light rays of sodium in the spectrum, so the vapour 
of water seemingly, to a great extent at least, arrests the radiant-heat 
rays emanating from water ; and thus, while there is free radiation from 
the snow-capped mountains into the dry regions of the upper air, the 
radiation of heat from the sea is blocked by the “ blanket” of aqueous 
vapour which rests over its surface. Whilst then the ocean in the Glacial 
era retained a temperature considerably higher than at present, Dr. 
Frankland considers the mountains or ice-bearers had undergone con- 
siderably greater refrigeration ; and thus whilst the evaporation of the 
ocean, receiving heat through its earth-floor from the internal molten 
core of our planet, was in much greater volume than now, the moun- 
tains were not very different from their present state, and were efficient 
ice-bearers for the vapours condensed in the upper atmosphere, and 
falling upon them as snow, which, accumulating in vast quantities, 
would not only reduce the level of the perpetual snow-line, but refri- 
gerate also climatal conditions. Not content with this earth alone, 
Professor Frankland attempted, though not very successfully, to apply 
his Glacial hypotheses to the moon, seeking there for traces of glacial 
action. Assuming the solid mass of the moon to have contracted in 
cooling at the same rate as granite, its refrigeration, though only 180° 
Fahr., would, he calculates, create a cellular space within its crust of 
upwards of 14 millions of cubic miles, or more than sufficient to engulf 
the whole of the lunar oceans, if any proportionate to the seas of our 
own earth ever existed there. His final conclusions are, that a liquid 
aqueous ocean can only exist on a planet so long as the latter retains a 
high internal temperature, and that the moon becomes in this respect 
a prophetic picture of the ultimate fate of our earth, “ when, deprived 
of external seas and all but an annual rotation on its axis, it shall 
revolve round the sun an arid and a lifeless wilderness.” The hypo- 
thesis is clever, and contains germs of philosophy and truth, but we 
doubt if geologists generally will accept it, at least in its totality. 
Although the internal-heat and gradually-cooling doctrines are pretty 
generally accepted as theories, and not as still unproven hypotheses, 
these topics, with the Glacial period and the causes of earthquakes, 
still seem productive of a kind of geological nightmare, which dis- 
turbs and terrifies not a few reflective intellects. The Rev. Professor 
Haughton has introduced some of them into an able paper before the 
Geological Society of Dublin— “ An attempt to calculate the Duration 
of Time involved in Geological Epochs.” Commenting on the vague- 
ness of idea involved in the ‘long periods of time” habitually spoken 
of, he undertook, as a point of interest, to estimate, upon the basis of 
a gradual cooling down of our globe, for how long a time it has been 
possible for animals to have existed on it. For this estimate the 
basis selected was Helmholtz’s deduction from the experiments on the 
VOL. I. Z 


326 Chronicles of Science. [ April, 


cooling of basalt by Professor Bischoff of Bonn—that if the whole 
globe were constituted of that rock, it would take 350 millions of years 
to cool from 2,000° to 200° Centigrade. If the earth, then, has cooled 
down from a gaseous condition to its present consistence, it is evident 
animals could not have existed on it before it acquired solidity. Even 
after this it is difficult to believe in the general existence of life at 
temperatures above that at which albumen, the chief ingredient of 
flesh, coagulates. The Professor therefore takes a range from this 
point, 122° Fahr. to 77° Fahr. the temperature which has been sug- 
gested for our island in the London-Clay period, and sufficiently near 
to Professor Heer’s estimate from the evidence of fossil plants of 72° 
for Switzerland in the Miocene age to acquire credibility. Upon 
these data, Professor Haughton concludes that the earth, if of basalt, 
would have required 1,280 millions of years to become cooled through 
the required space since animal-life was possible on our planet. 

Not less important, although to some extent going over old ground, 
is the admirable analysis M. Paul Gervais has made of the evidence 
of the osseous caverns of Languedoc in respect to the antiquity of man, 
Much, indeed most, of this evidence has been long before the world, 
but the treatment it has now received is more scrutinizing and result- 
ful than any hitherto accorded toit. The first documents on this sub- 
ject are those of M. Tournal, who in 1827 noticed the association of the 
bones of man with those of extinct species of animals in the caverns 
of Bize. ‘Two years after, M. Christol published his notice of other 
fossil human bones from the cavern of Pondres, examined by himself 
and M. Dumas. Cuvier did not ignore the principal facts thus brought 
forward, but he never regarded them as sufficient to cause him to 
change his preconceived opinion, and he objected to them that they 
were merely cavern-remains, and not found in regular beds, such as 
those which contain the bones of elephants, rhinoceroses, the great 
bears, lions and hyenas ; the eminent naturalist’s notion being that in 
caverns the relics of various ages were liable to intermixture from 
natural causes, as well as accidents, and that the objects in contiguous 
positions might therefore be of very different dates. M. Gervais now 
takes the fullest evidence he can get of the caves of Bize and Pondres, 
and to the consideration of them adds new facts obtained from those of 
Roque and Pontil. The cavern of Bize is chiefly known through the 
long memoir of M. Marcel de Serres, who records, besides many species 
still found in the district, an extinct antelope, A. Christolii, and four 
kinds of deer equally annihilated and distinct from any described 
species—the Cervus Destremii, C. Reboulii, C. Leufroyi, and C. Tournalit. 
The Aurochs is also cited, although it is more likely the remains were 
those of Bos primigenius. The humerus attributed to the Arctic bear is 
probably that of the ordinary bear of the European mountains, as M. 
Gervais has obtained fragments of the latter from Tour-de-Farges and 
Alais. The Antelope Christolii did not differ greatly from the chamois. 
Two portions of the canons of a chamois in M. Gervais’ possession 
consist of only the digital ends and a very short portion of the diaphy- 
sis, from which he concludes that these bones were violently broken, 
and by the act of man—the long bones cracked by the primitive men 


1864. ] Geology and Palwontology. 327 


for the sake of their marrow being distinguishable from those crushed 
by animals, even when they occur together in the same deposit. M. 
Gervais has also a digital extremity of the posterior canon and other 
similar fragments of the long bones of Bos primigenius separated from 
their middle portions by violent fracture, evidently accomplished by 
the hand of man. By referring to M. de Serres’ plates in conjunction 
with specimens recently obtained, this able paleontologist concludes 
that the majority of the extinct deer referred to belong to the Rein- 
deer, and remarks that they exhibit this distinctive feature, that the 
long bones, instead of being entire, as they are in such caverns as 
those of Brengues which were not inhabited by man, have at Bize 
been broken; so that if the men of the Cave period had not domes- 
ticated these animals, they at least made use of their carcases. It 
may not be superfluous to add that this cavern contains the débris 
of primitive pottery, flint-knives, and implements set in deer’s horn 
and in bone. The cavern of Pondres also contains diluvian animals 
—Rhinoceros tichorhinus, ox, cave-bear, Felis spelea, and hyena, and 
has often been quoted in support of the high antiquity of man in 
Europe, remains of his skeleton, his flint knives, and coarse pottery 
or charcoal haying been found in it. These, according to M. Ger- 
vais, are mixed pell-mell with the remains of the extinct animals, 
whence he questions whether there has not been some amount of inter- 
mingling. All that he can positively assure himself of is, that 
the bones of the large animals have not been broken like those met 
with in caverns which haye served as habitations for the primitive in- 
habitants of our globe, and he consequently doubts the conclusions of 
MM. Christol and Dumas as to the contemporaneity, in this instance, 
of the relics of the fossil mammals and those of man with whom 
they are associated. In respect to Lunel-Viel, M. Gervais thinks it 
can scarcely be cited in favour of the contemporaneity of man with 
the extinct diluvian species, as, notwithstanding the restricted extent 
of the caves in which the human bones have been found, no traces 
of its inhabitation by man, nor any relics of works, have been brought 
to light. He considers, therefore, that this cavern belongs to the 
class of those which M. Steenstrup regards as entirely filled before 
the agency of man; and he is the more inclined to this opinion, 
as the animal-bones are not broken by human methods, but are merely 
crunched by the teeth of carnivora, especially hyenas. He asks, 
hence, whether, as a general rule, we may not conclude, when the 
marrow-bones of the food-beasts are intact, that the comminglings 
of the human with the animal-remains have not been due to the sub- 
sequent intervention of floods, burials, or various other upstirrings 
of the deposits in which such comminglings occur—an opinion con- 
firmed by the following facts from the cavern of Pontil :—Some 
years since, M. Gervais found there numerous bones of extinct species, 
as at Lunel-Viel and Pondres, also human bones and some industrial 
relics ; the former belonging to a primitive epoch, and the last, more 
recent, had also been shown to him as coming from the same cavern. 
At that time he abstained from speaking of them, not having sufi- 
ciently reliable particulars. Now, however, he is better qualified to 
z2 


328 Chronicles of Science. . [April, 


do so. M. Chausse, Conducteur of Ponts et Chaussées, has made 
excavations at Pontil, and forwarded to M. Gervais the greater part of 
the objects of human origin found there, with particulars of their 
bedding and mode of preservation compared with those of the-extinct 
animals embedded with the rhinoceros, The great extinct beasts, 
including the Bos primigenius, are thus shown to be in a lower bed 
than those deposits which have yielded the bones of horse, human 
débris, and the remains of ancient fires, a flint-knife and various 
instruments made of deer’s horn and bone exactly like those of the 
first period of the Swiss Lake dwellings and met with in the Kjokken- 
moddens of Denmark. Moreover, with these was obtained an upper 
maxillary of a young Bos primigenius, corresponding to one of like age 
from Lunel-Viel, with which it was compared. In the same cavern in 
the uppermost sediments, were the tusks of the wild boar, and axes of 
polished stone, such as are considered to be characteristic of the Second 
Stone Age ; and further manufactured objects indicative of the Age of 
Bronze, have also been obtained. The cavern of Roque was discovered 
by Boutin, and the bones from thence were some years since shown to 
M. Gervais, who then requested search to be made for worked flints, 
of which, indeed, a considerable quantity has subsequently been found 
associated with human remains. M. Gervais has also secured a meta- 
tarsal of the cave-bear. The broken bones in this cavern belong to 
deer, common ox, and to an animal indicated by M. Boutin in his 
notice as a goat, of which we may form some conception by supposing 
it to have exceeded the dimensions of living goats as much as the Bos 
primigenius exceeded living oxen. M. Gervais provisionally names it 
the Capra primigenia. MM. Gervais’ conclusions from the above facts 
are, that the first appearance of man in the districts of the caverns of 
Bize, Saint-Pons, Pondres, and La Roque, although they must be 
assigned to a period prior to the records of history, cannot yet be 
admitted to have been, in this region at least, contemporaneous with 
the existence of those extinct animals to which Cuvier made allusion 
when thirty years ago he repelled the statements of Tournal, Christol, 
and Marcel de Serres as to the simultaneous entombment of men and 
the extinct mammalia in these caverns. The importance of the dis- 
tinctions marking the particular faunas which have disappeared, and 
the chronology of these extinctions become, under such reasonings, 
topics exceedingly evident, and their value in attempts at determining 
the contemporaneousness of the human remains and relics with the 
other objects with which they are found must not hereafter be over- 
looked. 

In the Colonies the study of Geology has of late years gained many 
active students, and we are glad to find in the ‘ Transactions of the 
Nova Scotian Institute, only very recently established, Geological 
papers of considerable merit. Mr, Belt’s remarks on some recent 
movements of the earth’s surface have a tone of interest for us we 
could scarcely have expected, and refer much to the mother-country 
and its continental offshoot—the vast island of the Pacific Ocean. 
The subjects that formed the basis of his paper are chiefly the raised 
beaches on the shores of the British Channel, described by Mr. Godwin- 


1864. | Geology and Paleontology. 329 


Austen, in the ‘ Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society,’ and the 
rise of land in Australia. It is easy to understand how corals could 
build up in the course of time great masses of limestone, the difficulty 
is to account for the breaking up of ancient sea-bottoms, and their 
upheaval above the level of the ocean-surface. Now, of Australia, it 
has been known for several years that the whole coast is slowly but 
surely rising; and in the southern part, the railway between Adelaide 
and the port is said to have risen 4 inches in 12 months. This 
elevation is participated in by all the neighbouring islands; at Green 
Island in Bass’s Strait, and in Tasmania, there are old sea-beaches 
100 feet above high water. And one of the most remarkable and sug- 
gestive facts in this recent elevation is, that the movement, without 
tremblings, quakings, or shocks, is so rapid that bones of animals, and 
pottery thrown out of the first emigrant ships, mixed with shingle and 
sea-shells, are raised above the reach of the tide. ‘This uprising has 
progressed to the extent of 300 feet since the present mollusca inhabited 
the coast. In New Zealand, too, the land is being jerked up as it is 
on the western coast of America. From these topics Mr. Belt goes to 
the superficial deposits of sand, gravel, and clay, that are spread over 
the greater part of Great Britain ; the evidence afforded by which seems 
to indicate in some places upheavals, in others depressions. Con- 
vinced that some general law must govern these movements, Mr. Belt 
has collected and collated, from various sources, sections of deposits 
from different parts of England and Scotland ; and to render the move- 
ments more intelligible, has depicted them by means of curved lines, in 
a similar manner to those used by meteorologists to indicate the fluc- 
tuations of the barometer. Movements of the earth’s surface are in this 
way depicted from examples taken from the most southern part of 
England, and from the other extremity of the island, 350 miles apart, 
and for the purpose of showing how general these movements have been 
another diagram is given of the changes of level in Nova Scotia in 
recent geological times, and another of a portion of North America, 
when the land stood, at one time at least, 500 feet higher than it does 
now. These few widely-separated examples are sufficient to prove 
what was well known before, the general instability of the earth’s 
crust, but the diagrammatic method of showing these elevations is 
very suggestive of the utility of symbolizing earth-movements in this 
way for comparison. 

The western coast of the Peloponnesus is a region little known to 
geologists, and every detail from thence is consequently valuable. We 
are glad, therefore, to see that an interesting sketch by Dr. Weiss, the 
Professor of the University of Lemberg, in Gallicia, of a journey made 
by him in that district, has been laid before the Imperial Institute of 
Vienna. He notices many very productive localities for Tertiary fossils, 
which, by a proper exploration, he thinks would lead to very interesting 
results—although the fossils are abundant, the Doctor, in consequence 
of the wretched social condition of the country, made but a scanty 
collection, and is unable to give even an approximately full account of 
its physical aspect. From the town of Zante the view extends over 
the Bay of Gastuni to Katakolo, the highest point of which is marked 


330 Chronicles of Science. [ April, 


by the walls of Pondiko-Kastron. Towards Arcadia the coast flattens, 
and opens an uninterrupted panorama of the hill-plateau of the Morea, 
terminating on the north in the peaks of the Cyllenic mountains, and 
on the south by the rocky portions of the Taygetos. The Cape con- 
sists of a coarse-grained marine limestone, of Upper Pliocene age, in 
many places exhibiting the old borings of molluscs, and overlaid by 
deposits of sand and marl, which cover the undulating ground for miles 
along the sea-shore, and up to the base of the mountains in_ the 
interior. The stone-marl around Pyrgos abounds in Ostrea lamellosa, 
and in the limestone and sandstone are species of Cardita, with Cardium 
edule, Turritella communis, Venus multilamella, and Scalaria pseudo- 
scalaris. Pyrgos itself stands on a colossal oyster-bank, portions of 
which are exposed to the eye in many parts of the town. It is over- 
laid by a thick stratum of marl, in which but very few fossil remains 
are to be found. Dr. Weiss’s sketch is principally a description of the 
routes taken, and will be a useful guide to future explorers of this 
unworked region. 

Dr. Carte has recorded the discovery of bones of the Polar bear 
in Lough Gur, county Limerick. In the paper before the Dublin 
Geological Society, in which he has described them, he comments on 
the extreme abruptness with which, in the newer formations, mammalian 
forms have appeared in abundance, contrasting in this respect with the 
gradual appearance of the lower forms of life in the older strata. 

The second part of the excellent monograph of Rissoidea, by 
MM. Gustav Schwartz and Mohrenstern, of Vienna, contains the genus 
Rissoa, illustrated by four fine lithographic plates. The author gives 
in a diagrammatic form the relationships of the recent and fossil 
species, referring the 30 recent species to 11 items in the Pleistocene 
age, these again to 6 in the Pliocene, these to 4 in the Miocene, 2 in 
the Oligocene, and finally to one derivative, the Rissoa nana in 
the Hocene. 

Mr. 8. V. Wood, jun., has published an admirable article on the 
Red Crag and its relation to the Fluvio-marine Crag, and the Drift of 
the Eastern Counties. From the result of his survey he comes to the 
conclusion, that in the Red Crag, once regarded as of Miocene age, 
we have the initiatory stage in England of that series of events which, 
known under the term “ Drift,” began by the encroachment upon the 
- land of England of a bay of the Northern Ocean, and which encroach- 
ment afterwards extended over the area of the Eastern Counties, and 
ultimately involved the submergence of that still more extensive area 
now covered with the ice-borne detritus and clay of the northern Drift. 

There is often more information to be got from, as there is cer- 
tainly less trouble in reading, a pamphlet of a single sheet. In 
England we have had Professor Ramsay strenuously contesting for the 
ice-scooped origin of the Swiss lakes, and the eloquent Ruskin as 
enthusiastically defending the powers of weather and water upon, and 
the effects of molecular motion within, the rocks. The learned pro- 
fessor of Berne, M. Studer, now appears before the world in a brochure 
of 16 pages, which he opens with the admission, that “in the origin 
of the Swiss Lakes we have a problem difficult to resolve,” and of 


1864. | Geology and Paleontology. 331 


which it is hard to assign precisely the date in the series of geological 
events. On the one hand we have Buch, Hoffman, and Ball, fully 
persuaded that the same causes which elevated the Swiss mountains 
produced the depressions which separate them. They think that the 
elevation was accompanied by crevasses more or less profound, which 
have formed the valleys, and that in the interior there exist other 
cavities, the roofs of which will be subsequently broken in—the 
present lakes being the remains of such cavities or founderings which 
have not yet been filled up by the silt brought down by the rivers. 
On the other hand, the disciples of Buffon, Playfair, and the Werner 
school, attribute the valleys and water-basins to erosion, or the destruc- 
tive action of fluids in motion. The latter class, as we have already 
noticed, are split into two parties, and disagree as to the nature of the 
erosive medium—the one following their ancient masters, look to the 
currents of the sea, rivers, and torrents; the others, amongst whom are 
some of our own, and French and continental geologists, advocate the 
newer theory of their having been scooped out by the grinding action 
of massive glaciers. Each of these theories may be justified by par- 
ticular facts; and M. Desor, at least, adopts them both, and applies 
either one or the other, as circumstances demand, distinguishing the 
lakes as orographic, and lakes of erosion. The former may be further 
divided into three classes—the lakes in synclinal valleys, such as 
the lake of Bourget ; those in isoclinal, such as Brienz and Wallenstadt, 
and those in the transverse valleys or cluses, of which the lakes of 
Thoune and of Uri are examples. The lakes of the Alps, according 
to M. Desor, are chiefly orographic ; whilst those of Neuchatel, Bienne, 
Morat, Zurich, Constance, and others in Lower Switzerland, are lakes 
of erosion. The question of the epoch of their formation is, however, 
very much complicated when the strata around them are examined. 
All over Lower Switzerland and the Jura are spread the well-known 
“ Alpine blocks,” which by their mode of transport would necessarily 
have passed above the lakes in arriving at their actual sites from their 
original beds ; and we cannot conceive why, if a current brought them, 
it should not have filled their basins and made a great mound of débris 
at the débouchures of the Alpine valleys. This difficulty involving 
the impossibility of the suspension of such blocks in mid-air, or the 
unlikelihood of their sustention on the surface of water 1,000 feet 
above the valley below, has been one of the main causes of the readi- 
ness with which the hypothesis of the former greater extension of 
the glaciers has been received, for across the surfaces of the ice- 
filled depressions the Alpine blocks would have naturally travelled 
from the Alps to the Jura. This general body of ice, covering all the 
valleys and deep hollows, is certainly a cause of uncertainty as to the 
epoch of the formation of the lakes, for they may evidently be anterior 
to the glacial epoch, their basins during that era being filled with water 
or ice; or they may be posterior, although M. Studer is not disposed 
to admit a posterior origin, which appears too recent to reconcile with 
the evident connection of the basins and valleys with the orography of 
the country. 

Another difficulty occurs. For a long time there has been known 


332 Chronicles of Science. | April, 


to exist below the boulder-drift a terrain erratique, a deposit of sand 
and clay horizontally stratified, and possessing all the characters of a 
river deposit—the terrain du transport of Elie de Beaumont, or the 
alluvion ancienne of Necker, the diluvium of recent authors—in the 
gravels of which the constituent rocks of the pebbles are found to be 
derived from the Alps or the sub-Alpine hills, whilst the boulder- 
blocks themselves also present different characters, according to the 
nature of the different valleys through which they have been carried, 
and corresponding to the rocks in situ in such valleys and their tribu- 
taries. It is evident, as M. Studer remarks, that the presence of this 
ancient alluvium throws us again into all those difficulties from which 
we thought ourselves freed by the hypothesis of the former greater 
extent of the glaciers. The difficulty, he thinks, may perhaps be 
diminished by reducing as much as possible the mass of those gravels, 
the transport of which across the lakes, before the great extension 
of the glaciers took place, seems incontestable ; and that, as these hori- 
zontal beds of ancient alluvium repose upen the denuded or sliced-off 
edges of the inclined beds of molasse, the date of their formation is 
necessarily placed between the catastrophe which elevated the Tertiary 
_beds and the epoch of the great extension of the glaciers. After a 
careful analytical survey of the physical and geological aspects of the 
lake-country, M. Studer comes to the conclusion of the insufficiency of 
erosion in accounting for the origin of the valleys and lakes of the 
Alps; and he considers there is no alternative but to recognize with 
M. Escher an intimate connection between a great number of the 
Alpine valleys and the inclined positions of the beds of the mountains 
which separate them. These, then, are true orographic valleys, such 
as M. Desor has noticed in the Jura, and to the two kinds he has 
described, the synclinal and isoclinal, there ought to be added for the 
Alps another—the anticlinal valleys. The cluses, he further considers, 
are evidently fractures enlarged by erosion ; and he adds a fourth class 
of valleys —those of subsidence. If lava-currents, which often traverse 
loose sand, do not burrow into the soil in their progress, is his argument, 
how can glaciers which have less power than even such currents of 
water as our senses will not detect the motion of, and which even at this 
slow rate move over an under-plane of water and ground-adherent ice, 
effect such enormous erosion as is involved in these lake-basins? He 
looks, therefore, to subsidences as their chief cause. In this case the 
ancient alluvium at the bottom of the basins involves the supposition 
of the lapse of a considerable period of time between the disturbance 
and the filling up of the depths of the crevasse; and as a proof of the 
occurrence of such an interval, he refers to the great difference between 
the faunas and floras of the last or newest beds of the molasse, and the 
first or oldest of those of the alluvium, urging how great a length of 
time it would require to produce such differences of climatal conditions 
as to enable a fauna such as that of the Confederate States to supplant 
the present fauna of Europe—a difference which is not greater, how- 
ever, than that between the animals of the Molasse age and the ele- 
phants, oxen, and deer of the Diluvium. 


1864. | Mining, Mineralogy, and Metallurgy. 


eo 
co 
co 


V. MINING, MINERALOGY, AND METALLURGY. 


Tue most noteworthy fact in connection with British mining which 
has presented itself during the quarter, has been the production of 
gold from the quartz lodes of the Cambrian Hills. Many years have 
passed away since we were told that gold was to be found in Merioneth- 
shire. Some of the precious metal was exhibited in 1851, but this 
had been obtained at a cost which far exceeded its value. In 1861 
the Vigra and Clogau mine gave 2,784 standard ounces of gold to the 
adventurers, but in 1862 they obtained 5,299 ounces. For some time 
the prospects were dull; large quantities of quartz were worked 
containing no visible gold, and an infinitesimally small proportion 
was separated by amalgamation. However, the prospects brightened 
towards the close of the year 1863 ; and during the past quarter the 
following quantities have been duly reported :— 


Oz. Dwts. Cwt. Qrs. Ibs, 
103. 11from7 1 23 of quartz. 
ISH ie: Heese cr 
DgGtalGs eyeelOuss an 


————t ——— 


wht 


2? 
oP) 


586 3 26) 22 9 


This is perhaps the most extraordinary yield on record of gold from 
a quartz vein. We find, however, by the report of the Vigra and Clogau 
Mining Company, that since the date of their last report, 1,059 
ounces of gold have been received, this being obtained from quartz 
giving 24 ounces of gold to the ton on the average. 

In the neighbourhood of Bala Lake some discoveries were made 
last year, from which much was expected. This has not, how- 
ever, been realized. But in January some quartz was operated on 
from Castell-carn-Dochan, giving from 5$ ounces to 74 ounces to 
the ton. At Penrhos and Tynyrhenrhos, stones have been taken from 
quartz lodes containing visible gold. The extraordinary products of 
the Vigra and Clogau mine naturally awaken the hopes of the adven- 
turers in the other gold-mines around Dolgelly. It should, however, 
be borne in mind by all, that nothing can be more capricious than 
the occurrence of gold in the quartz lodes. We know not when the 
gold may disappear—we have no rule to guide us as to its discovery. 
Therefore, caution should be the rule of all speculators, who are 
tempted by the auriferous treasures of the Welsh mountains. 

British mining presents but little that is worthy of our record. The 
fact that upwards of 10 tons of nickel and cobalt speiss has been ob- 
tained from the sandstone of Alderly Edge, in Cheshire, is of interest. 

In our last number we drew especial attention to the coal-cutting 
machines of the Ardsley Coal Company, and of Ridley and Jones. 
Mr. Firth, of the former company, informs us that the Ar dsley machine 
has been motaeed to two feet in length, “therefore,” he says, “in the pro- 
gress of invention we have gone far beyond the one in question.” The 


334 Chronicles of Science. | April, 


Ardsley machine is being used in several collieries, and the reports 
are in the highest degree satisfactory. 

In connection with this really important subject, a very admirable 
paper was read at the Institution of Civil Engineers, on February 16, 
by Mr. Thomas Sopwith, jun., on “The Actual State of the Works 
on the Mount Cenis Tunnel, and Description of the Machinery Em- 
ployed.” 

So much has been said of late respecting this extraordinary under- 
taking, and of the machinery employed in boring this tunnel, that we 
need not occupy our pages with any description of either the one or 
the other. The following brief quotation shows the present rate of 
progress :—* The tunnel, on 30th June, 1863, had been driven (includ- 
ing the advanced gallery), at Modane, 1092-25 metres, and at Bardon- 
neche, 1450°00 metres. The advancement in June last, at Modane, 
was at the rate of 4°719 feet per day. At this rate of progress at both 
ends, the tunnel would be finished in nine years two and a-half months 
from that time.” 

The machine employed by M. Sommeiller is very accurately 
described, and admirably-executed drawings are given in a work by M. 
Armengaud (ainé).* In the same work will be found a description of 
a rotating perforator, “ perforateur rotatif,’ of Schwartzkopf and Phil- 
lipson. This machine is exceedingly portable, and especially appli- 
cable to the conditions which prevail in our metalliferous mines. 

Attention has been directed, since the experiments which have been 
made at Mont Cenis, to the use of boring machinery in the metallifer- 
ous mines of this country. A machine, invented by Mr. Crease, but 
resembling strongly the machine just noticed, has been used in the 
Vigra and Clogau gold mine, near Dolgelly. The result of the trials 
made in driving a level, went to show that several improvements were 
- required ; consequently it was placed in the hands of Mr. Green, of 
Aberystwyth, and that gentleman has shown much mechanical in- 
genuity in adapting new principles to the original idea. The improved, 
or Green’s boring machine, is shown in the accompanying plate. This 
machine consists of (Figs. 1, 2) an upright pillar of cast-iron, 8, fixcd 
upon a low tram waggon, 1, running upon rails in the level, and having 
within it, in the upper part, an upright screw, 4, and cross-head ; and 
in the lower part another screw, 2, by means of which the machine 
can be firmly fixed between the floor and the roof. This pillar is 
encircled by an iron collar, 5, which can revolve round the pillar, but 
which can, by means of a rack and pinion, 7, 8, worked by the worm, 
6, be raised or lowered upon it. Attached to this collar is an arm 
with adjustments, 9, 10, 11, 14, which carries the boring machine 
proper (Fig. 4). At the end of the arm is a cylinder resting upon a 
screw bed (Fig. 3), 15, in which works an ordinary slide valve. The 
piston is shown in section in Fig. 4; to it is attached a hollow piston- 
rod, in which the borer is placed. By the side of the cylinder are 


* «Publication Industrielle des Machines, Outils et Appareils les plus perfec- 
tionnés et les plus récents, employés dans les différentes branches de l'industrie 
francaise et étrangére.’ Par Armengaud (ainé). Paris: MM. A. Morel et C'. 
See also ‘ Les Mondes, Reyue Hebdomadaire des Sciences,’ 21 Jan., 1864. 


335 


ing, Mineralogy, and Metallurgy. 


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1864.] 


END ELEVATION. 


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336 Chronicles of Science. | April, 


attached the connecting-rods, marked 3, 4; one working the slide 
valve, the other acting by levers 5 and 6, giving motion to a ratchet- 
wheel, which, acting on a system of tooth-wheels 10 (see end eleva- 
tion), cause the piston and borer to make a quarter of a revolution. 
These levers are worked at each stroke by means of projections on 
the piston-rod 1:1. The revolutions can also be effected by hand, 
through the wheel and connection, 9; and this marks the main differ- 
ence between the machines of Crease and Green—the former having 
only the means for making the revolution by hand. 

At the same time that the borer makes its quarter revolution, the 
screw 11 is caused by tooth-wheels to make an equal turn, giving a 
forward motion to the cylinder, and bringing the borer more into the 
hole. 

This machine can be worked by either steam or compressed air, 
the latter being the most convenient, and at all times to be preferred, 
especially in driving the badly-ventilated end of long levels. 

These notes and the accompanying drawing will show that the 
borer can be placed in any position with regard to height or direc- 
tion in a horizontal plane. There is also a joint Fig. 1-12, by which 
it can be adjusted in any direction in a vertical plane. 

We are informed that Mr. Crease’s boring machine has been 
recently introduced in two mines near Tavistock, and we know that 
experiments are being tried in some of the lead mines of the North 
of England, and in the copper mines near Camborne, Cornwall. 
Another boring machine for “driving tunnels, mines, adits, shafts, 
quarries, &c.,” has been constructed and patented by Mr. George 
Low, of Newark. In its more important features it does not differ 
materially from that already described. We are informed that Mr. 
Low’s machine has been applied with success by the Connoree 
Mining Company. The machine can be made with one, or any 
number of borers, which, on an average, will bore holes at the rate 
of two inches per minute, as proved by actual trial. We hear of 
several other machines, some to be worked by air or steam, or by 
water pressure, and others to be moved by manual labour. The 
attention which is now being directed to the important question of 
relieving men from the severe tasks of boring rocks in the confined 
ends of levels, appears likely to result in the production of some 
simple and efficacious mechanical arrangements. 

The advantages of employing machines of this class are great: 
economy in working should at once recommend them to the mine 
proprietor, and on ‘the score of humanity, as removing from living 
muscle its severest toil, and giving it to unwearing metal, the 
philanthropist should urge their introduction. Another advantage 
would be gained by using compressed air machines; the impure air 
of the levels would be dispelled by the escape of that which we had 
used to bore our rocks. 


In a journal such as ours it is important that we should preserve 
a record, easily available, of the progress of our special industries, 
The report of the Registrar-General on the census of 1861 enables 


1864. | Mining, Mineralogy, and Metallurgy. 337 


us to compile a list of persons who were then connected with our 
mining operations. From this it appears that 1,012,997 persons are 
engaged in the great order of workers in minerals. Of these 
248,284 are connected with coal pits; 32,041 are tin or copper 
miners, 18,552 are lead miners, 20,626 iron miners, 7,502 are 
indefinitely described as miners, 2,502 are described as secretaries 
and servants of mining companies. 

Women are still employed at coal works, chiefly at the pit’s 
mouth, their number being 3,768. We learn also that 142,170 males 
are employed on stone and slate quarries and in clay works; and 
2,120 in the salt works of the kingdom. The workers in the metals 
we exclude from our notice, since these are too extensive, and they are 
not, in all cases, sufficiently defined. 

With this large number of people employed, and producing, as 
they do annually, mineral wealth to the value of 30,000,0001, sterling, 
it is astonishing that no effective system of education has taken root 
in this country, which can be regarded as possessing the requisites of 
mining schools. There must be some strange prejudices lurking in 
the popular mind, or this state of things would cease to be. 


The English language is poor in technological literature of any 
kind, and poorest of all in its literature relating to mines, minerals, 
and metallurgy. This arises from the circumstance that we are a 
working, and not a writing, people. There are but two weekly 
journals of any note devoted to mining, these are ‘The Mining 
Journal,’ and ‘ The Colliery Guardian, and there is one small monthly 
magazine, ‘The Mining and Smelting Magazine.’ These are the only 
representatives of our very important industries. If anyone inquires 
for a work on British Mining, we are compelled to confess that there 
is no such book in the English language. 

In the German and the French languages there are many periodi- 
cals devoted to mines and metallurgy, and to these we must be 
indebted for much of our information. The best papers indeed, on 
several metalliferous mining processes, as carried forward in this 
country, are those of M. Moisenet, which were published in the 
‘Annales des Mines.’* Many valuable papers on our mines and 
mining machinery, and many of the highest character on the manu- 
facture of iron, are to be found in the ‘Revue Universelle des 
Mines, &e.t It is not a pleasant thing to acknowledge our poverty, 
but it is satisfactory to know that our several industries are of 
sufficient importance to demand the attention of such journalists as 
those who conduct the two works which we have named. In the 
‘Revue Universelle’ occurs an admirable paper by M. 8. Jordan, on 
the mines and metallurgical industries of France. From this we 
learn that the consumption of coal in France amounts to 15,800,000 
tons, while the production is only 9,400,000 tons, yet this is an 


* ¢ Anneles des Mines; ou Recueil de Mémoires sur l'Exploitation des Mines, 
et sur les Sciences et les Arts qui s’y rapportent.’ Paris: Dunod 

+ ‘Revue Universelle des Mines, de la Métallurgie, des Travaux publics, des 
Sciences et des Arts appliqués & l Industrie.’ Sous la Direction de M. Ch. De 
Cuyper. Paris et Lictge: Noblet et Baudry. 


338 Chronicles of Science. [ April, 


increase of 4,500,000 tons in the last ten years. The production of 
pig-iron in 1862 was 1,053,000 tons, which was double the quantity 
made in France six years previously. Our space will not allow of 
our quoting from the papers by A. Burat, E. Bede, and others on the 
special subjects which belong to this division of our Chronicle. We 
cannot, however, refrain from directing our mining engineers to a 
“Note sur quelques perfectionnements introduits dans lexploitation 
des Mines,” par Jules Havrez, which appears in the August part of 
the ‘Revue Universelle. It appears to us to offer many valuable 
suggestions, by which they might profit. The ‘ Etudes sur lAcier,” 
by M. de Cizancout, in the ‘ Annales des Mines,’ is a communication 
deserving the attention of our metallurgists. Professor Rivot has an 
instructive memoir on the ‘ Veins of Argentiferous Galena’ of Vialas 
(Lozére). To our miners this paper should be a model, upon which 
they might build a record of their own experiences. 


In the report recently published of the progress of the geological 
survey of Canada, under the direction of Sir William Logan, there 
is much matter of especial mineralogical interest. The chapters 
devoted to the consideration of ‘mineral species” may be consulted 
with advantage. They make us acquainted with several modified 
conditions of known minerals, and with a few which appear to be new 
varieties. Amongst the metallic minerals which have been discovered 
in such quantities as to give them a commercial value we find 
nickel and cobalt, chromic iron, iron ores in considerable variety, 
copper, lead, silver, and gold. The magnetic oxide of iron has been 
found in great abundance, this valuable mineral giving 72:4 parts of 
iron, and 27-6 parts of oxygen. A satisfactory description of the lead 
and copper mines of Canada is given by the Geological Surveyors. It 
would, however, have been interesting and important if the present rate 
of production had been ascertained. As Canada is destined to become 
a great mineral-producing country, the progress of its economic geology 
would have formed a very appropriate addendum to the report on its 
scientific geology.* 

Gold occurs in this colony, both in veins and in the drift. Some 
idea of the value of the auriferous deposits may be formed from the 
following quotation :— “It has been shown that the washing of the 
ground over an area of one acre, and with an average depth of two feet, 
equal to 87,120 cubic feet, gave in round numbers about 5,000 penny- 
weights of gold, or 1,88, grains to the cubic foot, which is equal to 
1? grain of gold to the bushel.” Several other minerals useful in the 
arts and manufactures are succinctly noticed, and the occurrence of 
plumbago especially described, this mineral occurring in a state of 
considerable purity. 

A very interesting description of the production of the bitumens, 
especially of the petroleum of Gaspé, is, at the present time, important. 

* «Geological Survey of Canada. Report of Progress from its Commencement 
to 1863, illustrated by 498 Woodcuts in the Text, and accompanied by an Atlas 
of Maps and Sections.’ Officers of the Survey—Sir William Logan, Alexander 
reds T.Sterry Hunt, and E. Billings. Montreal: Dawson Brothers. London: 

alliere. 


1864. | Mining, Mineralogy, and Metallurgy. _ 3839 


The wells of this district are chiefly in an area of about four square 
miles in the first three ranges of Enniskillen, When these wells have 
been opened, the petroleum has risen to the surface of the earth, con- 
stituting what are called “flowing wells.” One of these, which was 
sunk to a depth of about 200 feet, is said to have yielded, when first 
opened, not less than 2,000 barrels in twenty-four hours. The 
Enniskillen petroleum wells have produced as follows from the time 
of their opening :— 


Barrels. 

Previous to July 31, 1861 : : 5,529 
Half-year ending January 31, 1862 ; 6,246 
Do. do. July 31, 1862 E : 25,264 
Do. do. January 31, 1863 ‘ 57,550 


For the month of February 1863. C 8,874 


Number of barrels of 40 gallonseach . 103,463 
Giving a total yield of 4,138,520 gallons. 


Other districts are named from which petroleum can be obtained, 
although as yet the quantities in which it is likely to be produced are 
uncertain, as no sufficient exploration has been made. 

This Report, extending to 980 pages, is a valuable contribution to 
our scientifie lterature. 


M. Damour has communicated a paper to the Académie des Sciences 
on the ‘“‘ Density of Zircons.” He has given a long list of these pre- 
cious stones which he has examined. We select the results obtained 
in a few instances only, as showing the variation of density to which 
they are subject :— 


The Zircon of Ceylon—green colour . 4°043 
Do. — of India—blue tint : : 4°596 
Do. of Brevig—brown . : : 4-613 
Do. ofthe Ural—yellow brown . 4-669 


The indices of refraction are shown to vary in these minerals with 
their density.* 

A meteorolite found near Louvain, in Belgium, has been examined 
by M. Pisani, and found to contain— 


Nickelliferous iron, with tin and traces of phosphorus 8°67 


Pyrites . ; 4 ‘ ‘ ; : A 6°06 
Chromate of iron . : ‘ : 5 ; 0°71 
Silicates : : : ‘ ; ; ‘ suis 

99°72 


A full account of this stone was communicated to the Académie Royale 
de Belgique, and will be found in their Transactions. The Académie 
des Sciences of Vienna has also been occupied with the consideration of 
meteoric masses. M. Haidinger described the occurrence of meteoric 
iron found at Tucson, in the territory of Avezana, United States; and 
read a communication on a meteorolite observed at Vienna on the 10th 


* ¢T Institut : Journal Universel des Sciences,’ January 20, 1864. 


340 Chronicles of Science. [ April, 


of August.* M. Gustav Rose has communicated to the Academy of 
Berlin notices of six aérolites.ft 

M. Henry Sainte-Claire Deville brought under the notice of the 
Academy of Sciences a new mineral found by M. Breithaupt in Green- 
land, and to which he has given the name of Carphosiderite.{ This 
mineral is very rare, and it was supposed by E. Harkort to be a sub- 
phosphate of the hydrate of iron ; but Deville says :—“ After the study 
which I have made of carphosiderite, I am able to say that it is a sub- 
sulphate of the peroxyde of hydrate of iron mixed with sand and a little 
gypsum.” 

An interesting paper has reached us on “ The Gems of Australia,” 
read before the Royal Society of Victoria, by Dr. Bleasdale. From 
this we learn that the following gems have been found in our important 
colony :§—Diamonds, sapphires, ruby, topazes, beryls, garnets, opals, 
amethysts, and jaspers. The ruby, of which one only has been found, 
alone requires notice. It was found in Queensland, “and cut in Mel- 
bourne by Mr. Spink, and turned out to be a star ruby, of good size 
and great beauty. This stone is, I think, new. It belongs to the 
Asterias, but instead of having a floating star of six rays of white light, 
it has a fixed star of six black rays in a deep blue ground.” 

Dr. Bleasdale offers some very sensible suggestions on the importance 
of instructing the gold miners in a knowledge of precious stones, and 
of forming a good collection of them in the local museums. 


We conclude our chronicle of mineralogy by drawing attention to 
a machine recently patented (of which a working model is exhibited 
in Liverpool), for the reduction of “ charcoal and other friable sub- 
stances to fine or impalpable powder, particularly applicable to the 
manufacture of a substitute for lampblack.” The apparatus is of the 
simplest kind, consisting in the main of cylindrical vessels, into which 
the material to be reduced is placed along with a great number of small 
balls or spheres of iron, glass, stone, &¢., to which rotary motion is 
then imparted at any speed required. 

The inventor claims for his machine the power to reduce a great 
variety of substances to an impalpable powder, as fine as lampblack ; 
and amongst those named in the specification of patent are, colouring 
earths, barytes, marble, bloodstone, litharge, emery, gums, pepper, &e. 

The invention is a Swedish one, and is in charge of Mr. Lee, 
16, Leeds Street, Liverpool, who exhibits the working model, 


Although the well-determined processes of metallurgy leave us 
nothing in the way of progress to record, our metal manufactures 
appear to advance with great rapidity. Our attention has been directed 
to a new process for drawing steel tubes, which is now exciting consi- 
derable interest. The following description, which is most exact, we 
borrow from ‘ The 'Times’ newspaper :— 

* See ‘ L'Institut,’ February 17, 1864. 
+ See ‘ Les Mondes,’ February 11, 1864. 
{ Breithaupt in Schweiger’s Journal, Bd. L. 8. 314. 


§ See also Dicker’s ‘Mining Record and Guide to the Gold Mines of Victoria,’ 
December 24, 1863. 


1864. | Mining, Mineralogy, and Metallurgy. 341 


‘Steel tubes are one of the difficult problems of our hardware manu- 
facture. ‘They are very costly to produce, and very unequal in their 
tenacity when they are turned out, the weld, when the tube is joined down 
the middle, always proving its weakest and almost its unsafe part. Steel 
wires, however, of any thickness or of any fineness, are drawn every day, 
and by a very simple development of the same process a machine has been 
invented by which steel tubes of any thickness or internal diameter can be 
produced with the same certainty. In a few words, it may be said that the 
new method consists of substituting the slow, equal, but irresistible force 
of hydraulic pressure for the ordinarily rapid but somewhat uncertain 
steam power of the wire-drawer’s bench. The whole machinery consists 
of a hydraulic press, with double cylinders placed vis-d-vis with a single 
piston, which as it leaves one cylinder enters the other, and which, at its 
junction between the two, carries a powerful collar or flange of iron. To 
this flange the steel tube to be drawn out is secured-in a die or gauge of 
the requisite shape, while down inside the tube itself passes a steel rod, 
which fits into the circle of the die or gauge, just allowing the requisite 
aperture round its circumference to regulate the size of the tube drawn 
over it. Thus, when once the machine is set in motion by its pump, the 
tube, held by its outer collar, is slowly drawn over the inner rod, which, 
according to its thickness, reduces the tube by pressure against the outer 
die to any fineness, and therefore to any length that may be required. 
Several tubes were thus drawn yesterday in the presence of a number of 
engineers and scientific gentlemen at Mr. Almond’s works, Willow Walk, 
Bermondsey ; and the results, both as to the mechanical trueness of the 
tube and its perfect homogeneousness throughout, were in the very highest 
degree satisfactory. Nor is it circular tubes only that can be drawn by 
this process. By altering the shape of the outer die and inner rod to 
square, triangular, or octagon, the same form of tube is produced with 
equal certainty and equal strength, though in order to avoid distressing the 
metal it is only reduced 4, of an inch at each passage through the machine. 
The movement is so slow that the tube comes out almost cold, yet burnished 
like the finest steel inside and out. The great pressure, however, to which 
it is subjected has a tendency to harden the metal, so that when many 
reductions of size are necessary, it has to undergo annealing to keep it at 
the required toughness. After being drawn to whatever shape or length 
is required, the finished tube can be tempered up to any degree of hard- 
ness, or annealed down to its strongest stage of toughness as may be 
wanted. The whole process is neither an invention nor a discovery, but 
simply a most valuable development of our present means of manufacture.” 


We understand that there are scarcely any limits to the sizes of which 
the tubes can be drawn. Within all the ordinary requirements of our 
engineers, drawn-steel tubes can now be supplied. 


VOL. I. 2A 


342 Chronicles of Science. [ April, 


Vis OPRDICS: 


Sinor the beautiful researches of Faraday on gold-leaf, the relation of 
metals to light has scarcely met with the attention which so important 
a subject deserves. M. G. Quincke has recently published* an elabo- 
rate investigation on the optical properties of metals. We have not 
space even for an analysis of this long paper, but we will mention a 
few of the most important results at which he has arrived. Plates of 
gold, silver, and platinum were employed, so thin as to be transparent, 
and these were examined in the same way as other transparent bodies. 
When light falls upon a thick plate of metal it penetrates to a depth 
which is about as great as the length of an undulation, the so-called 
metallic lustre being produced by the conjoint action of the exteriorly 
and interiorly reflected or dispersed light. The velocity of light through 
metals is one of the subjects studied by the author, and he has obtained, 
in the course of this investigation, the remarkable result that light travels 
faster through gold and silver than through a vacuum. But Faraday 
has shown that silver and gold films occur in different modifications, 
and M. Quincke finds that gold and silver metallic plates, through 
which light passes with a greater velocity than through air, may 
become spontaneously altered by simple standing, so as to transmit 
light with less velocity than it is transmitted by air. In the case of 
platinum it was always found that the light passed through with 
less velocity than through air. The ordinary polished silver and gold 
possess the same character as that modification of these metals which 
transmits light with the greater velocity. Their refracting indices are 
therefore less than unity. 


The second part of Kirchhoff’s researches on the solar spectrum 
and the spectra of the chemical elements, translated by H. G. Roscoe, 
F.R.S.,f has just been published. It completes the Professor’s survey 
of the solar spectrum, and contains two plates, one extending from A 
to D, and the other beginning at the point where the second plate in 
the former publication ended, and extending as far as G. The actual ob- 
servations have been taken by M. K. Hofmann, a pupil of Professor 
Kirchhoff’s, his own eyesight having been too much injured by his 
previous observations to allow him to continue the investigation. The 
new metals examined consist of potassium, rubidium, lithium, cerium, 
lanthanum, didymium, platinum, palladium, and an alloy of iridium and 
ruthenium. These additional observations have not yielded any new 
information respecting the constituents of the solar atmosphere ; they 
have, however, confirmed the results of the previous examination. 
Potassium, which was formerly considered to give lines identical with 
some in the solar spectrum, now appears to be absent from that lumi- 
nary; a few coincidences have also been observed in the spectra of 
strontium and cadmium, but their number is too small to warrant the 
conclusion that these metals are present in the sun’s atmosphere. 


* «Pogeendorff's Annalen,’ vol. exix. part 3. 
+ Macmillan and Co, 


164. | Optics. 343 


The plates are lithographed in ink of different tints, and form as 

TOE ; are: , 
perfect a representation of the spectrum lines as it seems possible to 
obtain. 


M. Van der Willigen has communicated * the results of some deter- 
minations of the indices of refraction of twelve rays of the solar 
spectrum for distilled water. Hvery precaution has been taken to 
secure accuracy, and the readings have been taken to one second, We 
give the results for the eight Fraunhofer rays :-— 


GUN ae teed 4) olan wet MB Z89O 
Bie eee Re hea 2° A I88048 
PTA Fes Pre of feet eB BRIT 
D : eet ee Bo o0 et 
ee to ah eae eee ho LOO AL 
ee eve ett ese ©. 4 le SoT 20 
Gee ee ae 0's” TE OA065 
He 5 hee OA OY a Me te SE SESEC 


A very interesting experiment in spectrum analysis has been de- 
scribed by M. Louis Grandeau.t During a stormy night he arranged 
a spectroscope at his window, so that the lightning could illuminate one- 
half of the slit, whilst one of Geissler’s nitrogen vacuum tubes was send- 
ing its light in through the other half of the slit. A small quantity of 
vapour of water which remained in the nitrogen tube at the time it was 
prepared was sufficient to produce the characteristic ray of hydrogen 
superposed on the nitrogen rays. M. Grandeau was able for an hour, at 
intervals of about five minutes, to observe the spectrum of the light- 
ning, the general appearance of which at first sight recalled that of 
the electric spark; but on closer observation he soon noticed in the 
spectrum of almost every flash the coincidence of a certain number of 
the rays of its spectrum with those of the spectra of nitrogen and 
hydrogen. This is easily understood when we remember that am- 
monia and nitric acid are produced under the influence of the electric 
discharge. 


The solar radiation has long been supposed to exercise a marked 
action upon all bodies exposed to its influence. The difference 
observed between plants which have grown exposed to its full power, 
and others which have received but a limited share of its action, is 
generally very great. M. Bourgeois has lately made some observa- 
tions on meadow grass, part of which was fully exposed to sunshine, 
whilst the other part was grown in a shady spot. After it had 
been converted into hay, that portion which had had the full benefit of 
the sun was greedily eaten by some horses, whilst they refused to 
touch that which had been grown in the shade. Upon subjecting the 
two kinds to distillation by steam the sunned portion was found to be 
much richer in odoriferous principle than the other. These experi- 
ments show that other evils besides actual paucity of crop spring from 
a dull cloudy summer and autumn, whilst sunshine, besides increasing 


* «Comptes Rendus de l’Académie des Pays Bas.’ 
t ‘Practical Instructions in Spectrum Analysis.’ Paris: Mallet Pachelier. 
2a2 


344 Chronicles of Science. | April, 


the actual yield per acre, causes it to grow of a much better quality. 
There is no doubt that what is here shown to be the case with grass 
holds good equally with cereal and other crops. 


A lifetime might be spent in investigating the mysteries hidden in 
a bee-hive, and still half of the secrets would be undiscovered. The 
formation of the cell has long been a celebrated problem for the 
mathematician, whilst the changes which the honey undergoes offers 
at least an equal interest to the chemist. Everyone knows what honey 
is like when fresh from the comb. It is a clear yellow syrup, without 
a trace of solid sugar in it. Upon standing, however, it gradually 
assumes a crystalline appearance—it candies, as the saying is—and 
ultimately becomes a solid mass of sugar. * 

It has not been suspected that this change was due to a photographie 
action—that the same agent which alters the molecular arrangement 
of the iodide of silver on the excited collodion plate, and determines 
the formations of camphor and iodine crystals in a bottle, also causes 
the syrupy honey to assume a crystalline form. This, however, is the 
case. M. Scheibler* has enclosed honey in stoppered flasks, some of 
which he has kept in perfect darkness, whilst others have been exposed 
to the light. The invariable result has been that the sunned portion 
rapidly crystallizes, whilst that kept in the dark has remained perfectly 
liquid. We now see why bees are so careful to work in perfect dark- 
ness, and why they are so careful to obscure the glass windows which 
are sometimes placed in their hives. The existence of their young 
depends on the liquidity of the saccharine food presented to them, and 
if light were allowed access to this the syrup would gradually acquire a 
more or less solid consistency ; it would seal up the cells, and in all 
probability prove fatal to the inmates of the hive. 


The Magnesium Light is gradually attracting more and more at- 
tention, as there appears to be a probability of the metal being ob- 
tained at a reasonable price. Ata recent meeting of the Manchester 
Literary and Philosophical Society, Professor Roscoe exhibited the 
light emitted by burning a portion of a fine specimen of pure mag- 
nesium wire, one inch in diameter. In a memoir on the subject by 
Professors Bunsen and Roscoe, they show that a burning magnesium 
wire 0°279 inch thick evolves as much light as 74 stearine candles, 
5 to the pound, In one minute about -12 grammes of magnesium 
would be burnt, and in 10 hours about 72 grammes or a little over 2 
ounces. In order to produce the same light with the candles for 10 
hours, there would have to be burnt about 20 lb. of stearine, so that could 
magnesium wire be produced at a few shillings per ounce our houses 
might at once be illuminated by this easily managed and intensely 
powerful light. 


A good photometric process, easy of application, and tolerably ac- 
curate in its results, is, and perhaps will long remain, a desideratum. 
One of the best which has come under our notice has just been devised 
by M. Z. Roussin ; he dissolves equal parts of dry perchloride of iron 


* «Journ. de Pharm. et de Chimie,’ 1863. 


1864. | Optics. 345 


and nitroprusside of sodium in ten times their weight of water, and in 
this manner forms a liquid which is highly sensitive to light, deposing 
Prussian blue as a precipitate under the influence of luminous action, 
whilst it remains quite clear in darkness. He therefore prepares this 
liquid in obscurity, and takes its specific gravity. After exposure to 
the light he filters off the precipitated Prussian blue, and again takes 
the specific gravity of the clear liquid. It will of course have dimin- 
ished in density by the amount of solid matter separated, and the 
difference between its former and latter specific gravity will represent 
the chemical action, the numbers obtained varying directly with the 
intensity of the light. 


The Electric Light appears to have permanently taken its place 
amongst theatrical properties. In Paris, where more attention is 
paid to scenic effects than in this country, the celebrated optician 
Duboscq has devised some marvellous imitations both of lightning and 
of the rainbow. 'The former is obtained by a concave mirror, in the 
focus of which are the two carbon poles of a powerful battery nearly 
in contact, and so adjusted that when the mirror is rapidly moved in the 
hand the poles are caused to touch for a brief interval, and flash a daz- 
zling beam of light across the stage. The zigzag efiect of lightning, and 
its peculiar blue colour, are very perfectly imitated by this means. But 
more wonderful than this is therainbow. Inthe representation of the 
opera of Moise it is requisite in the first act to introduce a rainbow, 
and this has hitherto been effected either by painting or by projecting 
the image on the scene from a magic lantern by means of a coloured 
slide. In the latter case the stage had to be darkened in order to allow 
the rainbow to be seen, and this of course destroyed the illusion. M. 
Duboscq, by a happy modification of his spectrum apparatus, and by 
employing a curved instead of astraight sht, and a small-angled prism, 
has succeeded in projecting the very brilliant electric spectrum on the 
scene, with the proper curvature and the identical colours of the real 
rainbow, and this of such a vividness that it is plainly visible in the 
full light of the stage. In these days of sensation-spectacles we feel 
confident that a real rainbow on the stage would attract quite as crowded 
houses as a “ tremendous header,” and it is somewhat surprising that 
no manager thought of introducing so novel an effect last Christmas. 


If our Continental neighbours have not yet supplied us with all 
their electric effects, they have not hesitated to make full use of the 
Dirksian ghost, which has so long reigned unrivalled at the Polytechnic 
under the energetic management of the director, Mr. Pepper. In the 
last act of the ‘ Seeret de Miss Aurore, as performed at the Theatre 
Impérial du Chatelet, the ghost of Conyers is made to confront his 
assassin, Softy, with incorporeal bank-notes in his hand, and poetic jus- 
tice is supposed to be avenged by the horror which seizes the murderer 
when he finds himself unable to grasp them. But the head-quarters of the 
ghostly illusion are at the Séances of M.Robin, perhaps the most scientific 
of modern followers of Cagliostro. In availing himself of the now well- 
known machinery necessary to produce the ghost illusion, he combines 
the experience of a wizard with the appliances of a man of science, and 


346 Chronicles of Science. | April 


succeeds in producing some of the most startling illusions of the day. 
He does not attempt to instruct his audience, but candidly tells them 
that he is going to employ the whole of his complicated electrical, 
voltaic, and optical machinery to deceive their eyes and to astonish 
them. No one can say that he does not succeed in both these attempts. 
His scene of “the violin of Paganini,” and the one in which he repre- 
sents himself as struggling in the embrace of death, are perhaps the 
most real illusions which have ever been brought before the public. 


VII. HEAT. 


Tue determination of the mechanical equivalent of heat has been one 
of the great triumphs of modern times. The numerical relations have 
been obtained by many experimenters, but the methods have been 
liable to very great errors of manipulation. One of the most accurate 
series of determinations has just been completed by MM. Tresca and 
Laboulaye.* The principle upon which they work is to allow a given 
volume of air to expand, and then to measure the amount of heat which 
it has absorbed during the operation. Into a reservoir holding 3°28 
cubic metres, air is forced until it has a pressure of three atmospheres. 
A mercury gauge is connected with the receiver, and a float on the 
upper portion of the mercury registers mechanically its exact height 
at any given moment. ‘This is effected by having connected with the 
float a needle-point pressing against a sheet of glass which is blackened 
with smoke, and carried horizontally forward by clockwork. It is 
evident, therefore, that the variations in height of the mercury column 
communicating a vertical movement to the needle, whilst the glass 
screen is carried forward horizontally, the resulting mark will be a 
diagonal varying in curvature with the variation of height of the mer- 
cury gauge. The exact height of the mercury column can, therefore, 
be ascertained at any desired moment. 

The reservoir being filled with pure dry air at a pressure of three 
atmospheres, and the mercury column being stationary, the needle- 
point registering a perfectly straight line on the screen, a stopcock is 
opened and air is allowed to rush out for a certain time, say five 
seconds; it is then closed. As soon as the air commences to rush out, 
and the gaseous mass suddenly expands, its pressure diminishes, and 
the needle-point consequently gives a downward oblique mark on the 
glass plate. But in expanding, the temperature of the gas sinks, and 
when the stopcock is closed the remaining gas in the reservoir has a 
lower temperature than the reservoir itself or the surrounding bodies, 
The mercury gauge, therefore, stands at a lower point than it other- 
wise would, had the temperature remained uniform. 

Upon closing the stopcock, the gas, absorbing heat from the sides 
of the vessel, gradually regains its original temperature, and the mer- 
cury gauge commences to raise the needle-point, registering an upward 
curve until the temperature is in equilibrium ; it then registers a straight 


* «Comptes Rendus de Académie des Sciences,’ February, 1864. 


1864. | Feat. 347 


line once more. Another observation is now taken, and this is 
repeated for an indefinite number of times; the mean result being 
capable of any degree of accuracy according to the number of observa- 
tions from which it is deduced. It will be seen that the reservoir and 
mercury gauge constitute a gigantic air thermometer, and the method 
of registration is capable of giving the most minute variations of tem- 
perature. The amount of work done by the sudden expansion of the 
gas has a fixed value in thermometric degrees, and the tracings on the 
glass plate hold all the data required to give the exact numerical 
relation between the two. We will not follow our authors into the 
details of their calculations, but will state from the results of their 
investigation, that the number 476 formerly used must be changed for 
that of 433, which is near that given by the labours of M. Seguin and 
Mr. Joule. From the method of operating, and the large scale upon 
which the work has been conducted, there is every probability of this 
number being very near the truth. 


In our last Chronicles of Science we gave a short notice of a new 
gas-furnace by Mr. G. Gore, of Birmingham, The same principle has 
since been applied upon a much larger magnitude, and furnaces on a 
commercial scale are now in use at the electro-plate manufactory of 
Messrs. Elkington, Birmingham, and elsewhere. These larger furnaces, 
as at present constructed, are capable of melting about 400 ounces of 
silver, copper, gold, German-silver, or if desirable, even cast-iron. The 
amount of coal-gas consumed varying from 800 to 400 cubic feet per 
hour. 

With a consumption of 360 cubic feet per hour, the following 
results have been obtained :—266 ounces of sterling silver were per- 
fectly melted within 25 minutes from the period of lighting the gas in 
the cold furnace, and the metal was sufficiently hot to cast for rolling in 
20 more minutes. A second quantity of 266 ounces of the same metal 
was then introduced and was perfectly melted in 11 minutes, with a 
consumption of 66 cubic feet of gas, value 2d., the price of gas being 
2s. 8d. per 1,000 feet; in a further period of 15 minutes the metal 
was sufficiently hot to cast for rolling. A quantity (116 ounces) of 
German-silver was then introduced and melted in 15 minutes, and, 
after 28 minutes’ longer heating, various highly-figured articles were 
cast from it in a most perfect manner. In a subsequent operation 460 
ounces of silver were melted in about the same time, and with an 
expenditure of scarcely more gas than was required to melt 266 ounces. 

The smaller sizes of this furnace are much used by dentists, 
jewellers, analytical chemists, assayers, enamellers, and others, in con- 
sequence of their readily fusing silver, gold, copper, glass, and even 
cast-iron, without the aid of a bellows or lofty chimney, by simply 
lighting the gas ; and the crucible and its contents being at all times 
protected from the air and yet perfectly accessible for examination, 
stirring, removal, &e. The burners of the larger-sized furnaces are 
formed of a series of plates of cast-iron, and may be readily removed 
from the furnace and placed to heat a retort, mufile, reverberatory 
chamber, or other apparatus, where intense heat is required; it is 


348 Chronicles of Science. | April, 


intended to apply them to heating steam-boilers and welding articles 
of wrought iron. 

The safety of these furnaces, their regularity and self-supplying 
action, and perfect freedom from dust and smoke, render them advan- 
tageous in certain processes, such as enamelling, annealing, &c., where 
cleanliness and unitormity of heat are required. Their high degree of 
heat without the aid of a blast results from the very rapid and perfect 
mixture of the air and gas, and the combustion being consequently 
effected and concentrated in a very small space. 


To provide for cases where gas is not available for the production 
of these high temperatures, and a more cleanly and manageable 
source of heat is required than that afforded by a coke furnace, 
Mr. C. Griffin,* has constructed an oil lamp for use with an 
artificial blast of air, which is not only as powerful in action as the 
best gas furnaces, but almost rivals them in convenience and economy. 
The fuel is the more volatile kind of mineral oil of the specific gravity 
‘750; every precaution is taken to prevent any danger of explosion 
by the sudden or accidental ignition of the vapour. The flame pro- 
duced in this furnace is as clear as that of an explosive mixture of air 
and coal gas, and it is perfectly free from smoke. No chimney is 
required. ‘The power of the furnace is very great: starting with a 
furnace quite cold it will melt one pound of cast-iron in 25 minutes, 
14 lb. in 30 minutes, 4 lbs. in 45 minutes, and 5 lbs. in 60 minutes ; 
the cost of the latter experiment being about 9d. for oil. In all cases 
where gas cannot be obtained as a fuel for such operations, this oil- 
lamp furnace cannot fail to prove of very great value. 


Oxygen, that fierce supporter of combustion at ordinary pressures, 
would have its energy increased to an inconceivable extent if used in 
a highly-condensed form. An observation of Dr. Frankland has 
shown that under this condition a solid mass of iron is almost as 
inflammable as phosphorus in the ordinary state of the atmosphere. 
During some experiments at the Royal Institution he was condensing 
oxygen gas into the strong iron receiver of a Natterer’s apparatus, and 
had got the pressure up to 25 atmospheres when the vessel burst with 
a loud explosion, sending a shower of brilliant sparks in every 
direction. Upon subsequent examination it was seen that the whole of 
the interior of the receiver and the solid steel plugs had been eaten 
away to the depth of an eighth of an inch, and was covered with a fused 
mass of oxide of iron. The heat evolved in the compression had 
evidently ignited the oil used to lubricate the piston; this immediately 
caused the combustion of the iron which, in the atmosphere of com- 
pressed oxygen, proceeded with great intensity ; there can be scarcely 
a doubt, the Professor considers, that had a union joint not given way, 
and thus furnished an outlet for the compressed gas, the latter would in 
a few seconds more have converted the receiver into a most formidable 
shell, the almost inevitable explosion of which would have scattered 
fragments of intensely-heated and molten iron in all directions. 

The observations of Professor Tyndall on the physical properties 


* ¢Chemical News,’ vol. ix. p. 3. 


1864. | Blectricity. 349 


of ice, and the interest excited by his remarkable book “ Heat as a 
Mode of Motion,” have caused physicists in other countries to direct 
their attention to this subject. Professor Reusch, of Tubingen, in a 
letter to Dr. Tyndall,* describes some observations which he has made 
on this body. A long narrow plate of clean ice was suspended by its 
two ends in loops of silk, whilst a third loop, hung from its centre, had 
a small weight attached to it. After the lapse of 20 or 80 minutes a 
bending was plainly seen, the ice comporting itself like a plastic body ; 
once indeed he was able to bend a thin lamella of ice between the fingers 
of both hands. In preparing these plates it was noticed that in sawing 
through ice, the saw after a time ceases to act, the space, between its 
teeth becoming filled with freshly-formed ice, so that it passed along 
almost without friction The saw, in fact, melts through the ice, the 
heat necessary for that being the equivalent of the work applied to the 
saw. In dividing plates of ice it is necessary to handle them like 
glass. If the convex blade of a knife be passed over a piece of ice 
with a certain pressure a sharp crack will result, and the plate may be 
broken in the direction of this crack, provided the temperature of 
the ice and of the air be below 0° C. Obviously the knife acts in this 
instance like a diamond, which depresses minute particles of glass, and 
through the wedge action of which a progressive linear cracking is pro- 
duced, which renders fracture possible. A mere scratch suffices neither 
for glass nor for ice. 


VIII. ELECTRICITY. 


A new insulating material has been recently imported by Sir W. 
Holmes from Demarara, which bids fair to be a formidable rival to 
gutta-percha. It is the dried juice of the bullet tree (sapota muller’) and 
is called balata ; it appears likely to be more valuable than India-rubber 
or gutta-percha by themselves, as it possesses much of the elasticity of 
the one and the ductility of the other, without the intractability of 
India-rubber, or the brittleness and friability of gutta-percha, whilst 
it requires a much higher temperature to melt or soften it. Since the 
Exhibition of 1862, Sir W. Holmes, who was the Commissioner repre- 
senting the colony of British Guiana, has been engaged in investiga- 
tions how to produce the material cheaply, and how to dry or coagulate 
it rapidly ; he has now succeeded so far as to warrant the importation 
of steam machinery to be applied for its extraction, and there appears 
to be every probability that balata will become an important article of 
commerce, supplying the great want of the day, a good insulating 
medium for telegraphic purposes. Messrs. Silver & Co. have already 
imported many tons of it, and Professor Wheatstone is now investiga- 
ting its electrical and insulating properties. Another substitute for 
- gutta-percha, the juice of the alstonia scholaris, a tree belonging to 
the natural order apocynca, has been forwarded from Ceylon by Mr, 
Ondaatjie ; it is stated to possess the same properties, and to be as 


* Philosophical Magazine,’ vol. xxvii, p. 192. 


350 Chronicles of Science. | April, 


workable as gutta-percha. It readily softens when plunged in boiling 
water, is soluble in turpentine and chloroform, receives and retains 
impressions permanently, and is adapted for seals to documents. 
These specimens are sent in response to premiums offered by the 
Society of Arts for the discovery of a substitute for gutta-percha. 


A curious fact has been mentioned by Mr. James Napier* in refer- 
ence to the dynamics of the galvanic battery, which is somewhat in 
opposition to the polar theory with mutual transfer of elements, advo- 
cated by Professor Williamson. Suppose a vessel divided by a porous 
diaphragm has dissolved in each division an equal quantity of sulphate 
of copper, and into each of the divisions is placed a plate of copper 
attached to the poles of the battery which completes the circuit; now, 
by the polar theory there should be a mutual transfer of the acid and 
copper between the two divisions, so that at any time, if the current of 
electricity were stopped, the solution in the two divisions would be the 
same as when the experiment began. But in reality this is not the 
case, the copper dissolved in the division attached to the zine end of 
the battery will be deposited as metal on the copper plate in that divi- 
sion, while the acid element will be transferred to the other division. 
But the copper in that other division will not pass through the dia- 
phragm in the opposite direction to the acid, so that ultimately the one 
division will have neither copper nor acid in solution, whilst the other 
division (that connected with the copper end of the battery) will have 
double the quantity of sulphate of copper in solution that it had at the 
commencement. 


The electrical properties of pyroxiline paper and gun cotton have 
long been known to be very great, but it has only lately been pointed 
out by Professors Johnstone and Silliman that these azotized species 
of cellulose are the most remarkable negative electrics yet observed ; 
upon friction with these, sulphur, hitherto the most highly negative 
electric known, becomes positive. 


We have to thank Mr. Nassau Jocelyn, of the British Legation, 
Turin, for drawing our attention to a novel voltaic arrangement devised 
by Professor Minotti, of that city, which, though essentially based upon 
Daniell’s principle, is said to be far more constant and powerful than 
any other arrangement of that rheomotor. It consists simply of a 
copper disc placed at the bottom of a glass vessel having a gutta-percha- 
covered wire soldered to its rim, which issues from the top of the 
vessel and forms the positive electrode. Over the copper is laid a 
layer of powdered sulphate of copper, and over this a stratum of coarse 
sand, or—what has been found to answer better—a stratum one inch 
in thickness of common glass beads, such as are used for working 
purses, and may be purchased at a cheap rate at the workshops. On 
this layer lies a solid cast-cylinder of zinc, from whence proceeds the 
negative pole of the element. On the cell being filled with common 
spring water, so as to cover the zinc, the battery begins to work, and will 
keep constant and uniform for seven or eight months. The intensity of 


* «Philosophical Magazine,’ vol. xxvii. p. 52. 
+ ‘Silliman’s Journal,’ January, 1864. 


1864. | Photography. 351 


the action may be judged by measurement with the galvanometer, which 
will be found in a cell where the copper and zine surfaces are about 3 
inches square each, to have its needle deflected to about 20°. This is 
in the case of the meter ordinarily employed by telegraphists. The 
power may be increased by approaching the elements of the cells nearer 
to one another, by placing the copper over the sulphate, and by reduc- 
ing the beads to half an inch. There is, however, danger in this case 
of the accumulating surface of copper on the copper plate, crystallizing 
in an upward direction, and ultimately shooting out a fibre which may 
touch the zinc plate above it, when of course the cell would cease to 
work. The first arrangement is the best, and it is the one which 
M. Bonelli has adopted in working his new telegraph. The above 
battery appears to be the simplest yet brought before the public, con- 
sisting as it does of easily procurable materials, and its action being 
only limited by the waste of zinc and evaporation of water. M. Bonelli 
uses 30 cells to work his five-wire telegraph for a long distance, so 
that 6 cells appear amply sufficient per wire. 


IX. PHOTOGRAPHY. 


TopipE of silver may be looked upon as the foundation of the present 
photographie art, and yet up to a very recent period, men of science 
have differed in their opinion as to whether this compound is photo- 
graphically sensitive per se or not. As late as January last, we find 
a foreign photograher, M. Gaudin,* publishing some experiments which 
tend to show that iodide of silver, when prepared by the direct com- 
bination of iodine and silver-leaf, is absolutely insensitive to light 
when tested under a negative, and that an hour’s exposure in the 
printing frame does not give rise to any impression whatever, either 
before or after the application of a developing agent. The iodide of 
silver used in these experiments was in the form of a yellow powder, 
rather unctuous to the touch, and was merely rubbed over the surface 
of a piece of paper with a tuft of cotton. Subsequent experiments 
were tried in which the iodide of silver, after being rubbed over the 
paper, was exposed to the vapours of nitric acid, hydrochloric acid, 
and ammonia: the last only gave signs of a picture, and that only 
after a very long exposure. These’ experiments tend to confirm what 
is generally stated in chemical works; but Mr. Spiller ¢ has since 
communicated some further results, tried with that care and ingenuity 
which are so well known to those who are familiar with the published 
researches of this chemist, which show conclusively that iodide of 
silver exists in two different modifications, one of which is insensitive, 
whilst the other is sensitive to the action of light. Reasoning upon 
the well-known change which takes place when iodide of mercury is 
heated—its scarlet colour changing to yellow—it occurred to him that 
a similar change might possibly be induced in the iodide of silver. This 


* «The Photographie News,’ vol. viii. p. 8. + Ibid. vol. viii. p. 15. 


352 Chronicles of Science. [ April, 


was confirmed by experiment, and by the application of heat alone 
the indifferent yellow iodide of silver becomes.so changed in its pro- 
perties, as afterwards to darken on exposure to sunshine much in the 
same way as the ordinary modification of bromide of silver. Very 
little apparent change is produced by the action of heat; at the most, 
the iodide can be said only to lose in a trifling degree the brilliancy 
of its yellow colour, verging a little towards grey. The lowest limit 
of temperature at which this change takes place is 350° Fahr.; and 
if the heat be augumented to 400° and upwards, the change is more 
rapidly effected. On increasing the heat, the iodide fuses to a dark- 
red fluid, which cools to a pale yellow semi-transparent mass, quickly 
affected by exposure to light. 


Photographers are gradually recognizing the truth of what Sir 
William Newton urged more than ten years ago, namely, that it is 
possible to have pictures too sharp, and that the most artistic por- 
traits were frequently those which were not absolutely in focus. One 
of our first writers on Art Photography has lately urged, in the ‘ British 
Journal of Photography,’ the beauty of effect arising from slight want of 
sharpness. What artists call “ hardness,” is generally that effect which 
photographers call “sharpness ;” and he maintains that far more pleasing 
portraits would be obtained were photographers to use their “long, 
long pencils of light much as artists use their drawing pencils,—that 
is to say, with a somewhat broad instead of an extremely sharp point.” 
Although to an ardent photographer such doctrines may savour of 
rank heresy, we honestly confess that we have seen far more pleasing 
portraits taken in accordance with this artistic theory than when they 
were focussed with microscopic accuracy. 


A writer in ‘La Lumicre’ proposes a novel lantern for evolving 
light sufficient for taking portraits at night. A furnace is constructed, 
fed with hard retort carbon, and supplied, not with air alone, but with 
a mixture of oxygen and air: the oxygen being evolved from a mix- 
ture of binoxide of manganese and chlorate of potash, contained in a 
cast iron bottle placed beneath the furnace. In a small furnace 
furnished with a good draught, and only supplied with air, a light 
was obtained equal to 100 candles, and the author thinks that if fed 
with oxygen, the light would be equivalent to 1,000 candles. We do 
not glean from his description that such an experiment has been 
actually made, and we are tolerably confident that the difficulties in 
its practical accomplishment would prove too great to supersede other 
sources of artificial light, which have been recently introduced. 


The Electric light has always been a favourite amongst advocates 
of night photography. At a recent meeting of the American Photo- 
graphic Society, Mr. J. A. Whipple, of Boston, exhibited some photo- 
eraphs of a fountain in Boston Common, taken at about ten o’clock in 
the evening, whilst illuminated with the electric light. The exposure 
was 90 seconds, and from a comparison of the effect produced when 
photographed in daylight, it was estimated that the intensity of the 
electric light as compared with that of weak sunlight, was in the pro- 


1864. | Photography. 353 


portion of 1 to 180, half-a-second only being necessary to produce a 
similar picture in the daytime. 

The electric light, hitherto without a rival, is likely to be equalled 
in brilliancy, and far surpassed in convenience and cheapness, by the 
magnesium light. In our chronicles of the progress of optical science, 
we have given an account of this truly wonderful light, and we have to 
add here some notes respecting its photographic value. At a late 
meeting of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester,* 
Professor Roscoe exhibited some prints of a portrait which Mr. 
Brothers and he had taken at 5 o’clock p.m., on the 22nd of February, 
by burning 15 grains of magnesium in the form of fine wire at a 
distance of about 8 feet from the sitter. The negative thus produced 
was stated by Mr. Brothers to be fully equal to any obtained by sun- 
light in the most favourable state of the atmosphere, and the distri- 
bution of light and shade was most agreeable, harshness of the shadows 
being completely avoided by slightly moving the wire whilst it was 
burning. The magnesium was worth about sixpence. Photographers 
are now eagerly asking for supphes of this metal, and if the wire can 
be got for anything like a reasonable price, there is no doubt that in 
this climate, at all events, this application of it is likely to inaugurate 
a new era in the photographic art. 


A very ingenious application of Professor Graham’s discoveries in 
the diffusion of liquids has been just made by Mr. Spiller. In washing 
photographie prints it has been noticed that the first portions of 
hyposulphite of soda are easily extracted, whilst the last portions are 
only removed from the paper with great difficulty. This is explained 
by the great diffusive power into plain water of a strong solution of 
hyposulphite of soda over a weak one. After the first portions of 
hyposulphite have been removed from the print, Mr. Spillert proposes 
to transfer them into a cold saline liquor made by dissolving a pound 
of salt in half-a-gallon of water; they are left there for fifteen or 
twenty minutes, when it is found that the salt brine has thoroughly 
penetrated the pores of the paper, and expelled the greater part of the 
remaining hyposulphite. The liquid is then poured away, and the 
prints are washed in common water. The principle of diffusion now 
comes into play again, and the salt brine rapidly soaks out of the 
paper, bringing with it the last traces of hyposulphite; by finally 
washing in the ordinary manner, an unusual degree of purity is 
attained, the presence of hyposulphite in the finished proof being 
rendered impossible. This is one of the most beautiful applications 
of a recondite scientific principle which we have ever seen. 


‘The detection of hyposulphite of soda in the finished proof, or in 
the last washings, is a matter of some importance. Mr. E. J. Reynolds 
has communicated to the ‘ British Journal of Photography,’ a series of 
experiments on the various methods at present in use. The first con- 
sists in reducing the hyposulphite to the state of sulphide by boiling 


* «Proceedings of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester,’ 


No. 13, p. 241. 
+ ‘The Photographic News,’ vol. viii. p. 113. 


354 Chronicles of Science. ¥ [Apri], 


first with acid, then with alkali, and then adding nitro-prusside of 
sodium ; this communicates a beautiful violet colour. The next con- 
sists in adding sesquichloride of iron, which at once gives a purple 
red tint if hyposulphite be present. The third test consists in adding 
iodine and starch, the blue colour of which is immediately discharged 
on the addition of a few drops of a solution containing a minute trace 
of hyposulphite. This reaction is very delicate, as it is capable of 
detecting one grain of the salt dissolved in 2} gallons of water. The 
fourth mode of detecting hyposulphite is based on the property which 
it has of reducing sesquichloride of iron to the protochloride. The 
suspected liquid is boiled in a small flask, with four or five drops of 
the iron solution, and a drop of red prussiate of potash is added. If 
hyposulphite be present, a blue precipitate or coloration is produced. 
This will detect one grain of the salt in four gallons of water. The 
fifth and most delicate test of all is obtained by introducing a few drops 
of hydrochloric acid, and a fragment of zinc into the suspected liquid, 
and testing the evolved gas for sulphuretted hydrogen by means of 
lead paper. This is so sensitive that it will detect one grain of hypo- 
sulphite in rather more than seven gallons of water. For the purpose 
of detecting any hyposulphite in the finished picture, the plan adopted 
by Mr. Spiller is the most convenient; he moistens the white parts 
with a little protonitrate of mercury, when the presence of even a trace 
of hyposulphite is shown by the production of a brown or black stain. 


Few things are falsified more than the chloride of gold and the 
aurochloride of sodium used by photographers for toning their prints. 
The usual adulterant is common salt, which is sometimes added in ~ 
such quantity that a bottle professing to hold seven grains of gold 
sometimes contains only a little over two. The editor of the ‘ Photo- 
graphic News’ has published a very simple mode of detecting this 
adulteration. Both the chloride of gold and aurochloride of sodium 
are soluble in alcohol, whilst chloride of sodium is insoluble in that 
liquid. The photographer has, therefore, only to stir up the con- 
tents of a fifteen-grain tube with alcohol, and the amount of white. 
crystalline residue will show how much common salt has been sold to 
him at the price of gold. 


M. Quaglio, an engineer of Vienna, has investigated the properties 
of oleate of silver, or silver soap, in photolithography. After some pre- 
liminary preparation, the lithographic stone is covered, with the aid of 
a flannel rubber, with the silver soap, and it is then exposed under a 
negative to the sun. The portions unacted upon are then dissolved 
out with naphtha, and the stone is ready to be gummed and inked 
in in the ordinary way. This process is extremely easy and appears 
likely to be successful. The impression is obtamed direct from a 
negative, a transparent positive not being required, as in some other 
processes. 

The substitution of a less expensive metal for silver has been the 
dream of photographers for many a year. M. Liesegang describes, in 
the ‘ Moniteur de la Photographie,’ a process devised by M. Obernester, 
of Munich, which seems to be very successful. The paper is first wasked 


1864. | Zoology and Physiology. 355 


with a mixed solution of sesquichloride of iron and chloride of copper. 
The paper after drying is ready to be exposed in the printing frame ; 
its sensitiveness is one-third greater than that of albuminized paper. 
Very little is seen on removing it from the printing frame, but it is par- 
tially developed by floating it on a solution containing sulphocyanide of 
potassium and a little sulphuric acid. The effect of this is to pre- 
cipitate white subsulphocyanide of copper, upon those parts of the 
paper upon which the light has acted. After washing for an hour or 
two, the picture can be obtained of different colours by dipping it into 
appropriate solutions. Thus, red prussiate of potash gives them an 
intense red hue; by acting on this with an acid solution of iron they 
become violet red, violet blue and black, and after coating them with 
albumen, it is impossible to discover any difference between them and 
the best silver proofs upon albuminized paper. 


X. ZOOLOGY AND PHYSIOLOGY. 


Tue French Academy, whose annual meeting took place at the close 
of the year, occupied itself with a tribute to the distinguished and 
lately deceased zoologist, André Dumeril, and then proceeded to an- 
nounce the prizes which it proposed to offer for the coming year, by 
means of which it may be hoped new impulse may be given to the 
‘various departments of science. The great Physical Science Prize of 
3,000 francs has been postponed from 1859 to 1st of September 1864 ; 
the subject is “‘ The Comparative Anatomy of the Nervous System of 
Fishes.” Another prize of the same value has been postponed from 
1861 to December 5lst 1865; the subject is, ‘‘The Production of 
Hybrid Animals by means of Artificial Fecundation.” A third prize 
of 3,000 franes is offered for the osteographical work which will best 
contribute to the advancement of French paleontology, to be sent in by 
Ist of November 1865. The Cuvier prize, to be awarded in 1866, 
will be given to the most remarkable work upon the Animal Kingdom, 
or upon Geology. ‘This prize is awarded every three years,—the 
funds arising from unemployed subscriptions to the statue of Cuvier ; 
it has just been awarded to Sir R. Murchison for his works upon the 
Paleozoic formations. Another Cuvier prize is also announced to be 
given to the author of the most remarkable work upon the Animal 
Kingdom, or on Geology, which shall appear between the 1st January 
1863 and the 3lst December 1865. The prize to consist of a gold 
medal, value 1,500 francs. Another prize, termed the Godard prize, 
of 1,000 franes, is given annually to the best paper on a physiological 
subject, which is this year left open. 

Although some of these prizes, owing to the extended character of 
the researches required, have been necessarily postponed from year to 
year, it is not therefore to be supposed that there are no competitors, 
or that this stimulus is offered in vain. Other prizes of a similar 
character were awarded at the meeting of the Academy, as the first 


356 Chronicles of Science. | April, 


prize in Experimental Physiology, which was given to M. Moreau, for 
a work “On the Air-bladder of Fishes,” while a second was given to 
MM. Philippeaux and Vulpian, for some “ Researches on the Reunion, 
end to end, of Nervous Sensitive Fibres with Nervous Motor Fibres.” 
The second Bourdin prize was unanimously awarded to M. Lacaze 
Duthiers, for his anatomical and physiological history of coral, and 
other zoophytes. 


The practice of vivisection in Paris, which has received so much 
public notice of late, has recently been brought before the French 
Institute. It will be recollected that a visit was made to the Veteri- 
nary College at Alfort, by delegates from the English Society for the 
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and the adhesion of the Director of 
that Institution, so notorious for its torturing practices, was secured. 
The Emperor also promised the deputation that he would institute a 
scientific commission into the subject, and that promise he has kept, 
though the result appears not to have been unmixed good. M. Robin, 
formerly an opponent, has become a violent partisan of the practice of 
vivisection. In anticipation of the struggle about to take place 
between the advocates of the two systems, a regular correspondence 
has been opened between the different Academies of Europe, and the 
opinions of scientific men of all countries are eagerly collected. The 
first communication, recently made to the Institute, was from Pro- 
fessor Lusana, of Pisa, who described the processes by which he had 
succeeded in extracting the pneumo-gastric nerve from dogs and rab- 
bits, after numerous attempts. The result of this frightful operation 
appears to be that the victim becomes insensible to the strongest 
poisons, and that even strychnine may be introduced into the stomach 
with impunity. But however curious and interesting this fact may be 
to the physiologist, we cannot see that any very practical results may 
be drawn from it ; and we trust that the more humane physiologists 
who engage in the controversy, may not be dazzled by the spurious 
brilliancy of such a discovery into the reprehensible practice of sys- 
tematic torture of dumb animals. 


The period of gestation of certain animals of the class of Rumi- 
nants, which habitually breed in the Zoological Society's menagerie, 
has been ascertained with tolerable exactness by Dr. Sclater, the 
Secretary. Of course the period is slightly variable, but the times given 
in the following list are, on the average, very faithfully adhered to. 

Fam. Cervide.—The following have a period of eight months: 
Wapiti Deer (Cervus Canadensis), Persian Deer (C. Wallichii), 
Barasingha Deer (C. Duvaucelii), Japanese Deer (C. Sika), Sambur 
Deer (C. Aristotelis), Rusa Deer (C. Rusa), Hog Deer (C. porcinus), 
Axis Deer (C. Axis). 

Fam. Camelide.—Llama (Auchenia glama), and Alpaca (A. pacos), 
both havea period of eleven months. 

Fam. Oamelopardide.—Giraffe (Camelopardalis giraffa), fifteen 
months. 

Fam. Bovide.— Punjaub wild sheep (Ovis cycloceros), and 
Moufflon (O. Musimon), each four months; Leucoryx (Oyx leu- 


1864. | Zoology and Physiology. 357 


coryx), eight months; Eland (Oreas Canna), nine months; and 
Nylghai Antelope (Portax picta) between eight and nine months. 

The Hippopotamus has twice produced young in the Amsterdam 
Gardens,—on the first occasion she went seven months and sixteen 
days, and on the second seven months and twenty days. 


Mr. Sherbrooke Walker, who has lately come from New Zealand, 
brought with him some fine bones of the Moa (Dinornis giganteus, 
Owen), which he has deposited in the Liverpool Museum in very per- 
fect condition. They consist of right and left femur, two left tibiz, 
two left metatarsi, and two vertebre. These bones were found in a 
limestone cave at Blue Cliff station, in the province of Canterbury, to 
enter which the explorers had to let themselves down by a rope, and 
crawl in on their hands and knees. Mr. Walker reports that the 
Maories assert that formerly the Moa was very numerous, and used to 
kill the native children, so that they at length determined to exter- 
minate the birds, and to burn the island for this purpose; and, ac- 
cording to them, on a day fixed upon, the whole of the east coast was 
fired at the same time. Whether this be true or not, it is very evident 
that all the east side of the middle island was once heavily timbered, 
for go where you will, on hills or plains, you will find large burnt 
logs of a species of pine, called by the natives Totara, which never 
decays in the ground ; and also, more rarely, logs of a species of cedar, 
now extinct there.. These logs are only charred on the outside. Wood, 
however, still exists on the island which may have been protected by a 
swamp or river, in which swamps Moa bones are sometimes found, as 
though they had found shelter there. Mr. Walker is incredulous of 
this Moa still being existent on the island, ‘and only heard of one per- 
son who professed to have seen one, when a child. The Maories also 
have a tradition that these birds used to go into caves, and that their 
ancestors made large nets of New Zealand flax (Phormium tenax) for 
the purpose of catching them for food. 

Mr. Walker describes the habits of another remarkable New 
Zealand bird, the Owl Parrot (Strigops habroptilus, G. R. Gray), called 
Rakapo, by the natives, found chiefly in the Middle Island. It is 
about the size of a common hen, with a varied black and green 
plumage, evidently a nocturnal bird, always hiding itself under some 
thick plant in the daytime. It cannot fly at all, and has a very 
singular mode of progression, giving a hop forward, and then putting 
its head down, and resting its forehead on the ground. Mr. Watts 
Russell, who has had frequent opportunities of observing these birds 
in their native haunts, confirms this singular account of their using 
their head asa third foot. It is entirely a ground bird, and in appear- 
ance singularly resembles an owl. 

While on the subject of Struthious birds, of whch the Moa was a 
grand type, it may be mentioned that Professor Hincks, of Toronto, 
in a paper recently published on their systematic relations, remarks 
that those who have arranged them among the Rasores have been 
guided by real and important analogies—those who have placed them 
among Grallatores have attached undue importance to a single cha- 
racter, which really only indicates the position of this in reference to 

VOL. I. 28 


358 Chronicles of Science. | April, 


the other families of Rasores—and those who have elevated this group 
to the rank of one of their great orders of birds have chiefly manifested 
their hesitation between the other two views, by taking a sort of inter- 
mediate position. The position of Apteryx, that most remarkable 
New Zealand bird, as a type of a sub-family of Struthionide, seems 
to be conceded; and its long, narrow beak, with the nostrils at the ex- 
tremity, is so especially tenuirostral, that there can be little doubt 
about its fittest place, though its entirely suppressed wings and hair- 
like feathers might seem to mark it as last in the circle, because lowest 
in development. 


Captain Mitchell, of the Madras Museum, confirms the accounts of 
the climbing habits of the fish, Anabas scandens, and asserts that it 
does ascend the palm-trees, suggesting that as it does so after heavy 
monsoon rains, it may be that it prefers pure rain-water to the muddy 
water found in the pools and streams at those times. The native 
assistant at the Madras Museum states that he has seen them climb. 
He says :—“ This fish inhabits tanks or pools of water, and is called 
Panai zéri, i. e. the fish that climbs Palmyra trees. Where there are 
Palmyra trees growing by the side of a tank or pool, when heavy rains 
fall, and the water runs profusely down their trunks, this fish, by means 
of its opercula, which move unlike those of other fish, crawls up the 
tree sideways to a height of from five to seven feet and then drops 
down. Should the Anabas be thrown upon the ground, it runs or 
proceeds rapidly along in the same manner (sideways) so long as the 
mucus on it remains.” This sideways movement, by inclining the 
body considerably from the vertical, enables the fish to use the 
spines on the operculum to the best advantage. The operculum itself 
is remarkably movable, and the locomotion is described as a wriggling 
one. Other observers have satisfied Captain Mitchell that they have 
seen the Anabas ascend Palmyra trees at Negapatam and in the 
neighbourhood of the Red Hills, in the vicinity of Madras. 


M. Moreau arrives at the following conclusions relative to the air 
in the swimming-bladders of fishes :—This air presents a composition 
which may vary more or less, relatively to the proportion of oxygen 
under the following circumstances: 1. The oxygen diminishes and 
disappears in asphyxia and other morbid conditions. 2. In fishes with 
an open, as in those with a closed, swimming-bladder, the air is 
renewed without being derived from the atmosphere, and the rapidity 
of this renewal is in proportion to the vigour of the fish. 3rd. The 
new air presents an amount of oxygen far superior to the proportion 
of gas usually contained in the air of the swimming-bladder, and also 
far superior to that contained in the air dissolved in the water. 


The Entomological Society of New South Wales in the first part 
of its Transactions lately published, gives a description of an ovo- 
viviparous moth of the genus Tinea, which he calls Tinea vivipara. It 
was captured after dark early in October, and fearful that the plumes 
might be injured by its strugeles, it was gently compressed, and on 
opening the hand Mr. Scott observed numbers of minute, but perfect 


1864.] Zoology and Physiology. 359 


larvee being ejected from the abdomen in rapid succession, and moving 
about with considerable celerity, evidently in search of suitable food 
or shelter. Several other specimens were subsequently obtained, and 
they shortly commenced to deposit their living progeny with rapidity, 
the small white fleshy larvae being seen with great distinctness on the 
black surface of the paper, affording satisfactory proof that this insect, 
the only one of the order at present known, is unquestionably ovo- 
viviparous, and will represent in future this peculiarity among the 
lepidoptera, similarly to those few species existing in the hemipterous 
and dipterous orders. 


The Boston Natural History Society have had an account laid 
before them of the operations of the minute Platygaster, which attack 
the eggs of the canker-worm moth (Anisopteryx vernata). Mr. Scudder, 
the observer, states that after moving round a long while in search of 
a suitable place to lay its eggs, using its ovipositor as a feeler, the 
abdomen is plunged down into the space between three continuous eggs, 
and the ovipositor perforates one of them, out of view. The body of the 
insect assumes a position perpendicular to its exposed surfaces, sup- 
ported in the rear by the wings, which, folded over the back, are 
placed against the surface behind, while the hind legs, spread widely 
apart, sustain the insect on either side, and the middle pair are placed 
nearer together in front. With the four legs dangling it remains 
motionless, except some slight movement of the antenne, for three or 
four minutes, after which it moves off, seldom flying, in search of 
another place. 


At a recent meeting of the Entomological Society a communication 
was read from the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, enclosing a 
copy of a circular letter from the Governor of St. Helena respecting the 
ravages committed in the island by the whiteants. It was stated that 
they were (it was supposed) accidentally introduced from the coast of 
Guinea twenty years ago, and now almost every dwelling, shed, store 
in Jamestown, containing 4,000 inhabitants, have been seriously injured 
by them, involving in many instances complete ruin and abandonment, 
and imperilling the lives of large numbers of the poorer classes, who 
are still living in houses of doubtful security. The Governor was 
anxious for information as to the most successful mode of finding the 
ants’ nests, and effectually destroying their receptacles, and as to the 
description of timber which had proved to be least susceptible of 
injury from the insects, and the average market price of such timber 
per cubic foot. General Sir John Hearsey stated that if ever ants 
effected a lodgment in the walls of a house, the walls themselves must 
be taken down before the insects could be eradicated. He thought the 
best preventive was to steep the timber before building in a solution 
of quicklime, and completely saturate it therewith; whilst store- 
boxes, furniture, and small articles should be painted over with a solu- 
tion of corrosive sublimate. Mr. Bates coincided with General Hearsey 
in his estimate of the value of quickliime. The nests must be sought 
for in the plain. Mr. E. W. Robinson said that on the Indian railways 
creosote was applied to the sleepers—but it was not sufficient merely 

2B 2 


360 Chronicles of Science. | April, 


to coat them with the solution, but the whole block must be impreg- 
nated with the solution by hydraulic pressure. 


Dr. J. D. MacDonald has communicated to the Royal Society of 
Edinburgh a memoir on the morphology of the tunicated mollusca, in 
which he considers that the fixed tunicates exhibit at least two well- 
marked types, and the free Pelagic group four, which are equally dis- 
tinct and of equal importance. He also considers that very striking 
representative relationships exist, between the fixed and free tunicates, 
as, for example, between Appendicularia and Pelonaia,—Doliolum and 
the remaining simple tunicata, Salpa representing the social, and Pyro- 
soma, the compound group, especially the Botryllians. 

Professor Allman has just poimted out a curious and important 
character of the so-called nemataphores in the plumularian zoéphytes, 
hitherto unnoticed. In Plumularia cristata he finds them to consist of 
a true sarcode or protoplasm, and except in the fact that the proto- 
plasm contains a cluster of thread cells immersed in its substance, it 
appears in no respect to differ from that which constitutes the substance 
of anameeba. This soft granular mass has the power of projecting 
extensile and mutable processes, consisting of a finely granular sub- 
stance which undergoes perpetual change of form, comporting them- 
selves in every respect like the pseudopodia of an amceba, which they 
also resemble in their structure, for they consist of a simple protoplasm 
composed of a transparent semifluid basis, in which minute corpuscles 
are suspended. In Antennularia antenninia, a genus possessing the 
closest affinities with Plumularia, entirely similar phenomena have been 
witnessed, the processes being usually simple, in only one instance there 
having been seen what appeared to be a short irregular branch given 
off from the finger-like pseudopodium. 


M. Lacaze-Duthiers, who, we have observed, has obtained the 
Bourdin prize for his inquiry into the anatomy and physiology of 
corals, has produced a monograph of 371 pages, accompanied by 
another of 20 pages, comprising 120 figures relating solely to corals. 
He describes and draws in detail the reproductive organs, male and 
female, and has studied the development of the eggs, spermatozoids, 
and larve ; has observed the larve during their period of liberty, de- 
termined the first signs of their future transformation, and followed 
this transformation step by step to the moment when the single being 
issuing from the single egg, begins to shoot, and gives birth succes- 
sively to a whole colony, of which it is the actual parent. These 
facts are all new. Coral does not present the phenomena of alternate 
generations, established among so many other Radiata ; still it enters 
none the less into the category of geneagenetic animals, as they are 
termed by M. de Quatrefages. The scolex alone undergoes a real 
metamorphosis. In general the sexes are distinct in corals, but one 
may occasionally find on a male stem a branch where the polyps are 
female, and vice versd. A branch may also contain individuals of both 
sexes, and more rarely still the same individual may be both male and 
female. Thus, regarding the separation of the sexes, the coral zoéphytes 
present the two extremes and almost all the intermediate degrees. 


1864. } Zoology and Physiology. 361 


M. Duthier’s experiments are still in progress on the coast of Algeria, 
where he is endeavouring to determine the rapidity of growth of the 
coral, by immersing at a certain point 150 large jars marked so as to 
be recognizable, which, successively taken out, will furnish information 
on the development of the calcareous axis hitherto unknown. 


The expedition led by the Rev. H. B. Tristiam for the scientific 
exploration of the Holy Land was early in January at Jericho inves- 
tigating the natural products of the valley of the Jordan, which offered 
abundant promises of fruitful results. The preceding month had been 
spent in the more barren field of inquiry between Beyrout and Jerusalem. 
In the Jordan valley a new fauna was found to prevail, essentially 
different from that of the high land, and surpassing all previous 
expectations as regards its abundance, if not as regards its variety. 
The expedition proposes to pass the summer in the highlands of the 
Lebanon and surrounding district, and to return home in the autumn. 
The Government-grant committee of the Royal Society have recom- 
mended a grant of 50/. to Mr. Tristram in aid of the expedition. 

A somewhat singular scientific expedition round the world has been 
organized by Austria. The Marco Polo was to leave Trieste on the 
5th March, taking with her about 60 passengers, who were each to pay 
400]. passage money, and the voyage was expected to extend over 
eight months, The actual voyage was calculated to occupy about 200 
days, and 50 days were to be spent in visiting 30 different ports which 
had been selected as stopping places. The vessel has been fitted out 
with scientific apparatus of all kinds. 


The French, not behindhand, are organizing an expedition to 
Mexico, which will probably be productive of useful results. This will 
be under the auspices of the Minister of Public Instruction, M. Duruy. 
He recommends that a sum of 8,000/. should be set apart to defray the 
expenses of the expedition, and his suggestions have been approved 
by an Imperial decree appointing the members of the commission. 
Among them are Marshal Vaillant, Baron Gros, Michel Chevalier, 
Vice-Admiral Jurien de la Gravitre, Milne-Edwards, Baron Larrey 
and Viollet le Duc, M. de Quatrefages, &c. 


( 362 ) [ April, 


REVIEWS. 


THE STORY OF THE GUNS.* 


Wirn the din of war approaching nearer to our shores, and the political 
horizon assuming a more and more threatening aspect, it is no wonder 
that the ‘ Story of the Guns’ should have been the book of the past 
quarter. 

From the ‘ Natural History of Ceylon’ to the subject under con- 
sideration is, indeed, a great leap, and there are few men living who 
could have accomplished it more easily than Sir James Emerson Ten- 
nent ; but it would be alike unfair to our readers, and to the author 
himself, if we were to speak of this work in the same terms of un- 
qualified praise as of his former labours. Whether it has been his 
intention, in the performance of what he may have conceived to be an 
imperative duty, to expose facts with which he considers that the 
nation should be made acquainted, namely, the extravagant and un- 
warranted expenditure of money upon an imperfect weapon, or whether 
it was simply his desire to reinstate in public favour a gentleman of 
rare abilities whom he believes to have been neglected and slighted by 
our Government, we are, of course, unable to say ; but however honest 
may have been his intentions, we can assure him that he will have 
failed in creating the desired impression upon the minds of his careful 
readers. 

A book emanating from such a source, and appearing at so oppor- 
tune a period, could not fail to command attention, and the journals 
requiring literary extracts as a portion of their daily bread would 
necessarily increase its popularity and renown. But then come the 
thinkers, the men who read a work not with a view to ascertain what 
it says, but what it means; many of them, perhaps, with as strong a 
bias as the author himself, but in the opposite direction ; and to these 
the book has been in a great measure a disappointment, for it is rather 
a story of the grievances of one gun manufacturer, and a disapproval 
of the favouritism shown to another (who received his appointment 
under a ministry professing political views which were until recently 
believed to be opposed to those of the author), than what it professes 
to be, namely, a history of our scientific progress in the manufacture 
of guns and rifles. And whilst we were toiling wearily through the 
narrative of Mr. Whitworth’s wrongs and of Sir William Armstrong’s 
unwarranted promotion, couched in language whereof it is difficult to 
say which of three qualities it best conceals—official caution, the pun- 
gency that characterizes the lower house, or the polite conventionality 


* «The Story of the Guns.’ By Sir James Emerson Tennent, K.C.S., LL.D., 
F.R.S. Longmans. 


1864. | Tunnent’s Story of the Guns. 363 


of “another place,”—we could not help feeling that if ever a cause 
had been lost by too much pleading, it was in the case before us. 

It matters not how true every alleged fact may be, there is from 
beginning to end of the work such a palpable animus, and the same 
statements and contrasts are so frequently reiterated to the prejudice 
of Sir William Armstrong, and dwelt upon so significantly, that a 
great portion of what should have given scientific interest to the work 
is completely cast into the shade by the political attack. 

Having thus given expression to our discontent at the author's 
mode of treating this portion of his subject, and acting, as we believe, 
with more generosity than if we had retailed any of the episodes in the 
story of the Gunmakers which he has published, we proceed to glance 
rapidly over the contents of the volume. The first part of the work 
is devoted to the history of the musket and rifle, commencing with 
* Brown Bess,” and closing with the triumph of the “‘ Whitworth” over 
the “ Enfield.” Although, of course, the work refers rather to the 
past of the Enfield rifle than to its present state, it being described 
not as it is, but as it was, we have some very interesting comparisons 
between the early performances of the two weapons last named ; and 
these have been illustrated very effectively by drawings of two targets, 
which exhibit the relative shooting made by the two rifles. 

Let us mention, in passing, that we have seldom seen a work so 
admirably illustrated, the subjects for illustration being so well 
selected, and the execution so perfect, that explanations are hardly 
requisite, and a glance over the plates suffices to afford a good idea of 
the recent development in the fabrication of arms of offensive warfare. 
The bullet-marks on the Enfield rifle target are scattered about in 
every direction, many of them touching the very edges of the target, 
and very few approaching the centre ; whilst in the Whitworth target, 
every mark is within one of the four central squares (there are in 
each target 20 shot-marks, and 42 squares), and many of them impinge 
upon the centre lines of the target. 

From the consideration of small arms, the author passes, in his 
second Part, to that of ordnance, and here again we have a most inter- 
esting and graphic description of the various guns which have either 
had their hour and have passed away, or which are still in use here or 
elsewhere; amongst English rifled guns we have an account of the 
“ Lancaster,” “‘ Whitworth,” “ Bashley Britten,” ‘ Lynall Thomas,” 
“ Jeffery,” “ Hadden,” “ Scott,’ and ‘‘ Armstrong,” with sections of all 
but the two first inserted on two opposite pages to exhibit their respective 
systems of rifling. Reference is made, too, to the French “ canons rayés” 
and to the monster gun forged by the Mersey Steel Company at Liver- 
pool. This gun weighs above 24 tons, and discharges a spherical ball 
300 lbs. in weight; and some idea may be formed of its effect, by a refer- 
ence to the frontispiece which represents the famous “‘ Warrior Target,” 
and exhibits the havoc made on it by this gun, as compared with the 
Whitworth. The remainder of the second part is taken up with the 
history of Sir William Armstrong, Mr. Whitworth, and their respec- 
tive inventions ; and we are told by the author that the mode of dealing 
adopted towards inventors by the State and the official appointment 


364 Reviews. | April, 


of Sir William Armstrong have rendered any considerable improve- 
ment in our offensive arms a matter of great difficulty. For although 
Sir William has resigned his appointment, and therefore leaves the 
Government free to deal with whom it likes, our author tells us that 
the outlay which has already been incurred “ operates practically as a 
bond by which, under a penalty of two millions and-a-half sterling, 
the country is deterred from attempting any change.” * 

Before finally passing away from the quesiion of the “contest,” 
we will say that it leaves this impression upon the mind of a dis- 
interested reader. One cannot help regretting that Sir William did 
not act more consistently after he had “ made a gift” of his invention 
“to her Majesty and her successors without any pecuniary or other 
valuable consideration ;” or that, instead of laying himself open to the 
imputation of having given his gun for a purpose, he did not require 
50,0001. or 100,000/. for so great and valuable a safeguard to his 
country. But, on the other hand, when we are told that a man of 
known repute, who had been in constant communication with the 
Government, is suddenly thrust aside when his services are most 
needed and on a pressing emergency, and another comparatively un- 
known is preferred before him for a duty of immense responsibility, 
we cannot but feel that there must have been some shortcoming, some 
want of energy and promptitude, which caused his rival to be taken 
by the hand. Whether or not we have formed this opinion without a 
sufficient basis, our readers will have an opportunity of judging when 
we come to speak of more recent experiences than those referred to 
in the volume before us. 

The Armstrong gun has been a very dear experiment, but it was 
rendered much more costly by the dispatch that was requisite in order 
to atone for the previous apathy of the Government; and it is im- 
possible to say what dangers have been averted from our shores 
through the energy and promptitude of the man to whom the task of 
strengthening our means of defence was confided. Let us, therefore, 
not spurn the bridge that has carried us safely over our difficulties. 

In speaking of the “ Iron Navy” in the remaining portions of his 
work, the author tells us of the early failures of the most powerful 
guns to project a missile through the plated sides of a man-of-war. 
He refers to the valuable services of the Iron-plate committee, of 
whom one of the ablest and most useful members is Dr. William 
Fairbairn, of Manchester, and‘to the results attained through the 
experiments of that committee, the progress of the offensive and de- 
fensive art being traced to the time of his going to press. 

Finally, he closes a work which, in spite of its serious defects, is 
destined to take its place amongst our standard books of reference in 
this branch of science (its tone and method frequently reminding us 
of the labours of the late respected minister of war, Sir George Lewis), 
with an admirable and scholarlike peroration, wherein he recommends 
the admittance of all deserving inventors into the ranks of competitors 


* How much more is this, we would ask the author, than it cost us to prepare 
for the deicnce of Canada during the ‘Trent’ affair. 


1864. ] Tennent’s Story of the Guns. 365 


for the supply of arms to the State, and winds up with the patriotic 
declaration that “the abiding interests of the country will henceforth 
require that the man who reaches the high eminence of giving his 
name to the arms under whose protection the nation reposes, should 
hold it by no other tenure than that of uncontested superiority.” 
And we trust the author will permit us to add, that the triumphant 
candidate may rest assured that his services will be as highly esteemed 
by the nation as are those of the man who, through the prompt appli- 
cation of an arm which he acknowledges to be imperfect, did much, at 
a period of pressing danger, to save his country from a serious 
infliction, and who at the present moment takes a very high rank 
amongst the scientific men of his country. 


There are three conditions which our manufacturers of ordnance 
and of iron are endeavouring at present to fulfil, in order to secure a 
gun that will have a reasonable chance of success in action. 

First, a sufficiently extensive range, with accuracy of aim; secondly, 
convenient proportions; and thirdly, a suitable projectile. 

For an attack upon forts, especially where these are rendered un- 
approachable through natural or artificial obstacles, or where the attack 
if made without due care, might involve the destruction of property or life 
which it would be desirable to spare, the first condition is indispensable, 
and the author of the work we have just noticed tells us that Mr. 
Whitworth’s rifled ordnance has carried off the palm in this respect, 
one of his 12-pounder guns having projected a shot nearly six miles. 
We believe that no new feature of importance has transpired in this 
respect since the work was published, and we therefore pass on to the 
consideration of the second and third objects. 

Until very recently the greatest desideratum has been, and we 
believe at head-quarters it is still, to obtain a convenient ‘“ broadside 
gun” which can be easily managed in a heavy sea, and will do execu- 
tion at between 200 and 2,000 yards against an enemy similarly 
armed and heavily plated. Such guns we have in our 68 and 110- 
pounders, and here again Sir James Tennent awards to Mr. Whitworth 
the credit of having constructed the first that could send a shot through 
armour-plate 41 inches in thickness. This he effected with an 80- 
pounder gun, a charge of about 12 lbs. of powder, and a cylindrical 
bolt of “ homogeneous metal,” driving his shot at a range of 200 yards, 
through the armovr-plate of the ‘ Trusty,’ a vessel specially devoted to 
such experiments.* 

But now we have a hint from the heads of the departments as to 
the cause of the want of co-operation between Mr. Whitworth and 


* We are however informed by a good authority, that the first gun which ever 
penetrated a thick armour-plated target was made at Liverpool for the United 
States Government. This gun projected a missile which (in America) pierced 
a target plated to the thickness of 6 inches, and built up of 3-inch plates. The 
backing was 3 feet of solid oak, which the missile also penetrated, lodging in it 
so deeply that it was never recovered. The gun weighed 7 tons 17 ewt.. with a 
bore of 12 inches, and carrying a spherical shot of 212 lbs. Mr. Whitworth’s gun 
and the “ Monster gun” were subsequently tried on the same day at Liverpool, 
and we believe that both were equally successful. 


366 Reviews. [ April, 


themselves. During a recent discussion in the House of Lords, the 
Earl of Hardwicke referred to this gun,* and recommended that such 
guns should be supplied to the service. The reply of the Duke of 
Somerset was that they had been anxious to have such guns, but that 
Mr. Whitworth was not able to deliver them, and subsequently Earl 
de Grey and Ripon informed the House that a committee was appointed 
in 1863, on which Sir William Armstrong and Mr. Whitworth were 
respectively represented ; that the instructions of this committee were 
shown to both gentlemen, and that a certain number of guns was 
ordered from each competitor. 


‘‘The guns so ordered were 12-pounders and 70-pounders. In a short 
time the 12-pounders were delivered, but Mr. Whitworth’s 70-pounders 
had not been sent in yet, and from the time when it closed its evidence 
the committee had done nothing except repeatedly calling upon Mr. 
Whitworth to produce his 70-pounders. That was the reason why the 
inquiry had been stopped. Mr. Whitworth himself aecounted for the 
delay by alleging the difliculties he experienced in getting the steel which 
he required.” 


The supporters of the gentleman last named maintained until 
recently that it was only a shot such as we have described, a flat- 
fronted cylindrical bolt of homogeneous metal, which would penetrate 
armour-plates of great thickness, and as far as the substance is con- 
cerned their views are pretty accurate. Indeed in the debate just re- 
ferred to, the Duke of Somerset is reported to have said, that “if they 
fired with a cast-iron shot, the effect was trifling. Indeed they might 
almost as well fire mud at the target, unless the projectile was of a 
very hard substance.” And he further told their lordships that “no 
sooner had they obtained a hard projectile than not only Mr. Whit- 
worth’s, but Sir William Armstrong’s gun would fire a shot that would 
penetrate an iron plate.” 

He referred also to an experiment that had been tried a few days 
previously, and of which the details were published in ‘ The Times.’ 
They prove most satisfactorily that the form of the shot is by no 
means so important a matter as it has been stated, provided the ma- 
terial be a suitable one, and that at close quarters an ordinary smooth- 
bore gun will answer every purpose. 

Being the last experiment that has been tried at the time we write, 
we will give our readers an account of it, as received from an eminent 
and experienced eye-witness. 

The trial was made in Portsmouth Harbour in the month of 
January, in the presence of many able scientific men, both civil and 
military, and the object aimed at was the side of the Target-ship, 
‘Monarch.’ The gun was a plain muzzle-loading, smooth-bore 110- 
pounder, weighing six tons, and having a diameter of six inches 
throughout ; in dimensions and outward appearance it resembled the 
old 68-pounder service gun (95 ewt.); it was made at Woolwich, and 
was called an ‘Armstrong.’ With a charge of 25 lbs. of powder it 
projected a spherical shot, weighing about 100 Ibs., at 200 yards 


* He called it a 70-pounder, but we presume it to be the same. 


1864. | TEnnent’s Story of the Guns. 367 


range, clean through a 44-inch plate of good iron; and made such 
havoc in the ship’s side, that the aperture was used by the sailors for 
ingress and egress as a porthole. The great secret, it appears, lay 
in the shot, which was manufactured by the Messrs. Firth of Sheffield. 
Tt was of cast-steel, estimated by our informant to have been worth 
about 80/. per ton; but he added that this would be quite immaterial, 
for one such shot would produce a more serious effect than a whole 
broadside from any of her Majesty’s vessels. Of this more hereafter. 
A second experiment was tried with a round shot, made of Bessemer 
steel. This passed through a plate of 53 inches thick (same range), 
but although the ship’s timbers were much shattered, the ball did not 
pass through them, but lodged in them along with some pieces of 
plate.* With a case-hardened, wrought-iron shot the same effect was 
obtained against a 44-inch plate as had been produced upon the 54-inch 
plate in the experiment last referred to, showing therefore that the 
steel shot made at Sheffield deserved the most confidence, and that 
that confidence has its money value. 

In fact the whole question appears to be one of pounds, shillings, 
and pence, and the more we consider it, the better satisfied are we that 
it is not yet the time to talk about economy; for our experience has 
still to be purchased, and the sooner we obtain it the better. 


“The French frigates,” says ‘The Times’ in a leader, “carry guns 
of very moderate weight and calibre, but these guns are rifled so as 
to have a long range, and are supplied with shot of a peculiar material 
for special use against iron plates. Our own 68-pounders have con- 
siderable power at close quarters, but no range; our 110-pounders 
have long range and great accuracy, but were not found effective against 
solid plates, except with a particular species of projectile. The actual 
state of things as regards our naval ordnance may be very briefly described. 
We have large guns which will send their shot through solid armour- 
plates, but these are too large for broadside guns, and can only be carried, 
therefore, in some fashion not yet naturalized in our navy. We have the 
68 and 110-pounders above specified, and we have now also manufactured, 
but not yet issued, a smooth-bore 110-pounder capable of sustaining a 
charge of 25 Ibs. or 30 lbs. of powder, and of piercing a 53-inch plate. But 
this new piece, though making fair practice at 2,600 yards, has not the 
accuracy of a rifled cannon; and what we want therefore, but have not 
yet got, isa gun which shall combine the accuracy produced by rifling with 
the power required against solid armour.” + 


But there are other questions which press themselves upon the 
attention of those who consider the present transitional state of our 
armaments. If it be difficult to obtain “ broadside” guns, but if, on 
the other hand, a single shot of a very expensive material may be fired 
from an ordinary gun, with the damaging effect of a “ broadside,” will 
not this last take its departure with the “ wooden walls,” and give 


* This experiment was mentioned by his Grace the Duke of Somerset, but 
our informant seems to regard it as the less successful of the two, as the ball 
lodged in the backing. It is necessary to watch these experiments carefully, for 
here we have not only rival gunmakers, but also rival steel manufacturers. 

+ We do not know whence ‘The Times’ derives these particulars, nor what 
particular gun is referred to. 


368 Reviews. | April, 


place to three or four heavy cannons, which will do the work with 
more effect at a greater range? To this subject a reference was recently 
made by a correspondent in ‘The Times, and when duly weighed it 
appears most important. In addition to doing the work more effectively 
at the least cost in the long run (for, of course, fewer guns will require, 
proportionately, less men), we have the fact that such a change, by 
lightening the weight of the equipment, would admit of the application 
of a heavier armature, and there would thus be gained a more powerful 
means of attack, a more obstinate resisting medium, less expenditure 
of money, and less waste of life. 

For, after all, it is our military engineers who should have these latter 
objects in view in all their schemes of offence and defence. Although 
we are not members of the Peace Society, we sympathize with those 
who are constantly laying stress upon the fact, that war is not only a 
bloody, but a costly game ; a game which will only be played out when 
the belligerents discover that the stakes, in every case, amount to more 
than the prizes. Duelling has ceased to be the fashion, because less 
courage and dexterity are required to put a ball into the body of a 
man, at 100 yards, than to pierce him through with a rapier ; and as 
war becomes more mechanical, and the cost is increased, whilst the 
occasions for the display of prowess become less frequent ; when man 
finds that it is no longer a question of the strongest arm, but of the 
toughest steel—then he will begin to open his eyes to the fact that he 
is not a fighting, but a reasoning creature ; and that if the Almighty 
had meant to make him resemble a tiger, intending that he should 
settle his differences by brute force, He would have furnished him 
with claws, and with a much smaller and less convoluted brain than 
that of which he now stands possessed. 


THE INDUSTRIAL RESOURCES OF THE NORTH 
COUNTRY.* 


Tr is always of interest to note the onward march of human industry— 
to see man advancing from point to point, subduing nature, and making 
each conquest a standing place upon which to apply his knowledge. 
Upon this ground, especially, are we pleased with the handsome 
volume which has been issued under the auspices of some eminent mem- 
bers of the Coal-trade of Neweastle, and of the Institute of Mining 
Engineers, informing us of the Industrial resources of the Tyne, Wear, 


* «The Industrial Resources of the District of the Three Northern Rivers— 
the Tyne, Wear, and Tees,’ &c. Edited by Sir William Armstrong, J. Lowthian 
Bell, Esq., J, Taylor, Esq., and Dr. Richardson, Longman, London; Reid, New- 
castle. 

‘A History of the Trade and Manufactures of the Tyne, Wear, and Tees,’ &c. 
Second Edition. Spon, London; Lambert, Neweastle. 

‘A Handbook to Neweastle-on-Tyne.’ By the Rey. J. Collingwood Bruce, 
LL.D., F.S.A. Longman, London; Reid, Neweastle. 


1864. | The Industrial Resources of the North Country. 369 


and Tees. This title, indeed, scarcely expresses the real character of 
the volume. It is rather an account of the present state of man’s 
industry upon the banks of those rivers, and an indication of resources 
which are yet to be made available. Three rivers rising amidst. the 
varied scenery of the Mountain-Limestone-hills of Durham, Cum- 
berland, and Northumberland have gathered upon their margins some 
of the most remarkable evidences of man’s power which this country 
can present to the inquirer ; and of these, the several writers, who have 
contributed to these volumes, have endeavoured to furnish genuine 
information. 

The two works which stand first on our list are almost the same 
in matter. The first appeats as a handsome royal octavo volume, with 
excellent maps, sections, and plates. ‘he second is very humble in 
its appearance, and has neither maps nor plates. Both are, however, 
reprints of the address delivered by Sir William Armstrong, and of cer- 
tain papers read before the different sections of the British Association, 
*‘yevised and corrected by the writers.” In the first, these papers take 
the form of special reports; in the second, they are given as isolated 
papers, and the larger and illustrated volume adds important “ Reports 
on the Improvements introduced in the Rivers of the District.” 

The little volume which stands last on our list, is one of the most 
complete ‘“ Handbooks” which has ever fallen into our hands. Its 
archeological and descriptive division being the work of a man eminent 
in that department cf knowledge, while the portion devoted to the 
manufactures of Newcastle has been produced by the mayor of that 
town, who, by his vocation and special knowledge, is peculiarly fitted 
for the task. 

With this notice of the general character of these books we leave 
them, except in as far as they aid in obtaining a correct knowledge of 
the present state and of the prospects of those industries which come 
under notice. 

The present annual produce of coal from the Great Northern coal- 
field is given by the reporters at 21,777,570 tons. This is somewhat 
in excess of the quantity given in the “ Mineral Statistics of the United 
Kingdom.” The vend of coals both Coastwise and Foreign, was, in 
1791, 2,079,605, which advanced in 1862 to 10,134,790 tons; the re- 
mainder having been consumed in the manufactures, railways, and 
mines, and for domestic purposes at home. 

With this great drain upon a limited area, the question raised by 
Sir William Armstrong, of the duration of the supply, becomes a most 
important one. In our last number, however, we gave this subject 
sufficient attention. The engineering of coal-mining is clearly treated 
of. Boring, coal-cutting, coal-washing, ventilation, and lighting 
coming under notice. ‘The ccal-cutting machine of Donesthorpe and 
Co. is especially noticed; and the reporters say :—“ We shall thus be 
enabled to work profitably seams of coal varying from one foot six 
inches, to two feet in height, or even lower, and thus vastly prolong the 
duration of the coal-field.’ This view was not embraced in our notice 
of the coal-cutting machines in our last number. 


370 Reviews. | April, 


We could have desired a more extended notice of Coke manufacture 
than that which has been given. 

The paper on Iron, by Mr. J. Lowthian Bell, is a most important 
one, and to the date of its production it may be said to have exhausted 
the subject, forming, as it were, the balanced ledger of the ironmaster. 
From this paper we learn the production of Pig Iron, for three years, 
to have been :— 


1860. 1861. 1862. 
Tons. Tons. Tons. 
Northumberland {= =o = = 69,093 73,260 46,586 
IDEN 5 5 6 oo ol ol 6 BE OO RTI 312,030 337,218 
Yorkshire—North Riding. . . 248,665 234,656 283,398 


658,679 629,946 667,202 


There were 646 puddling furnaces in action. ‘The united power 
of all these works will be equal to an annual production of 340,000 
tons, and probably the actual make during the year 1862 may have 
amounted to 300,000 tons.” The manufacture of steel is treated of in 
a very brief paper by Mr. Spencer. 

The local manufactures of lead, copper, zinc, antimony, &c., have 
been treated of by Mr. Sopwith and Dr. Richardson. Mr. Sopwith 
has naturally dealt with the lead mines of the district, and “given a 
concise account of Alston Moor, Weardale, and Teesdale. In 1862 the 
Cumberland division gave 5,241 tons of lead, and 41,911 ounces of 
silver; Durham and Northumberland giving 16,454 tons of lead, and 
82,854 ounces of silver. 

The copper ore raised in those counties is very small, but some 
copper is obtained from the sulphur ores (Iron Pyrites) which are 
employed in the manufacture of sulphuric acid. Zine is obtained in 
small quantity. The ores of antimony are all imported. In addition 
to these papers, Mr. J. Lowthian Bell has given a notice of the manu- 
facture of aluminium, this paper concluding the series devoted to the 
production of the metals. 

The Chemical manufactures of the district have been described by 
Dr. Richardson, Mr. J. C. Stevenson, and Mr. R. Calvert Clapham. 
The total value of the products of these industries is stated to be 
145,520. sterling. 

As an Appendix to this, we have a note on the recent discovery of 
Salt at Middlesbro’. Messrs. Bolchow and Vaughan being anxious to 
obtain a supply of fresh water for their iron works, commenced, about 
four years ago, to sink a shaft for this purpose. This well did not 
answer their expectations, and a very large bore-hole was put down 
from the bottom of the shaft. The strata passed through are in the 
upper New Red Sandstone, or the same in which the Cheshire rock- 
salt is found. In August, the depth attained was 217 fathoms—the 
last 100 feet being through a bed of salt—at the bottom of which they 
had not at that time arrived. It is impossible to overrate the import- 
ance of such a discovery to this district, where the consumption exceeds 
100,000 tons per annum. 

Clay wares and glass are manufactures which have been long esta- 


1864. | Fresenius’ Analysis. 371 


blished on the Tyne. They are succinctly described, and the annual 
value stated to be as follows :—- 


25 

(img Ss) 4 Web ee Oe 8 on Se eBEA IIT) 
Harthenware' 4 2. . « « « « « 190;000 
Fire-clay Goods . . .. . . . 228,650 
£1,066,650 


~The manufactures of Paper and Leather are briefly reported on; but 
more important are the papers on “The Construction of Iron Ships,” 
by Charles H. Palmer; and on “ The Engineering Manufactures,” by 
P. Westmacott, C.E., and J. F. Spencer. 

Valuable Appendices introduce us to Sir W. Armstrong, who 
clearly describes the construction of Wrought-iron Rifled Field-guns ; 
and to Mr. John F. Tone, C.E., who takes charge of ‘“ Railways and 
Locomotives.” 

The improvements now being carried out on the rivers Tyne and 
Tees are described by Messrs. Ure and Fowler with much pre- 
cision. 

From this notice of these volumes, it will be seen that a large 
amount of energy is expended upon the natural advantages of this im- 
portant Northern Coal-field, from which we may expect yet more 
gigantic results. Sir William Armstrong well says—“ The tendency 
of progress is to quicken progress, because every acquisition in science 
is so much vantage ground for fresh attainment. We may expect, 
therefore, to increase our speed as we struggle forward ; but, however 
high we climb in pursuit of knowledge, we shall still see lights above 
us, and the more extended our view, the more conscious we shall be of 
the immensity which lies beyond.” 


QUALITATIVE CHEMICAL ANALYSIS.* 


Tuts book has been long and favourably known to the British public. 
It is par excellence the standard work upon the subject of which it 
treats; the system of instruction is that which first met with general 
adoption in this country by the student in analysis, and the suc- 
cessive improvements in chemical methods and research have from 
time to time been duly chronicled; so that in the edition just now 
published we have at once a full and satisfactory account of all that 
is known on the subject. By the insertion of a large amount of new 
matter the dimensions of the volume have been greatly augmented, 
the present edition having been expanded to 350 pages, and in com- 
paring this with former editions it is manifest that the introduction of 
the new system of spectrum analysis has added much to the impor- 


* «A System of Instruction in Qualitative Chemical Analysis. By Dr. C, 
Remigius Fresenius. Edited by J. Lloyd Bullock, F.C.S.’ Sixth Edition, 1864. 
London: John Churchill and Sons, New Burlington Street. 


372 Reviews. : [April, 


tance of the work. A noteworthy addition is the beautifully coloured 
frontispiece illustrative of the more characteristic spectra among the 
metallic elements. It is much to be regretted that the position of the 
single green ray of thallium is not indicated in the spectrum chart ; 
but, as though to compensate in some measure for this omission, a 
remarkably good account of the new metal and its principal reactions 
will be found in the chapter on thallium. The most approved forms 
of spectrum apparatus, particularly those devised by MM. Kirchhoff 
and Bunsen, are here fully described and illustrated by woodcuts. The 
chapter on apparatus generally has received important additions; we 
may mention especially the very useful instrument recently invented 
by Professor Graham, and known by name as the ‘ Dialyser.’ The 
application of this instrument in the detection of poisons, and the 
important aid it is likely to render in toxicological examinations by 
affording a simple means of extracting the poisonous principles from 
the host of heterogenous organic matters with which they are com- 
monly associated, are treated of at length and in a manner suitable to 
the growing importance of the subject. Special instructions are laid 
down for the recognition of the vegeto-alkaloids,—a class of bodies 
which are becoming daily of more extended use as remedial agents 
and therefore of more frequent occurrence as objects of chemical 
study,—and a chapter is devoted to a systematic course to be fol- 
lowed in the detection of unoxidized phosphorus, hydrocyanic acid, 
arsenic, strychnine, &c. In short, as a treatise on toxicology, 
‘Fresenius’ Analysis’ can be confidently recommended: and in 
this connection the numerous illustrations of apparatus employed in 
the detection of these poisons cannot fail to be highly suggestive to 
the analyst engaged in medico-legal inquiries. 

The leading characters of the rarer metals, e.g. caesium, rubidium, 
thorium, cerium, lanthanum, didymium, and even erbium and terbium, 
are pointed out under their respective analytical groups, and these 
particulars are printed in small type to denote their minor importance. 
In consequence of the foreign origin of this work there are one or two 
trifling instances of departure from the ordinary nomenclature to be 
observed, thus, the earth glucina is described as ‘“ berylla,’ and the 
metal tungsten has received the appellation ‘“ Wolframium.” The 
chemical symbols Be and W partly sanction the employment of these 
names, but by the same rule, the common potash and soda would 
become kalia and natria. 

The system of analysis adopted throughout is that which has 
received the sanction of the highest authorities both in this country 
and abroad; the methods of separation are extended occasionally by 
the necessity for giving the several approved modes for effecting the 
object, where the attainment of absolute success is a matter of some 
difficulty, and even now we are disposed to question the accuracy of 
the processes recommended for the separation of antimony, tin, and 
arsenic. 

In the body of the work are given full directions for the analytical 
examination of plant-ashes, agricultural soils, and mineral waters; much 
of the information upon these points remains substantially identical with 


1864. | Fresenius’ Analysis. 373 


former editions. We notice particularly that the organic constituents 
of drinking waters continue to be described under the indefinite titles 
of “crenic and apocrenic acids.” The use of these terms cannot be 
considered satisfactory at a time when they are never employed in 
chemical reports. It must be admitted, however, that the identifica- 
tion of dissolved organic matters, and the determination of their 
amount by quantitative analysis, are still far from satisfactory, and 
constitute subjects urgently requiring further chemical research. 
Again, in the preparation of vegetable ashes for the purpose of iden- 
tifying and determining the mineral constituents of the plant it would 
be good policy to abstain in all cases from applying such a degree of 
heat as will be required from the complete incineration of the organic 
structure, inasmuch as the employment of so elevated a temperature is 
sure to induce the loss by volatilization of a certain proportion of the 
alkaline salts. A more judicious course consists in using no greater 
heat than is required for the complete charring of the organic matter, 
then to extract with water in order to remove the soluble salts, and 
afterwards dry and burn the carbonaceous residue for the purpose of 
recovering the remainder of the mineral salts. 

The work is remarkably well printed, and free from errata. The 
mode of division into chapters and paragraphs, distinctly numbered, 
facilitates reference ; and there is much satisfaction in being informed 
of the authority upon which a statement is made, and the name has been 
generally given between parentheses. A very useful table of weights 
and measures concludes the volume. There are some repetitions to 
be noticed in the analytical details prescribed for the examination of 
simple and of complex substances ; but these are only such as could 
not be entirely avoided ina work devoted to instruction. Altogether, 
we feel strongly disposed to recommend this treatise to the favourable 
notice of the student in chemical analysis; and must remark, in con- 
clusion, that the sixth edition fully maintains the high character of a 
standard work which “ Fresenius’ Analysis” has so long enjoyed. 


VOL. I. 20 


B74 Reviews. [ April, 


PAMPHLETS. 


Tue Power or Gop 1n Hrs Animmat Creation. By Professor 
R. Owen, D.C.L., F.R.S.  Nisbet.* 


Tr is not always the iconoclast who renders the greatest services to 
his fellow-men. Much as we may admire the courage of the man who 
steps forth boldly from the crowd, and under the conviction that the 
idol which it adores must be broken in order to show its impotence, 
shatters it to fragments; we have still more faith in him who quietly 
leads the terrified worshippers up to the stone image, and seeking to 
soothe their apprehensions, satisfies them by the touch that it possesses 
no life, nor yet the power to injure or befriend them. Errors incul- 
cated during long ages may be shaken for an instant, but they cannot 
be eradicated by a coup d’éiat, and it often happens that a gentle 
and well-timed remonstrance has a more lasting influence upon the 
minds of men than the loudest, though they may be the most rightful 
denunciations. 

We have before us an illustration of this fact in the delivery of the 
present lecture to the Young Men’s Christian Association, in which 
Professor Owen has not only rendered an important service to science, 
but has displayed great moral courage in planting the banner of pro- 
gress and free discussion upon the walls of a fortress that few younger 
men would have ventured to storm. In direct opposition to the pre- 
conceived views entertained by the large majority of his hearers on 
theological subjects, he stated firmly, but temperately, the results of 
modern scientific research, most widely at variance with the tenets of 
many orthodox theologians, and gave additional force to his uncom- 
promising assertions, by selecting only those topics which are no longer 
open to debate. 

The vast assemblage of his hearers, lay and clerical, men and 
women of every age and temper, would be nearly unanimous in the 
belief that the world is about 6,000 years old, and that the whole 
fabric, with its living denizens, was formed perfect in seven days of 
twenty-four hours; but he told them that the researches of science 
have led to the certainty that such a period is utterly, “nay, absurdly 
inadequate,” for the Divine operations as they are conducted, to have 
prepared and peopled the dry land. 

He assured them further, that instead of physical death having 
come into the world with the “ fall,” “life has been enjoyed during 
the same countless thousand of years; and that with life, from its 
beginning, has been death.” And by means of a diagram, showing the 
geological and paleontological history of the past, with the traces of 
man, osseous and archeological (if we may so call them), he exhibited 
to them the indisputable evidence of his great antiquity. 

And should even the Darwinian theory of the natural selection of new 


* A Lecture delivered in Exeter Hall before the Young Men’s Christian 
Association, 


1864. | Pamphlets. 375 


species through secondary agencies ever come to be an acknowledged 
law, Professer Owen will have done much to prepare these young men 
for its reception, for after showing them that the Creator has brought 
all his works to perfection by a gradual development, he told them that 
“just as death is met by birth, so extinction has been balanced by 
creation, that is, a constant and continuous operation of Creative 
Power, which has produced a succession of species ;” also, that ‘“ we 
discern no evidence of pause or intermission in the creation or coming 
to be of new species of plants and animals.” And lest there should be 
any mistake as to his meaning, he repeats his belief in “the world’s 
vast age, and in the unintermittence of creative acts,” notwithstanding 
that such views may be regarded by some of his hearers with “ abhor- 
rence.” Professor Owen hoped, however, that there were no such 
prejudiced persons in his auditory. 

Nor did he confine his admonitions to his lay hearers. He spoke 
to the clerical portion of his audience of the futility of attempting, 
to put a literal interpretation upon symbolic texts in Scripture, as 
though they were statements of matter-of-fact. His illustration he 
drew from the supposed erect attitude of the serpent before the tempt- 
ation of Eve, explaining that, instead of being the “progeny of a 
transmitted species, degraded from its original form as the penal con- 
sequence of its instrumentality in the temptation of Eve,” the struc- 
ture and organization of these animals are specially adapted to their 
position and habits, being replete with “ instances of design in relation 
to the needs of their apodal vermiform character.” And he reminded 
his clerical friends of the opposition interposed in the way of progress 
by the priesthood of old, repeating the admonition of St. Augustine, 
that men will believe the earth to be rotund, and should they preach 
it to be flat and denounce the new doctrine, they will say, “If ye 
know so little of earthly things, how shall we believe you when you 
tell us of heavenly ones?” 

There need be no apprehensions for Christianity under the new 
regime, he said, inasmuch as it has suffered nothing since physical 
doctrines “declared contrary to Holy Writ” have been established ; 
and he concluded his address as follows :—‘“ Allay, then, your fears 
and trust in the Author of all truth, who has decreed that it shall 
never perish; who has given to man a power to acquire that most pre- 
cious of his possessions with an intellectual nature that will ultimately 
rest upon due demonstrative evidence.” 

Some may think that the lecture is marred by the too frequent 
introduction of Scripture texts and quotations; but, on the whole, it 
is a noble address, and the Committee of the Young Men’s Christian 
Association have studied their own interests in giving it a large and 
unrestricted circulation. 


202 


376 Reviews. | April, 


Tue Nucro’s Pace ww Nature. By James Hunt, Ph.D., &e. 
Triibner and Co. 


In the Introduction to this ‘Journal’ we referred to a paper on the 
above subject, read before the members of the British Association ; 
and this is now published, the author tells us, by the general wish of 
the Fellows of the Anthropological Society, of which he is the 
president. 

We ventured, in speaking of the original paper, to differ from the 
views of the author, which we believe to be contrary to the evidence 
and at variance with the opinions of the most advanced physiologists 
of the day, and drew attention to the fact that the most important 
question of hybridity had been almost completely ignored, and that 
what little was said of it ran counter to the author's doctrine of a specific 
difference between the white man and the Negro. We also mentioned, 
in passing, that a Newcastle journal did not hesitate to hint broadly 
that the gentlemen who thus sought to degrade the Negro race (for the 
president found a warm supporter in his secretary, Mr. Carter Blake) 
were the tools of the Southern confederacy, and that their services 
had been enlisted as the champions of slavery in England. 

In adopting the supposition of the Newcastle paper, we confess 
that we were guilty of indiscretion, and we have to apologize to the 
shrewd and discerning politicians who administer the affairs of the 
Southern Confederacy, for having supposed them capable of adding to 
the indiscretion of attempting to found their new empire upon the 
basis of slavery, by using such an instrument as this for the purpose 
of obtaining sympathy in England. 

No! Great as may be the fatuity of the Southern people on 
the question of slavery, they would never have attempted thus to 
“inoculate” us, the ‘outer barbarians,” as the author has it in his 
dedication to “My dear Burton ;’ and we are now prepared to accept 
his statement concerning the object of his paper, as perfectly original 
and emanating from himself alone,—viz. that when the truth comes 
out, “the public will have their eyes opened, and will see in its true 
dimensions that gigantic imposture known by the name of ‘ Negro 
Emancipation.’ ” 

But we must treat our readers with an extract from the work, in 
order that they may judge of the kind of material with which it is 
intended to explode this “ gigantic imposture,” and they will at once 
have an opportunity of judging of its science and its morale :— 


“* But while the analysis of a single bone or of a single feature of the 
Negro is thus sufficient to demonstrate the specific character, or to show 
the diversity of race, that great fact is still more obviously and with equal 
certainty revealed in the form, attitude, and other external qualities. he 
Negro is incapable of an erect or direct perpendicular posture. ‘The general 
structure of his limbs, the form of the pelvis, the spine, the way the head 
is set on the shoulders, in short, the towt ensemble of the anatomical forma- 
tion forbids an erect position. But while the whole structure is thus 
adapted to a slightly stooping posture, the head would seem to be the 


1864. | Pamphlets. 377 


most important agency ; for with any other head, or the head of any other 
race, it would be impossible to retain an upright position at all. But 
with the broad forehead and small cerebellum of the white man, it is per- 
fectly obvious that the Negro would no longer possess a centre of gravity ; 
and therefore, those philanthropic people who would ‘educate’ him into 
intellectual equality, or change the mental organism of the Negro, would 
simply render him incapable of standing on his feet, or of an upright position 
on any terms.”* 


We presume it will not be necessary for us to refute the assertions 
(adopted by the author as evidence of the specific difference between 
the Negro and the white man), that the Negro is “incapable of an erect 
or perpendicular position,” and that education would “ render him in- 
capable of standing on his feet, or of an upright position” ! 

The kings of Western Equatorial Africa, we are told, are under the 
necessity of encouraging the slave trade, in order to get rid of their 
criminals. 


«No one, we presume, will dare assert that there are no criminals in 
Africa! What shall we do with our criminals ? may be a problem which is 
occupying the attention of the political economist of Africa—lke His 
Majesty the King of Dahomey—as well as the government of Great Britain. 
Is Africa not to be allowed to export her criminals, or are they so worth- 
less and unmanageable that no people will have them ?” 


But it must not be supposed that the author advocates the slave- 
trade. Oh dear, no! He “protests against being put forward to 
advocate such views.” “Our Bristol and Liverpool merchants,” he 
says, “perhaps, helped to benefit the race when they transplanted 
some of them to America, and our mistaken Legislature has done the 
Negro race”—(why not species ?—merely the force of habit, we pre- 
sume)—“ much injury by their} absurd and unwarrantable attempts to 
prevent Africa from exporting her worthless or surplus population.” 
We have done; and if, after these extracts, our readers feel any 
desire to know more of the work, they must purchase it; for, although 
it is a tract such as we are ashamed to see printed in the English 
language, it has found a respectable publisher. 


Tue Baravian Socrery or ExprrRIMENTAL PHILOSOPHY 
IN Rorrerpam.t 


WE desire to draw the attention of our leading Literary and Philo- 
sophical Societies to the plan adopted by the body of savants to whose 
prospectus we are about to refer, for encouraging the study of prac- 
tical science, and would recommend it to their consideration whether 
a similar method of awarding premiums for careful research would not 
add much to their usefulness and success. 


* The author is here quoting a Dr. Van Evrie of New York. The italics 
are ours. 

+ We again claim the italics; the grammar is the author's. 

t The Society’s ‘Programme,’ issued in December, 1863. Imprimerie de 
G. and C, A. Van Reyn, Rotterdam. 


378 Reviews. | April, 


It is indeed seldom that we have read the programme of any insti- 
tution with so much gratification as this cne; it is as concise as it 1s 
interesting, and the only objection we have to the Society is its name, 
for it would convey a better idea of its operations if it called itself a 
practical, instead of an “ experimental,” institution. 

The Council awards three prizes annually: a gold and silver 
medal, and a premium varying in amount from 50 to 150 florins,—a 
total therefore of 301. or 40/., which would be no serious outlay for 
any of our leading metropolitan or provincial scientific institutions. 

As to the questions propounded, we shall convey the best idea of 
their character, and at the same time give the most practical effect to 
our suggestion, by translating and inserting a few of them in these 
pages. 

Question 106. (Hvidently intended for sailors.)—“'The Society 
believing that an investigation of the temperature of the water in 
extensive seas, and at considerable depths, would be of great import- 
ance for ascertaining the physical state of our globe; and feeling 
satisfied that on board many vessels this temperature may under 
favourable circumstances be determined; desire to receive accurate 
researches on the subject, undertaken (with the employment of proper 
nautical instruments for ascertaining the latitude and longitude) in 
places where such experiments have not yet been made. The results 
must be stated succinctly, and in a careful detailed manner.” 

Question 114.—“ For many years past scientific men have debated 
the possibility of constructing, on the seaboard, harbours of refuge for 
vessels with a deep draught of water, similar to those found on the 
northern and southern coasts of Holland. It has been asserted that, 
with the progress made in science, the construction of such harbours 
no longer offers any difficulties.” 

The Society therefore requires the complete plan of a harbour upon 
a coast such as, for example, Schevening, which would admit, at low 
tide, vessels drawing 23 feet of water” (7 metres), “and having an 
entrance wide enough to allow such vessels to cast anchor inside, with 
a violent gale blowing from the NE. The cost of construction and 
annual maintenance is also required.” - 

Question 135.—“ It is important that persons engaged in the study 
of electricity should make themselves acquainted with the phenomena 
produced upon telegraph wires by storms and by the Aurora borealis. 
Many of these phenomena are very partially understood, and it is 
desirable that more extended experiments should be communicated, 
from which it would be possible to make deductions.” 

Question 1387.—“ Mr. 'Tyndall believes his experiments have proved 
beyond a doubt that the vapour of water” (a moist atmosphere) 
“ exercises a more powerful absorbent influence upon radiant heat than 
dry atmospheric air. Mr. Magnus, on the other hand, considers 
himself justified in concluding from his experiments that there is no 
difference in the absorbent property of a dry and of a humid atmosphere. 
The Society would wish to see these conflicting views met by con- 
clusive experiments.” . 

Our limited space will not admit of the insertion of more of these 


1864. | Pamphlets. 379 


questions, but we may state that they are all of more or less general 
interest, and that the large majority are practically useful. Some deal 
with local improvements ; others, with the statistics of the country ; and 
others, again, require investigations in the various branches of Physical 
and Mechanical Science, in Crystallography, Geology, Chemistry, 
Botany, Physiology, &e. 

The replies of competitors, which are expected to take the form 
of short essays, may be indited in the Dutch, French, English, 
German, or Latin languages, and as far as we are enabled to judge 
from the precautions taken to ensure impartiality to all candidates, and 
secrecy to unsuccessful ones, we should say that students are justified 
in placing their labours in the hands of the Society in perfect confi- 
dence that they will receive fair treatment. 

As we have already observed, we hope that some move will be made 
in this practical direction amongst our English Institutions; the 
Society of Arts already awards such prizes, but there is no reason why 
every important “ Philosophical” Society should not do the same, and we 
shall be glad to receive more of these programmes from other countries, 
in order to extract from them any new features in their management, 
for the benefit of our English readers. 


Spectrum ANALYSIS. 


Tose of our readers who may be able to read the Dutch language, will 
find in it one of the best works yet published on Spectrum Analysis.* 
The book is so good that it deserves translation into a language that 
would ensure it a wider circulation; and as we are in want of such a 
work in England, we commend it to the notice of any good Dutch 
scholar and chemist. Tracing the art from its first origin, the author 
brings down his account of the successive discoveries to the latest 
published observations of Bunsen, Kirchoff, and Miller, describing 
most of the observed spectra, and giving what will be found extremely 
useful to many—a very complete bibliography of the subject. The 
work is accompanied by some beautifully-executed coloured drawings 
of various spectra. 

One of the earliest applications of the prism to chemical analysis was 
that of Plucker, who observed the lines produced by the passage of 
electricity through a rarefied gas, and noticed that in every gas, when 
pure, a particular system of lines was obtained. The minute portion 
of a gas, whether simple or compound, that could be analysed in this 
way induced the author to style the method microchemistry. It was 
really spectrum-analysis. M. Morren followed up the researches of 
Plucker, and now publishes at Marseilles a tract,t the object of which, 
he says, is to point out how this mode of analysis may help to solve 


* De Spectraal-Analyse &c.’-—On Spectrum Analysis, &e. By H. C. Dibbits. 
Rotterdam: E. H. Tassemeijer. 1863. 

+ ‘Des Phénométnes Lumineux que présentent quelques Flammes, et en par- 
ticulier celle du Cyanogéne, et de Acetylene, &c.’ Par M. Morren. Marseilles ; 
Arnaud & Co., 1863. 


380 Reviews. [ April, 


questions which ordinary chemical processes are unable to unriddle. 
What, for example, constitutes the blue part of the flame cf a candle ? 
The spectroscope answers, vapour of carbon. The author once thought 
that the blue was caused by light carburetted-hydrogen, since he 
observed the same spectrum from the flame of this gas, and also from 
that of the base of a candle flame. A perusal of Dr. Attfield’s paper 
on the “ Spectrum of Carbon,” however, induced him to reconsider the 
subject, and to examine the spectra of numerous other carbon com- 
pounds. In all these he observed the same spectrum, which, being 
common to everyone, must have been derived from the common con- 
stituent, carbon. The means which the author employed, and the 
appearances he observed, are well described in this tract; and any 
experimenters working in the same direction would do well to con- 
sult it. 


CuemicaAL FormMuLz. 


Dr. Opiine has published* a set of tables of chemical formule, which 
we venture to say will prove as useful to teachers as to students of 
chemistry. He adopts an original mode of classifying the elements 
which is, perhaps, as reasonable as any other yet proposed, or possible, 
in the present state of our knowledge of these bodies. 

The formule are all constructed on the unitary system of notation, 
and in the absence of a complete work of chemistry based on that system, 
these tables will prove of great assistance to students, who are obliged to 
read a book written upon the old system, and listen to a lecturer who 
teaches upon the new. 

Lecturers who are beginning to teach the unitary system, will find 
in the tables the materials of a very useful set of diagrams. 


* «Tables of Chemical Formule,’ arranged by W. Odling, M.B., F.R.S, &c., &e. 
London: Taylor and Francis, 1864. 


1864. ] 


(o)88l-~) 


NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 


Sinverrp Guass TELESCOPES AND CELESTIAL PHoToGRAPHY IN AMERICA. 
By Professor Henry Draper, M.D., New York University. 


New York, Feb, 2, 1864. 

THE first photographs of the moon 
were taken in 1840 by my father, 
Professor John W. Draper, M.D., 
who published notices of them in 
his quarto work, ‘On the Forces 
that Organize Plants,’ and in the 
‘ Philosophical Magazine.’ The speci- 
mens were about an inch in diameter, 
and were presented to the Lyceum 
of Natural History of New York. 
They were made by means of a lens 
of five inches aperture, furnished 
with an eye-piece to increase the 
magnifying power, and mounted on 
a polar axis driven by a clock. At 
that time it was generally supposed 
that the moon’s light contained no 
actinic rays, and was entirely with- 
out effect on the sensitive silver com- 
pounds used in daguerreotyping. 

In 1850, Mr. Bond made use of the 
Cambridge (Massachusetts) refrac- 
tor of 15 inches’ aperture, to produce 
daguerreotype impressions of our 
satellite, the sensitive plate being 
placed at the focus of the object- 
glass, without the intervention of 
an eyepiece. Pictures two inches 
in diameter were thus produced, 
and, subsequently, some of the same 
size were made on glass, and 
mounted stereoscopically. Mr. Bond 
also made a series of experiments 
to determine whether photography 
could be advantageously applied to 
the measurement of double stars, 
and concluded that the results were 
as reliable as those derived from the 
micrometer.* 

Soon after, Mr. Warren De La 
Rue, of Cranford, near London, un- 
dertook by the aid of a 13-inch 
speculum, ground and polished by 
himself, to procure a series of pho- 
tographs of the moon and other 
celestial objects. The excellent re- 


* «Astron. Nach,’ No. 1129. 


sults that he has obtained, together 
with those of Professor Phillips, Mr. 
Hartnup, Mr.Crookes, Father Secchi, 
and other physicists, are doubtless 
familiar to all scientific men, having 
been published in the form of a re- 
port to the British Association in 
1859. No detailed description of 
them is necessary, therefore, in this 
place. 

In 1857 Mr. Lewis M. Rutherfurd, 
of New York, erected an equatorial 
refractor of 11 inches’ aperture, the 
object-glass of which he had himself 
corrected, and has taken a large 
number of lunar photographs with 
it. They have generally borne to 
be magnified to five inches, and he 
is now engaged in perfecting a cor- 
recting lens that will allow still 
greater enlargement to be used. 

The moon, as seen by the naked 
eye, is about one-tenth of an inch in 
diameter,although persons generally 
estimate it at 10 inches. That the 
first statement is true is easily 
proved either by taking a photo- 
graph with a lens of 10 inches’ 
focal length, or more convincingly 
by holding up between the moon 
and the eye a little dise one-tenth 
of an inch across, at the near- 
est distance of distinct vision (10 
inches). A picture of the moon 
of the size commonly attributed to 
her requires to be made under a 
power of 100 times. 

In 1857 I visited Lord Rosse’s 
great reflecting telescopes at Par- 
sonstown, and had an opportunity 
of not only seeing the grinding and 
polishing operation by which they 
were produced, but also of obsery- 
ing some stars through the six-foot 
instrument. On returning home in 
1858 it was determined to construct 
a large instrument by similar means, 
and devote it especially to celestial 
photography. The speculum was of 


382 


15 inches’ aperture, and 12 feet focal 
length. Subsequently, however, this 
metal mirror was abandoned, and 
silvered glass, as suggested by M, 
Foucault, substituted. his latter, 
according to Steinheil’s experi- 
ments, reflects more than 90 per 
cent. of the light falling upon it, 
while speculum metal only returns 
63 per cent. A detailed account of 
this instrument, amply illustrated, 
is now being published by the 
Smithsonian Institution at Washing- 
ton, and therefore only a general 
idea of its pecularities will be given. 

As the telescope was intended es- 
pecially for photography, the follow- 
ing general principles were adopted. 
Ist. A reflector was, of course, pre- 
ferred to an achromatic object-glass, 
because all the rays falling upon it 
are reflected to the same focal plane, 
and there is not, as in the latter, one 
focus for distinct vision, and another 
for the photographically actinic 
rays, an inch distant perhaps. In the 
reflector a sensitive plate put where 
the image is seen to be most sharply 
defined, will be sure to give a good 
result. In the achromatic, on the 
contrary, the sensitive plate must 
be placed in a _ position which 
can only be found by tedious trials. 
2nd. Silvered glass was used instead 
of speculum metal, because it is 
lighter and more highly reflecting. 
Besides, if a reddish or yellowish 
film should accumulate on it—an 
accident liable to occur to either 
kind of reflector and seriously di- 
minishing the photographic power— 
it can either be repolished with a 
piece of buckskin—an operation ob- 
viously impossible in the case of a 
speculum metal—or the silver can be 
dissolved off with nitric acid, and a 
new film deposited on the glass con- 
cave. The glass which has been 
made accurately parabolic before the 
first silvering, is not changed in 
figure,the silver being only deposited 
in a layer s54555 Of an inch thick, 
and consequently, if carefully pre- 
pared, copying the glass below so 
closely that no error larger than a 
small fraction of that amount is 
possible. As the glass only serves 
as a basis or mould for the thin 


Notes and Correspondence. 


| April, 


sheet of silver, and is not penetrated 
by the light, its quality is a matter 
of but little moment, that which is 
used for skylights or light-openings 
in floors answering perfectly. 3rd. 
A mounting, presenting the greatest 
degree of steadiaess possible was 
necessary. For this purpose the 
telescope was supported at both 
ends, the lower one resting in a 
loop of wire rope. 4th. Instead of 
driving the whole mass of the in- 
strument by clockwork acting 
upon a polar axis, and thus being 
forced to move a weight of at least 
half-a-ton—the usual system in 
equatorials — only the sensitive 
plate and its frame, weighing an 
ounce, were caused to follow the 
moon or other object, the mass of 
the apparatus remaining perfectly 
at'rest. This idea is due to Lord 
Rosse. 5th. Instead of using a 
clock with wheelwork for a prime 
mover, a clepsydra was substituted. 
This consists of a heavy weight 
supported by the rod of a piston, 
which fits into a cylinder filled with 
water. At the bottom of the cylin- 
der a stopcock permits the water to 
flow out at a variable speed, de- 
pending on the amount of opening. 
The sensitive plate can thus easily 
be caused to coincide in rate with 
the moving object, and yet by a 
motion free from irregularity and 
tremor, 

The value of a silver reflector 
turns, of course, entirely upon the 
perfection of the glass concave on 
which the metallic film is to be de- 
posited. This must be of a para- 
bolic figure, so that spherical aber- 
ration may be completely corrected. 
A person is, however, content to 
take the utmost pains to produce it, 
because, once attained, the figure 
cannot be lost except by fracture, 
and the value does not diminish 
with time as in the case of a specu- 
lum. It never requires re-polishing. 
The best method of grinding and 
polishing the glass is by means of 
an apparatus that I have called a 
‘*Local-correcting Machine,” by 
which all the parts of the surface 
can be attacked in succession and 
reduced to the desired curvature, 


1864.] 


and yet at the same time a uniform 
curve and absence of local irregulari- 
ties secured. I have spent five 
years in the investigation of this 
subject, and have polished more 
than 100 mirrors of from 19 inches 
to one-fourth of an inch in diameter, 
on seven different machines built 
at various times. The quality of 
those I have at present is indi- 
cated by the fact that they will 
show Debillisima to be quintuple, 
and will render the close companion 
of Sirius, discovered by Alvan 
Clark’s magnificent 18-inch refrac- 
tor, visible. 

The Observatory at Hastings- 
upon-Hudson, near New York, lat. 
40° 59! 25” N., long. 73° 52/ 25" W. 
of Greenwich, is upon the summit 


Notes and Correspondence. 


383 


of a hill 225 feet above low-water 
mark. It is 20 feet square, with a 
wing 9x10 for a photographic 
laboratory. As the telescope is a 
Newtonian, with the mounting so 
contrived as to have the eyepiece 
stationary at all altitudes, a plan 
originally suggested by Miss Her- 
schel, there are peculiar facilities 
offered for easy access to the eye- 
piece, or place of the sensitive plate. 
The interior height of the Observa- 
tory, 22 feet, is divided into two 
stories, around the upper of which 
an observer’s chair runs to follow 
the telescope. The dome turns upon 
a pivot at its centre, instead of on 
rollers or cannon-balls around the 
edge, and is moved consequently 


with but slight exertion. 


>. 


4 
4 

4 

4 

R 

R 

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4 

; inv 

y 

SSeS 


WANT 


LO LLLIOTSOLLPPIDE LOLS PFLLEE LE LLM 


Dar pepe ry 


384 


In the woodcut a is the telescope 
tube, b one of the trunnions on fric- 
tion rollers perforated for the eye- 
piece, ¢ one of the counterpoise 
levers, having a weight at the upper 
end and being attached to an axled 
at the lower end; ee’e” is a wire- 
rope going from the counterpoise to 
the lower end of the telescope ; ff 
another wire-rope which passes 
round a small drum connected with 
the winch g, and gives the observer 
standing on the observer’s platform 
i the power of moving the telescope 
in altitude; & the stairs going to 
the photographic room, //' the gal- 
lery that divides the Observatory 
into two stories, m the azimuth axis 
resting on the solid rock, and sus- 
tained at its upper end by the three 
lateral beams, nn’ (two only are 
shown). They also rest in cavities 
in the rock. The dome is seen in 
section at oo’, the dome-opening 
and shutter at p, the dome-arch at 
qq7. The dome-raising lever 7, with 
the fulcrum at s, is shown as it ap- 
pears when the dome is prepared 
for revolving, the axis ¢ carrying 
the whole weight. The part of the 
lever below the detent wu can be 
bent up out of the way, and held by 
a loop. 

Since the telescope has been com- 
pleted, and furnished with two para- 
bolic mirrors of 153 inches aperture, 
and 150 inches focal length, and one 
Herschelian mirror (that is, a con- 
cave of such figure that it can only 
bring oblique pencils to a focus free 
from aberration), Celestial Photo- 
graphy has been continually prose- 
cuted. About 1,500 lunar negatives 
have been taken. Old experience 
obtained from portrait and micro- 
scopic photography has proved to 
be of great service. At first the 
well-known processes were used, 
but it was soon found that some- 
thing more refined was needed, 
where the pictures are to be sub- 
mitted to magnifying powers of per- 
haps 25 times. Defects in collodion 
negatives that would, under ordi- 
nary circumstances, pass unnoticed, 
assume such prominence as greatly 
to diminish the beauty of the results. 


Notes and Correspondence. 


| April, 


These defects, pin-holes, coarse gra- 
nular appearance of the reduced 
silver, and other markings, were 
found to arise principally from the 
presence of nitrate of silver on 
the sensitive plate. It was ascer- 
tained that by washing the plate 
thoroughly before exposure they 
disappeared, or were very much 
ameliorated, and without any re- 
duction in sensitiveness. But for 
this washing operation pure water 
is needed, and hence the roof of the 
buildings was painted with a ground 
mineral compound that hardens to 
a stony consistence, and the water 
falling upon it was preserved in a 
leaden tank, which from long use 
for other purposes had become 
thickly coated with insoluble salts 
of lead, sulphates, &c. Whenever 
an inch of rain falls, a ton of water 
is collected, and the tank may he 
filled about 32 times in a year. 

The negatives produced at the 
focus of the reflector are on an ave- 
rage J;4;inches in diaineter. Many 
that have been made will bear to 
be enlarged to 2 feet, and one was 
taken September 3, 1863, at 4.30 
A.M., which has been increased to 
3 feet in diameter, the total magni- 
fying power used being about 380. 
In this photograph the moon may 
be said to be shown on a scale of 
60 miles to the inch. 

In the process of enlarging I have 
introduced one very important no- 
velty. Instead of employing an 


achromatic combination of lenses 


arranged as a solar camera, a con- 
cave mirror is used. It entirely gets 
rid of the difficulty of chromatic 
aberration, which is, as all pho- 
tographers know, one of the most 
serious obstacles to success, and, in 
addition, the magnified image lies 
in one plane, or there is what is 
termed a flat field. Every little de- 
tail of the original negative is per- 
fectly reproduced, and a_ 3-foot 
image is as sharp in one part as in 
another. The effect of portraits re- 
produced of life-size is very striking, 
and the resemblance to the indi- 
vidual singularly increased. In mag- 
nifying these lunar negatives, a 


1864. 


mirror of 8 inches’ aperture and 
113 inches’ focal length is used. At 
first, when it was intended to em- 
ploy diffused daylight and the whole 
aperture, the figure was made ellip- 
tical, with a distance of 8 feet be- 
tween the conjugate foci ; but sub- 
sequently, when the advantages of 
sunlight were understood, the sur- 
face was reduced by a diaphragm to 
13 inches in diameter, and a part of 
the mirror as nearly perfect as a 
mirror can be made at present was 
selected. Success in enlargement 
becomes with this contrivance a cer- 
tainty. 

The ‘‘enlarger” is also equally 
valuable in copying by contact. 
When a small negative is enlarged 
and photographed, what is termed a 
positive results. If such a positive 
is used to make prints on paper, the 
lights and shades are inverted, and 
that which is white is shown black. 
It is necessary then to turn the 
original negative into a positive, so 
that when magnified a negative may 
result suitable for printing positive 
proofs on paper. This is done 
usually by a process called reversing, 
in which a sensitive plate is placed 
behind the original negative, and 
the two exposed to the light. 
Wherever the negative is transpa- 
rent the plate behind is stained by 
the light, and where opaque, it is 
protected. But unless the plate be- 
hind is so close as to make the 
chances of scratching the negative 
very great, the positive produced 
is much inferior in distinctness, be- 
cause the diffused light of day finds 
its way through in many directions. 
If, however, the negative and sen- 
sitive plate are placed in the beam 
of sunlizght coming from the en- 
larger, the rays pass through only 
in one direction, and the reverse or 
positive is as sharp as the original 
negative. 

Celestial photography is as yet 
only in its infancy. The results to 
which it has given origin, although 
excellent in many respects, have im- 
perfections. But it seems probable 
that these may be overcome in the 
future, partly by means now within 


Notes and Correspondence. 


3085 


reach, and partly by others which 
may be discovered at any moment, 
In looking at a 3-foot photograph 
from such a distance that the eye can 
embrace it all at one glance, the 
general effect is certainly very fine, 
and superior to observation through 
the telescope with a similar power. 
The moon appears as it would if 
viewed from a stand-point 600 miles 
from its surface. Ranges of moun- 
tains, as the Apennines, seem as if 
projected out from the general level, 
while the great craters, such as 
Plato, Theophilus, and Clavius, are 
deeply excavated below. Grooves 
of vast extent, like those diverging 
from Tycho, and faults such as that 
running past Aunt and Catharina 
on the one side, and Tucitus on the 
other towards Lindenau, still further 
break up the surface. The well- 
known seas and bright portions, so 
distinct to the naked eye, are lost 
in the multiplicity of the details 
into which they are resolved. 

But coming more closely to the 
picture, and examining with a cri- 
tical eye, it is apparent that, al- 
though the general effect is the same 
as would be perceived by looking 
at the moon itself, yet some of the 
minute details seen in the telescope 
with a high power are absent. 

The reasons which lie at the bot- 
tom of this difficulty are connected 
to a certain degree with the photo- 
graphic processes employed, but also 
to not a little extent with the con- 
dition of the air. The quality of 
the instrumental means used is, of 
course, of primary importance. A 
good photograph cannot be taken 
with an inferior telescope and clock. 

The obstacles arising from photo- 
graphy result from the fact that the 
dark parts of the picture are not 
formed by a continuous sheet of 
material, but by an aggregation of 
granules which, though invisible to 
the unassisted eye, are seen when a 
high-enough magnifying power is 
employed. Their degree of visi- 
bility turns on the system of deve- 
lopment used for bringing out the 
latent image on the sensitive plate. 
A picture injudiciously forced with 


586 


pyrogallic acid will hardly bear any 
enlargement, though one made with 
sulphate of iron and a well-regu- 
lated exposure may be increased in 
diameter twenty-five times, without 
showing the granulations offensively. 
The influence of the structure of the 
collodion-film itself, too, is notice- 
able in pictures taken by the wet 
process; in the first place, being 
somewhat transparent, 1t permits a 
certain amount of lateral diffusion 
in the film, and a tendency to soften 
down the more minute details ; and, 
in the second place, while wet it 
has quite a perceptible thickness, 
which is much diminished in dry- 
ing, and the relation of the silver 
particles to one another changed. 

I have attempted to avoid the 
faults connected with structure of 
the film by substituting dry col- 
lodion, and more particularly tannin 
plates for the wet. But though 
during the exposure to the celestial 
object the sensitive plate presents 
a glassy surface of extreme thin- 
ness, yet an indispensable pre- 
liminary to evoking the latent 
image is to soak the plate in water, 
and this introduces the more in- 
jurious of the two objections above 
urged, It was while trying this 
process that I ascertained the ad- 
vantages that arise from warming 
the film during development,—the 
“hot-water process,” as it is called. 
The attempt was also made to da- 
guerreotype the original pictures at 
the focus of the telescope on silver 
plating, and also on si/vered gluss. 
In this case all lateral diffusion is 
entirely prevented, the light acting 
on a mathematical surface, and the 
relations of the film of silver to the 
glass not being disturbed by the 
-subsequent manceuvres. But prac- 
tically no advantage has arisen from 
these trials, because, as in the for- 
mer instance, the whites in the re- 
sulting picture are not formed by a 
continuous stratum of mercurial 
amalgam. That this is the case is 
proved by the fact that such da- 
guerreotypes can be copied by the 
electrotype, or a coating of isinglass, 
as was shown by Dr. Draper (‘ Phil. 


Notes and Correspondence. 


[ April, 


Mag.,’ May, 1843). This is the first 
occasion on which silvered glass has 
been used for photographic pur- 
poses, and it may be well to point 
out its advantages. Owing pro- 
bably to the perfect purity of the 
silver, it takes the coatings of iodine 
and bromine with uniformity all 
over; in silver plated by fire on 
copper, there used to be a tendency 
to insensitive spots, from the copper 
alloy coming out on the face of the 
silver, and so great was the annoy- 
ance, that, when my father was en- 
gaged in the experiments that led 
him to take the first portrait ever 
obtained from life, he was compelled 
to use sheets of pure silver alone. 
The light also seems to be able to 
impress the iodo-bromide in less 
time, and pictures of a rosy warmth 
are generally obtained. ‘The only 
precaution necessary in practising 
this method of daguerreotyping is 
to fix the plate—that is, dissolve off 
the excess of sensitive material— 
with an alcoholic solution of cyanide 
of potassium, instead of an aqueous 
solution of hyposulphite of soda. 
The latter tends to split up the film 
of silver from the glass here and 
there, while the former does not. 
The subsequent washing, too, is 
most safely conducted with diluted 
commen alcohol. The time of ex- 
posure is not, however, as short as 
in’ the wet-collodion process, at 
least six times the exposure being 
demanded ; while if less is given, 
and the development over mer- 
curial vapour be urged beyond the 
usual point, minute globules of mer- 
cury stud the silver all over, and 
ruin the proof, 

The faults arising from atmo- 
spheric disturbances are easily un- 
derstood. If an image of the planet 
Jupiter produced by a large tele- 
scope be allowed to move across a 
sensitive plate, and the plate be 
then developed, a dark streak nearly 
of the width of the image will ap- 
pear. If this streak is closely exa- 
mined, it will be observed that the 
passage of the planet seems to have 
taken place in an irregular way—by 
fits and starts as it were, and that 


1864. | 


instead of the mark being continu- 
ous like that of a pencil, it rather 
resembles a string of beads. The 
cause of this lack of continuity is 
to be found in the movements of 
the Earth’s atmosphere. Or, if the 
eye is placed at the eyepiece of the 
telescope, and the edge of a planet 
or the moon watched, it is found to 
present a wavy outline instead of a 
sharp disc-like appearance. Any 
point in the surface, too, is seen to 
have a rapid vibratory motion. 

Although the eye can emancipate 
itself to a certain extent from these 
disturbances, a photographic plate 
cannot. Every point tends then to 
assume a greater size and less dis- 
tinctness than it should have, and 
if the night on which the trials are 
being made is very unsteady, the 
smaller details are so confused to- 
gether that the picture is worthless. 
Occasionally, however, very still 
nights occur, when photographs of 
great beauty may be taken. In the 
interval between March and De- 
cember, 1863, three such nights 
occurred, and on one of them the 
negative for the 3-foot was ob- 
tained. 

It has been stated that there are 
no insuperable obstacles to the pro- 
duction of perfect celestial photo- 
graphs,—that is, such as realize the 
full optical power of the telescope 
used. The atmospheric difficulty 
may be successfully combated by 
removing a large reflector from near 
the level of the sea to a consider- 
able altitude, where a great part of 
the atmosphere is left behind. It 
seems to me that a suitable place 
for such a purpose would be the 
rainless west coast of South Ame- 
rica, somewhere near the equator. 
Improvements, too, are continually 
being invented in photographic pro- 
cesses, and a considerable step is 
made when we find out what it is 
that we need. Quick methods are 
not so much required as those which 
will yield grainless pictures on struc- 
tureless films, and unless the time 
of exposure could be so much short- 
ened as to be buta small fraction of 
a single atmospheric pulsation, no 


Notes and Correspondence. 


387 


particular advantage would be gained 
by their use. 

The inducements to amateurs to 
prosecute the study of celestial 
photography are very great, and the 
apparatus required is such as any 
one of a mechanical turn may make. 
A great deal can and will be done 
in this branch of astronomy; and 
animated by the hope that many 
others may be induced to cultivate 
it, I have written the detailed ac- 
count in the Smithsonian Contri- 
butions. 


Henry Draper, M.D., 
Professor of Natural Science in the 
University of New York. 


The Brazilian Coal-fields. By Edward 
Hull, B.A., F.GS. 


THE immense empire of Brazil, oc- 
cupying one-third of the continent 
of South America, with an area of 
upwards of 3,000,000 of square 
miles; considerably larger than 
Russia in Europe ; watered by the 
largest river in the world, which 
with its tributaries is navigable for 
many hundred miles from its mouth; 
its western bounds stretching to 
the spurs of the Andes, and its 
eastern washed by the waves of 
two oceans—such a country as this 
would appear fitted to occupy the 
foremost rank amongst the na- 
tions of the Western hemisphere, 
provided its boundless resources 
were turned to account by an intel- 
ligent people, and civilization were 
advanced by wise laws. It is satis- 
factory to reflect, that while most 
of the surrounding republics—the 
shattered limbs of Spanish America 
—are tossed on the waves of anarchy, 
Brazil enjoys a peaceful government 
under a constitutional monarchy ; 
personal freedom with political se- 
curity ; monarchical principles com- 
bined with popular rights. We 
notice these points in the govern- 
ment of Brazil, because they afford 
the highest guarantee of national 
progress, and the development of 
industrial pursuits. Nor are the 
raw materials necessary for the at- 
tainment of a high position amongst 


388 


the manufacturing communities of 
the world absent from the soil of 
Brazil. 

The northern half of the empire 
is physically not unlike the plain 
of Northern Italy on a large scale. 
Covered with forests springing from 
a rich alluvial soil, and watered by 
the Amazon and its giant branches, 
it is prodigiously fertile. The 
southern half is hilly, and some- 
times mountainous, and gives birth 
to the Rio de la Plata. One of the 
peaks of the Organ Range rises be- 
hind the harbour of Rio de Janeiro, 
to an altitude of 7,500 feet. These 
and the neighbouring hills contain 
minerals and gems in abundance, 
and the Government has, with great 
spirit, undertaken a mineral survey 
of these southern provinces. 

It was once supposed that this 
great empire —rich in precious 
stones, and nearly all the metals, 
from gold to iron inclusive—was 
devoid of one natural product, use- 
ful, if not absolutely essential, to 
the full utilization of the other 
mineral treasures —namely, coal ; 
but such a supposition was alto- 
gether erroneous, as recent investi- 
gations have fully shown. A writer 
in a recent number of the ‘ Quar- 
terly Review’ * for 1860, mentions 
(on what authority is not stated) 
the existence of a coal-field upwards 
of 60 leagues in extent, and 40 miles 
from the sea. Considering that 
Brazil has a seaboard of more than 
2,000 miles, the description of the 
locality is sufficiently vague; but, 
as far as it goes, the information is 
strictly correct; this, however, is 
all that was known on the subject 
on this side of the Atlantic till very 
recently.t 


* No, 216, page 338 in foot note. 

+ A correspondent of the ‘Mining 
Journal,’ No. 1484, states that “ years 
since samples of the coals were sent to 
this country, and analysed by Dr. 
Percy.” It may also be stated that 
specimens of coal from Brazil were 
shownin the Exhibition of 1862, and 
were reported on by Mr. W. W. Smyth, 
in Jury Reports. 


Notes and Correspondence. 


[ April, 


To a countryman of our own, Mr. 
Nathaniel Plant, we are indebted 
for a full account, through his 
brother, Mr. J. Plant, Curator of 
the Salford Museum, of the position 
and resources of three distinct coal- 
fields which he has recently ex- 
plored in the southern part of the 
empire; the largest presents some 
features of peculiar interest, which 
we proceed briefly to lay before our 
readers. 

The first notice of these minerals 
seems to have been taken by Mr. 
Bonliech, son of the Governor of the 
province of Rio Grande do Sul, in 
which the largest of the three coal- 
fields is situated. This was in the 
year 1859, and it was probably 
through the report of this gentle- 
man that the writer in the ‘ Quar- 
terly Review’ obtained his informa- 
tion. The matter, however, seems 
to have been lost sight of until the 
end of 1861. When Mr. Plant, who 
for several years had been exa- 
mining the mineral districts of Rio 
Grande, in the service of the Im- 
perial Government, determined to 
make a fuller exploration of the 
coal-district, and he has now sent 
to this country an account of the 
very remarkable deposits of mineral 
fuel he met with, together with 
those unbiassed witnesses—photo- 
craphic views, and rock specimens.* 

The Candiota field is the largest 
of three which have as yet been dis- 
covered. It extends from lat. 32°S. 
to 28°S., and is thus at the southern 
extremity of the province of Rio 
Grande do Sul. It is traversed by 
the river Jaguarao and several of 
its tributaries, along whose banks 
the seams of coal crop out. There 
are two great seams of bituminous 
coal, the lower being 25 feet in 
thickness, the upper part of which 
is shown in the sketch, and is sepa~ 
rated by only a very few feet of 
shale from the upper bed (or series 
of beds), which is 40 feet in thick- 
ness. 


* These have been laid before the 
Geological Society of Manchester by 
his brother, 1864. 


1864.] 


Notes and Correspondence. 


ELE LD Ry 


VER ee EC 77 AE 


SSS . 
EQNS WNGaNe 


es 


eM 


hl 


TOP OF i 


bam i 


\ 


1 ili 


y if Dil 
uy iin 


A 


( 
Mm Li 
Qa LAMM I 


4 


oT AT | 
i | 


» 


Portion of Escarpment, showing the outcrop of the Coal-seams along the border of the Candiota 
Coal-field. Taken from a Photograph. 


In some places, the intermediate 
bands of shale which separate the 
mineral into distinct layers thin 
away, in which case a solid seam 
of no less than 65 feet is formed, 
unsurpassed, we believe, in vertical 
dimensions by any similar forma- 
tion yet discovered. We have 
handled specimens of the coal; and 
though taken from the outcrop, it 
is scarcely distinguishable, except 
by a slight brownish hue, from the 
ordinary coal of our own country. 

The coal-strata repose on a series 
of shales, sandstones, and crystal- 
line limestone, the whole of which 
are supported by mica-schist, and 
finally by syenite. 

Iron is also present, as in the 
coal-formation of Britain, both in 
the form of bands of clay-ironstone, 
and as a roof for the seams of coal. 
At the top of the cliffs formed by 
the outcrop of the coal-seam there 


occurs a mass of silicious iron-ore, — 


several yards in thickness, a sheet- 
casting from which was sent to the 
late Industrial Exhibition amongst 
the other Brazilian products. Thus 
there occurs in close proximity to 
each other, the ore, the fuel, the 
flux, and the clay, necessary for the 
establishment of iron-furnaces. 

The several minerals thus united 
rise in the form of an elevated 
escarpment (a portion of which is 
represented in the engraving), which 
may be traced for several leagues, 


affording the utmost facility for” 


working by open-work, or tunnels 
VOL. I. 


- Sul. 


driven into the sides of the hill. 
From its base stretches a gently 
sloping plain of basalt, over which 
a railway to a port in the Rio Gon- 
zalo might be laid down at a very 
moderate cost. Sailing-vessels of 
100 tons burden can navigate this 
river to the town of Jaguarao, 20 
miles from the borders of the coal- 
field, between which and the im- 
portant port of Rio Grande de San 
Pedro, on the Atlantic, there is at 
present a flourishing trade. 

The second coal-field which has 
been observed, lies about 100 leagues 
to the north of the Candiota field, 
in the valley of the Rio dos Ratos, 
near Porto Alegre, the capital of the 
province. It is not of large extent, 
but well situated for carriage by 
river and lake; nothing has, how- 
ever, yet been done to develope its 
resources. 

The third coal-field is in the small 
province of San Catharina, lying 
north-east of the Rio Grande do 
It is reported to occupy an 
area of about 80 square miles, in the 
midst of a range of hills, and is not 
so accessible to commerce as the 
other two tracts. 

It is not improbable that each of 
these coal-fields, lying as they do in 
a direct line parallel with the coast, 
is of the same geological age; and 
after an inspection of the fossil 
plants which have been sent over 
to this country, there cannot be a 
doubt, we think, that this age is 
the Carboniferous. Mr. Plant has 

2D 


390 


sent over several pieces of iron- 
stone, on which are imprinted very 
distinct specimens of Lepidoden- 
dron, and several ferns not unlike 
those of the coal-measures of Britain. 
A gentleman, also, who has studied 
the coal-measures of Nova Scotia, 
which are of the same age as those 
of Britain, refers, in a letter which 
we have seen, to fine specimens of 
Sigillaria and Stigmaria, both of 
which are characteristic of this pe- 
riod. Specimens of these, however, 
are not in the collection we have 
examined, but nothing can be more 
distinct than the fronds of Lepido- 
dendron already referred to. While 
on this subject we may be allowed 
to remark, that although, on the 
authority of Professor M‘Coy, the 
age of the Australian coal-fields was 
for some time considered to be Ju- 
rassic, the recent investigations of 
the Rev. W. B. Clarke go to esta- 
blish the Carboniferous age of these 
beds. Mr.Clarke has sent to England 
a collection of fossils from the New 
South Wales coal-field,* containing 
specimens of Lepidendron and Spi- 
rifer; and thus it would appear 
that, during the same great epoch, 
so pre-eminently carboniferous, de- 
posits of coal were being elaborated 
over both hemispheres and on both 
sides of the equator; a marvellous 
instance of the uniformity of na- 
ture’s operations in early geologic 
times. 

The importance of these great 
deposits to the commerce of the 
eastern seaboard of South America 
need not be dwelt upon. At the 
present time, 250,000 tons of coal 
are annually imported into Rio 
Janeiro, at a cost of 49s. per ton, 
and from this depot other coast- 
towns are supplied. When once 
the coal-field of Candiota is opened 
up, the Brazilian Government may 
be supplied at less than half the 
price, and our own little Island be 
spared the doubtful honour of pro- 
viding fuel for a continent on the 
other side of the globe. 

Epwarp Hutt. 

* In the Museum of the Geological 

Society of London, Somerset House. 


Notes and Correspondence. 


| April, 


Mult as Cattle Food, By J. Chalmers 

Morton. 

Srreatiey, near Reading. 

Your agricultural chronicle will 
doubtless place before your readers 
the fact that a bill has been intro- 
duced into Parliament, which will 
probably pass into law, for permit- 
ting the use of malt duty free in 
feeding sheep and cattle. They 
may, however, wish to know the 
probabilities of this measure prov- 
ing agriculturally serviceable, more 
in detail than the limits of the 
chronicle will enable you there to 
discuss them. 

The measure has probably origi- 
nated in the interview with which 
the Chancellor cf the Exchequer 
honoured a deputation of the Cen- 
tral Farmers’ Club early last year, 
when Mr. Booth of Warlaby, Mr. 
Arkell of Swindon, and Mr. Willams 
of Baydon, all well-known agricul- 
turists, declared to him that malt is 
greatly‘’superior to barley as food for 
cattle and for sheep ; and when Mr. 
Williams in particular put the case 
of an English farmer who had fed 
300 sheep on a lot of spoiled malt, 
and was refused a drawback of the 
duty, though this would have been 
allowed to him had he exported the 
malt to a French farmer, who might 
thereafter have sent his sheep, 
fattened on this very malt, for sale 
at Smithfield. ‘‘Thus, while the 
foreigner might have the advantage 
of feeding his sheep on malt without 
paying any duty, the British farmer, 
if he wished to feed his sheep on 
malt, was subject to a tax of 21s. 8d. 
per quarter.” ‘The inconsistency of 
this was obvious enough to the logi- 
cal mind to whom it was thus pre- 
sented, and accordingly we have now 
a Bill which will for the future put 
an end to so great an anomaly ! 
Barley may, for the future, in houses 
set apart for the purpose, be malted ; 
and the malt may be dried and 
ground, with 10 per cent. of linseed, 
to a certain degree of fineness, and 
it may be thereafter sold under cer- 
tain conditions, duty free, for feeding 
purposes. And no English farmer 
will hereafter be able to complain 


1864.] 


that he is being undersold in the 
meat market by foreign mutton more 
cheaply fed than hisown. Will this 
lead to any cheapening of the meat 
manufacture here? I think not. 

What are the circumstances? 
On the one hand, we have the prac- 
tical experience only of the few men 
who, in spite of the duty hitherto, 
have used it forthe purpose of put- 
ting the last finish to the fattening 
process, when the pampered appe- 
tite of the animal intended for exhi- 
bition refuses everything but an 
unusual dainty. Liebig also writes 
to Mr. Bass, M.P., a letter, which 
may, however, be quoted by either 
party to the discussion, but refer- 
ring especially to the greater diges- 
tibility of the malted barley. The 
letter is as follows :— 

“In forming a judgment on the 
feeding properties of malt, when 
given to horses, cattle, and sheep, 
it is obvious that in comparing it 
with barley we must not lose sight 
of the fact that there is a larger 
amount of nourishment in barley 
than in the malt manufactured from 
it; for in the process of malting 
barley suffers a loss in weight 
amounting to from 7 to 11 per cent. 
of dry substance. The ‘rootlets’ 
constitute 3 to 32 per cent. of this 
loss, and as they contain a pretty 
large quantity of blood-forming 
(nitrogenous) matter (25 to 30 per 
cent.), the grain, by their separation 
from it, undergoes a loss of one of 
its nutritive elements. Hence it is 
clear that if in practice the feeding 
qualities of malt are found to be 
greater than those of barley, this 
can only arise from the circumstance 
that the nutritive matter contained 
in malt is present there in a more 
soluble, more digestible state than 
in barley; and that therefore in 
feeding with barley more nutritive 
matter leaves the body in an undi- 
gested state than is the case when 
an equal weight of malt is used as 
food. There can be no doubt what- 
ever that in malt blood-forming mat- 
ter is contained in a more soluble 
form than in barley ; for the process 
of malting occasions a loosening of 


Notes and Correspondence. 


391 


the component parts of the grain in 
so great a degree that 100 volumes 
of dry barley yield (notwithstanding 
the loss of weight) 112 to 114 vo- 
lumes of dry malt. Such a loosen- 
ing of the inner parts of the grain, 
thus enabling the gastric juice in 
the animal body to penetrate it more 
easily and thoroughly, is not to be 
attained in like degree by a mecha- 
nical process. The comparative 
analysis shows finally that the 
amount of readily soluble blood- 
forming elements in barley is 14 per 
cent., and in malt 2°21 per cent. 
By the process of drying in the kiln, 
a part of the soluble blood-forming 
elements is rendered insoluble, and 
from this it cannot add to the feed- 
ing capabilities.” 

On the other hand, there is, in 
addition to the considerations 
against the economy of malt which 
this letter urges, the fact that in the 
case of ruminating animals, for which 
the farmer will principally use it, 
there can hardly be any room for 
the idea that increased digestibility 
will prove advantageous. Indeed, 
the increased solubility of the food, 
especially, mixed, as it will be, with 
linseed meal, will tend to its passage 
with wasteful rapidity through the 
digestive organs. And there is also 
the fact that a very great waste of 
substance takes place in malting. 
If barley after being malted will 
occupy a rather larger space than it 
did, the loss of weight per bushel is 
in great excess of any advantage 
there. The loss of weight on the 
whole does indeed generally exceed 
20 per cent., and this is too large to 
be counterbalanced by any improve- 
ment the substance may have ac- 
quired, whether in digestibility or 
otherwise, during the process. 

Apart, however, altogether from 
the relative merits of barley and 
malt as food for cattle and sheep, 
there are cheaper and better foods 
now in use than either of them will 
ever be. Except in pig-feeding, 
where barley is the chief food used, 
itis of but little service in our meat 
manufacture. Oilcakes of various 
kinds, peas, beans, linseed, carob 


392, Notes and Correspondence. 


pods, oats, and even wheat, must be 
named before it on the list of foods 
for the stable, feeding stall, or sheep- 
fold. And, if the mixed malt and 
linseed, both of them relaxing sub- 
stances, which are offered to him 
duty free, be experimented on by the 
cattle-feeder, he must add a large 
proportion of bean meal, or some 
other astringent substance, to cor- 
rect a tendency which will rather 
check than help the fattening pro- 
cess ; while if used merely to induce 
the saccharine fermentation in other 
meals, which would form the bulk 
of the food administered, the small 
quantity wanted for that purpose is 
not worth the legislation which has 
been demanded for it. The real 
object of the existing agitation on 
this subject no doubt is, that we 
may have malt free for man. And 
the point, practically worthless and 
unimportant, but theoretically inde- 
fensible, which was pointed out 
by Mr. Williams to Mr. Gladstone, 
and on which the present Bill is 
founded, will have served a useful 
purpose if it shall in any degree 
have helped to remove what is un- 
doubtedly a demoralizing, and, ex- 
cepting to the tenants of good bar- 
ley-growing districts, a generally 
mischievous impost. 
J. C. Morton, 
Ed. ‘ Agricultural Cyclopedia,’ 


March, 1864. 


A New Method of Illustrating the 
Structure of Blister Steel, by Nature 
Printing. By H.C.Sorby, F.R.S, 


BroomFie.D, near Sheffield, 
March, 1864. 

WHEN iron is converted into steel 
by cementation, three distinct crys- 
talline compounds are formed, two 
of which are readily dissolved by 
diluted nitric acid, whereas one is 
scarcely at all affected by it. If, 
therefore, a piece of such steel be 
ground flat and polished, and then 
placed in the acid, after a suitable 


[ April, 


amount of action, this constituent 
retains its original surface and po- 
lish, whereas the other two are so 
much dissolved that it stands up 
in sufficient relief to allow of the 
blocks being used for surface print- 
ing instead of a woodcut, to exhibit 
the structure of different varieties 
ofsteel. At the late conversazione 
of the Sheffield Literary and Philo- 
sophical Society, specimens were 
printed showing the appearance 
of a square bar of iron once con- 
verted (transverse section), iron 
remaining in the centre; a flat 
bar of iron, slightly converted, the 
crystals being small; a square bar 
of iron twice converted (transverse 
section), showing the centre incom- 
pletely converted ; a flat bar of iron, 
highly converted, the crystals being 
rather large ; a round bar of “‘ homo- 
geneous metal,” converted (trans- 
verse section); and a flat bar of 
hammered cast steel, reconverted, 
the crystals being very large. In 
order that you may convey to your 
readers some idea of the appear- 
ances thus presented, I send you 
herewith a small block of prepared 
metal, capable of being employed 
as a woodcut. 


It is a transverse section of “ blister 
steel,” from a flat bar of iron highly 


converted. The best method of 
viewing the prints is by mounting 
them as stereoscopic objects, for 
they appear to great advantage un- 
der such a magnifying power. 
Though far more suitable for blister 
steel than for any other metal, yet 
still prints may be obtained from 
sections of armour-plates and other 
varieties of iron, which show cer- 
tain peculiarities in their structure 
in a very satisfactory manner. 
H. C. Sorsy, F.RS., &c. 


OE OEE 


( 393 ) 


Books received for Webiet, 


From Messrs. Longman & Co. :— 


Tue Srory or THe Guns. By Sir J. Emerson Tennent, K.C.S., F.R.S. 
Illustrated. 400 pp. 8vyo. 

ELEMENTS oF Puysics, on NaruraL Puttosopuy. Written for general use in 
plain or non-technical language, by Neil Arnott, M.D., F.R.S., &e. 6th 
and completed Edition. Part I. 430 pp. 8vo. 

A GvIpE To GEoLocy. By John Phillips, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S., F.G.S., Pro- 
fessor of Geology in the University of Oxford. 5th Edition. Illustrated. 
320 pp. 

Tue Barre OF THE STANDARDS ; the Ancient of Four Thousand Years against . 
the Modern of the last Fifty Years, the less perfect of the two. By John 
Taylor, author of ‘The Great Pyramid, why was it built?’ 100 pp. S8vo. 

BiocrarnicaL Sketcu or Sir BensAMiy Bropie, late Sergeant-Surgeon to the 
Queen and President of the Royal Society. By Henry W. Acland, Regius 
Professor of Medicine in the University of Oxford. 30 pp. 8vo. 

THe PrincrPLEs OF AGRICULTURE. By Wm. Bland, M.R.A.S., author of ‘The 
Principles of Construction in Arches, Piers, Buttresses, &c.’ 2nd Edition. 
140 pp. 


From Mr. Van Voorst :— 


Brirish ConcuoLocy, or an Account of the Mollusca which inhabit the 
British Isles and the surrounding Seas. Vol. II. Marine Shells, compris- 
ing the Brachiopoda and Conchifera from the Family Anomiide to that of 
Mactride, By John Gwyn Jeffreys, F.R.S., F.G.S., &c. 8 plates. 480 pp. 


From Messrs. John Churchill & Soins :— 

Harpwicnu’s PuorocrapHic Cuemistry. 7th Edition. Revised by G. Daw- 
son, M.A., Lecturer on Photography, King’s College, London; and E. A. 
Hadow, Demonstrator of Chemistry, King’s College, London. Illustrated. 
608 pp. 

THE hae Sree In Cuemistry, or the Student’s Guide to the Higher 
Branches of the Science. By Robert Galloway, F.C.S., Professor of Prac- 
tical Chemistry in the Museum of Irish Industry. Dublin. Ilustrated. 
792 pp. 


From Mr. Stanford :— 


Pure Locic, or THE Logic oF QUALITY APART FROM QUANTITY; with 
remark’s on Booles System and on the relation of Logic and Mathematics. 
By W. Stanley Jevons, M.A. 89 pp. 


From Messrs. A. Brown & Co., Aberdeen :— 


Tue Boranist’s GUIDE TO THE COUNTIES OF ABERDEEN, BANFF, AND KincAr- 
pine. By G. Dickie, A.M., M.D., Professor of Botany in the University 
of Aberdeen. Map. 350 pp. 8vo. 


From the Author :— 


A Hanppook or Descriptive AND PracticaL Astronomy. By George F. 
Chambers, F.R.G.S. Illustrated. 560 pp. (J. Murray, 1861.) 


( 394 ) 


PAMPHLETS. 
LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 


Tuer Powrr or Gop in His AntmmAL Creation. By Professor R. Owen, D.C.L. 
Exeter Hall Lecture. 

ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS, GEOLOGICAL Soctrry or Lonpon. By Professor A. C. 
Ramsay, F.R.S., President. (Taylor & Francis.) 

ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE INSTITUTION OF CrvIL ENGINEERS, J. R. 
M‘Lean, Esq., F.R.A.S. 1863-4. (Clowes & Sons.) 

ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE West Kernr Narurau History, 
MicroscopicAL AND PuHoroGrapHic Socrery. Fredk. Currey, Esq., M.A., 
F.R.S., &c., with Report, &e. (Crockford, Greenwich). 

ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE Baro Natura History anpD ANTI- 
QUARIAN Firtp Crus. Revd. Leonard Jenyns, M.A., F.L.8., &e. (Hay- 
ward, Hapress Office, Bath). 

Ruies For ZootocicaL Nomencuature. By the late Hugh E. Strickland. 
Reprinted by Sect. D. British Association. (Neill, Edinburgh.) 

On Dericrency oF ViraL Power IN Disrasr, AND ON Support. By Lionel S. 
Beale, M.B., F.B.S., F.R.C.P., &c. (T. Richards.) 

OBSERVATIONS UPON THE EssENTIAL CHANGES OCCURRING IN INFLAMMATION. A 
Lecture. Same Author. (Deey, Dublin.) 

Tue Patent Question. A Paper read at the Association for the Promotion 
of Social Science, Edinburgh, by R. A. Macfie, President, Liverpool Cham- 
ber of Commerce. (W. J. Johnson, London.) 


PERIODICALS. 


Tue CuEemicaAL News.—ReEvvukE UNIVERSELLE DES Mines, &c., sous la direction 
de M. Ch. de Cuyper. Noblet & Baudry, Paris and Li¢ge—TuHr DvuBLIn 
QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF SCIENCE.— ARTIZAN. 


REPRINTS. 


VEGETABLE MorpHoLocy. By M.T. Masters, F.L.S.—Gortun’s Essay ON THE 
Meramorruosis OF PLants. Translated by Emily M. Cox, notes by M. T. 
Masters, M.D.—Proprrrrizs or ELEcrRo-prposireED ANTIMONY. George 
Gore.—OBSERVATIONS ON THE PLaner Mans. By J. Norman Lockyer, 
F.R.A.S.— NovTsEs SUR LA FABRICATION DE L’'ACIER EN ANGLETERRE, Par E. 
Grateau, Ing. civildes Mines. Puaris.—Lxrs PoLynestens er Leurs Miera- 
trons. A. de Quatrefages, Membre de I’Institut de France. 


PROCEEDINGS OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. 
Tue Royat—RoyaL GErOGRAPHICAL—ETHNOLOGICAL — GEOLOGICAL—RoyaL 
ASTRONOMICAL— MICROSCOPICAL— ZOOLOGICAL : all of Lonpon. 
Liverpoot LitrRARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL Socimry. 


TRANSACTIONS OF THE NortTH OF ENGLAND Institute oF Mrytne ENGINEERS. 
October and November, 1863. On the Discovery of Rock Salt at Mid- 
dlesbro.’ By John Marley. 

La Societe BATAVE DE PHILOSOPHIE EXPERIMENTALE DE RoTrerDAM, 


LONDON: PRINTED BY W. CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD SLREET AND CHARING Coss. 


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THE QUARTERLY 


JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 


JULY, 1864. 


ORIGINAL ARTICLES. 


ON THE PHYSICAL ASPECTS OF THE MOON’S SURFACE. 
By James Nasmyru. 


Tue desire to know something of other worlds besides our own has 
ever been a prominent one with intelligent minds, and as the telescope 
has enabled us virtually to reduce the distance between ourselves 
and those remote orbs that revolve around the sun, many facts have 
thus been elicited concerning their physical constitution. 

Interesting as such facts may be, they are vague and insufficient 
as compared with those which the telescope has revealed to us, in 
regard to our nearest celestial neighbour, the Moon, whose com- 
parative proximity enables us, even by the aid of a moderate magnify- 
ing power, to gain a very exact knowledge of the physical structure 
of her surface. 

As the Moon’s hemisphere, which is ever turned towards us, has 
its features illuminated in opposite directions during her monthly 
passage in her orbit around the earth, every part of it is exposed in 
turn to the rays of the sun, which fall on the details of its features in 
constantly varying inclinations; and it is from this circumstance that 
we have such favourable opportunities afforded to us of obtaining a 
very correct knowledge of the configuration of the details in question, 
as well as of their height or depression above or below the mean 
level of the Moon’s general surface. Thus it is that we are enabled 
most carefully to scrutinize her remarkable surface ; and should we 
have drawn any hasty inferences from one set of observations, the 
opportunity is usually presented to us in the course of a fortnight, or 
at farthest a month, to correct them if erroneous, or to verify them if 
accurate, and to pursue further investigations that may be suggested 
by reflection on what we had last observed. 

In these respects telescopic visits to the surface of the moon 
yield more correct and reliable results than would many a visit to 
portions of our world where the scenery to be surveyed is not, 

VOL. I. 25 


396 Original Articles. [July, 


perhaps, conveniently accessible; and even when it is reached, the 
traveller may be surrounded by circumstances which very seriously 
interfere with his personal comfort, or disturb that tranquillity which 
is so requisite a condition for close and accurate observation, and thus 
lead him to hasty conclusions, which he has no future opportunity to 
rectify. In strong contrast with such circumstances is the position 
of the astronomer, comfortably placed beside his telescope, in the 
silence and tranquillity of a fine clear night, with all distracting 
objects excluded from his view. The whole of his attention is thus 
brought to focus, as it were, on the point under investigation there 
and then presented to his scrutiny, and ready to yield perfectly truth- 
ful replies to his questions; nothing being requisite for a correct 
interpretation of facts, other than a quick eye backed by a sound 
and unbiassed judgment. 

It is from circumstances such as these that we have acquired, by 
a long course of assiduous observation and reflection, an amount of 
intimate acquaintance with the physical structure of the Moon’s 
exterior, in many important respects far more accurate than is our 
knowledge of that portion of the earth. 

Tn order rightly to interpret the details of the Moon’s surface, as 
revealed to us by the aid of the telescope, we ought, in the first place, 
to bear in mind the true nature of volcanic action, namely, that while 
it has reference to the existence of intense temperature and molten 
matter, it does not derive its origin from combustion, considered as 
such in a strictly chemical sense, but proceeds from an incandescent 
condition, induced in matter by the action of that great cosmical law 
which caused an intense heat to result from the gravitation of particles 
of matter towards a common centre. These particles, originally exist- 
ing in a diffused condition, were, by the action of gravitation, made 
to coalesce, and so to forma planet. Volcanic action, then, has in 
all probability for its source the heat consequent upon the collapse of 
such diffused matter, resulting in that molten condition through 
which there is strong reason to believe all planetary bodies to have 
passed in their primitive state, and of which condition the geological 
history of our earth furnishes abundant evidence. Thus the molten 
lava which we see issuing from an active volcano on the earth, is 
really and truly a residual portion of that molten matter of which 
the entire globe once consisted. 

In reference to the nature and origin of that eruptive force which 
had, again and again in the early periods of the Moon’s history, 
caused the remaining molten matter of her interior to be ejected from 
beneath her solidified crust, and so to assume nearly every variety of 
volcanic formation in its most characteristic aspect, the key to these may 
be found in the action of that law which pervades almost all matter in 
a molten condition, namely, that “molten matter occupies less bulk, 
weight for weight, than the same material when it has ceased from 
the molten state ;” or, in other words, that “ matter in a molten state 
is specifically more dense than the same material in a solidified con- 
dition.” Thus it is that in passing from the molten to the solid 
state the normal law is resumed, and expansion of bulk either just 


1864.| Nasmyri on the Physical Aspects of the Moon’s Surface. 397 


immediately precedes or accompanies solidification. It is, therefore, 
in this expansion in the bulk of the solidifying matter, beneath the 
Moon’s crust, that we are to look for the true cause of that eruptive 
or ejective action which has resulted in the displacement, swrface- 
ward, of the fluid portion of the Moon’s internal substance ; a dis- 
placement which has manifested itself in nearly every variety of 
voleanie formation, such as circular craters with their central cones 
or mountains of exudation, cracked districts, &c.; all these varia- 
tions of well-recognized volcanic phenomena being intermingled 
and overlaid one upon the other in the most striking and wonderful 
manner. In illustration of this, I would here refer the reader to 
the lithograph which accompanies this paper, and which has been 
selected as a fair type of the greater part of the lunar surface where 
such volcanic features are characteristically displayed. 

It may, however, be very reasonably and naturally asked, “ What 
evidence have I that the features I refer to have any relation to 
voleanic action at all?” In reply to such a question I would direct 
the inquirer’s attention to one single feature which, I conceive, 
demonstrates more completely than any other the fact of volcanic 
action having (at however remote a period) existed in full activity in 
the Moon. ‘The special feature to which I would refer is the central 
cone that may be observed within those “ Ring-formed mountains,” as 
they have been termed. “The central cone” is a well-known and 
distinctive feature in terrestrial volcanoes. It is the residue of the last 
expiring eftorts of a once energetic eruptive volcanic action, which 
had thrown the ejected matter to such a considerable distance round 
about the volcanic vent, that in its descent it had accumulated around 
in the form of a ring-shaped mountain or crater, whilst on the subsidence 
of this volcanic energy, the ejected matter was deposited in the 
immediate vicinity of the vent or volcanic orifice, and thus arose the 
* central cone.” 

Anyone who is familiar with terrestrial volcanic craters must, at 
the first glance at those which are scattered in such infinite numbers 
over the Moon’s surface, detect this well-known analogous feature, 
the central cone, and at once reasonably infer that these similar forms 
arose from a common cause, that cause being no other than volcanic 
action, accompanied by all its most marked characteristics. 


Fie. 1. 


Fig. 1. Represents a fair average type of the structure of a 
Lunar Volcanic Crater with its central cone A. 
252 


398 Original Articles. [July, 


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Fie. 3. 


Fig. 3. Is the section of a Lunar Crater, showing how by the 
eruption, and subsequent deposition of the ejected matter, the circular 
outer wall or crater had been formed. 


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Fie. 4. 


Fig. 4. The section of the same, exhibiting the manner in which the 
central cone had resulted from the expiring efforts of the eruptive action. 

Tn examining the Moon’s surface, we cannot but be impressed with 
the vast dimensions of many of the volcanic craters with which her 
surface is studded. Craters of thirty miles: and upwards in diameter 
are by no means uncommon, and the first impression on the mind in 
reference to such magnitudes is one of astonishment, that so small a 
planet as the Moon (whose magnitude is only about jth that of the 
earth) should exhibit evidence of volcanic violence so far greater than 
any that we have on the earth. This apparent paradox will, however, 
disappear when we come to consider that in consequence of the Moon 
being so much less than the carth, the force of gravity on its ex- 
terior is not above 4th of that on the earth, and that the weight of 


1864.] Nasmyrn on the Physical Aspects of the Moon’s Surface. 899 


tho lunar materials on its surface is reduced in the latter proportion, 
while, on the other hand, by reason of the small magnitude of the 
Moon and its proportionately much larger surface in ratio to its magni- 
tude, the rate at which it parted with its original cosmical heat must 
have been vastly more rapid than in the case of the earth. Now, as the 
disruptive and eruptive action and energy are in proportion to the 
greater rato of cooling, those forces must have been much greater in the 
first instance ; and, operating as they did on matter so much reduced in 
weight as if must be on the surface of the Moon, we thus find in com- 
bination two conditions most favourable to the display of voleanic force 
in the highest degree of violence. Moreover, as the ejected material 
in its passage from the centre of discharge had not to encounter any 
atmospheric resistance, it was left to continue the primary impulse of 
the ejection in the most free and uninterrupted manner, and thus to 
deposit itself at distances from the volcanic vent so much greater 
than those of which we have any example in the earth, as to result in 
the formation of the craters of vast magnitude so frequently encoun- 
tered in a survey of the Moon’s surface. In like manner we find the 
ejected matter piled up to heights such as create the utmost astonish- 
ment; Lunar Mountains of 10,000 feet high are of frequent 
oceurrence, while there are several of much greater altitude, some 
reaching the vast height of 28,000 feet, and that almost at one bound, 
as they start up directly from the plane over which they are seen to 
cast their long black, steeple-like shadows for many a mile; whilst at 
other times they intercept the rays of the sun upon their highest 
peaks many hours before their bases emerge from the profound dark- 
ness of the long lunar night. 

Among the many terribly sublime scenes with which the Moon’s 
surface must abound, none can be grander than that which would 
present itself to the spectator, were he placed inside of one of these 
vast volcanic craters (Tycho, for instance), surrounded on every side 
by the most terrific evidences of volcanic force in its wildest features. 

In such a position he would have before him, starting up from the 
vast plane below, a mighty obelisk-shaped mountain of some 9,000 
feet in height, casting its intense black shadow over the plateau; and 
partly up its slope he would see an amphitheatrical range of moun- 
tains beyond, which, in spite of their being about forty miles distant, 
would appear almost in his immediate proximity (owing to the 
absence of that “aerial perspective,” which in terrestrial scenery 
imparts a softened aspect to the distant object), so near, indeed, as to 
reveal every cleft and chasm to the naked eye! This strange com- 
mingling of near and distant objects, the inevitable visual consequence 
of the absence of atmosphere or water, must impart to lunar scenery 
a terrible aspect; a stern wildness, which may aptly be termed un- 
earthly. And when we seek to picture to ourselves, in addition to the 
lineaments and conditions of the lunar landscape, the awful effect of 
an absolutely black firmament, in which every star, visible above the 
horizon, would shine with a steady brilliancy (all causes of scintil- 
lation or twinkling being absent, as these effects are due to the presence 
of variously heated strata, or currents in our atmosphere), or of the 


400 Original Articles. | July, 


vivid and glaring sunlight, with which we have nothing to compare in 
our subdued solar illumination, made more striking by the contrast of 
an intensely black sky; if, we say, we would picture to ourselves the 
wild and unearthly scene that would thus be presented to our gaze, 
we must search for it in the recollection of some fearful dream. 

That such a state of things does exist in the Moon we have no 
reason whatever to doubt, if we may be permitted to judge from in- 
ferences reasonably and legitimately deduced from the phenomena on 
its surface revealed by the telescope; neither can there be a question 
as to the presence there of the same brilliant tints and hues which 
accompany volcanic phenomena in terrestrial craters, and which 
must lend additional effect to the aspect of Iumar scenery. Nor 
must we omit, whilst touching upon the scene that would meet the 
eye of one placed on the Moon’s surface, the wonderful appearance 
that would be presented by our globe, viewed from the side of the 
Moon which faces earthward. Possessing sixteen times the super- 
ficial area, or four times the diameter, which the Moon exhibits to us, 
situated high up in the lunar heavens, passing through all the phases 
of a mighty moon, its external aspect ever changing rapidly as it re- 
volves upon its axis in the brief space of four-and-twenty hours, what 
a glorious orb it would appear! Whilst its atmospheric phenomena, 
due to its alternating seasons, and the varying states of weather, 
would afford a constant source of interest. But, alas! there can be 
none to witness all these glories, for if ever man was justified in 
forming a conclusion which possesses the elements of certainty, it is 
that there can be no organized form of life, animal or vegetable, of 
which we have any cognizance, that would be able to exist upon the 
Moon. 

Every condition essential to vitality, with which we are con- 
versant, appears to be wanting. No air, no water, but a glaring sun, 
which pours its fierce burning rays without any modifying influence 
for fourteen days unceasingly upon the surface, until the resulting 
temperature may be estimated to have reached fully 212°; and no 
sooner has that set on any portion of the lunar periphery than a wither- 
ing cold supervenes ; the “ cold of space” itself, which must cause the 
temperature to sink, in all probability, to 250° below zero. What 
plant, what animal could possibly survive such alternations of heat 
and cold recurring every fourteen days, or the accompanying climatic 
conditions ? 

But let us not suppose, because the Moon is thus unfitted for 
animal or vegetable existence as known to us, that it is necessarily a 
useless waste of extinct volcanoes. Apart from its value as “a lamp 
to the earth,” it has a noble task to perform in preventing the stagna- 
tion that would otherwise take place in our ocean, which would, 
without its influence, be one vast stagnant pool, but is now maintained 
in constant, healthy activity, through the agency of the tides that 
sweep our shores every four-and-twenty hours, bearing away with 
them to sea, all that decaying refuse which would otherwise accumu- 
late at the mouths of rivers, there to corrupt, and spread death and 
pestilence around. This evil, then, the Moon arrests effectively, and 


1864. | Russet on Gun-cotton. 401 


with the tides for a mighty broom, it daily sweeps and purifies our 
coasts of all that might be dangerous or offensive. 

But there is still another duty that she fulfils—namely, in per- 
forming the work of a “tug” in bringing vessels up our tidal rivers. 
Dwellers in seaports, or those who reside in towns situated up our 
tidal streams, have excellent opportunities of observing and appreciating 
her value in her towing capacity ; and, indeed, it may with truth be 
said that no small portion of the corn with which we are nourished, 
and of the coal that glows in our firesides, is brought almost up to 
our very doors by the direct agency of the Moon. 


GUN-COTTON. 


By Joun Scorr Russexz, C.E., F.R.S. 


Tux elements are proverbially good servants, but bad masters—Fire, 
water, wind, and steam are fierce demons when they get the upper 
hand; yet what would civilization be, wanting the fire of the kitchen, 
the smith’s hearth, and the foundry ; how should we be, without seas 
to carry our boats or rivers to turn our mills? Commerce and mer- 
chandise are mainly conducted by the wind and the sails of our mer- 
chantmen ; and steam clothes us, and carries us from city to farm, 
and from island to continent; yet the earthquake, the volcano, the 
conflagration, the torrent, the storm, the hurricane, and the explosion 
—what are they but servants become masters ? 

It is peculiarly true of steam and gunpowder that they are among 
the most useful, and most dangerous of human inventions ; but danger 
in both is generally admitted to be a matter merely of skill and care. 
No one proposes to put down railways because a locomotive explodes, 
or to give up shooting because a gun has burst, or a gunpowder 
manufactory blown up. 

Gun-cotton is a new power coming under the same category as 
steam and gunpowder. It is highly dangerous to those who don’t 
possess the necessary knowledge and skill; but, like them, it enor- 
mously extends human power, and, like them, the skill to use it can 
be rightly and certainly acquired. 

The object of this paper is to extend the knowledge and skill of 
my countrymen in the use of this new power. It is, I believe, of far 
more value to England than to any other nation in the world. It is, 
in my opinion, a power capable of being extensively used for a 
multitude of purposes yet unheard of; and I believe it will play an 
important part in the destinies of England. 

The first question we naturally ask on the introduction of a new 
power is, what are to be its advantages over existing powers and pro- 
cesses? In regard to gun-cotton, we at once ask, therefore, what are 
its advantages over gunpowder? Is it stronger? Is it more con- 
venient? Is it cheaper? Why should we give up gunpowder and 


402 Original Articles. [July, 


take to gun-cotton? The answers to these questions categorically 
will best introduce it to the English reader. 

I. Is gun-cotton stronger than gunpowder? The answer to this 
is, Yes, sixfold stronger. 

By this we mean that if we take a given weight of gun-cotton, say 
four ounces, if we bore a hole 14 inch in diameter and 3 feet deep, 
into hard rock or slate, in a quarry, and put 4 ounces of gun-cotton 
into it, it will occupy about 1 foot of its length, and the aperture 
being closed in the usual manner, and a matchline led from the 
charge to the proper distance from which to fire it; and if we next 
take 24 ounces of best gunpowder, bore a similar hole, and charge it 
similarly with gunpowder, and close it in the same way; it has been 
found that, on these being exploded, the 4 ounces of gun-cotton have 
produced greater effect, in separating the rock into pieces, than the 
24 ounces of gunpowder. The answer is, therefore, that in disruptive 
explosion the strength of gun-cotton is sixfold that of good gun- 
powder. 

But the disruptive or bursting power of gunpowder is not always 
the quality for which we value it most, nor the service we require of 
it. In mining rocks, in exploding shells, in blowing up fortresses, 
this property is what we value, and this work is what we require. 
But we do not want to burst our fowling-pieces, our rifles, our 
cannon. On the contrary, we want to use a force that shall project 
the projectile out of the gun without bursting the gun, without strain- 
ing the gun beyond a given moderate limit, which it shall be able to 
endure. We want therefore a service from gun-cotton which shall be 
the contrary of destructive to, or disruptive of, the chamber in which 
it does the work of giving motion to the projectile. 

This moderated and modified work, gun-cotton can also perform ; 
and it is the modern discovery of General Lenk, which has enabled us 
to moderate and modify gun-cotton to this gentler service. He dis- 
covered how to organize, arrange, and dispose mechanically of gun- 
cotton in such a way that it should be three times stronger than 
gunpowder. Accordingly, one of his charges of gun-cotton, weighing 
16 ounces, projected a 12-pound solid round shot with a speed of 
1,426 feet a second, while a charge of gunpowder of 49 ounces gave 
the same shot a speed of 1,400 feet a second. One-third of the 
weight of gun-cotton exceeded, therefore, the threefold weight of gun- 
powder in useful effect. 

II. Is gun-cotton more convenient than gunpowder? This isa 
larger and more various question than the former, and divides itself 
into various subdivisions. 

Tt is well known to sportsmen, to soldiers, to artillery-men, that 
gunpowder fouls a gun, A foul residue of soot, sulphur, and potash 
soils the inside of the gun after every charge. The gun must, some- 
how, be cleaned after a discharge; if not it fires worse, recoils more, 
and ceases to do its best. If the gun be a breech-loading gun its 
mechanism is dirtied, and works less easily. Gun-cotton deposits no 
residue, leaves the gun clean and clear, and the utmost it does is to 
leave a gentle dew of clear water on the inside of the bore, this water 


1864. ] Russriy on Gun-cotton. 403 


being the condensed steam which forms one of the products of its 
decomposition. Gun-cotton is, therefore, superior to gunpowder in 
not fouling the gun, a result favourable both to quicker and more 
accurate firing. 

It is further a matter of no slight convenience that gun-cotton 
makes no smoke. In mines the smoke of gunpowder makes the air 
unbreathable, and for some time after explosion the miners cannot 
return to their work. In boring the great tunnel of Mont Cenis 
through the Alps, the delay from smoke of powder alone will postpone 
the opening of the line for many months. After a properly-conducted 
explosion of gun-cotton, the workmen may proceed in their work at 
once without inconvenience. 

In casemates of fortresses, gunpowder fills the casemates with foul 
smoke, and the men speedily sink under the exertion of quick firing. 
By using gun-cotton it was ascertained that the men could continue 
their work unharmed for double the quantity of firing. This is partly 
attributed to the greater heat, and partly to the foulness of the air 
produced by gunpowder. 

But it is under the decks of our men-of-war, that greatest benefit 
is likely to arise from gun-cotton. Not only does the smoke of a 
broadside fill the between decks with hot and foul air, but the smoke 
of the windward gun blinds the sight, and hinders the aim of the lee- 
ward. When there is no smoke, as with gun-cotton, the aim of every 
gun may be precise and deliberate. The diminished heat between 
decks will also tell powerfully in favour of gun-cotton. In our 
armour-plated ships also there is more value in breech-loading guns, 
than in any other use of artillery. It is one of the necessities of 
breech-loading mechanism, that it be kept clean, and nothing tends 
more to derange its perfect action than the greater heat which gun- 
powder imparts to the gun from which it is fired. 

That gun-cotton has the convenience of not heating the gun has 
been thus proved. 100 rounds were fired in 34 minutes with gun- 
cotton, and the temperature of the gun was raised 90°. 100 rounds 
were fired with gunpowder, and triple the time allowed to cool the 
gun, which nevertheless was heated so much as to evaporate water with 
a hissing sound, which indicated that its temperature was much above 
212°. Under these circumstances the firmg with gunpowder had to be 
stopped, while that with gun-cotton was comfortably continued to 180 
rounds. 

It is also a matter of practical convenience that gun-cotton, inso- 
much as it is lighter, can be carried more easily and farther than gun- 
powder ; and it may be wetted without danger, so that when dried 
again in the open air, it is as good for use as before. 

III. We have now to ask—is it cheaper? The answer to this 
question must be qualified—pound for pound it is dearer; we must 
therefore judge of its cheapness by its effect, not by weight merely. 
But where it does six times as much work, it can then be used at six 
times the price per pound and still be as cheap as gunpowder. As far 
as we yet know, the prices of gun-cotton and gunpowder are nearly 
equal, and it is only therefore where the one has advantages and con- 


404 Original Articles. [July, 


veniences beyond the other, and is more especially suited for some 
specific purpose, that it will have the preference. Effective cheap- 
ness will therefore depend mainly on which of the two does best the 
particular kind of duty required of it. 

To illustrate how curiously these two powers, gun-cotton and gun- 
powder, differ in their nature, and how the action of gun-cotton may 
be changed by mechanical arrangements, we may take one kind of work 
that is required of both :—If a General want to blow open the gates of 
a city, he orders an enterprising party to steal up to the gate, with a 
bag containing 100 lbs. of gunpowder, which he nails to the gate, and 
by a proper match-line he fires the gunpowder and bursts open the 
gate. If he nailed a bag of gun-cotton of equal weight in the same 
place and fired it, the gun-cotton would fail, and the gate would be 
uninjured, although the 100 Ibs. of gun-cotton is sixfold more 
powerful than the gunpowder. Here, then, gunpowder -has the 
advantage—both weight and effect considered. 

But the fault here lies not in the gun-cotton, but the way of using 
it. If instead of 100 lbs. of gun-cotton in a bag, 25 Ibs. had been 
taken in a proper box made for this purpose, and simply laid down 
near the gate, and not even nailed to it, this 25 lbs. would shiver the 
gate into splinters. The bag which suits the powder happens not to 
suit the gun-cotton. 

Gun-cotton is therefore a power of a totally different nature from 
gunpowder, and requires complete study to know its nature and 
understand its use. It appears that both gunpowder and gun-cotton 
have special qualities, and may be peculiarly suited for peculiar uses. 
It is the duty of a wise people to make use of both to the ends they 
each suit best, without prejudice arising from the accident of novelty 
or antiquity. 

The nature of gun-cotton requires a double study, chemical and 
mechanical. It is not like steam, the same substance, whether in the 
form of ice or water or steam. It is one substance when as gun- 
cotton it enters the gun, and quite a different one when it has exploded 
and leaves the gun. Not only are the solids which enter converted 
into gas, but they form totally new combinations and substances. So 
that the marvellous changes which the chemist effects by the magic 
of his art take placein an instant of time, and during that almost 
inconceivably minute period of time, in a laboratory intensely heated, 
old substances are dissolved, their material atoms are redistributed, 
each atom released selects by natural affinity a new partner, these 
new unions are cemented, and at the end of this prolific instant totally 
new combinations of matter, forming what we call new substances, issue 
from the gun. It so happens that of these new substances, formed out 
of gun-cotton, all are pure transparent gases, while in the case of gun- 
powder there remain 68 per cent. of solid residue, and only 32 per 
cent. are pure gases. 

It is to chemistry however, that we must look for full and authen- 
tic information as to these wonderful changes: first, from the innocent, 
gentle cotton wool in which our wives and daughters wrap their jewels 
for soft keeping, into the terrible and irresistible compound of nitric 


1864. | Russert on Gun-cotton. 405 


acid and cotton fibre which forms tri-nitro-cellulose, the chemical 
name of gun-cotton. Chemistry must also tell us how tri-nitro- 
cellulose is to be turned by heat into transparent explosive gases of 
such tremendous power. 

In short, chemistry has to supply us with the new material, and it 
is to the science of mechanics that we must look for inventions, of the 
best way to manipulate and apply it to use for doing the practical 
work we set it to, in the most effectual, convenient, and economical 
way. 
The chemistry of gun-cotton is therefore the first part of our 
study of this power, and the mechanics of gun-cotton forms the 
second. 


I.—Tue Cuemistry or Gun-Corron.* 


Although gun-cotton was discovered eighteen years ago by one of 
the first chemists of the day, Professor Schonbein, and researches on 
its nature and preparation were almost immediately instituted in this 
country by Porrett, Teschemacher, Taylor, Gladstone and others, no 
accurate knowledge of the true constitution and chemical nature of 
this important material was obtained until Hadow, an English chemist, 
published in 1854 the result of some valuable investigations by which 
the mode of formation and composition of gun-cotton were conclusively 
established. 

Cotton, or cellulose as it is termed by chemists, is built up of a 
certain number of atoms of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen. Chemistry 
is scarcely yet able to point out how these atoms are probably 
arranged ; but there appears to be no doubt that some of the elemen- 
tary particles are so intimately connected with the very existence 
of cotton, that they cannot be displaced or removed without destroy- 
ing the very existence of the substance ; whilst other atoms, on the 
contrary, are more loosely held together, and are gifted with a certain 
mobility which enables them to be taken out altogether without 
materially altering the outward physical character of the cotton, 
provided the spaces which these atoms would leave vacant, are 
immediately filled up by certain other atoms. Now, without entering 
into the details of chemical formule, which would neither interest our 
readers nor render our meaning more intelligible, we may briefly say 
that, in ordinary cotton, three atoms of the hydrogen (of which there 
are ten altogether) are in this loose state of combination, and may be 
removed and their places filled up by a compound atom of hyponitric 
acid without so far altering the character of the substance as to ren- 
der the name of cotton inapplicable to it. It may be just mentioned 
in passing, that it is not necessary that the whole three atoms of 
hydrogen should be taken out and their places filled up by hyponitric 
acid ; only one or two of them may be so replaced, but as these are 
inferior for explosive purposes (although of great use to photographers, 
inasmuch as when dissolved in ether they form collodion), we need 


* For this portion of my paper I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. Wm. 
Crookes, F.R.S. 


406 Original Articles. [July, 


only direct our attention to the compound with the highest displace- 
ment. From its explosiveness and consequent similarity to gun-powder, 
this has been called gun-cotton. In scientific language, following the 
excellent custom adopted by chemists in the nomenclature of organic 
compounds, a name has been given to it which fully expresses its 
composition: cellulose being the scientific name for cotton, and the 
prefix nitro being added when any of the hydrogen in an organic com- 
pound is replaced by hyponitric acid (by no means an uncommon 
occurrence in organic chemistry), chemists call the product in this 
instance tri-nitro-cellulose, signifying that it is cellulose, in which three 
equivalents of the hydrogen are replaced by nitrous acid. It is also 
sometimes called pyrowilin, under the impression, we suppose, that by 
translating a useful English term into barbarous Greek it becomes 
scientific. This system of pseudo-scientific nomenclature is, unfor- 
tunately, too common. If an expressive, convenient, but empirical name 
be desired, by all means let us have the common English name in 
popular use. If, on the other hand, a scientific term be required, let 
us, in the name of all that is scientific, build up this name according 
to the orthodox rules of science; but we protest against a name like 
pyroxilin, which leads to nothing but the inference that science is not 
indigenous to the soil of England. 

Most European governments have attempted to utilize gun-cotton 
in warfare. Soon after its discovery, Messrs. Hall, the well-known 
gunpowder makers at Faversham, commenced its manufacture upon a 
considerable scale: their factory had, however, not been long in opera- 
tion before a very disastrous explosion occurred, by which a number 
of men lost their lives, and this was ascribed to the spontaneous 
ignition of the gun-cotton : the manufacture was therefore abandoned 
in England. 

As early as the winter of 1846 a French manufactory was estab- 
lished at the Government Powder Works at Bouchet, near Paris, and 
much valuable information was obtained respecting the comparative 
value of gun-cotton and gunpowder; but three disastrous explosions 
occurring within a year (one taking place in a magazine near which 
it was believed that no one had been for several days) put a stop, 
until quite recently, to further experiments. 

In Austria, experiments were likewise instituted, and although 
the committee of the German Confederation pronounced unfavour- 
ably upon it, one of the members, General Lenk, devoted himself 
assiduously to its study, and with such success that the Austrian 
Government were induced to reconsider their adverse determination. 
The manufacture was commenced upon a large scale, and above forty 
batteries of guns were furnished with this agent, and successfully used. 
The complete supersession of gunpowder by gun-cotton was con- 
sidered certain, when an explosion, which took place at the Austrian 
gun-cotton magazines at Limering, again put a stop (to some extent) 
to its use in artillery. Another Austrian committee, however, re- 
ported so favourably on its value, stability, and non-liability to spon- 
taneous explosion, that gun-cotton was again restored to favour. 

The very favourable accounts respecting the value of gun-cotton 


1864, | Russet on Gun-cotton. 407 


for warlike purposes, which were from time to time received by our 
government, led to experiments on a considerable scale in this country. 
The manufacture of this agent is now in full operation both at the 
Government Powder Works at Waltham Abbey, and also at a large pri- 
vate manufactory at Stowmarket. 

The great danger in the case of the early gun-cotton was its liability 
to spontaneous explosion, and whilst there remained the slightest sus- 
picion of such a possibility, its employment for war purposes was out 
of the question. The investigations of General Lenk have shown 
that this accident is due to imperfect preparation, and that by adopting 
the precautions which he has pointed out, its spontaneous ignition is 
impossible. It has been very clearly established that the lower nitro- 
compounds of cellulose, that is, cotton in which only one or two of 
the atoms of hydrogen are replaced by hyponitric acid, are much more 
easily decomposed than the compound in which the replacement has 
proceeded to its fullest extent. Tri-nitro-cellulose, or true gun-cotton, 
is a remarkably stable compound under all possible atmospheric con- 
ditions, but it is by no means easy to ensure the complete conversion of 
cotton into this body, and it has been shown to be in the highest 
degree probable that the explosions which put a stop to the early 
attempts at utilizing gun-cotton were due to its incomplete conversion. 
The directions given by Schénbein, although successful on the small 
scale, fail when tried with large quantities, and to General Lenk is 
due the credit of devising a process of manufacture which gives an 
absolutely uniform and true chemical compound when working on 
the largest scale. Ordinary gun-cotton is generally made by saturating 
cotton-wool with a mixture of one part of concentrated nitric acid and 
three parts of oil of vitriol, and allowing the mixture to stand at rest 
for one hour; it is then thoroughly washed and allowed to dry in the 
air. This process is tolerably successful when only about half-an- 
ounce of cotton is treated at one time, but it is found to be ineffectual 
in making a uniform and safe material for war purposes. The most 
important of the precautions recommended by General Lenk, are, the 
cleansing and perfect desiccation of the cotton as a preliminary to 
its immersion in the acids; the employment of the strongest acids 
obtainable in commerce ; the steeping of the cotton in a strong mix- 
ture of acids after its first immersion and its partial conversion into gun- 
cotton ; the continuance of the steeping for forty-eight hours ; and the 
thorough purification of the gun-cotton so produced from every trace 
of free acid : this is secured by its being washed in a stream of water 
for several weeks. Subsequently a weak solution of potash may be 
used, but this is not essential. The prolonged continuance of these 
processes, which would appear superfluous at first sight, is really 
essential, when we consider that each cotton fibre is a long, narrow, 
tube, often twisted and even doubled up, and the acid has first to 
penetrate into the very farthest depths of these tubes, and has after- 
wards to be soaked out of them. Hence the necessity of time. 

It appears that gun-cotton, prepared in this manner, is a true 
chemical compound, and is not liable to the objections which have 
been urged against that mixture of compounds which has been usually 


408 Original Articles. | July, 


employed in experiments. The advantages which it possesses may be 
classed as follows :— 

1. It is of uniform composition, and thus the force of the gases 
generated on explosion may be accurately estimated. 

2. It will not ignite till raised to a temperature of 300° F. (as a 
rule, the temperature must be raised much higher). This is consider- 
ably lower than the igniting point of gunpowder, but, being much 
above the heat of boiling water, it can only occur when artificially pro- 
duced by means which would render gunpowder itself lable to 
ignition. 

3. It is almost absolutely free from ash when exploded under 
pressure in a confined space. 

4. It has a very marked superiority in stability over other forms 
of gun-cotton, having been kept unaltered for fifteen years. 

One great advantage which gun-cotton possesses over gunpowder, 
and which ought to have considerable weight in any discussion of 
their comparative uses for national purposes, is, that gun-cotton is un- 
affected by water. Gunpowder in a damp atmosphere will soon be 
completely spoiled, and it cannot afterwards be restored to a service- 
able condition without being again submitted to the processes of manu- 
facture, starting almost from the commencement. Gun-cotton, on the 
contrary, although it gets damp in a moist atmosphere, rapidly returns 
to its ordinary state when exposed to air of average dryness. Com- 
plete immersion in water for an indefinite period has no injurious 
action on it, for when afterwards dried by exposure to the air, it is as 
good as ever. The absolute safety which this property would confer 
upon the magazines of forts and ships cannot be too highly urged ; 
the explosive material could be kept permanently in tanks full of 
water, in which case a lighted candle or even a red-hot shot would be 
a harmless visitant. When required for action, a centrifugal drying 
machine and a hot-water closet would supply the combatants with any 
quantity at a few hours’ notice. 

When gun-cotton is ignited in a close vessel, such as a shell or 
the chamber of a gun, it is at once converted into certain gases, the 
principal being carbonic oxide, carbonic acid, nitrogen, light carbu- 
retted hydrogen, hydrogen, and steam. The introduction of the 
hyponitric acid, a compound containing a large excess of oxygen, 
gives to the cotton a sufficient amount of this gas to reduce it com- 
pletely to the state of vapour; but although only gases are produced, 
there is not enough oxygen for their complete combustion. About 40 
per cent. are inflammable, and produce a bright flash when they emerge 
into the air from the mouth of the gun. 


Ii.—Tur Meouantics or GuN-corron. 


The mechanical application of gun-cotton may be considered to be 
due exclusively to Major-General Lenk, of the Austrian service. Pure 
gun-cotton becomes either a powerful explosive agent, or a docile per- 
former of mechanical duty, not according to any change in its compo- 
sition, or variation in its elements or their proportions, but according 


1864. ] Russevt on Gun-cotton. 409 


to the mechanical structure which is given to it, or the mechanical 
arrangements of which it is made a part. It was General Lenk who 
discovered that structure was quality, and mechanical arrangement 
the measure of power, in gun-cotton ; and in his hands, a given quan- 
tity of the same cotton becomes a mild, harmless, ineffectual firework, 
a terrible, irresistible, explosive agent, or a pliable, powerful, obedient 
workman. 

The first form which General Lenk bestowed on gun-cotton was 
that of a continuous yarn or spun thread. Gunpowder is carefully 
made into round grains of a specific size. Gun-cotton is simply a 
long thread of cotton fibre, systematically spun into a yarn of given 
weight per yard, of given tension, of given specific weight. A hank 
of a given length is reeled, just like a hank of cotton yarn to be made 
into cloth, and in this state gun-cotton yarn is bought and sold like 
any other article of commerce. 

This cotton yarn converted into gun-cotton may be called, there- 
fore, the raw material of commerce. In this form it is not at all 
explosive in the common sense of the word. You may set fire to a 
hank of it, and it will burn rapidly with a large flame; but if you 
yourself keep out of the reach of the flame, and keep other combusti- 
bles beyond reach, no harm will happen, and no explosion or concus- 
sion will result. If you lay a long thread of it round your garden 
walk at night, disposing it in a waving line with large balls of gun- 
cotton thread at intervals, and light one end of the thread, it will form 
a beautiful firework, the slow lambent flame creeping along with a 
will-o’-th’-wisp-looking light, only with a measured speed of 6 inches 
per second, or 30 feet a minute; the wind hastening it or retarding it 
as it blows with or against the line of the thread. This is the best 
way to commence an acquaintance with this interesting agent. 

Care must be taken not to become too familiar with gun-cotton 
even in this harmless and playful guise; cotton dresses will readily 
catch fire from it, and it should not be treated with less care to keep 
fire from it than gunpowder. In one respect it is less liable to cause 
danger than gunpowder. Grains of powder are easily dropped 
through a crevice, and may be sprinkled about in a scarcely noticeable 
form, but a hank of gun-cotton is a unit, which hangs together and 
cannot strew itself about by accident. 

The second form of gun-cotton is an arrangement compounded out 
of the elementary yarn. It resembles the plaited cover of a riding- 
whip ; it is plaited round a core or centre which is hollow. In this 
form it is match-line, and, although formed merely of the yarn plaited 
into a round hollow cord, this mechanical arrangement has at once 
conferred on it the quality of speed. Instead of travelling as before 
only 6 inches a second, it now travels 6 feet a second. 

The third step in mechanical arrangement is to enclose this cord 
in a close outer skin or coating, made generally of India-rubber cloth, 
and in this shape it forms a kind of match-line, that will carry fire at a 
speed of from 20 to 30 feet per second. 

It is not easy to gather from these changes what is the cause which 
so completely changes the nature of the raw cotton by mechanical 


410 Original Articles. [ July, 


arrangement alone. Why a straight cotton thread should burn with 
a slow creeping motion when laid out straight, and with a rapid one 
when wound round in a cord, and again much faster when closed in 
from the air, is far from obvious at first sight; but the facts being so, 
deserve mature consideration. 

The cartridge of a common rifle in gun-cotton is nothing more 
than a piece of match-line in the second form enclosed in a stout paper- 
tube, to prevent it being rammed down like powder. The ramming 
down, which is essential to the effective action of gunpowder, is fatal 
to that of gun-cotton. To get useful work out of a gun-cotton rifle, 
the shot must on no account be rammed down, but simply transferred 
to its place. Air left in a gunpowder barrel is often supposed to 
burst the gun; in a gun-cotton barrel, it only mitigates the effect of 
the charge. The object of enclosing the gun-cotton charge in a hard 
strong pasteboard cartridge, is to keep the cotton from compression 
and give it room to do its work. 

It is a fourth discovery of General Lenk, that to enable gun-cotton 
to perform its work in artillery practice, the one thing to be done is to 
“give it room.” Don’t press it together—don’t cram it into small 
bulk! give it at least as much room as gunpowder in the gun, even 
though there be only one-third or one-fourth of the quantity (measured 
by weight). 1b. of gun-cotton will carry a shot as far as 3 or 4 Ibs. 
of gunpowder ; but that pound should have at least a space of 160 
cubic inches in which to work. 

This law rules the practical application of gun-cotton to artillery. 
A cartridge must not be compact, it must be spread out or expanded 
to the full room it requires. For this purpose, a hollow space is pre- 
served in the centre of the cartridge by some means or other. The 
best means is to use a hollow thin wooden tube to form a core; this 
tube should be as long as to leave-a sufficient space behind the shot 
for the gun-cotton. On this long core the simple cotton yarn is wound 
round like thread on a bobbin, and sufficiently thick to fill the cham- 
ber of the gun ; indeed, a lady’s bobbin of cotton thread is the innocent 
type of the most destructive power of modern times—only the wood 
in the bobbin must be small in quantity in proportion to the gun- 
cotton in the charge. There is no other precaution requisite except 
to enclose the whole in the usual flannel bag. 

The artillerist who uses gun-cotton has therefore a tolerably 
simple task to perform if he merely wants gun-cotton to do the duty 
of gunpowder. He has only to occupy the same space as the gun- 
powder with one-fourth of the weight of gun-cotton made up in the 
bobbin as described, and he will fire the same shot at the same speed. 
This is speaking 1 in a general way, for it may: were in some guns as 
much as } of the weight of gunpowder and +; the bulk of charge to 
do the same work ; a little experience will settle the exact point, and 
greater experience may enable the gun-cotton to exceed the per- 
formance of the gunpowder in every way. 

The fifth principle in the use of gun-cotton is that involved in its 
application to bursting uses. The miner wants the stratum of coal 
torn from its bed, or the fragment of ore riven from its lair ; the civil 


1864. ] Russreiyt on Gun-cotton. 41] 


engineer wishes to remove a mountain of stone out of the way of a 
locomotive engine ; and the military engineer to drive his way into 
the fortress of an enemy, or to destroy the obstacles purposely laid in 
his way. This is a new phase of duty for gun-cotton—it is the work 
of direct destruction. In artillery youdo not want to destroy directly, 
but indirectly. You don’t want to burst your gun, nor even to injure 
it ; and, we have seen, in order to secure this, you have only to give 
it room. 

The fifth principle, therefore, is, to make it destructive—to cause 
it to shatter everything to pieces which it touches, and for this 
purpose you have only to deprive it of room. Give it room, and it 
is obedient ; imprison it, and it rebels. Shut up without room, there 
is nothing tough enough or strong enough to stand against it. 

To carry this into effect, the densest kind of gun-cotton must be 
used. It must no longer consist of fine threads or hollow textures 
wound on roomy cores. All you have to do is to make it dense, 
solid, hard. Twist it, squeeze it, ram it, compress it; and insert 
this hard, dense cotton rope or cylinder or cake in a hole in a rock, 
or the drift of a tunnel, or the bore of a mine; close it up, and it will 
shatter it to pieces. In a recent experiment, 6 ounces of this 
material set to work in a tunnel not only brought down masses which 
powder had failed to work, but shook the ground under the feet of 
the engineers in a way never done by the heaviest charges of powder. 

To make gun-cotton formidable and destructive, squeeze it and 
close it up; to make it gentle, slow, and manageable, ease it and give 
it room. To make gunpowder slow and gentle, you do just the con- 
trary: you cake, condense, and harden it to make it slow, safe for 
guns, and effective. 

To carry out this principle successfully, you have to carry it even 
to the extreme. Ask gun-cotton to separate a rock already half- 
separated, it will refuse to comply with your request. Give it a 
light burden of earth and open rock to lift, it will fail. If you want 
it to do the work, you must invent a ruse,—you must make believe 
that the work is hard, and it will be done. Invent a difficulty and 
put it between the cotton and its too easy work, and it will doit. The 
device is amazingly successful. If the cotton have work to do that 
is light and easy, you provide it with a strong box, which is hard to 
burst, a box of iron for example; close a small charge, that would be 
harmless, in a little iron box, and then place that box in the hole 
where formerly the charge exploded harmless, and in the effort it 
makes to burst that box, the whole of the light work will disappear 
before it. 

Of the effect of such an explosion, an illustration accompanies this 
paper. The two drawings represent two views of a stockade, in close 
contiguity to which a charge of 25 lbs. of gun-cotton, placed in an 
iron box, was employed, and the consequences will be seen in the two 
rent and shattered trees, the largest 20 ches in diameter, which 
were not only removed from their places, but by some unexplained 
action shattered throughout into matchwood, This explosion was the 

VOL. I. 2F 


412 Original Articles. | July, 


first trial of English-made gun-cotton, and was made at Stowmarket, 
in spring. 

It is, therefore, the nature of gun-cotton to rise to the occasion and 
to exert force exactly in proportion to the obstacle it encounters. 
For destructive shells this quality is of the highest value. You can 
make your shell so strong that nothing can resist its entrance, and 
when arrived at its destination no shell can prevent its gun-cotton 
charge from shivering it to fragments. . 

These are the main principles in the mechanical manipulation of 
gun-cotton which will probably render it for the future so formidable 
an instrument of war. Resistances too great for gunpowder only 
suffice to elicit the powers of gun-cotton. On the other hand, in its 
elementary state as the open cotton yarn, it is playful, slow, gentle, 
and obedient; there is scarcely any mechanical drudgery you can 
require of it that it is not as ready and fit to do as steam, or gas, or 
water, or other elementary power. 

Tn conclusion, I may be asked to say as a mechanic what I think 
can be the nature and source of this amazing power of gun-cotton. In 
reply let me ask, Who shall say what takes place in that pregnant in- 
stant of time when a spark of fire enters the charge, and one-hundredth 
part of a second of time suffices to set millions of material atoms loose 
from fast ties of former affinity, and leaves them free every one to 
elect his mate, and uniting in a new bond of affinity, to come out of 
that chamber a series of new-born substances ? Who shall tell me all 
that happens then? I will not dare to describe the phenomena of 
that pregnant instant. But I will say this, that it is an instant of in- 
tense heat—one of its new-born children is a large volume of steam 
and water. When that intense heat and that red-hot steam were 
united in the chamber of that gun and that mine, two powers were met 
whose union no matter yet contrived has been strong enough to 
compress and confine. When I say that a gun-cotton gun is a steam- 
gun, and when I say that at that stant of intense heat, the atoms of 
water and the atoms of fire are in contact atom to atom, it is hard 
to believe that it should not give rise to an explosion infinitely 
stronger than any case of the generation of steam by filtering the 
heat leisurely through the metal skins of any high-pressure boiler. 


Quarterly Journal of Science Nes 


oY eS 


from Photogvaphs . M&N Hanhart Imp De Walde lth 
OAPLOSIVE KEFECTS OF THE FIRST CHARGE OF ENGLISH MADE GUN COTTON 
( Two views of the Stockade ) 


h 


1864. | Jenkins on Brackish-water Fossils of Crete. 413 


BRACKISH-WATER FOSSILS OF CRETE. 


Being Illustrations of the Characters of Fluviatile, Lacustrine, and 
Estuarine Formations. 


By H. M. Jennys, F.G.8., Assistant-Secretary of the Geological 
Society. 


Tue Grecian Archipelago and the surrounding mainland have a truly 
classic interest for the Geologist, not so much on account of their 
geographical position and ancient fame, as because they were the 
scenes of some of the most famous labours of the late Professor 
Edward Forbes, a naturalist who, in his brief but brilliant career, 
was enabled, chiefly through his investigations in these regions, to 
throw the bright light of genius over some of the most intricate paths 
of paleontological research, and who thus invested the eastern portion 
of the Mediterranean with a far greater interest to the geologist than it 
otherwise ever would have possessed. Still it must not be supposed that 
the region is barren of facts outside the common course of geological 
phenomena, for, as was shown by Professor Forbes, the fresh-water and 
estuarine strata which occur there contain fossils exhibiting remark- 
able modifications of form caused by the more or less adverse influences 
of the conditions under which they lived. 

The fossil shells which have given rise to this paper, and which 
are figured in the Plate, and described in the Appendix, were submitted 
to my examination by Capt. 'T’. Spratt, R.N., C.B., F.G.S., who was 
the companion of Professor Edward Forbes in a great portion of his 
travels in Asia Minor and the regions round about, and conjoint-author 
with him of the ‘ Travels in Lycia; and he is now busily engaged in 
bringing out a work on the Island of Crete, which will doubtless add 
to his already high reputation as a geologist. 

Of the other observers who have travelled in these regions, and 
have contributed to our knowledge of their geology, I may mention Mr. 
Hamilton, F.R.S., now President of the Geological Society, and his 
fellow-traveller, the late Hugh Strickland, who were the first to 
explore geologically these classic countries. We are also much 
indebted to M. Tchihatcheff and M. Raulin, whose papers have been 
published in the ‘ Bulletin de la Société Géologique de France.’ 

The ancient Lake of the Eastern Mediterranean.—One of the prin- 
cipal points brought forward by Captain Spratt, in his several papers, 
is that the Eastern portion of the Mediterranean, including Greece, 
parts of Asia Minor, and probably the north-eastern extremity of 
Africa, was at some distant epoch in the Tertiary period, the site of 
a huge fresh-water lake ; but the precise geological date at which it 

existed has not yet been satisfactorily made out, though it probably 
coincided with that of the deposition of the estuarine strata about to 
be noticed. 

Many years ago, Messrs. Hamilton and Strickland described a 


series of lacustrine beds i in various parts of Asia Minor, where it appears 
ar2 


414 Original Articles. [ July, 


to be the formation most commonly met with in the low grounds; 
while Captain Spratt has given descriptions of similar strata occurring 
near Smyrna, and in Lycia, as well as in the Islands of Samos, Rhodes, 
Cos, Cerigo, &c.; but there is some confusion as to their probable 
age. Captain Spratt originally considered all of them to be of 
Eocene date, it being borne in mind, however, that when that opinion 
was published, the term ‘ Kocene’ included what is now known as 
Lower Miocene, and referred to under that name in these pages. 
With the assistance of Professor Forbes, this opinion was after- 
wards somewhat modified, the Smyrna beds being still retained as 
Eocene (=Lower Miocene), but the Lycian strata, as well as those of 
Cos and Rhodes, being considered newer. To the supposed age of 
these newer fresh-water beds I shall have occasion to refer presently 
at some length, as it bears very importantly upon the age of some of 
the fossils under consideration. 

Geology of the Eastern Mediterranean Region.—The Tertiary beds 
of Greece, of the Islands of the Archipelago, and of Asia Minor, are 
generally found reposing on the Apennine Limestone, or Scaglia, 
which is of Cretaceous age, or else abutting against it, the Scaglia 
in such cases forming the high land of the interior, and the Tertiary 
beds skirting it and facing the sea, and often extending to the coast. 
Some of these Tertiary strata contain marine remains, others include 
fresh-water (probably lacustrine) organisms, and the fossils figured in 
the Plate were probably from a brackish-water lake or estuary. 

For the better understanding of the subject it will, first of all, be 
necessary to give a synopsis of the argument which has been supposed 
to prove that the fresh-water beds of the Valley of the Xanthus, of 
Cos, and of Rhodes, are of Pliocene age, and for this purpose I must 
call in the aid of Professor Forbes and Captain Spratt.* 

Relative Age of the Marine and Fresh-water Strata of Lycia—In 
the Valleys of Xanthus and Kassabar there is a fresh-water formation 
supposed to be more recent than certain marine sandy strata, con- 
taining shells which also occur in the Upper Miocene beds of 
Bordeaux, Touraine, &c.; and the manner in which this is apparently 
proved may be thus stated. The valley of Xanthus is bounded on 
each side by hills of highly-inclined Scaglia, upon which rests con- 
formably a slightly newer deposit termed ‘Macigno.’ The floor of 
the valley consists of horizontal beds of marl, capped by conglomerate, 
and containing fresh-water fossils. High up on the hill-sides are 
patches of the marine formation in question, dipping west at a high 
angle, and it has been assumed to be the older, entirely on account of 
its being inclined, while the fresh-water beds are horizontal ; the order 
of events being—(1) its deposition horizontally over where the valley 
now is, (2) its tilting-up and entire denudation, and (3) the deposition 
of fresh-water beds in its place. Granting the assumed basis of the 
argument, the reasoning is perfectly correct. 

Furthermore, the Xanthus fossils are some of them identical with 
those occurring in the island of Cos, in a fresh-water formation forming 


* ¢Travelis in Lycia,’ vol. ii. p. 175. 


1864.] Jenkins on Brackish-water Fossils of Crete. 415 


the wall of a series of marine beds containing newer Pliocene fossils ; 
so that the fresh-water beds must be the older, and as, granting the cor- 
rectness of the former argument, they have been proved to be newer than 
the Upper Miocene, they must, in that case, hold an intermediate 
position, and on these grounds they have been termed Older Pliocene. 

Thus far, excluding the scepticism, I have followed Professor 
Forbes and Captain Spratt, who enunciated the above (apparently) con- 
vineing proof of the age of the Cos and Xanthus fresh-water beds in the 
‘Travels in Lycia’ already referred to. From a very brief considera- 
tion of the argument, the principle on which it is based will make 
itself apparent to everyone. The object is to fix a limit in both 
directions to the age of the strata, or, to use the original terms, to find 
an ‘ante-date’ and an ‘ after-date,—a process often resorted to by the 
inquisitive in their efforts to discover the ages of their friends ! 

If we inquire a little more closely into the basis of the argument, 
namely, that the inclined position of the marine strata is suggestive of 
their greater age (which is altogether assumed), we shall find, on 
reference to the section given below, that they dip the wrong way !—and 
thus a doubt is cast upon the whole of the reasoning. The following 
explanation will make my meaning clear: suppose the Scaglia and 
Macigno to be more or less horizontal, and the marine formation to 
be deposited conformably on it, then suppose the valley to be formed 
by the elevation of the Scaglia on each side, and to be rendered deeper 
by the erosion of the marine strata, it is evident that the remaining 
patches of the marime formation would dip conformably with the 
Scaglia, not at nearly right angles to it, as in the following section :— 


Section across the Valley of Xanthus.—(After Forbes and Spratt.) 
E, We 


S 
X 
Se 
Cate 
SS = 
€ 


@ Marine sandy strata (Miocene), dipping from the centre of the valley- 
b. Conglomerate. c. Marl (freshwater). d, Macigno, 
e. Scaglia (Cretaceous) dipping towards the centre of the valley. 


On the other hand, if the Scaglia were upheaved, as it evidently was, 
before the deposition of the marine beds, it is quite impossible that the 
latter could have been deposited horizontally and afterwards tilted up, 
because the Scaglia must have been affected at the same time; and if 
we assume that its dip was lower when the marine beds were formed, 
the latter must have been deposited almost vertical, which cannot be 
credited for a moment; and if the marine Tertiaries were deposited 
in a horizontal position, the Scaglia must formerly have been nearly 
vertical. Indeed, it is evident that the apparent dip of the marine 


416 Original Articles. | July, 


beds is due to false-bedding, and not to elevation at all; consequently 
it is no indication of their being older than the horizontal fresh-water 
strata, ‘ 

Again, supposing that the marine beds were the older, they must 
once have filled up the valley. By what manner of water-action could 
they have been so completely washed away that no trace of them 
exists anywhere beneath the fresh-water formation, and only small 
patches are left high up on the hill-sides, where they could least of 
all be expected ? 

Considering all the difficulties in the way of the marine beds being 
the older, and that there is no physical reason why they should not be 
the newer (granting the apparent dip to be due to the false-bedding), 
we may legitimately compare the fossils of the Cos and Xanthus fresh- 
water beds, with the shells figured in the Plate, without taking into 
account their supposed Pliocene age, to which view, it will be found, 
their evidence is entirely antagonistic. It may be remarked, however, 
that if the fresh-water strata are the older, the lowest bed, in which 
occur the same genera as Captain Spratt has obtained from Crete, 
must, according to its fossils, either be very low down in the Upper 
Miocene, or must belong to the Lower Miocene: perhaps it does not 
matter which we consider it; but the point I shall now attempt to 
establish is that our Cretan fossils are of the same age. 

Geological Age of the Fossils under consideration.—A glance at the 
following lists will show that of those from Cerigo, all, with the 
exception of Cerithium Cytherorum (a new species), occur in the 
Upper Miocene of Europe, while two began life earlier. The balance 
of evidence is therefore strongly in favour of the Cerigo fossils being 
Upper Miocene ; that is to say, of the age of the Vienna and Bordeaux 
Basins. The marine formation in Crete, described by M. Raulin, and 
said to be of Miocene age, may possibly belong to the same set of 
strata, though his list does not include any of our species, which are 
less decidedly marine than those enumerated by him. 

The Cretan specimens being, however, all ditterent from those of 
Cerigo, with one exception, require further discussion. Melanopsis 
buccinoidea, the only species common to both sets of fossils, is also 
one of those which appeared first in strata older than the Upper 
Miocene, and with it is associated in Crete Cerithium Lamarckii, 
which began life in Hocene times and extended up into the Lower 
Miocene, but which has not been found in newer strata. On the 
other hand, we have Melanopsis Bouei, representing the Upper 
Miocene period, and a species of Unio, allied to Unio litoralis, which 
tells us very little concerning its age. The remaining species, three 
in number, are new, and one of them presents some remarkable 
modifications of form, so that it is rather difficult to form a correct 
idea of their geological date. 

The genus Unio contains very many species, resembling one 
another so closely as to render it very difficult to distinguish them, 
especially in the fossil state, so that very little reliance can be placed 
on them as indicative of the age of Tertiary strata. Melanopsis 
buccimotdea, as we have seen, furnishes no clue to the age of beds 


1864. | JunKins on Brackish-water Fossils of Crete. 417 


in which it occurs, its range being so extended. Cerithiwm Lamarekii, 
on the contrary, is a well-known shell, which occurs abundantly in 
Lower Miocene strata, and is found also in the Eocene “ Sables de 
Beauchamp,” so that its occurrence would appear to stamp the age of 
the deposit as Lower Miocene or older, and to the period named I 
am inclined to refer it, though it is not impossible that a larger col- 
lection of shells may prove it to be somewhat newer. But the great 
difference between these shells and recent species renders it impos- 
sible that the deposit should be Pliocene, as has been supposed. 

It by no means follows, however, that there is no more recent 
formation in Crete ; on the contrary, M. Raulin, in a paper on the 
geology of Crete,* speaks of a lacustrine limestone above a marine 
formation; and a late lacustrine deposit occurring in the plains in 
the interior of the island furnished him with the lower jaw of a 
Hippopotamus. 

The so-called lacustrine formation of Rhodes contains species of 
Neritina and Melanopsis, the latter being M. Bouei ; with it occurs 
Cerithium plicatum, an associate of C. Lamarckii in the Paris and 
Mayence basins. Although the occurrence of Cerithiwm plicatum is, 
of itself, not antagonistic to the Upper Miocene age of the strata, yet, 
when associated with C. Lamarckii, it seems reasonable to consider 
them, for the present at least, as Lower Miocene, especially as the 
only true Upper Miocene species occurring with them is Melanopsis 
Bouei, and the only recent species is M. buccinoidea, which occurs in 
great numbers in‘Lower Miocene strata also. The only obstacle to 
the Upper Miocene age of the beds is, in fact, the occurrence of 
Cerithium Lamarckii ; and, although there is no reason why that 
species may not occur higher in the series, yet as it has not been 
found in that position hitherto, and as the evidence is at present 
strongly in favour of its Lower Miocene age in Crete, we must consider 
it for the present limited to Hocene and Lower Miocene strata. 

Malformed Shells.—The fresh-water beds of Rhodes are admitted 
to be of the same age as those of Cos and Xanthus, some species of 
shells being common to, the three localities, and the remarkable 
Neritina abnormis (Figs. Ta to Te of the Plate) from Crete being very 
near the Neritina from Cos figured by Professor Forbes,t if not 
identical with it. The specimens from both islands exhibit the same 
kind of malformation, showing that the faune of both series of strata 
lived under similar conditions, which appear to have been unfavour- 
able to some of the species 

On examination, it will be seen that the older the specimen, the 
more distorted does it appear, and the larger are the keels on the 
whorls, and that, at last, tubercles and even spines spring from them. 
Soin Figs. 8a to 8c, representing a Unio, the same kind of result is 
seen in the great thickness of the shell, and the small size of one of 
the specimens, and in Figs. 4a to 4c in the comparative coarseness of 
the ribs of Melanopsis Bouei. The Neritina represented in Figs. 6a 


* Bull. Soe. Géol. de France. Deuxiéme Série, vol. xiii. 
} ‘Travels in Lycia,’ vol. ii. p. 203. 


418 Original Articles. | July, 


to 6d has escaped this malformation, to a great extent, but still it is 
not always quite free from distortion. 

But the most remarkable shell “ cheated of feature by dissembling 
nature ” is shown in Figs. 3a and 3b; it is turned the wrong way, 
and this circumstance, with its peculiar ornament, gives it such a 
singular appearance, that out of twenty shells spread out on a table, 
a conchologist would certainly take up this one first, as I have verified 
by experiment. It seems to defy determination. There are two 
specimens in Captain Spratt’s collection, so that its reversal is not 
accidental, but, with its thickness and coarse ornament, is apparently 
due to its having lived under unfavourable circumstances. The 
species is certainly new, and I have called it Melania(?) anomala, 
though I am by no means sure of its genus. 

These monstrous kinds of growth are interesting on many grounds, 
and especially so in relation to the mode of formation of the deposit 
in which they oceur. Professor Forbes and Captain Spratt described 
such malformed shells from Cos several years ago in the ‘Travels in 
Lycia;’ but some of them belonged to the genus Paludina, and others, 
as in this case, to the genera Neritina and Melanopsis. The Cretan 
specimens that exhibit abnormal characters belong to the two last- 
named genera, and to the bivalve genus Unio; but the Cerithia, which 
cannot live in fresh water, are quite normal in appearance. 

Malformation as a Test of Habitat.—It is easy to see that mal- 
formations of this kind may furnish an important clue to the origin of 
a formation ; for instance, in this case, the most truly marine genus 
is represented by species exhibiting normal characters, while the more 
fresh-water genera are distorted ; thus it appears impossible to assign 
a purely fresh-water origin to the deposit, and we shall presently see 
that this conclusion is borne out by independent arguments. 

Nearly fifty years ago, M. Beudant proved by experiment, that of 
the mollusks which inhabit fresh water, those only which had the power 
of shutting off all communication between themselves and the water 
they lived in could resist the action of brackish or salt water; that is 
to say, only bivalves and operculated univalves could exist at all under 
such circumstances. Upon @ priori grounds it is allowable to extend 
this law, for certain pulmoniferous gasteropods are operculated ; but, 
as they cannot breathe without rising to the surface, and as that pro- 
cess entails repeated contact with the noxiously salt water, it is but 
reasonable to conclude that they could not long survive such a 
disagreeable necessity. We may therefore say that all pulmoniferous 
gasteropods and all non-operculated fresh-water gasteropods are unable 
to live in salt or brackish water. 

But although these bivalve and operculated univalve mollusks 
could resist the action of salt water for a time, M. Beudant found that 
even the latter could only live permanently if the water contained 
not more than 4 per cent. of saline matter, and that even this small 
quantity was sufficient to kill the bivalves after a short time ; hence 
arises the paucity of shells of the genera Unio, Cyclas, &c., in brackish 
water deposits. 


It will now be possible to discuss fairly the probability of the 


1864.] Jzenuins on Brackish-water Fossils of Crete. 419 


fossils in question having been deposited in a lake or an estuary, and 
this discussion is the more desirable, because the more or less fresh- 
water formations of Asia Minor, &c., have often been treated of as 
necessarily lacustrine. The only circumstances necessary to remember 
are: (1) that the following remarks do not refer to Cerigo, the fossils 
from thence being normally estuarine ; and (2) that in Crete the most 
essentially salt-water genera are represented by species normal in 
character, while the fluviatile genera are represented by distorted 
species, 

But to enable us to decide whether we have been dealing with a 
marine, an estuarine, a fluviatile, or a lacustrine formation, it is now 
necessary to discuss the distinctive characters of these classes of 
deposits, chiefly from a paleontological point of view. 

Distinctive Characters of Lacustrine, Fluviatile and Estuarine 
Deposits—Purely fresh-water strata are nearly always lake-deposits, 
because a river seldom deposits in its own bed, and when it does, the 
deposit is so insignificant, that it is rarely preserved ; while, on the 
other hand, the deposit of a river at its mouth, that is, a delta, contains 
brackish-water shells, generally mixed with those of fluviatile and 
terrestrial origin. Again, a lake may be more or less brackish, or 
even absolutely salt ; and a lagoon, which is but another name for a 
lake connected with a larger body of water, may be subject to periodical 
irruptions of salt water. Thus there are many contingencies to be 
guarded against in deciding as to the lacustrine or estuarine origin of 
a series of beds, supposing the fossils contained in them to exhibit 
characters not antagonistic to the presence of a certain quantity of 
salt water, especially in the region under consideration, where lagoons 
are so abundant ; but very little difficulty exists if the shells happen 
to be purely freshwater and normal in character. Of course, there is 
this difference between a lake and a river, that whereas the water in 
the former is more or less stagnant, that in the latter is in motion; 
but a deposit from a river into a lake would yield evidence of both 
running and stagnant water, and, unfortunately, shells afford but 
little evidence as to their fluviatile or lacustrine origin. It would, 
however, be strange indeed if the fossils of a true lacustrine deposit 
did not consist, to a certain extent, of the shells of pulmoniferous 
mollusks ; and inasmuch as there is not a single shell belonging to 
that group amongst the fossils under consideration, the theory of a 
fresh-water lake cannot well be accepted. 

Nature of the Crete Deposit.—All the fossil genera under notice 
from Crete, excepting the genus Unio, have existing species which 
live in brackish water, or even in the sea, so that they are not antago- 
nistic to the estuarine nature of the deposit, though they are equally 
favourable to its being a salt-lake formation; but as some of the 
genera cannot exist in fresh water, the beds cannot have been 
deposited in a fresh-water lake. Again, Neritina and Melanopsis are 
essentially the inhabitants of running water, and the genus Unio is 
just as essentially fresh water, therefore if the fossils presented no 
abnormal characters, the only rational conclusion would be that the 
Crete formation is a deposit from a river in an estuary. 


420 Original Articles. [July, 


But we have seen that one species of Neritina is keeled and tuber- 
culated, while another presents ordinary characters, that the Unio is 
unnaturally thick, and, except one specimen, very much stunted, 
while the most abundant species of Melanopsis is represented both by 
small specimens normal in character, and by large examples unna- 
turally coarse and ribbed, to say nothing of the wonderful Melania. 
How, therefore, can we account for the entombment of species which 
lived under normal conditions in association with specimens of the 
same and other species that evidently lived under circumstances not 
quite suited to them? Bearing in mind that the normal specimens 
belong both to fresh-water and estuarine genera, and that the abnormal 
ones are wholly fresh-water, as well as the fact that all of them could 
exist in brackish water, being either operculated gasteropods or 
bivalves, and not belonging to purely fresh-water genera, it appears 
to me that the only way of accounting for the association is by 
supposing that the deposit was formed in a lagoon, which was 
subject to occasional irruptions of salt water, and into which a river 
flowed. 

This conclusion is very similar to that arrived at by Professor 
Forbes and Captain Spratt respecting the Cos fossils, only that they 
assumed the lagoon to be at first quite fresh, and to have become 
gradually saline, and they did not call in the aid of a river; but 
the occurrence of the Unio and of normal and abnormal specimens of 
Neritina, &c., appears to render the latter device necessary in this 
case. In the lagoon, al] the species could exist for a time, after 
having been carried down by the river, and thus the abnormalities 
described may have been produced. 


APPENDIX. 
I.—Drsorrprions or NEW SPECIES FROM CRETE. 


1. Neritina abnormis, mihi. Figs. 7a to Te. 

Shell broadly ovate, trochiform, ornamented with brownish zig-zag longitudinal 
lines or bands; whorls three, crowned by a broad cord-like keel, and with a 
thinner and sharper ridge in the middle, often corded or crenate, and sometimes 
tuberculated or irregularly spiniferous, separated from the upper keel by the con- 
cave upper portion of the whorl. Mouth in a plane nearly at right angles to 
the axis, more or less semilunate in form; inner lip concave, smooth, with a broad 
callosity covering the base of the shell, and becoming very thick and encroaching 
on the mouth in old specimens. 


2. Neritina Spratti, mihi. Figs. 6a to 6d. 

Shell ovate, smooth, orn: imented with many blackish spots, more or less 
regularly arranged ; whorls three or four, declining above, sometimes compressed 
in the middle, convex at the base. Spire depressed, blunt. Mouth oblique, 
irregularly semilunate in form ; inner lip concave, callous, minutely dentate 


3. Melania? anomala, mihi. Figs. 3a, 3b. 

Shell thick, reversed, turreted, ovate, somewhat obtuse at the apex; whorls 
about seven, slightly convex, transversely and longitudinally ridged; transverse 
ridges coarse and blunt, obsolete on the uppermost whorls, and oradually i increas- 
ing in number, from two on the third whorl to four on the body-whorl ; longitudi- 
nal ridges obsolete on the upper whorls and becoming gradually more apparent on. 
the lower; they are the same distance apart as the transverse ridges, which they 


. 


Quaxterly Jourmal of Science N° S 


e Wilde hth 


7 


D 


M &N Hanhart ap 


lel 


HM Jenkins 


1864. | Junkins on Brackish-water Fossils of Crete. 421 


cross at right angles, forming a tubercle at the point of intersection. Base of the 
shell similarly ornamented and slightly umbilicate. Mouth oval; columella 
thickened ; inner lip callous above ; callosity flat, thin, spreading over part of the 
base of the shell above the small umbilicus. 

4. Cerithiwm recticostatum, mili. Figs. 2a, 2b. 

Shell turreted, acute; whorls numerous, slightly convex, ornamented with 
three sharp transverse ridges, crossed at right angles by about ten straight, sharp, 
very prominent, and almost lamelliform varices, which are slightly tuberculated 
at the point of crossing, and also just below the suture, where they are crossed by 
a fourth and very small longitudinal ridge. Mouth oval, effuse at the base, where 
the peristome is prolonged into a pointed spout. 

5. Unio Cretensis mibi. Figs. 8a to 8c. 

Shell very thick and coarse, sub-rhomboidal, with the upper margin convex, and 
the lower almost straight ; anterior extremity rounded, scarcely projecting beyond 
the umbo ; posterior extremity obliquely projecting, very convex, almost pointed, 
ending above in a sharp angular ear; umbo prominent, scarcely eroded. Hinge- 
teeth and lamellee very thick and projecting ; anterior muscular impression very 
deep, much deeper than the posterior. 


II—Descrirtion oF A New Species From CERIco. 


Cerithium Cytherorum, mihi, Fig. 11. 

Shell turreted, acute ; whorls numerous, convex, ornamented with two convex 
transverse bands, which are separated by a sharply-defined shallow groove, and 
are tuberculated where crossed by the varices; varices curved, broad, not very 
distinct ; suture neatly impressed, slightly undulated. Mouth small, nearly 
round ; columella callous, twisted, and somewhat produced, oblique. Base of the 
shell ornamented with about five parallel ridges crossed by distinct lines of growth. 


EXPLANATION OF PLATE. 
Fossits FROM CRETE. 


Fis. la, 1b.—Cerithium Lamarckii. Magnified 2 diameters. From the plain of 


Arkadia. 
a 2a.—C. recticostatum. Natural size. From Kherisoniso. 
« 2b.—C. recticostatum, var. Natural size. From Kherisoniso, 


», 3d, 3b.—Melania? anomala. Magnified 2 diameters. From Kherisoniso. 

»» 4u to 4e.—Melanopsis Bouet. Magnified 2 diameters. From Kherisoniso, 

» 0a, 5b.—Melanopsis buccinoidea. Natural size. From the Plain of Arkadia. 
This species also occurs in Cerigo. 

», 6a to 6d.— Neritina Spratti. Magnified 2 diameters. From Kherisoniso. 

» 1a to7e.—N. abnormis. Magnified 2 diameters. From Kherisoniso, 

», 8a to 8c.— Unio Cretensis. Natural size. From Kherisoniso. 


Fosstts FRoM CERIGO. 
Fias. 9a, 9b.— Cerithiwm plicatum. Natural size. 


x 10.—C. doliolum. Magnified 2 diameters. 
a 11.—C. Cytherorum. Magnified 2 diameters, 


», 12a, 12b.—Neritina fluviatilis. Magnified 2 diameters. 


422 Original Articles. | July, 


ON THE HISTORY AND USES OF THE 
OPHTHALMOSCOPE. 


By Tuomas Nunnery, F.R.C.8.E., &e. 


THoucH the present age may not be so distinguished for any very 
brilliant discovery or startling scientific invention as were some of 
those which are gone by, it may be doubted if there has ever been a 
period in the world’s history in which work likely to advance know- 
ledge and benefit mankind was more heartily, honestly, or generally 
pursued than at the present day. If the rewards have not been so 
ereat to one or two individuals as to overshadow and obscure the 
eleanings of all the other labourers, the progress made in precise 
knowledge and the adoption of scientific precision has certainly never 
been more marked. The result is a steady progress, even in those 
departments of knowledge which heretofore have been considered as 
rather speculative than positive, or as belonging more to art than to 
science. The known laws of one branch of science have not unfre- 
quently been applied with great ingenuity and success to the prac- 
tical elucidation of obscure phenomena in other departments. Of 
this-advance the instrument, the name of which is placed above, and 
the employment of which has recently been introduced into the inves- 
tigation of diseases of the eye, affords a very good illustration. In 
drawing attention to it, we do not intend to enter upon a detailed criti- 
cism of the various appearances, and the minute shades of difference 
which the ophthalmoscope reveals, inasmuch as the subject, techni- 
cally treated, belongs to the domain of pure medicine, and would be 
neither interesting to, nor be understood by, the general reader. 
Indeed, it is very possible that many persons have not as yet heard of 
the ophthalmoscope by name, and very certain that of those who have, 
many more have but little knowledge of its application. Indeed, so 
novel is the instrument, and so recondite are its revelations, that we 
might say, as yet, it has been very partially employed by only one 
section of the medical profession. Doubtless the time will soon arrive 
when more will have been learnt by those who now use the instrument, 
and its employment be more widely distributed. 

We propose rather, as briefly as possible consistent with intel- 
ligibility, to give such an account of the instrument itself, the 
principles upon which its action is founded, and the objects which 
its use is likely to reveal, as may be sufficient to keep the general 
reader aw courant with the scientific inventions of the day, even though 
such inventions may belong exclusively, in the first imstance, to 
one section of the community: we say in the first instance, for, 
without doubt, in the long run every improvement in the means 
of diagnosing and rendering clear and indubitable, diseases, in what- 
ever part of our bodies they may be seated, which heretofore have 
been most obscure and dubious, is of permanent interest to every 
person. This is especially the case with diseases of the eye, the 


1864.]| Nonnetnx on the History and Uses of the Ophthalmoscope. 423 


neglect of which is of such fearful consequence to the sufferer. 
Now it is precisely this serious class of most obscure changes in the 
deeper, more delicate, more important, and most hidden recesses of 
the eyeball, that the ophthalmoscope is destined to light up and reveal 
with a clearness which will remove most, if not all, of the obscurity 
which has hitherto concealed them. During the last century no branch 
of medicine has made greater strides towards attaining scientific 
precision than has ophthalmic surgery, which has been rescued 
from the hands of the impudent charlatan and the wandering mounte- 
bank, to become in many respects the most advanced branch of 
practical medicine ; yet it must be admitted by everyone, who from 
attention to the matter is qualified to give an opinion on the subject, 
that it is in precisely these more important diseases of the eyeball, (in 
which it is of the utmost consequence to attain an early knowledge of 
the kind of change which is going on, and the particular structure in 
which it is taking place,) that hitherto there has been the greatest 
difficulty in so doing. The outer structures of the eye are within 
reach and amenable to the examination of everyone ; not so the inner. 
In the earlier stages of disease in these, when examined by the ordinary 
method, there are often no objective symptoms, while the subjective 
phenomena are so obscure and confused, as to be not unfrequently of 
little certainty or value. Hereafter, the ophthalmoscope promises to, 
nay, certainly will, remove much of the obscurity, and it cannot fail 
to render the diagnosis of these terrible and insidious changes in the 
deeper seated tissues of the eye almost as much within the sight of 
an expert observer as are those in the most superficial parts; and by 
thus enabling the competent oculist to detect the earliest indications 
of change (which hitherto has been too frequently beyond his power 
of observation), it will allow him, by timely treatment, to prevent alter- 
ations, which would otherwise, if unobserved, progress until all chance 
for good being effected has passed away, and hopeless blindness has 
become the inevitable lot of the unhappy patient. In many of these 
changes, if far advanced, there is no cure; in them prevention is not 
only better than cure, but it is emphatically the only cure. 

Though it is barely a dozen years since the ophthalmoscope began, 
in the hands of Briicke and Helmholtz, to assume a form of practical 
application, the idea of such an apparatus, or rather the principle 
upon which such a method of examining the eye,depends, was first 
clearly indicated by one of our own countrymen, Mr. Cumming; 
who, in an admirable paper, published in the ‘Medico-chirurgical 
Transactions for 1846, clearly pointed out the importance of 
observing the light which is reflected from the bottom of the eye, and 
suggested the circumstances under which the interior of the eye itself 
might be examined. It now appears astonishing that Mr. Cum- 
ming’s observations, leading not very remotely nor indirectly to the 
invention of the ophthalmoscope, did not at once excite more attention ; 
but it is perhaps still more wonderful that the mirror-like reflexion 
from the bottom of the eyes of cats and other animals, which must 
have been seen by the learned and unlearned, almost ever since 
the creation, should not have suggested the idea long ago: for 


424 Original Articles. | July, 


in it is the very germ of the subject ; light falling upon the concave 
bottom of the eye of these animals is reflected, and causes the luminous 
appearance by which the fundus of the eye, in certain positions of it, 
is seen: only place any other animal, man included, in favourable 
circumstances, and the same appearance will be observed. 

Dilate the pupil, so as to allow the rays of light freely to pass into 
and out of the eye; let the eye be placed in a suitable position for the 
rays of light from a luminous body to fall upon it, in a chamber from 
which all the light is excluded; and let the cbserver stand in a proper 
position, which is “as nearly as possible, in a direct line between the 
source of the light and the eye to be examined . . . . when the lumi- 
nosity of the interior of the eye will be immediately perceived ;” 
these, as stated by Mr. Cumming, are directions which really com- 
prise the principles upon which the ophthalmoscope must be con- 
structed and used. 

Helmholtz’s first instrument was a square box, with a darkened 
interior, containing three parallel plates of glass, placed obliquely at 
one end, and at the other, one or two bi-convex lenses, to concentrate 
the rays of light; but the image thus afforded was too faint to be of 
much value, as most of the light was lost by the intervening plates. 
A great improvement was shortly afterwards made by the introduction 
of a concave, or a plane-reflecting mirror, which, though it has been 
variously modified’in shape and mounting, or in the method of being 
held, constitutes in one form or cther the various forms of ophthal- 
moscope now used; the modifications being rather according to the 
fancy or the whim of the party using it, than involving any difference 
in principle. Suggestions have lately been made for a binocular 
ophthalmoscope, which it is asserted possesses advantages which the 
single reflector does not, but there is a difficulty in getting a correct 
focus with it, and the instrument has not obtained general adoption. 
Leibrich has invented a large and somewhat costly apparatus, with 
various tubes, rods, and supports for more accurately adjusting the 
focus, supporting the head of the patient, and fixing the eye under 
observation: this is said to accomplish its object satisfactorily, but 
from its being a fixture and cumbersome, is not much used. The 
instrument almost universally employed, at least in this country, 
is a circular, slightly concave, mirror about two inches in diameter, 
having a central aperture of } to } in. diameter, which, at the plea- 
sure of the observer, may be mounted on a stem, or simply held in the 
hand, and may be made of speculum metal, of polished steel, or, as 
is most common, of silvered glass. By this mirror the rays of 
light are received and reflected upon the patient’s eye. The mirror 
is held close before the observer’s eye, with its aperture correspond- 
ing with the centre of his own pupil; by this means his own eye is 
in a great degree protected from the light, while through the aperture 
he has a full view of the illuminated disk of the patient’s eye. The 
central aperture in the mirror should be of sufficient size to allow 
of this observation, but no larger, for of course, at this spot, there 
is no reflection of light: indeed, through this orifice, the bright 
light, which should all be reflected as nearly as possible, may find 


1864.| Nunnexey on the History and Uses of the Ophthalmoscope. 425 


admission into the observer’s eye, and thus the experiment is inter- 
fered with in two ways. With the mirror, is frequently used a double 
convex lens of about two inches focus, which is held between the mirror 
and the eye to be observed, for the purpose of concentrating the rays 
of light before they fall upon the observed cornea. This lens is 
necessary when the observed eye is flat, or presbyopic ; but when the 
cornea is convex, or myopic, the rays of light will fall upon the 
retina with sufficient accuracy, without other “concentration than the 
eye itself is capable of affording. 

For making the observation, the eye to be operated upon should 
have had the pupil well dilated by the introduction of atropine ; for 
unless this is done, sufficient light will not enter the eye to be reflected 
from the fundus and render the illumination clear, nor will the field 
of vision be sufficient to enable an examination to be made of the whole 
interior, and disease may likely enough exist, which lying behind the 
undilated iris must necessarily escape observation. The patient 
should then be placed in a darkened room, and directed to hold the 
head as steady as possible with the eyelids widely open, and the 
eyes looking directly forward fixed as immovably as possible. If a 
strong illumination is not required, a wax-candle, or if it be necessary, 
an argand gas-burner, or a camphine lamp, must be placed a little behind, 
and at the same side of the head as is the eye to be examined, and on 
the same level as the eyes. The observer then places himself directly 
before the patient, bringing his’ eye with the mirror held before it, as 
nearly as he can in the same plane with the patient’s eye, when the rays 
of light, falling upon the mirror, will be reflected as a diffuse circle of 
light; this, by adjusting the position of the mirror, may easily be so 
focrssed as to fall directly upon the dilated pupil, when a brilliant 
illumination of the fundus of the eye will be obtained, and of course 
any abnormal condition of its various parts may be at once observed. 
A more interesting and striking picture can scarcely be imagined than 
a brilliant view of the blood-vessels of the retina and choroid coat of a 
healthy living eye. Neither do we know of a more beautiful and simple 
application of optical science, nor of one which is more rich in the ad- 
vantages which it is likely to conferupon mankind, To those familiar 
with the more simple of optical laws, the mode in which this image 
is obtained, will be at once so obvious as to require no explanation ; 
while it would hardly be possible, without the aid of diagrams and a 
larger space than we can spare, to render it intelligible to those who 
do not understand them. 

We must, however, guard our readers against at once jumping to the 
conclusion, that because it is now easy for any competent observer to 
see clearly into the very bottom of the living eye, it is therefore easy 
to make the observation useful. None but a skilful anatomist and 
physiologist can do this; inasmuch as he must first not only know of 
what the marvellously minute tissues of the interior structures of the 
eye consist, but he must also, by patient and repeated observation, 
have rendered himself familiar with the appearances which this 
healthy condition presents under examination with the ophthalmoscope, 
before he can venture upon the attempt at discriminating between 


426 Original Articles. , [July, 


them and those which result from altered and abnormal conditions of 
the tissues ; and after he has arrived at this knowledge he must further 
learn by frequent examination and careful reasoning, to determine not 
only in which particular structure the change may be, but the exact 
nature of the change and the stage of it, whether it indicates an 
altered condition of a temporary unimportant character, or a morbid 
state of a more permanent or even irremediable kind; whether the 
disease be in an early stage, with commencing mischief, or at a period 
of decline, when any change which is likely to result from it has 
already been accomplished. He must further know whether any treat- 
ment (and if any, of what nature) is likely to be beneficial ; or whether 
the change involves such organic alteration in the structure of the part, 
that no remedies can benefit: even further information may be obtained 
if this latter condition be established, for we learn whether the disease 
be such as may be limited to the eye or may extend to the whole sys- 
tem, ultimately destroying not only the organ itself, but the life of the 
patient. It is upon the answers given to these, and similar important. 
questions, that the knowledge revealed by the ophthalmoscope is de- 
stined to be of the utmost value. We say advisedly “ destined to be,” for 
though fully prepared to recognize the great steps in advance, which 
the diligence of comparatively few observers has secured, and to 
acknowledge that many of the more clearly marked diseases are 
already readily diagnosed, it must be confessed that much still 
remains to be done; there is still much to be learnt, and something 
to be unlearnt. For ardent minds will dogmatize on insufficient. 
data, and inexperience is apt to overlook difficulties which stand in 
the way of those who know more; while ignorance will not unfre- 
quently hazard a rash assertion rather than confess to a want of ex- 
perience in the use of an instrument with which a patient, having 
heard something wonderful about it, expects, as a matter of course, 
that the party he consults should be perfectly familiar. We could cite 
examples of strange assertions and crude speculations which have been 
made after gravely peeping through an ophthalmoscope. This, how- 
ever, is no valid argument against the value of the discovery itself. 
The difficulty of acquiring any technical knowledge, sufficiently pre- 
cise to be valuable, is often great ; far more so than many people sup- 
pose. No greater advance in the means of detecting and distinguishing 
diseases of the chest has ever been made than through the invention of 
the stethoscope. Now what this simple instrument is to the chest, the 
ophthalmoscope is and will be to the eye. It has required nearly fifty 
years of diligent observation, and the labour of thousands of learned 
men over almost the whole world, to define the revelations of the 
stethoscope as now understood by the initiated, and still there are 
multitudes who make a show of using it, but do not understand its 
teachings. So it is, and probably long will be, with the ophthalmo- 
scope. 

a aches which are not now understood, will ere long have 
their true significance shown to those who will take the trouble to learn ; 
and errors which are now committed will be avoided, while accumu- 
lated experience will clearly indicate the value of that which is now ob- 


1864. | Cottinawoop on Acclimatization. 427 


seure. It is not unlikely that improved forms of instruments may bo 
suggested, by which even more perfect views than can now be got of 
the fundus of the eye may be obtained ; and instruction in their use will 
become so common, that it will be regarded as a necessary part of the 
duty of those who undertake the especial treatment of diseases of the 
eye, to obtain as familiar an acquaintance with the use of the ophthal- 
moscope as they are now obliged to have with the instruments used in 
the performance of physical operations, or as the physician to the hos- 
pital for diseases of the chest must have with the stethescope. Already 
asuggestion has been made by a Canadian to add to the ophthalmoscope 
an apparatus by which photographs of the bottom of the eye may be 
obtained : this, though not at present of practical avail, may not un- 
likely become so ere long. 

When it is considered how short a time has elapsed since the power 
of seeing into the bottom of the living eye was demonstrated to be 
practical, it is satisfactory to know how much has already been 
accomplished in rendering the knowledge useful in the treatment of 
diseases there seated. 

It is not intended to be asserted that it will ever become very 
easy to determine by the ophthalmoscope the value of all the changes 
which take place in the living eye, any more than it is to become 
a learned astronomer, or to acquire any other knowledge which 
involves the possession of intellect, and the expenditure of labour ; but 
to those who possess the one, and will undergo the other, the ophthalmo- 
scope is, and will be, of the greatest value. Medicine is daily becom- 
ing more of a science, and those who care to keep pace with its pro- 
gress will have to do so by the study and adoption of those means of 
which the stethescope and ophthalmoscope are illustrations. 


ACCLIMATIZATION. 
By Dr. C. Cottinewoop, M.A., M.B. Oxon., F.L.S. 


WE recollect hearing a distinguished English Zoologist not long since 
assert that, notwithstanding all the Societies devoted to this object, 
and all the assiduous care which had been bestowed upon the deporta- 
tion and breeding of animals, with a view to adapt them to their new 
homes, no successful instance of acclimatization could be produced by 
the supporters of the system. But either the veteran systematist must 
have made a false estimate of the true nature and objects of acclimatiza- 
tion, or he must have judged of the facts by too narrow and procrustean a 
rule ; for no one who is acquainted with the efforts and the proceedings 
of the two great Acclimatization Societies, those of Paris and Victoria, 
can believe that the sums expended, the energy evinced, and the interest 
aroused by them, can be for a mere visionary and shadowy object. 
The reports which are issued by these Societies from time to time 
display an amount of successful enterprise, which is a subject of just 
congratulation, and we cannot but wish prosperity to aims which are | 
at once useful and philanthropic, and which, in some cases, are re- 
VOL. I. 26 


498 Original Articles. [July, 


deemed by a touch of romance from the ordinary utilitarian ends of 
similar undertakings. 

Among the useful animals to which the Société d’Acclimatation* 
have directed special attention, the yak is conspicuous, a native of 
Thibet,—a creature possessing a most valuable skin or fleece, and which 
is found to breed very readily in the garden of the Society; and, 
although it at present yields but little milk, it is hoped that in time, 
the influence of domestication may render it more valuable in this as 
in other particulars. Several prizes are offered for the breeding of 
these animals, viz. :—two prizes of 2.500 francs each, for anyone who 
shall produce by the 1st December, 1865, four yaks of pure blood, of 
a year old, and of his own breeding ; also other prizes of 1,800 and 
1,200 frances, for crosses between yaks of pure breed and mountain 
cattle (vaches de travail); as well as smaller prizes for such animals 
as shall prove apt as beasts of labour or of burden. 

Similar experiments are in course of trial upon Angora and 
Egyptian goats, Caramanian and Merino sheep, &c., which are reported 
to be in a fair way to success ; and encouragement is held out by prizes 
of various amounts, for the production of small flovks of these animals, 
for the purest breed, and the heaviest producible fieece. 

The gathering together in good condition, and in sufficient numbers 
to establish a species, of foreign animals and plants is necessarily a 
very slow and delicate process, and much time must obviously be ex- 
pended before very decided results can be expected. Most of these 
animals breed only once a year, and their natural increase is, therefore, 
slow, however eminently they may prove themselves adapted to their 
new home. Nor is it to be expected that every experiment of the 
kind should be at once successful. We should regret to see an energetic 
movement damped by temporary misfortune, and we trust that the ill 
success attending the first attempts (in 1860) at the introduction of 
Llamas and Alpacas into France will only be a difficult stepping-stone 
to the accomplishment of a task of great importance, both in an agri- 
cultural and economical point of view. 

A second attempt is already contemplated, and the Presidents of 
Peru and Equador have offered two troops of these animals, and M. St. 
Hilaire has published a paper relating the causes of the recent failure, 
with instructions as to their treatment with a view to avoid such 
failure in future. 

Similar attempts are being made to utilize the wild ass, and 


* The Imperial Zoological Society of Acclimatization publishes a monthly 
‘ Bulletin,’ the numbers of which are now before us, and contain a great deal of 
most interesting matter (‘ Bulletin Mensuel de la Société Imperiale Zoologique 
dAcclimatation. Paris: Masson & Fils). The object of this Society (which has 
been founded ten years) is to co-operate “for the purpose of introducing, acclima- 
tizing, and domesticating species of animals which are either useful or ornamental, 
and the improvement and multiplication of races newly introduced or domesticated. 
The Society also oceupies itself with the introduction and cultivation of useful 
vegetables.’ M. Drouyn de Lhuys, the Foreign Minister, is President of the 
Society, and its council includes the names of Passy, Richard, Dupin, Cloquet, 
Dumeril, Quatrefages, and others ; while it also enjoys a peculiar share of the 
Imperial countenance and patronage. 


1864. ] Co.iuinawoop on Acclimatization. 429 


Burchell’s zebra, quagga, &c., and prizes for the successful breeding 
of these animals in a state of captivity or domestication are offered, as 
well as for crosses between them and the mare and the ass. 

Among birds, the ostrich has been introduced and domesticated in 
Algeria and in the south of Europe, and prizes of 1,500 francs are 
offered for the possession of flocks of these birds, bred by the owner. 
Attempts also are being made with the cassowary of New Holland, 
and the American rhea, the crowned pigeon, the ocellated turkey 
(Meleagris ocellata), Californian quail, &c. 

We have not alluded to a Society which exists in London of a 
similar character, not because it is unimportant, but rather because 
we wished to call attention to the extensive scale upon which the 
Societies of Paris and Melbourne are engaged. ‘The most important 
work of the London Acclimatization Society is in the matter of Pisci- 
culture. Of this Society Mr. Frank Buckland is an active member, 
and his exertions in the cause of fish-hatching, and the preservation, 
rearing, and introduction of valuable fish in the rivers of this country, 
must be appreciated by everyone. The recent discovery of a fine 
salmon, which had revisited the Thames, makes us hope that the 
labours of the pisciculturists will be aided, as far as the metropolis is 
concerned, by the great works which have been undertaken for the 
purpose of purifying the river, and we trust that attention is now suffi- 
ciently aroused to the necessity of protecting a single fish like the 
salmon, to prevent that extirpation of it which a short time since 
seemed but too probable. Nor should we altogether omit to allude to 
the success which has attended the efforts to cultivate oysters. 

The French Society have also largely devoted themselves to these 
subjects, and we regret that our space will not permit us to enter more 
fully upon these labours. Several valuable papers upon Pisciculture 
appear in the first series of ‘ Bulletins,’ with the names of Vallen- 
ciennes, Gillet de Grandmont, René-Caillaud, Lamiral, &c., attached. 

The cultivation of the silkworm has also attracted much notice, 
and in this department the name of M. Guérin-Méneville stands con- 
spicuous. Several species have been introduced into France, and 
largely supplied with the trees which are their natural food. Among 
these are the Bombyx Cynthia, or Ailanthe silkworm, and more 
recently the Ya-ma-mai, or oak silkworm of Japan. The latter have 
been introduced at some risk by M. Pompe van Meerdervoort, Director 
of the Medical School at Nagasaki, who procured a number of eggs, 
the exportation of which is strictly prohibited by the Japanese, which 
have been reared in France successfully ; and it is believed that this 
important insect, which lives upon the leaves of the common oak, will 
support the variations of our climate without much difficulty. The 
Chinese oak silkworm (Bombyx Pernyi) has been imported also, 
but the experiment of rearing it has for the present failed. 

The popularity of the subject of acclimatization is well illustrated 
by the prominence lately given in our leading journal, to a report 
about to be issued by the Acclimatization Society of Victoria; and it 
is their experience that paragraphs referring to the proceedings of the 


Society attain a circulation more general than almost any other subject 
262 


430 Original Articles. [ July, 


in English and foreign newspapers. And although the Society to 
which we are now referring is the one best known, and whose results 
have been most tangible, as their efforts have been most unwearied, it 
may be mentioned that amongst its fruits, perhaps, may be reckoned 
numerous other such Societies which have taken that of Victoria as 
their model; so that they now exist in almost every colony in those 
seas, as at Sydney, Hobart Town, Adelaide, Brisbane, Auckland, Lyttle- 
ton, and Dunedin. The French Society, too, have established most 
cordial relations with that of Melbourne, and a French man-of-war is 
at the present time engaged in transporting thither specimens of the 
yak, the ostrich, and other animals. Moreover, the British Govern- 
ment has recently been induced to take up the project with an amount 
of consideration altogether without precedent, the foreign and colonial 
offices having recently sent to British emissaries in all countries in the 
world, a series of questions as to the various desirable natural products 
of each country: and the Admiralty has issued a circular to all com- 
manders of Her Majesty’s ships, directing them to render every service 
in their power to the cause of acclimatization, in the conveyance of 
specimens. 

The inauguration of the Acclimatization Society of Melbourne on 
its present footing is comparatively recent, since less than three years 
_ have elapsed since it was amalgamated with, and undertook the duties 
of the Zoological Committee. Its Council is composed of gentlemen 
engaged in commerce, who willingly devote much valuable time to the 
subject, under the Presidency of Mr. Edward Wilson, the founder of 
the Society, and to whom has just been awarded the great Gold Medal of 
the Paris Society, which was instituted in 1862 for the traveller who, 
during nine years, had rendered the greatest services to the cause of 
acclimatization. Since the amalgamation, in consequence of the increas- 
ing number of animals and the unhealthiness of the original site of 
the gardens, an entirely new establishment has had to be formed in 
the Royal Park, involving a very heavy expenditure in fencing, plant- 
ing, forming excavations for ponds, building a house for the superin- 
tendent, shelter-sheds, pens, &c., and the Society now ask for a subsidy 
from the colonial government. Among other items laid upon the 
table of the Assembly, 3rd February last, was one of 4,000/. for the 
Acclimatization Society, coupled with a condition that 650/. should be 
raised by private subscription. It is to justify this vote that the 
Society has published the results of its efforts, in order to prove to the 
Government that the public money is being legitimately spent, as well 
as to create a wider interest in the object of the enterprise. 

The herd of Camels brought from India, at an expense of 120/. per 
head, had become scattered, and were in a fair way of being annihilated 
under the various exploratory expeditions. Such of them as could be 
saved have been collected at Mr. Wilson’s station, at the Wimmera, 
where they are now breeding regularly, and forming the nucleus of 
probably a large herd, available at some future day, either for explora- 
tion or for conveying the products of remote stations to the more 
arid districts. 

Reports have reached us of the failure of the first attempts to 


1864. | Cotuinewoop on Acclimatization. 431 


naturalize the Peruvian Alpaca, and out of 300 introduced, five years 
since, from Peru, and purchased by the New South Wales Goverr- 
ment for 15,0C0/., all have died, and their progeny, 330 in number, are 
in an unhealthy condition—so much so that in the colonial legislature 
it was determined to get rid of the cost of keeping them, and disposing 
of them at once, by auction or otherwise. But on the other hand 
the official report of the Society prepared in the present year shows 
that another attempt is likely to have a more successful issue. It is 
there stated that the little flock of llamas and hybrids imported from 
England, and under the care of Mr. Duffield, have been diligently 
cared for. They have been crossed with pure alpacas, and young 
ones of the second cross are now being dropped. Since landing, their 
numbers have increased from 19 to 56. Thus, while the Camels suf- 
fered from being too greatly scattered, the Alpacas failed from too great 
concentration. 

The Angora goat has been received from the Paris Society, and is 
rapidly multiplying ; they are being crossed with the common goat in 
considerable numbers. ‘The Cashmere goat also has been imported 
by an enterprising gentleman at Maryborough, who is now experiment- 
ing with it. Various breeds of sheep, some of which show signs of a 
peculiar adaptability to a hot climate, are also under experiment. The 
fallow deer, the Indian elk, and the axis have been successfully im- 
ported, bred from, and turned loose at Wilson’s promontory and other 
places. Numerous specimens of the hog-deer of India, and other 
species from Manilla and Formosa, are also in the Society’s possession 
for similar purposes. 

With regard to game, the hare has been sent by the Zoological 
Society of London, and has been turned out on Philip Island, where it 
is breeding freely. Various breeds of pheasants, partridge, grouse, 
and quail have been introduced, and some liberated. The English 
wild duck has multiplied very freely. The Egyptian goose has bred, 
and promises to be thoroughly acclimatized. So also the wild peafowl 
of Ceylon has thriven and bred, while the white swan and various 
lands of foreign doves and pigeons have been introduced and liberated 
in various localities. 

Among fish, the salmon has been the object of considerable pains 
and expense on the part of the Tasmanian legislature, and promises 
well. The gouramie, represented as the best fresh-water pond-fish in 
the world, has, after many trials, been introduced ; and carp, tench, 
roach, dace, and gold fish have been distributed in various localities 
favourable to their multiplication. Grey mullet and the edible crab 
have also been introduced, not, indeed, in sufficient numbers to justify 
a hope of establishing the breed, but amply suggestive of what will be 
done in the future. 

The Ligurian bee, from its industrious and wonderfully prolific 
qualities perhaps the most valuable insect in the world, is multiply- 
ing with almost incredible rapidity, and will soon be accessible to all 
classes. 

One of the most interesting features of this Society’s work is the 
estimate by which value is determined. They do not limit their in- 


432 Original Articles. [July, 


quiries to objects of immediate or material usefulness. They do not 
ask simply, whether certain animals are good eating, or otherwise 
adapted for daily use, but they consider that the eye and the ear should 
be gratified also, and that everything is worth securing which adds 
cheerfulness to scenery, and revives home associations on colonial 
ground. The introduction of insect-destroying birds is, it is true, an 
object arrived at; but with this has been combined an effort to sur- 
round colonial residences with such reminders of the old country, as 
thrushes, blackbirds, skylarks, starlings, chaffinches, and sparrows.* 
The goldfinch, greenfinch, linnet, yellow-hammer, ortolan, bunting, 
robin, and canary, and many kinds of the smaller birds of other coun- 
tries, as the Chinese sparrow, Java sparrow, and the Indian mino, are 
being accumulated in the aviaries of the Society, and many of them 
have already bred there. The nightingale and the hedge-sparrow have 
been promised them by ladies at home, and the Queen herself has 
made an effort to supply them with the rook. Such news may be sur- 
prising to the farmers of this country, who mercilessly destroy the very 
birds which our wiser antipodean brethren are seeking to introduce : 
but such is the fact, and we believe the Australians are right. 

In concluding this brief survey of a subject of so great and 
increasing interest, we ought to do full justice to the aims of the 
Australian Society, who regard the advantages of acclimatization in a 
light which raises it above a mere utilitarian and commercial specula- 
tion. Deprecating the sneers and misrepresentations of thoughtless 
and ignorant persons, who have no conception of the varied objects 
and considerable interests which it embraces, they openly state their 
object in stocking their country with new, useful, and beautiful things 
to be, not only to add to the national wealth—not only to suggest new 
forms for colonial industry, but, also to provide for manly sports, which 
will lead the Australian youth to seek their recreation on the river’s 
bank and mountain side, rather than in the café and casino. Nor do 
they stop at this praiseworthy avowal; we have alluded to a touch of 
romance in their undertaking, and it is not everyone who, endowed 
with a commercial mind and deeply engaged in the practical business 
of life, will fully enter into the desire the colonists express, not only to 
add new elements to the food of an entire people, but also to surround 
every homestead, and the path of every wayfarer, with new forms of 
interest and beauty. This is their unwonted aim, and we cannot but 
rejoice that such a truly poetical feeling should mingle with the 
sterner and more practical realities of the system. Such a body may 
well claim the sympathies of every good man, on the ground that they 
are engaged in a noble work, and we most cordially wish them God 
speed in their useful and humanizing undertaking. 


* In 1830 a merchant wishing to import sparrows to the Hayanna, found on 
arrival that the customs duties were so heavy that he could not hope to sell the 
birds profitably ; he therefore let them fly—the birds entered the island free of 
duty, and at the end of some years their number was so much increased, that in 
certain localities they are as numerous as they are at home. (Graells, delegate of 
the Acclimatization Society at Madrid.) This fact is an encouragement to the 
Australian movement. 


1864. | Ansrep on Copper Mining in Tuscany. 433 


COPPER MINING IN TUSCANY. 


Account of the Copper Vein occurring in Tertiary Volcanic Rock worked 
at the Mine of Monte Catini in Tuscany. 


By Professor D. T. Anstzp, F.R.S. 


Tuer copper mining of Tuscany has within the last quarter of a cen- 
tury assumed considerable importance, and more than one of the great 
mining successes of the time has been gained there. The position and 
circumstances of the mineral veins that yield these supplies are 
peculiar, and differ much from the cases with which miners are 
familiar, not only in England but in Europe generally. At the present 
time, when everything within the range of the Italian Government is 
accessible to our countrymen, it is well that a knowledge of these 
sources of mineral wealth and great scientific interest should be 
widely known. I make no apology, therefore, for offering a few notes 
on the subject, collected during a visit I paid to Tuscany last autumn. 
The river Cécina is one of the largest of several small streams that 
take their origin in the tertiary hills west of the valleys of the Arno 
and the Tiber. These streams, after crossing a few miles of tertiary 
rock, through which here and there picturesque hills seem to rise up 
without any reference to the surrounding country, enter the Mediter- 
ranean in the flat alluvial tract extending almost uninterruptedly from 
Leghorn to Civita Vecchia. They traverse a country, parts of it 
covered with vegetation at certain seasons, but many parts almost 
startling from their extreme bareness and desolation. In these places, 
and indeed everywhere in this part of Italy, the effect of the last heavy 
rains is always traceable on the loose sands of the valley and plain, 
and at intervals we find fissures from which issue hot, sulphurous 
vapours. Formerly there were numerous small lakes or lagoons of 
muddy water boiling vehemently. The low plains were redolent of 
the disagreeable odour of rotten eggs, owing to the emanations of sul- 
phuretted hydrogen gas, and carbonic acid gas issued in great quantities 
from certain crevices. The soil was loose and dangerous, and sheep, 
cattle, and pigs, and even human beings were frequently buried in the 
treacherous and shaking soil. Within the last thirty years the country 
is much improved. The vapours have been utilized in a double sense, 
for vast quantities of borax are now economically manufactured by 
taking advantage of the natural heat of the streams and springs to 
evaporate the solutions of valuable salts that abound in the district. 
The axis of the fissures that yield both borax and the hot vapours 
is parallel to that of the Apennines, and also to that of a number of 
eruptions of serpentinous rock in Tuscany. It agrees, further, with the 
direction of several recent earthquakes in Italy. Fissures in the ser- 
pentine rock itself, and also in the rock immediately adjacent, contain 
numerous minerals, and among them some ores of copper of very great 
importance. One of the veins is worked in the mine of Monte Catini 
to great profit, and under very interesting conditions. Others are 


aS 


AD4 Original Articles. [ July, 


worked in the Val Castrucci, in the Maremme, near the coast, and in 
this latter case there is evidence that the ancient Etruscan inhabitants 
cf Italy were able to take advantage of the minerals there found. In 
the Massa Maritima, the veins traverse the tertiary rock of the dis- 
trict. They range from N.W. to §.E. The veinstone or earthy 
mineral accompanying the ore is usually quartz. The veins are wide, 
the principal one measuring from 30 to 50 feet. The terrible miasma 
of the ‘Maremme, as the marsh lands of this part of Tuscany are 
called, is a serious drawback to working the mines of this district. 

Besides the open fissures containing ore, found in the sedimentary 

rocks themselves, there are dykes, filled with volcanic rock of the nature 
of basalt, traversing the same rocks, and in some of these copper has been 
worked from time immemorial. The greater hardness of these dykes 
compared with that of the sedimentary rock, has helped to preserve the 
latter from the action of the weather, and thus to leave hills of which 
the dykes in question are a nucleus. Although but a short distance 
from the coast, where a few hours’ exposure to the evening air is 
sufficient to induce a fatal attack of malaria fever, the villages on 
the hills are quite healthy, and near Campiglia, one of these villages, 
is a fine old Etruscan mine from which copper ore has been taken 
‘on a seale worthy of the old Etruscan population whose works of 
more than one kind have endured longer than history can record. 
At present the ore is poor though abundant, but doubtless in ancient 
times there must have been good reasons for the construction of ex- 
cavations that more resemble huge natural caverns than ordinary 
mining work. That these excavations were only made when some- 
thing was to be gained by them is evident from the extremely small 
proportion of the levels or mere galleries of communication. The rock 
is very hard, and the labour required must have been prodigious. 

The rock in which the copper ore is found in this mine is partly 
the ancient lava, but partly also the rock penetrated and altered by it. 
Thus, occasionally, there is a marble floor to the vein, and the lime- 
stone intersected by the original fissure seems to have been converted 
into this marble by the irruption of the heated matter to which the 
dyke owes its origin. 

The very important mine of Monte Catini is another curious 
instance of the same kind. It is situated in an altered lava close to a 
boss of trachytic rock a few miles west of Volterra, and some distance 
north of the Massa Maritima. The distances indeed between the points 
hitherto described is somewhat considerable, though all are intimately 
connected by geological links. Thus Campiglia is 15 miles west 
of Massa, and Monte Catini about 25 miles to the north of both. 
The coast railway from Leghorn, open at present to Follonica on the 
way to Civiti Vecchia, has, however, rendered all these places much 
easier of access than they formerly were. There is a branch of the 
main-line running up the Cécina towards Volterra for the benefit of 
the borax works and the Monte Catini mine. Close to Campiglia is a 
much larger mass of trachytic rock than that near Monte Catini, but 
no doubt answering the same purpose. Both at Campiglia and Monte 
Catini, the injected or erupted rock has brought up some of the 


1864, Anstep on Copper Mining in Tuscany. 435 
yi f y 


secondary rock, but the actual date of the fissure and its filling up 
must be comparatively modern in both cases. All these Italian mines 
differ in a striking and even startling manner from those of Cornwall 
and other parts of the British Isles. They are quite as different from 
the copper mines of Germany and Scandinavia. They introduce us to 
the phenomenon of a great accumulation of copper ores of the ordinary 
kind (copper pyrites), in veins in comparatively modern volcanic rock, 
these veins having been formed long after the older tertiary rock had 
become deposited and hardened. 'The cretaceous rock, and even the 
older tertiaries had been in some cases elevated before the formation 
of the fissures now filled up with lava, and the lava had cooled and 
solidified and cracked before the copper made its appearance. 

The mine of Monte Catini (della cava) is worked in a very peculiar 
vein of soft magnesian rock (approaching serpentine in its nature, but 
much softer), occupying a dyke or fissure in the gabbro, which is 
apparently itself an eruptive rock originally forced through, over, and 
amongst the upper cretaceous limestone of Tuscany, here called albe- 
rese.* The alberese is a compact pale blue, or greyish blue limestone, 
hard and penetrated with numerous strings of calc spar. It occupies 
the hills and neighbouring high ground, but is generally covered with 
a soft marly rock, often containing gypsum, and sometimes rock salt. 
The latter mineral is abundant, and is worked in the Saline in the 
valley of the Cécina adjacent. 

The alberese is a cretaceous limestone, and the overlying soft marl 
are tert'ary. It appears to me that there has been an eruption of 
igneous rock through fissures in the alberese at a time when the tertiary 
deposit was much more extensive than it now is. Thrust up through 
this rock, which is locally squeezed, contorted, and broken, and form- 
ing a dyke in the soft tertiary clays above, the nearest adjacent clays are 
converted into shales, which are hard and compact enough where they 
approach the igneous rock. In certain places the flow of lava has been 
through two nearly adjacent fissures, meeting one another, and leaving 
at and near the place of contact large open spaces. In the course of 
time the softer earth on each side of the vein has been washed away, 
and there is now left on the flank of the mountain little more than the 
hardened and altered rock. This forms the nucleus of gabbro, which 
here consists of irregular rounded lumps of hard, compact rock, resem- 
bling greenstone embedded in a kind of soft porphyritic mass, weather- 
ing rapidly on exposure, and easily removed underground. This 
gabbro looks much like a true serpentine (pale greenish crystals in a 
dark green bed), and is evidently highly magnesian. 

It is in fissures closed towards the surface, and there presenting 
nothing but reddish clays, which, however, are easily distinguished 
from the gabbro, that we find the only indications of the rich lodes, or 
rather pockets, existing below. It is believed that in former times 


* The name alberese is given both to the chalky limestones of the upper part 
of the cretaceous series, and also to the similar rocks of the upper part of the 
eocene tertiaries. It expresses mineral character. At Monte Catini the a/berese 
of the cretaceous period is thrust through the alberese of the tertiary period, and 
they are in contact. 


436 Original Articles. [July, 


much valuable ore was got from the surface in other portions of the 
lode, or from pockets intersected at the surface, but of this there now 
seems no indication. Generally, the narrow cracks with their red clay 
contain a few small rounded nodules of rich sulphide of copper, often 
with very little iron. It is these that yield the larger lumps when 
followed downwards. 

The vein, as recognized at present, is very irregular in width and 
contents. The chief ore has been obtained in isolated pockets at 
various depths, down to about 120 yards. These are, to all appearance, 
absolutely irregular. They do not seem to have reference to any 
peculiar condition of the serpentinous veinstone beyond the presence 
of red clay. They are not confined to any part of the lode, but range 
out of it into the gabbro, some of the richest deposits now worked 
being altogether in the gabbro. Veins pass off, commencing with a 
thin line of orey serpentine, and running out of the main lode into the 
gabbro, but gradually enlarging and becoming very rich. The 
general direction of the lode is east and west, and the dip south, and 
the richest of these side veins have similar bearings, but dip at a greater 
angle. 

At adepth of about 80 yards the lode is interrupted by a broken 
mass or dome of alberese and shale, near the contact with which a 
large quantity of excellent ore was found. Below this again gabbro 
has been reached. In the main adit, driven for more than a mile to 
drain the mine to the 30-fathom level, a somewhat similar mass of 
alberese and shale was crossed. It would seem, therefore, that the 
fracture of the rock through which the lava was poured occurred at 
about this point, and thus irregular fragments of rock of considerable 
size are apparently included. But I noticed that the limestone is only 
so far altered at this point as to show more than usual of that peculiar 
interlacing of cale spar, for which it is elsewhere more or less remark- 
able. The general character and appearance of the rock (a compact 
pale grey indurated limestone) is accurately preserved close to the 
gabbro. 

Not only is the limestone not altered, but the shales with it are 
still soft, and even rotten. The serpentinous mass containing the ore 
is also in the same state. It is only by the extreme crushing and 
squeezing that the limestone and associated shales have undergone, and 
by observing that they are bent, and broken, and turned in every direc- 
tion, that one can realize the fact of the great forces to which they 
have been subjected. 

In all parts of the gabbro and in the serpentinous and steatitic 
masses of the vein, cale spar, crystallized more or less perfectly, is to 
be seen. But magnesia is the prevalent mineral. All the rock is 
more or less steatitic, and presents those peculiar appearances that 
steatitic minerals so often do. A strong resemblance to slickensides is 
one of these, and most observers have concluded, from the numerous 
strie and polished surfaces which the stone presents, that the whole 
vein and its contents have been slid over one another, and that the 


strie and polished surface are mechanical. This I am inclined to 
doubt. 


1864. | Anstxp on Copper Mining in Tuscany. 43 


The ore in the serpentinous vein is all in nodules. These vary in 
size exceedingly, but they vary little in appearance, and all probably 
have the same origin. They are masses of sulphide of copper and iron, 
the central part being the hardest and most ferruginous, and the other 
part containing the richest and purest copper ore. This outer part is 
often peacock ore, and sometimes grey sulphuret. Earthy carbonate 
of copper is rare, and malachite, or compact carbonate, quite un- 
known. Native copper is found, but only in small detached fragments 
(not crystalline) in the gabbro. No crystals of copper ore have been 
found—a fact sufficiently remarkable. 

The kidney-shaped, rounded nodules of ore are in some parts of 
the lode accompanied by a considerable quantity of equally rich ore, dis- 
seminated through the veinstone, and only separable by dressing. It 
has sometimes been thought that these rounded masses are water-worn, 
but this I greatly doubt. 

One of the first things that struck me when I visited the Monte 
Catini mine, and looked at the surrounding country, was the contrast 
it offered to ordinary mining districts in our own country, and the 
curious resemblance to what I had seen in Algeria, in the mines of 
Mouziia, in the Lesser Atlas. Here rich ores of similar nature have 
been found distributed in the same irregular manner in bunches com- 
municating by narrow threads. The veins range N.E. and 8.W., 
parallel to the mountain chains, and traverse altered tertiary rock, 
cretaceous limestone, and shale. The serpentine is there absent, though 
there are not wanting trachytic porphyries, representing those of 
Monte Catini. The fact that tertiary rocks are fractured to form 
veins in both cases, and the mode in which the veins have since been 
filled up, are not the only points of resemblance. 

Another remarkable instance occurs in the celebrated mines of 
Cobre, in Cuba, where rich and abundant copper ores are found in a 
district abounding with limestone. The rock containing the vein here 
consists, however, of a calcareous porphyry, passing into limestone on 
the one hand, and basalt on the other. The particulars of this curious 
lode I have described in the ‘ Proceedings of the Geological Society,’ 
vol. xiii. (1857), p. 240. The general bearing of the lode is east and 
west, parallel to the coast, and to the principal mountain ridges. 

To those accustomed to regard the great system of veins, the prin- 
cipal deposit of ore, and all the important modifications and trans- 
formations of rocks and their contents, as events altogether beyond 
recent geological times, these accounts of very important deposits of 
copper in modern calcareous rock and lavas of tertiary date, cannot 
fail to excite astonishment. In many respects the vein of Monte 
Catini is exceptional, but it is extremely suggestive, for it presents to 
us an example of recent metamorphic action of the most energetic kind 
connected with modern volcanic disturbance, so far as upheaval and 
fracture are concerned, but also indicating the presence and influence 
of water, by whose agency crevices, once formed by violence, have been 
subsequently filled up. The steady, permanent, and all-pervading in- 
fluence of water, producing now the same effects that it has always 
done, is perhaps nowhere more clearly exemplified than in Central 


438 Original Articles. [July, 


Italy, where a complicated series of lavas, of various dates, penetrating 
cretaceous and tertiary rocks, is in turn penetrated by hot vapours and 
currents of water. These in one place have left behind deposits of 
copper ore, in another pure sulphur, in another lagoni or pools, saturated 
with salts of borax, while carbonic acid gas, nitrogen, and sulphuretted 
hydrogen gases issue in abundance. 

It is by the help of these gas and water currents, and in the natural 
course of operations that belong to the ordinary conditions of things, 
that the mineral veins of Monte Catini and the other mining districts 
of Tuscany have been filled, and this it is which gives the subject a 
spec:al interest and value. 


1864. ] ( 439 ) 


CHRONICLES OF SCIENCE. 


I. AGRICULTURE. 


THE second quarter of 1864 commenced in the agricultural world 
amidst important sales of home-bred short-horn herds of cattle, and it 
closes in the midst of important agricultural meetings. These are 
matters rather of commercial than of scientific interest, and yet they 
have aspects interesting to the man of science. The enormous prices 
realized for certain families or strains of blood among pure bred live 
stock possess an interest apart from that which they present to the 
crowd of enterprising men who are following in the steps of Lord 
Spencer, or Lord Ducie, Thomas Bates, Jonas Webb, Colonel 
Towneley. These who have realized hundreds of pounds for indi- 
vidual bulls and cows—the last, who obtained last March upwards of 
7,000/. for a herd of 56 animals of all ages—have not only illustrated 
the enterprise and wealth of English agriculturists, a matter only of 
commercial importance, but they have proved the power of the breeder 
to create that fixity of type in his animals, out of which this extra- 
ordinary value has arisen ; and this is a matter of scientific interest. 
It may be illustrated by the history of what is called the 
“Duchess” tribe of short-horns. More than fifty years ago, when 
Charles Colling’s herd was sold, a young heifer named Duchess was 
bought by Mr. Thomas Bates, of Kirkleavington. From her was 
descended this tribe, which are believed to possess all the leading 
merits of the breed in an extraordinary degree. In particular they 
are possessed of a remarkably soft and silken touch—abundant hair, 
and other indications of vigour-- most symmetrical form, great and 
equal width of back, well-arched ribs, and prominence and width of 
bosom. ‘They possess, in fact, great precocity of growth, and a ten- 
dency to grow most and fastest in those parts where the flesh is of the 
best quality for food. They have the highest reputation also for the 
certainty with which their bulls hand down these properties to their 
offspring ; and they thus command the very highest prices in the market. 
This is one of the results of what is called “breeding in and in.” 
Animals that have inherited again and again, in the course of their 
pedigree, the qualities which relationship in blood has conferred in 
common, possess those qualities much more energetically than others 
do in whom they are observed for the first time. A cross-bred ram 
may have a very desirable coat upon his back, and a very well made 
carcase of mutton within that coat; but it is exactly a toss-up whether 
his progeny acquire the character of his sire or of his dam. If sire 
and dam for generations back, however, have exhibited constancy and 
uniformity of character, then that character is certain to reappear in 
their offspring, which, in his or her turn, will possess still greater 


440 Chronicles of Science. [ July, 


power of transmitting good tendencies to the succeeding generation. 
It is thus that not only in the ‘“‘ Duchess ” blood, but in other tribes 
descended from the Kirkleavington herd, we have as the result of Mr. 
Bates’s resolution, patience, skill, and constancy, qualities which re- 
appear in generation after generation of Kirkleavington families of 
the short-horn breed, until the animal may now be safely characterized 
as good if known to be of Bates’s blood. Bates’s blood, or rather 
Bates’s brains —for it is the mental, and in many important particulars, 
the moral character of the breeder which is reflected now in so many 
different herds—is merely another word for patient persistence in 
breeding from animals of a given type, in a great measure disregarding 
the question of relationship, if they possess the requisite health and 
vigour of constitution. Of course, when evils of any kind are inhe- 
rited, such as a tendency to disease or weakness of any kind, breeding 
in and in will intensify and hand that down with as much certainty 
as any other quality; but the natural law of breeding which obtains 
amongst gregarious animals, where the strongest sire is the father of 
the herd or flock—to the almost entire disregard of previous natural 
relationship, is a safe one to follow. It is a natural law of this kind 
that gives to particular herds and flocks, where they have been long 
under the control of one man, their uniformity of character from year to 
year. And it is out of the consequent certainty which animals thus 
bred transmit the qualities they have inherited, that those extraordinary 
prices are commanded by them, which, while they sometimes startle the 
commercial world, have thus an interest for the man of science. 

The other topic of the period, of chief agricultural interest, is the 
annual meetings of our great national and provincial Agricultural 
Societies. On these occasions, the best animals of all our breeds of 
the domestic animals of the farm, and the best machines known to 
agriculturists or agricultural engineers, are collected, professedly 
for the prizes offered by the Society, really for the purpose of that 
advertisement, publicity, and distinction, which mere exhibition before 
a multitude, and especially the achievement of any award of merit, 
under such circumstances confers. 

Our national societies with incomes of 10,0001. per annum, and the 
many local and county societies with incomes of one to three thousand 
pounds each, are among the most striking illustrations we can quote 
of our agricultural energy and enterprise; for these sums are but a 
fraction of the expenditure which these annual shows occasion, and 
give but a faint idea of the commercial advantages which they offer ; 
and the strictly educational results of these meetings in which we are 
here more particularly interested, can hardly be overrated. Breeders 
realize their own deficiencies by a comparison with the best animals 
of the best herds and flocks; and machine makers have both their in- 
ventive faculties stimulated and their manufacturing abilities quick- 
ened and increased by competition with each other, on the same field 
close to one another, where the prize of commercial merit is so great. 
Above all, the agricuiturists of a whole province realize the pro- 
gress which the best examples thus collected for their inspection prove 
to have been accomplished. 


1864. | ' Agriculture. 441 


If we except the journals of our agricultural societies by which 
agricultural progress is brought directly under the notice of readers, 
these annual shows are the only educational influence which these 
societies exert. It has only lately been brought under the notice of 
the Royal Agricultural Society of England that one of the objects for 
which, according to its charter, it was incorporated, is the promotion of 
the better education of those who live by the cultivation of the land ; 
and that except indirectly, as by journals and exhibitions, nothing what- 
ever has yet been done by it in discharge of its duty in the matter. 
A committee of inquiry into the subject is now sitting, which will, we 
hope, result in some more definite and systematic attempt than has yet 
been made to bring the great influence and large income of the Na- 
tional Society to bear upon this subject. What seems to be wanted, 
and what is within the competency and indeed the duty of the Society 
to effect, is not any such stimulus of general middle class education as 
our Universities and the Society of Arts are presenting by their annual 
examinations of students, nor any such guidance and assistance as the 
Government offers by its Inspectors and endowments of schools; but 
help, both in guidance and in stimulant, to professional agricultural 
schools, and the establishment of these in greater number than they 
now exist. The Royal Agricultural College at Cirencester is indeed, 
we think, the only one of the kind in Great Britain. It is, as we 
believe, owing to a culpable neglect of the seventh object specified 
in the Charter of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, as 
among the purposes of its incorporation, that that institution is not 
in a more flourishing condition than it now presents, and also that 
many of similar character have not been established in our principal 
agricultural counties. 

There is an able review of recent agricultural progress drawn up 
by Mr. Thompson, M.P., in the current number of the ‘Journal of 
the Agricultural Society.’ It proves that the importation of guano 
and of bones, the manure manufacture, the more general application 
of steam-power in agriculture, and the influence of the National Agri- 
cultural Society, have together added greatly to the fertility of English 
soil. There is, however, a singular exception to this increased pro- 
duce, which needs to be more urgently pointed out to agriculturists than 
it has yet been. The quantity of mutton sent to market appears to be 
hardly more now than fifteen or twenty years ago. The number of sheep 
and carcases sent to the London market does not appear to have mate- 
rially increased during that time. With wool at the extraordinary 
price which it has of late commanded—2s. to 2s. 6d. per 1b.—mutton 
at a price unknown ten or fifteen years ago, and a climate which over 
most of the island has all along impressed observers with the idea 
that succulent and grass growth, sheep food in fact, is a much more 
natural produce of our soil than seeds and grain and ripened produce, 
it seems impossible to doubt that our flocks and herds must multiply, 
and our farm management be more immediately directed to this end 
than it has been. 

It does not necessarily follow from this that our grain produce 
would be diminished. The increased manure derived from the con- 


449, Chronicles of Science. | July, 


sumption of increased cattle food tends to the increased fertility of our 
arable lands, and in this way corrects the effect which would follow 
the apportionment of more acres to the growth of grass and green 
crops ; and it is quite possible largely to increase the growth of green 
food without diminishing our extent of green crops. Nowhere does 
liberal management more certainly produce a greater growth than in 
the case of grass. 

Italian rye grass in particular seems to yield a crop which is 
limited only by the quantity of manure applied, and it is through 
this crop, doubtless, that the sewage of our towns will yet yield to 
that “cleanly manipulation,” which is to convert it into milk. 
This subject is again brought under public notice by the appoint- 
ment of a Committee of the House Commons, to inquire into the 
engineering difficulties in its way. What the result will be when 
these are overcome, and the liquid refuse of our towns is spread over 
fields of grass at some distance from the population, is plain from the 
instances of Edinburgh, Rugby, and Croydon. Near the latter town 
we walked the other day over Mr. Marriage’s farm of 300 acres, almost 
wholly under sewage and Italian rye grass, where 30 to 40 tons of grass 
per acre are mown annually, and sold at 12s. to 15s. a ton on the 
ground, and 20s. to 23s, a ton in London. 

On these particular departments of the agricultural field, and espe- 
cially on the great question of the national food supply, in which they 
all unite and culminate, there is great lack of trustworthy information, 
and it must be stated with satisfaction, as strictly within the scope 
of a scientific record, that an additional attempt has just been made by 
Mr. Caird, M.P., to urge on Government the duty of collecting the 
agricultural statistics of the country. 


‘“‘ The need of authoritative (because accurate) published intelligence 
regarding the extent and prospects of our several food crops, in the in- 
terests of consumers and producers no less than in that of commerce 
generally, is becoming more and more admitted. The county police, the 
relieving-officers, and the tax-collectors, have all been suggested as the 
agency by which the information sought might be most easily obtained. 
Mr. Caird now suggests, as a new agency, the engineers employed upon the 
Ordnance Survey. He proposes not that the whole country should be 
mapped out and allotted, but that certain characteristic plots, typical of 
the larger districts of similar soil and climate, should be selected. He sup- 
poses that Great Britain might be divided into 15 districts, and that 
100,009 acres in each district might be taken as characteristic of it. These 
100,000 acres would be laid down on the Ordnance Map, and subjected to 
an exhaustive inquiry. And the 1,500,000 acres thus investigated being 
about one-tenth of the cultivated land of Great Britain, would furnish the 
acreage and yield of their several crops, which, multiplied by ten, would sup- 
ply us with trustworthy information of the gross agricultural produce of 
the country. 

“Mr. Caird points out that there have been three objections hitherto 
urged to the colleetion of agricultural statistics :— 


Sale) heicost; 
“II, The inquisitorial character of the inquiry. 
“ IIl. The difficulty of obtaining accurate returns. 


1864. | Agriculiure. 443 


“1. By the plan now to be submitted, the cost is not expected to exceed 
3,000/. a year—an amount which, compared with the object, is not worth 
a moment’s consideration. 

“9. Neither the names nor the boundaries of individual farms will be 
known, and neither the persons making the inquiry, nor those to whom 
the results are communicated, can tell the precise farius to which the re- 
turns refer. The complaint of inquisitorial inquiry cannot, therefore, 
arise. 

“3. The typical districts will be fixed quantities—say 100,000 acres 
each—laid down on the Ordnance Maps. Every acre within that limit 
will be exhausted, so that absolute accuracy will be attained. 

“ We believe that the more this subject is considered and discussed by 
intelligent agriculturists, the readier will they be to admit the advantage 
which the agricultural, as well as the commercial interests of the country, 
must derive from the information which the prosecution of Mr. Caird’s 
plan must furnish.” 


Meanwhile it is satisfactory to know that a resolution affirming 
the importance and need of a national inquiry into the subject was 
the other day carried in the House by Mr. Caird. 

The last subject to which we refer in our Agricultural Chronicle 
of the past quarter is the condition of rural cottages. Under the 
general question of the dwelling of the labouring class, this was 
lately made the subject of a conference before the Society of Arts, 
when a number of influential men united to consult on a remedy for 
the glaring evils which imperfect house accommodation inflicts. It was 
resolved, that much of the existing mischief is due to the Law of Set- 
tlement and the limited area of the Poor Law rating; that the tenure 
of property and the legal difficulties in obtaining sites are much in 
the way ; but that— 


‘*« By proper attention to economy, by building to the extent only re- 
quired by each district, and by the utmost care in avoiding unnecessary 
outlay in preliminary expenses, proper dwellings for the labouring classes 
can be provided which will realize im towns a fair dividend on the capital 
expended ; and that although in rural districts, commonly speaking, the 
pecuniary return for capital invested in labourers’ dwellings, considering 
the rate of their wages and their general circumstances, and the cost of re- 
pairs, can only be moderate, yet it may be regarded as satisfactory, when 
the consequent improvement of the character of the cccupants, their com- 
fort, their health, and the additional value of their labour are taken into 
account.” 


The chairman of the conference urged that, in the various Land Im- 
provement Acts and in the Government Drainage Acts, there is ample 
precedent for Government loans, at a low rate of interest, for the express 
purpose of cottage improvement. And Mr. Akroyd, of Halifax, de- 
scribed the way in which, with the aid of building societies, no less a 
sum than 1,200,000/. had been spent in three towns of the West 
Riding, chiefly by the working men themselves, in the erection of 
good cottages, now or fast becoming the property of their tenants. 

In agricultural districts where low wages interfere with the possi- 
bility of the labourer thus helping himself, there are especial facilities 
in the way of the landlord. 

VOL, I. 245 


444 Chronicles of Science. [July, 


“The difference between the field and the garden-value of land is, in 
fact, the cottage-building landlord’s great resource and help. Ten acres of 
land divided into large gardens for a hamlet of 20 or two-dozen new cot- 
tages may be worth but 15/. per annum to the farmers ; they are, however, 
worth from 60/. to 80/. per annum to the tenants of the cottages. And 
the difference between those two sums represents a capital sum of 900/. to 
1,300/., which is a contribution of 30/. to 40/. per cottage towards the cost 
of their erection. Add to this the interest of the tenant-farmer in having 
labourers near their work, which should make him willing to bear his share 
of the annual cost of cottages upon the farm ; and it appears to us that in 
country districts there is little real difficulty in the way of those owners 
of land who may lament the insufficiency of cottage accommodation on 
their land. 

‘“The man-engine in the Cornish mine, by which half-an-hour suffices 
to take the miner to and from his work, in place of the hour or two at 
either end of the day wasted in climbing up and down the ladders, has 
added a full third to the efficiency of his labour. A cottage on the farm 
compared with one in the village three miles off, is hke a man-engine in 
contrast with the ladders. <A labourer fresh to his task can accomplish it 
more satisfactorily than one who does an hour’s work before beginning it. 
And the tenant-farmer on this ground may well be expected to bear his 
share in the burden of supplying the cottages by which the value of his 
labourers is so much increased to him, and the profitableness of his farm 
is increased.” 


The plan adopted at Dumbleton by Mr. Holland, M.P., takes 
account of both of these considerations. A rent of 6/. pays a suffi- 
cient interest for the capital invested in the cottage. Of this, the 
cottager pays 3/. for the house and 1/. for the large garden; the 
farmer pays 1/. in consideration of the increased value of the man’s 
labour ; and the landlord pays 1J., or rather cancels 1/., because of the 
increased value which the estate possesses, or will possess, in the 
existence of a well-conditioned labouring population. 


II. ASTRONOMY. 
(Including the Proceedings of the Royal Astronomical Society.) 


Tue progress of Astronomy during the past few months has not been 
characterized by such marked advances as those which will make the 
previous session long memorable in the annals of this science. 

In Sidereal astronomy, while Kriiger had found measurable paral- 
laxes for two or three additional stars, the unwearied Goldschmidt 
was successfully engaged on the system of Sirius, and had been 
rewarded with the discovery of some other minute companions. In 
the solar system the advances in our knowledge were still more im- 
portant. The necessity for a considerable augmentation of the sun’s 
parallax had been established by so many different investigations, that 
it scarcely admits of further controversy, and there is little doubt that 
the correct value is now known within a very few hundredths of a 
second. The distance of Mars had been measured and delineated at 


1864.] Astronomy. 445 


the last opposition with an accuracy never before attempted. Mr. 
De la Rue, far from being content with the admirable results which 
he had obtained in celestial photography, had made additional and 
successful efforts for its further improvement. And, finally, the sur- 
face of the sun had been the subject of study to various astronomers, 
best fitted by their intelligence, their sharp-sightedness, and their 
command of appropriate apparatus, to extend our knowledge of this 
marvellous body. Nor are the different Observatories, both public and 
private, to be passed over in this brief review. At Greenwich the 
great Equatorial was employed during the past year in observations of 
the fixed lines of the stellar spectra, and recently the prism apparatus 
has been provisionally altered, so that, instead of producing astigmatic 
breadth of the spectrum by the unequal refractions of a conical pencil 
at the two sides of the prism, a pencil of rays made parallel by a 
lens traverses the prism, and, after being made convergent by a 
second lens, is made astigmatic by a cylindrical lens. The defini- 
tion of lines appears to be improved, and the facility of measuring 
them increased. The same equatorial has also been used in ob- 
servations of the Nebula of Orion, with results which show that the 
older drawing printed by Sir J. Herschel in the Results of the Cape 
Observations, 1847, is a more accurate representation of the appear- 
ance now presented by the Nebula, than the more recent drawing by 
Professor G. P. Bond. It is the opinion of the observers that Sir 
John Herschel’s drawing represents as accurately as perhaps any 
drawing can, the appearances presented about the so-called jaws. 
According to this, there appears to be no valid reason for the suppo- 
sition that the Nebula of Orion has been slowly altering its character 
of late years. At the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, where time-sig- 
nalling is one of the specialities, some important extensions have been 
made, and there were at the beginning of this session no less than 
seven separate time-gun signals fired in different cities in England 
and Scotland directly from the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, whilst 
five more cities were in pretty active preparation. For short lines the 
system of explosion, based on the use of Professor Wheatstone’s mag- 
neto-exploder and Mr. Abel’s fuse, was found to answer perfectly, and 
it was also frequently successful between Edinburgh and Neweastle, a 
distance of 120 miles; but when the insulation was bad, by reason of fogs, 
the high intensity of the magnetic currents caused their loss and dissi- 
pation before reaching their destination. Hence a system was devised 
by which a current of electricity of low intensity was despatched 
along the line; and this, on reaching the town where the time-gun 
was placed, automatically liberated a current of magneto-electricity, 
which then passed along a covered wire for the short distance up to 
the time-gun. In the twelfth volume of printed Astronomical Obser- 
vations lately issued from this Observatory, an addition of an unusual 
character is worthy of notice, namely, four plates photographic and 
one photoglyphic ; the latter especially prepared for the occasion by 
Mr. Fox Talbot, the inventor both of photography and photoglyphy. 
The scientific reason for the introduction of these plates, which are 
highly magnified portions of some of the Teneriffe photographs of 
2H 2 


446 Chronicles of Science. [ July, 


1856, is the remarkable testimony which they bear to the transparency 
of the atmosphere, and its suitability to telescopic observation at great 
heights above the sea level. At the Radcliffe Observatory Mr. Main 
has been rigorously continuing observations of double stars with the 
heliometer. Most of these stars had been previously examined by 
Struve, the components being of nearly equal magnitudes, varying from 
about the sixth to the ninth ; and Struve concluded that there was very 
great probability that the larger number, if not the whole of them, 
were physically and not optically connected. ‘The results of the Oxford 
observations, thus far, do not confirm this idea, as in the interval of 
more than thirty years which have elapsed since Struve’s observations, 
out of 190 systems examined, very few of the components exhibit any 
considerable motions in distance or position angle. At Cambridge, 
the regular work of an Observatory has been assiduously performed, 
and time has also been found for the ever-varying observations which 
special or seldom recurring phenomena demand, such as cometary 
observations, &c.; although from the absence of a first assistant, Pro- 
fessor Adams feels that the work of the Observatory during the past 
year has been seriously crippled. At the Liverpool Observatory, 
owing to local considerations, meteorology very properly claims 
the chief attention. Their new and most ingenious self-regis- 
tering barometer has been in operation for about twelve months ; 
the sheets on which the record is obtained are removed from the 
cylinder every morning at 9 A.m., and a tracing from the original, 
for the previous 24 hours, is forwarded daily at 10 a.m. to the 
Underwriters’ Rooms, together with an account of the force and 
direction of the wind, the fall of rain, &e. The rating of ships’ 
chronometers, always an important branch of the work of a sea-port 
Observatory, has here largely increased during the last year, and con- 
siderable alterations have been made in the method of giving the 
errors and rates. During the winter months each chronometer is 
exposed for a week to the temperature 50°, 65°, and 80°, alternately ; 
and for whatever time the chronometer may be at the Observatory, the 
error is given at the end of each seven days, together with the mean 
rate and extreme difference of rate between any two days for each 
week. The latter, Mr. Hartnup thinks, shows the quality of a chrono- 
meter better than any other method he has been able to devise. At 
Mr. De la Rue’s Observatory, Cranford, devoted almost exclusively 
to astronomical photography, observations have been made with 
silvered glass mirrors, as a less expensive and more reflective substi- 
tute for the speculum metal mirrors, and there is every reason to 
believe that the time of exposure of the sensitive plate will, by this 
means, be shortened. Mr. De la Rue has continued his experiments 
in enlarging his lunar negative to the dimensions of Beer and 
Madler’s map (38 inches), and has obtained results far surpassing 
those previously recorded. The Ely and Kew Observatories have 
been, during the past year, principally devoted to solar photography ; 
a large number of solar autographs have been taken, and, by a com- 
parison of the pictures taken simultaneously at each Observatory, it 
is anticipated that much information will be gained on the obscure 


1864. | Astronomy. 447 


subject of solar spots. At Ely, a large refractor of 6 inches aperture 
has been got into working order, and we may soon expect to hear 
that Mr. Titterton has succeeded in obtaining, by its means, solar 
autographs of 6 inches diameter. 

The discussion on the phenomena in the solar envelopes, com- 
menced by Mr. Nasmyth, is still occupying great attention, A 
question has arisen whether the general appearance of the photo- 
sphere is that of a flocculent precipitate, as suggested by Sir John 
Herschel, and assented to by Dr. Dawes, or whether it more nearly 
resembles a willaw-leaved. crystalline precipitate of detached particles, 
as originally described by Mr. Nasmyth and confirmed by Mr. De la 
Rue and Mr. Pritchard; and more lately Mr. Stone, with the large 
Greenwich refractor, has confirmed the existence of these strange 
entities, which to him appear like grains of rice. Although indi- 
vidual observers may therefore differ among themselves as to the 
exact shape of these particles, there appears to be no doubt that the 
sun’s photosphere is covered with solid bodies, the immediate origin 
of the solar light, somewhat uniform in size and shape, the smallest 
of them having an area exceeding that of the British Isles! 

Magnus * has lately recorded an experiment which, whilst it sup- 
ports the lately propounded theory of Kirchhoff, on the constitution of 
the sun, in a striking manner, also appears to be quite concordant with 
the “ willow-leaf” discoveries. It is well known that when a non-lumi- 
nous gas-flame has a sodium compound introduced into it, the whole 
flame becomes brilliantly luminous with yellow light. Similarly, if 
lithium, strontium, or other metallic compounds are introduced into 
the flame, brilliant light of other colours is evolved. Now, Magnus has 
shown that the radiation of heat is also increased when these metallic 
vapours are rendered incandescent in the flame. The experiment 
was so arranged that a fixed spot in the soda flame was always com- 
pared with the same spot in the non-luminous flame, and care was 
also taken that the heat from the solid soda introduced into the fiame, 
or from the platinum-wire which held it, could not radiate against 
the thermo-pile which served for the observation. The luminous 
flame radiated about a third more heat than when it was non- 
luminous. When, instead of soda vapour, a solid body, such as 
platinum, was brought into the portion of the flame experimented 
upon, a still greater radiation of heat occurred, and when the plate 
was covered with carbonate of soda the radiation increased afresh, 
and by keeping the flame likewise luminous with soda vapour the 
radiation of heat was increased three-fold. These experiments show 
that gaseous bodies radiate very much less heat than solids or liquids ; 
it can therefore hardly be maintained that a gaseous or vaporous 
photosphere is the seat of the solar heat. The luminous- and heat- 
radiating particles in the yellow gas flame are therefore probably 
single torn-off particles of solid (or liquid) matter incandescent in the 
flame, and, comparing great things with small, they may be regarded 
as the counterparts of the willow-leaf particles in the solar envelope. 


* *Poggendorff’s Annalen,’ No. 3, 1864 ; and ‘ Phil. Mag.,’ May, 1864. 


448 Chronicles of Science. [ July, 


Furthermore, it was shown * some years ago that, by holding one 
soda flame in front of another, the outer envelope of the front flame 
acted as an opaque screen to the brilliant yellow light radiating from 
the flame behind it; and that if this opaque part of the flame were intro- 
duced into the path of the light in a spectroscope, it would carve out 
of the most luminous portion Fratmhofer’s double black line D. 
Furthermore, if other metallic particles were allowed to colour the flame 
(e.g. lithium, thallium, &.) they would likewise act as opaque screens 
to rays of light of their own refrangibility, and would produce black 
lines, the exact counterparts of Fratinhofer’s lines, in the solar spec- 
trum. Now the portion of the flame possessing this great absorptive 
power is, upon examination, found to be a very faintly luminous 
exterior envelope, quite outside the luminous portion of the flame. 
Applying these facts to our theory of the solar envelopes, they fall 
into their places very naturally. The willow-leaves are the repre- 
sentatives of the atoms of incandescent metallic particles existing in 
our gas flame, whilst the highly-absorbent non-luminous outer enve- 
lope of the flame will represent the envelope of vapour which, on the 
sun’s surface, is the cause of the phenomena of Fratinhofer’s lines. 

At one of the recent meetings of the Literary and Philosophical 
Society of Manchester, Mr. Baxendell brought forward an hypothesis, 
based upon an investigation of magnetical and meteorological pheno- 
mena, which confirms, in an unexpected manner, one of the most 
recent conclusions in theoretical astronomy. The results of the 
elaborate investigations of the motions of the planet Mercury, made 
by M. Leverrier, led that mathematician to attribute a certain unex- 
plained excess in the motion of its perihelion to the action of a dis- 
turbing body circulating round the sun within the orbit of Mercury ; 
and from a discussion of the probable mass of the disturbing body, 
he concluded that it could not be concentrated in a single planet, but 
that it consisted of a ring of small bodies, similar to that which is 
known to exist between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. This ring, 
however, owing to its proximity to the Sun, may never be seen, and 
like the dark companions of Procyon and Sirius, it may only be 
known to us through its action on the other bodies of the system, of 
which it forms a part. An elaborate discussion of meteorological 
and magnetic phenomena has now led Mr. Baxendell to the sup- 
positions— 

1. That a ring of nebulous matter circulates round the sun in a 
plane nearly coincident with that of the ecliptic—the density of this 
ring differing in different parts. 

2. That the attractive force of the sun on the ring varies inversely 
as the solar spots, being greatest when these are fewest, and least 
when the spots are most numerous. 

3. The attractive force being variable, the dimensions of the ring 
and its period of revolution round the sun will also vary, their 
maxima and minima occurring respectively at the times of maximum 


* “Crookes on the Opacity of the Soda Flame to Light of its own Colour.” 
‘Chemical News,’ vol. iii. p. 2. 


¢ 
1864. | Astronomy. 449 


and minimum solar spot frequency. By means of these hypotheses, 
our author explains many of the phenomena of the solar spots, the 
magnetic variations, the alterations of terrestrial temperature, and the 
changes in the direction of the wind. He has calculated that the 
greatest and least values of the sidereal period of revolution of the 
ring will be 29-12 and 22-08 days respectively. From these numbers 
we find that the greatest distance of the ring from the sun is 0185, 
the radius of the earth’s orbit being taken as unity ; the least distance 
0-154, and the mean 0:169. Taking Mr. Hind’s value of the mean 
distance of the earth from the sun, namely, 91,328,600 miles, we 
have— 

Greatest distance of the rmg=16,921,000 miles; 

Least a a =14,068,000 ,, 

Mean 43 i =15,494,500 ,, 
and the range of movement to and fro, in a radial direction, 
= 2,853,000 miles. The greatest attractive force of the sun on the 
ring being taken as unity, the least will be 0691. Should future 
researches place the existence of this ring beyond doubt, this will, it 
is believed, be the first instance in which the conclusions of physical 
astronomy have been confirmed by the results of an investigation of 
magnetical and meteorological phenomena. 

M. Faye* has given an account of a new method proposed by 
M. De Littrow, for determining the time and the longitude at sea. 
The method consists in the determination of the time by two circum- 
meridional observations of the sun, preserving at the same time 
the observation of the true noon for the latitude. The two altitudes 
may be taken at pleasure, on the same side, or on opposite sides of 
the meridian ; the interval of time is arbitrary, varying according to 
the circumstances, from 5 to 80 or 40 minutes ; and as the calculation 
takes only five minutes, the navigator may in half-an-hour take his 
observations, and effect all the calculations necessary for finding at 
once the longitude and the latitude. The new process depends on the 
fact that when, as at sea, a scrupulous accuracy is not required, 
the circummeridional altitudes of the sun may be used for deter- 
mining the time. The method was tried on the voyage of circum- 
navigation of the Austrian frigate, the ‘ Novara,’ and the results were 
generally correct, within a probable error of one or two nautical miles. 
This method might be equally useful on terra firma as at sea; for 
travellers, as well as for sailors, it would be useful to have a convenient 
method of determining daily their latitude and longitude, by observa- 
tions concentrated at a single epoch of the day—about noon. 


Tur Royat ASTRONOMICAL SocIETyY. 


In the ‘Proceedings of the Royal Astronomical Society,’ for 
March, Mr. Dunkin has given an interesting note on the number of 
luminous particles contained within a confined space on the sun’s 
dise. The power used was about 100, and a system of wires in the 


* «Comptes Rendus,’ March 7, 1864. 


2 


450 Chronicles of Science. | July, 


eye-piece of the telescope divided the centre of the field into nearly 
square spaces, the angular distance between the wires being 56" in a 
vertical direction, and 48” in a horizontal direction. The number of 
particles enclosed at one time within these spaces was estimated to be 
about 300, say about twenty in one direction, and fifteen in the other, 
and scattered equally about. As a deduction from these observations, 
Mr. Dunkin considers that the average length of these particles is 
about 2”, though there are some larger and many smaller. This 
observation was made on March 10th, but on repeating the examina- 
tion on March 16th, the luminous particles appeared more thinly 
scattered, the number estimated to be contained in the nearly square 
spaces being about 200, 

At the April meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society, the 
willow-leaved structure of the sun’s photosphere was again brought 
forward, the Rev. W. R. Dawes affirming that the most recent obser- 
vations had merely landed the different observers where he was six- 
teen years ago. In the beginning of the year 1848 Mr. Dawes, upon 
examining the disc of the sun by means of a transparent diagonal 
on Sir John Herschel’s principle (power 65, aperture 61 in.), observed 
bright particles scattered almost all over the sun, which he then com- 
pared with two excessively minute fragments of porcelain. Four 
years afterwards, assisted by his new solar eye-piece, Mr. Dawes 
arrived at the conviction that these brilliant objects were not distinct 
entities, but were merely different conditions of the surface of the com- 
paratively large luminous clouds themselves—ridges, waves, hills, dis- 
tinguishable brightnesses—parts of the same luminous clouds which 
happen to be brighter than the other parts. These statements gave rise 
to an animated discussion. Mr. Pritchard suggested that Mr. Dawes 
might possibly have been impeded in the correctness of his obser- 
vations, owing to the very minute aperture of his solar eye-piece ; 
diffraction being likely to come into play to an inconvenient extent. 
Mr. Huggins thought that when a high magnifying power was used, the 
rice, or willow-leaved particles lost the uniform appearance which they 
have with a low power. At the same meeting a communication from 
Mr. Nasmyth was read, in which he gives four different forms of 
objects as he observed them. First, he draws the willow-leaves, 
No. 1; No. 2 is shorter, and a little wider; No. 3 is ehorter still, 
and a little wider still; and No. 4 is exactly of the rice-grain pattern. 
No. 1 is the type of those forming the details of the penumbral strata ; 
No, 2 is that which forms the details of bridges; No. 3 is the form 
which constitutes the other parts of the bridges in the margin of the 
photosphere. Both 3 and 4 may be said to be a type of those that 
may be seen over the entire surface of the photosphere. 

Returning from the subject of willow-leaves to the other astro- 
nomical advancements during the past few months, we must not omit 
to mention the list of new double stars discovered by the Rev. W. R. 
Dawes. He gives a list of fifteen, and accompanies them by desig- 
nation, full measurements, and remarks. Some, perhaps most of 
these, are only optically double, yet the example of that highly 
interesting binary couple, ¢ Cygni, may encourage the hope that other 


1864. | Astronomy. 451 


similar instances may be discovered. Mr. Dawes’ No. 1 (p. xx. 177) 
was discovered in 1840, and occasional examination up to the present 
time has failed to show any perceptible change either in angle or 
distance. There would, therefore, appear to be no physical con- 
nection between the two, although, from the fact of one of its com- 
ponents having been examined by Struve, at Dorpat, and again by 
Maedler, without any notice of its being double, it seems almost 
necessary to conclude that it must have come out rapidly between 
1832 and 1840. No. 5, 7 Orionis, is undoubtedly binary ; it was 
regarded by Struve as single in 1826, and the distance has certainly 
increased during the last ten years, while the angles remain very 
nearly stationary. No. 8, L 2562, is an easy double star, but having 
been overlooked at Dorpat, and again at Poulkova, there is great 
probability of its turning out to be binary. 

The recently discovered companion of Sirius has attracted some 
attention, both from the Rey. W. R. Dawes and from Mr. Lassell. 
The former observer has obtained distinct views of this object on two 
occasions, and obtained a measure of position with the parallel thick 
wires of the filar micrometer = 84°86. The distance measure was 
estimated to be about 10”. Mr. Lassell has given five position 
measures, and six distance measures, each being the mean of six, the 
mean result being, position =79°55, distance =10'"12. 

Mr. Dunkin has made some remarks urging upon travellers to 
record, in their determinations of latitudes and longitudes by the 
sextant, not only the astronomical part of the observations of meridian 
altitudes, local time, or lunar distances, but the readings of the baro- 
meter and thermometer, at least once during each series of observa- 
tions. The effect of this omission. being to render it impossible to 
deduct the proper correction for refraction in computing the geo- 
eraphical position of the place. As an illustration, he gives the 
longitude of Kaze, computed from Captain Speke’s sextant observations 
on Feb. 28, 1861. When corrected for refraction and parallax the 
longitude was 33° 1' 0" E.; and when uncorrected, 33° 17’ 0’ —making 
a difference of 16’ 0”. 

Two early observations of Uranus, by Bradley, which were brought, 
by Mr. Breen, before the March meeting of the Astronomical Society, 
are interesting. The first was on October 21, 1748, when it was ob- 
served as a star of the sixth magnitude, by the transit instrument ; 
and the second on September 13, 1750, by the quadrant. The right 
ascensions are very accurate, 

Some observations of comet VI., 1863, which was discovered by 
Professor Respighi, have led Dr. Weisse to remark that its path 
closely resembles that of 1810, giving a period of 533 years, in which 
case, reckoning back six revolutions, it would probably be identical 
with the comet of 1490, their paths having some resemblance. But 
Dr. Michez gives a set of elements, from several observations, in 
January and February last, which are better satisfied by an elliptic 
orbit, with a period of about 1083 years. The identity of the comet 
with that of 1810 is thus doubtful. 

A set of elements for the minor planet Eurynome, has been 


452 Chronicles of Science. | July, 


calculated by Mr. W. A. Royers, from the Washington observations. 
They are fully given in the ‘Monthly Notices, R. A. S.,’ vol. xxiv. 
p- 126. 

From some calculations communicated by Herr Theodor Oppelzer 
to the Astronomer-Royal, and published in the ‘ Monthly Notices’ of 
the R. A. S., for April of this year, it appears that the identity of 
D’Arrest’s and Pogson’s planets can no longer be doubted. From 
the observations taken at Copenhagen, Berlin, and by Pogson himself, 
Herr Oppelzer has calculated a small Ephemeris. Astronomers will 


therefore, in future, regard Freia= Sappho. 


III. BOTANY AND VEGETABLE PHYSIOLOGY. 


M. Gris has made recently some experiments on the contents of the 
vessels of plants. He uses a liquid called the liquor of Fehling, which 
is usually employed for the detection of glucose. It consists of sul- 
phate of copper, soda-lee (solution of caustic soda), tartrate of soda 
and potassa, and water, in definite proportions, and it preserves its 
limpid character when in a state of ebullition. When you add to it 
in a boiling state a very small quantity of glucose, there is produced 
a red precipitate of oxide of copper, which, when examined under the 
microscope, is seen to consist of very minute particles coloured deep 
brown or almost black. If in place of glucose some drops of sap are 
allowed to fall into the liquid, you obtain the same red precipitate of 
oxide of copper. If you immerse in the liquid for some time thick 
pieces of the wood of the Chestnut, Beech, Poplar, or Cytisus, in 
early spring, and cut thin slices for microscopical examination, you 
will notice an abundant precipitate of oxide of copper covering the 
inner surfaces of the large vessels, so that their course in the thickness 
of the woody layers may be traced by visible reddish thread-like 
streaks. As the same precipitate is very abundant in the cells of the 
medullary rays, M. Gris concludes that the vessels called lymphatie, 
contain (in spring at least) a sap analogous or identical with that 
found in the cellular elements of the same branch, and that the pre- 
cipitate of the oxide of copper is probably determined in both by the 
presence of glucose. M. Gris thinks that the lymphatic vessels 
always contain liquid sap mixed with a more or less considerable por- 
tion of air. 


M. P. Dalimier has performed a series of experiments from which 
he concludes that the vessels in the course of formation in the young 
tissues of plants may conduct the sap, but when they are completely 
formed,—the epoch at which they receive the names of porous or 
spiral vessels, &c., their normal condition is to contain air ; they 
only contain sap in certain plants, and during a comparatively short 
time. 


M. Belhomme has made experiments on the pollen of plants belong- 
ing to the Natural Orders Liliacew, Musacere, Araceze, Amarylli- 


1864. | Botany and Vegetable Physiology. 453 


dacew, Boraginacew, Solanacew, Malvacee, Crucifere, Passifloracem, 
Cactaceew, Umbelliferee, Myrtacee, Rosacee, and Leguminose ; and he 
finds that in Dicotyledons the grains may preserve their fecundating 
property, under certain conditions, for a period varying from one to 
three years; whilst, in Monocotyledons, the period extends to six 
years. 

The parasite called Cuscuta cassythoides grows at the Cape of 
Good Hope, on a species of Lycium, probably L. Afrum. It sends out 
long line-like branches, which entwine themselves firmly round those 
of the Lycium, and after one has established itself on a new branch, 
the connecting link between it and the old stock dies away, and a new 
plant is established on its own account. 


M. Deherain finds that sulphate of lime, when introduced into 
arable land, does not assist the formation of nitrates or of ammonia, but 
that it acts by favouring the solubility of potash. According to him 
it transforms the neutral carbonate of potash into the bicarbonate 
which filters easily through the arable land. He gives detailed ex- 
periments and results in the ‘ Annales des Sciences Naturelles.’ 


In a paper on the variability of the Pear, by M. Decaisne, given 
in the ‘Annales des Sciences Naturelles,’ the author maintains that 
there is no evidence of the degeneration of our fruit trees, in conse- 
quence of their continual propagation by grafting. The facts stated by 
those who contend for degeneration may be explained in various ways, 
such as climates or soils unsuited for the particular wants of the 
varieties, bad culture, or improper grafting. Our ancient pears, so 
justly esteemed for a century or two, are still the same as they were 
at first. The Crassane, Saint Germain, Doyenné, Chaumontel, Bon- 
Chretien, &c., have lost none of their qualities. If they are neglected, 
it is only because cultivators are looking after novelties. M. Decaisne 
also maintains that it is not true that the seeds of good varieties of 
fruit when sown in ordinary soil have a tendency to go back to a wild 
state, and produce crab-fruit. He says that no example has been 
produced of a good fruit fertilized by the pollen of its own flower or 
of other flowers of the same race, having produced seeds which gave 
origin to a wild plant with crab fruit. An esteemed variety fertilized 
by pollen from a variety with sour fruit may no doubt produce fruit of 
inferior quality ; but every good variety, if it is only fertilized by it- 
self, will produce good fruit. He says that we do not find the Can- 
teloup melon returning, by being sown, to the small wild melon of 
India; nor our cauliflowers and cabbages taking on the form of the 
wild plants of the sea-shore. Species in the vegetable kingdom are 
endowed with great flexibility, the same specific type giving rise to 
races and varieties of very different aspects, but having the same mor- 
phological organization, and capable of uniting with each other by 
crossing, like the members of the same family. If we transport one 
of our races of pear to all quarters of the globe, we shall find that 
wherever it can live, it will have a tendency to put itself into harmony 
with the circumstances in which it is placed, and in course of time it 
will give origin to numerous new varieties. 


454 Chronicles of Science. | July, 


Dr. Asa Gray, in the Proceedings of the Academy of Natural 
Sciences of Philadelphia, gives a synopsis of the genus Hosackia ; and 
describes twenty-eight species, almost all of which occur in Califor- 
nia. The genus belongs to the Natural Order Leguminose, and the 
tribe Trifoliez. 

Dr. Asa Gray is satisfied that the two genera, Astragalus and Phaca, 
must be united, and that the genus Phaca must be merged in As- 
tragalus. It is in the Botany of America that the distinction between 
Phaca and Astragalus is most pressing, and where the data for the 
answer are most largely to be found. While extra-tropical Asia is 
the focus of true Astragalus, that of Phaca is in America, mainly in 
North America, with an extension along the Andes into South 
America. While the Flora of the Russian Empire enumerates 168 
species of Astragalus (of which more than nine-tenths are bilocellate 
or nearly so), and only six species of Phaca, Dr. Gray recegnizes 66 
species of the Phaca series, and 52 of Astragalus proper in America. 
Moreover, rather less than half of the latter are completely bilocellate 
by a dorsal septum, and at least half-a-dozen different groups have 
been or might be referred to Phaca. Dr. Asa Gray concludes that 
Phaca must be merged in Astragalus; and that since in perhaps the 
majority of Phacv, there is no intrusion nor peculiar tumidity of the 
seminiferous suture, the subtribe Astragaleze of De Candolle has no 
valid foundation, so that Astragalus is merely a genus of the Galegee. 
The question is also considered by Dr. Gray, whether Oxytropis should 
be kept a distinct genus. It is characterized by having along with the 
legume of Phaca, 7. e. with the ventral suture septiferous, a beak-like 
acumination or cusp at the apex of the carina of the corolla, whence 
the generic name. Gray thinks that Oxytropis may still be kept up as 
a genus on the ground of general convenience, although the pointed 
keel has been detected in at least one species of true Astragalus 
(A. Nothoxys). He gives a complete revision and arrangement 
(mainly by the fruit) of the North American species of Astragalus or 
Oxytropis in a paper read to the American Academy of Arts and 
Sciences. 


Hermann Hoffman, Professor of Botany at Giessen, has published 
a very useful ‘Index Fungorum. The names of all known Fungi 
and synonyms are given, with references to the works in which the 
plants are described. 


From a paper by A. J. Malmoren, translated in Seemann’s ‘ Journal 
of Botany,’ it appears that the Phanerogamic Flora of Spitzbergen 
contains 95 species of plants. 


Dr. F. W. Lewis, in the Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences 
of Philadelphia, bas described some new species of Diatomacee. 
The gathering was made on the margin of a shallow pond, situated in 
the Notch Valley (White Mountains), from the southern end of which 
the river Saco takes its rise. The pond is about 200 feet long, and it 
is supplied by springs welling up from beneath the alluvial detritus 
forming the pond bottom, which overlies a stratum of clay, beneath 


1864. | Botany and Vegetable Physiology. 455 


which is the boulder drift. It isin the fine and soft mud, at from 
1 to 4 inches below the surface, beneath and immediately around the 
waters of the pond, that the siliceous remains of the new species are 
most abundant. The gathering is principally remarkable for two 
points :—1l. The striking analogy which exists between its species and 
those of the sub-peat deposits of the northern section of the United 
States. 2. The occurrence of several forms belonging to a known 
genus Surirella, so peculiar and variable in their characters as 
almost to merit the title of transitionary, by which is meant that 
these forms may be regarded as just such aberrant varieties of that 
genus, as we might expect to find conducting to the genera Nitzschia 
and Synedra, which in America seem to have followed the genus 
Surirella, at a long interval of time. They exhibit, moreover, such 
very unusual variation as to size, configuration, and definition of dis- 
tinctive characters,—such want of generic fixity—as might be supposed 
likely to mark the incoming of new genera. Dr. Lewis describes the 
following new species :—Surirella Baileyi, S. intermedia, and var, 
S. anceps, S. delicatissima, Actinella punctata, Tryblionella or Denticula, 
n. sp. Amphora intermedia, Navicula, n. sp., Mastogloia elegans, Amphi- 
prora pulchra, var. 8, which seems to be A. conspicua of Greville. 


Principal Dawson has examined the Flora of the Devonian period, 
of North-east America, and he comes to the following conclusions :— 

1. In its general character the Devonian Flora resembles that. 
of the carboniferous epoch in the prevalence of Gymnosperms and 
Cryptogams ; and, with few exceptions, the generic types of the two 
periods are the same. 

2. Some species which appear early in the Devonian period con- 
tinue to its close without entering the carboniferous; and the greater 
majority of the species even of the upper Devonian, do not reappear 
in the carboniferous period, but a few species extend from the upper 
Devonian to the lower carboniferous, and thus establish a real passage 
from the earlier to the later Flora. 

3. A large part of the difference between the Devonian and car- 
boniferous Floras is probably due to different geographical conditions. 
The wide, swampy flats of the coal period do not seem to have existed 
in the Devonian era. The land was probably less extensive, and 
more of an upland character. On the other hand, we find that the 
beds of the Middle Devonian, similar to the underclays of the coal 
measures, are filled, not with Stigmaria, but with rhizomes of Psilo- 
phyton. 

4. The conditions in the Devonian period seem to have been less 
favourable to the preservation of plants than those of the coal epoch. 

5. The Devonian Flora was not of a lower grade than that of the 
coal period, 

6. The general character of the Devonian Flora, in America, is 
very similar to that of the same period in Europe. Yet the number 
of identical species does not seem to be so great as in the coal-fields 
of the two continents. 


In a paper on the coal formation of North America, given in the 


456 Chronicles of Science. [July, 


American ‘Journal of Science and Arts, M. Leo Lesquereux makes 
some important remarks in regard to fossil ferns. He says that the 
family of ferns was represented at the coal epoch by species which 
are easily referred to a very few typical forms. If we consider the 
figure of the leaves, 7.e. their contour and venation, the only part 
generally preserved in the shales of the coal measure, all the species 
may be comprised in the three sections —Neuropteridee, Pecopteridee, 
and Sphenopteridee. From the scarcity of fructified specimens of 
fossil ferns in the coal measures, it might be supposed that most of the 
species were without fruit. The want of fructification is rather casual 
than real. By careful examination at some places, where the remains of 
a species are found in abundance, one may generally succeed in finding 
traces of fructification. 'The sporangia seem in most cases to have dis- 
appeared, from long and continued immersion in water. Moreover, the 
fern fronds have usually the lower surface attached to the shale in 
such a way that the fructification cannot be observed. We can some- 
times observe an indistinct outline of the form of the sporangia 
printed in relief through the carbonized tissue of the fronds. The 
scarcity of large stems would seem to lead to the conclusion that 
during the formation of coal, tree-ferns were of rare occurrence, at 
least when compared with the great number of ferns. If we consider 
as remains of true arborescent ferns, only those whose outer surface 
is marked by large oval cicatrices, and known under the names of 
Caulopteris and Protopteris, it is certain that they are very scarce in the 
coal measures both of Europe and of America. In his genera, Unger 
counts in the Protopteridee of the coal, ten species only, distributed in 
five genera; and of these species, five are considered by Brongniart 
and Lindley as belonging to Sigillaria or Lepidodendron. Brongniart 
enumerates only six species of Caulopteris ; Geinitz gives four, three 
of them published by Brongniart as Sigillaria, and one by Artis as 
Megaphytum ; and Goeppert, in his ‘ Fossil Flora des Uebergangsge- 
birges, has none. Some have supposed the genus Psaronius to be 
allied to Protopteris, and if so, the numbers of tree ferns would be 
much increased. Brongniart, however, looks upon Psaronius as 
allied to Lepidodendron. The cicatrices of Caulopteridee are geue- 
rally distant, placed on the stems in the spiral order 2. When ina 
good state of preservation they are generally oval, or obovate, and 
elongated at both ends by a somewhat deep furrow. They have in the 
middle the mark of a simple bundle of vessels, in the form of a horse- 
shoe, and the central scar is surrounded by an oval annulus. The 
genus Megaphytum, according to Brongniart, ought to be united with 
the genera Bothrodendron or Ulodendron, and referred to Lepidodendron, 
as representing merely a modification of the last genus. Lesquereux, 
on the contrary, considers Megaphyiwm as a tree fern, and he is led to 
this conclusion from an examination of the cicatrices of Megaphytum 
protuberans. 

Messrs. Cloez and Gratiolet find that the gas exhaled fron: aquatic 
plants exposed to the light in ordinary water slightly impregnated 
with carbonic acid contains besides oxygen a notable quantity of 
nitrogen. The latter gas they consider as proceeding from the decom- 


1864. | Chemistry. 457 


position of the substance of the plant. They also maintain that the 
decomposition of carbonic acid by the green parts of aquatic plants, 
does not give rise to the formation of carbonic oxide as has been stated 
by Boussingault. 

M. Cloez also says that the coloured parts of plants do not decom- 
pose carbonic acid so as to give off oxygen. If in some cases coloured. 
leaves have been stated to do so, this depends he thinks on some green 
being present in them. He shows that in the coloured leaves of Amaran- 
thus tricolor, the green portions only decomposed carbonic acid and 
gave off oxygen, while the yellow and red portions did not give off 
a single bubble of gas. These conclusions are contrary to the opinion 
of M. Theodore de Saussure. 


IV. CHEMISTRY. 
(Including the Proceedings of the Chemical Society.) 


To chronicle with any degree of completeness the progress of a 
science which daily makes such advances as Chemistry, would require 
every quarter more than the whole of our space. We can only, therefore, 
continue to select those examples which seem to possess the greatest 
interest for general readers, and leave the special student of the science 
to seek ihe details in journals devoted entirely to the subject. 

In general inorganic chemistry one or two interesting discoveries 
have been made. ‘The first we shall mention is that of M. Le- 
moine, who has found that the red modification of phosphorus 
combines with sulphur in but one proportion.* 'The new sulphide 
has the formula P,§,. It is a remarkably stable compound, having a 
distinct crystalline form. It is remarkable also that this compound 
is always formed, whatever the proportion of the constituents may 
be employed in the experiment. This sesquisulphide of phosphorus, 
as we must call it, is soluble in sulphide of carbon, which atiords a 
ready means of separating it from the uncombined red phosphorus. 
The fact that one element in an allotropic modification combines with 
another element in different proportions to what it does in the ordi- 
nary state, may not be without some significance. 

Proceeding with the inorganic elements, we must notice the dis- 
covery of the metal cesium in an unexpected place. It is now some 
years since Plattner analysed Pollux, a scarce mineral found in the 
island of Elba. He pronounced it to be a compound of silica, alumina, 
soda, and potash ; but in his analyses he always had an inexplicable 
loss. Recently, M. Pisanit has analysed the same mineral, and has 
discovered that it contains 34 per cent. of cesium; and calculating 
for this metal, the amount set down by Plattner as potassium, the per- 
centage sum of the constituents is exactly made up. 


* «Comptes Rendus,’ May 16. 
+ ‘Comptes Rendus,’ May 18. 


458 Chronicles of Science. [ July, 


Next comes the discovery of thallium in the Nauheim spring, in 
which cesium and rubidium also exist. Professor Bottger* an- 
nounces that thallium is present in the saline residue of the water in 
an appreciable quantity; but Werther, who has also examined the 
residue, states that he was able to obtain but a mere trace in 4 pounds. 
Professor Schrétter, of Vienna, announces that he has also found thal- 
lium in lepidolite and mica. There can be no doubt that this metal 
is widely diffused in nature ; but the means occasionally employed to 
separate 1t sometimes suggests that the thallium may have been con- 
veyed to the substance in “the reagents made use of. Béttger supposes 
that thallium always exists in pyrites in the form of thallium-iron 
alum, a salt, the composition, properties, and crystalline form of which 
have been recently determined by Messrs. Church and Crookes, and 
Professor Miller, of Cambridge.t The existence of thisalum is held 
to support the hypothesis that thallium belongs to the series of alka- 
line metals; but by the same reasoning, silver may also be proved to 
be an alkaline metal, since Professor Church has recently $ made 
known the existence of a silver alum. 

That the field of inorganic chemistry so far from being exhausted, 
is still capable of yielding rich results, has been once again proved by 
M. Marignac, || who has discovered a remarkable series of silico- 
tungstic acids, and described their compounds. We need notice but 
one of these bodies, most noteworthy from the extraordinary density of 
the solution it gives with water. Stlico-tungstic acid is formed when 
gelatinous silica is boiled with an acid tungstate of soda or potash. 
It is composed of one equivalent of silica and 12 equivalents of tung- 
stic acid, and is a very stable compound, forming hydrates, which can 
be obtained in crystals of large size. When in combination with soda 
the salt gives an aqueous solution, having the specific gravity of 3:05 ; 
in this solution, glass, quartz, and most stones will float. The solu- 
tion, notwithstanding its great density, is very fluid, and it has been 
suggested ¥ that it may form an excellent material for use in fluid 
prisms. 

M. Kuhlmann has fallen upon some curious results in the course 
of investigations he has been led to make on the preservation of 
materials for building and ornamental purposes. 

Some of these results are as important to geologists and mineralo- 
gists as to chemists, particularly those on the production of pseudo- 
morphic crystals. By passing sulphuretted hydrogen over crystals of 
carbonate of lead kept at a moderate temperature, M. Kulhmann found 
that the carbonic acid in the compound was completely replaced by 
sulphur, while the crystal retained its original shape. Malachite 
treated in a similar way became converted into sulphide of copper, 


* «Proceedings of Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, March 22 ; 
and ‘ Journal fiir praktische Chemie, No. 6, 1864, 

+ ‘Journal fiir praktische Chemie, No, 7. 1864. 

t ‘Chemical News, vol. ix. p. 205. 

§ ‘Chemical News,’ vol. ix. p. 155. 

|| ‘Comptes Rendus, May 2. 
4 «Chemical News,’ vol. ix. p. 238. 


1864. ] Chemistry. 459 


which retained the fibrous and veined appearance which belonged to 
the original mineral.* The same author has extended his investiga- 
tions to the colouring matter of precious stones with some unexpected 
results. The amethyst, for instance, he finds to be coloured by some 
organic matter, and not by a metallic oxide. For the author’s mode 
of analysing gems of various descriptions, and the results, we must 
refer the reader to the original paper in the ‘Comptes Rendus’ for 
March 28. 

Mr. Sonstadt, who has already achieved distinction as a manufac- 
turer of magnesium, has now turned his attention to calcium, and 
succeeded in obtaining this metal in a tolerably easy way.t He first 
fuses together iodide of potassium and chloride of calcium, and then 
adds the mixture to sodium, and continues the heat, which need not 
be great. This, as the author states, is only a modification—in which, 
however, a serious obstacle is avoided,—of the method proposed by 
Liés Bodart, and Bodin. 

Lastly, in the department of inorganic chemistry, we must notice 
the production by M. Peligot of some useful alloys of silver and zinc. 
The French Government is about to reduce the standard of the silver 
coinage, which disappears from circulation in consequence of the 
scarcity of the metal. M. Peligot, who is chemist to the French Mint, 
suggests that zinc should be employed in the alloy instead of copper. 
One great recommendation of such an alloy is, that it does not blacken 
when exposed to sulphur compounds, nor furnish verdigris with acid 
liquids ; it is therefore especially applicable for watch cases, jewellery, 
and coins. The best alloy we may say is composed of eight parts of 
silver and two parts of zinc. 


Among the recently published results of investigations in the 
domain of organic chemistry, we may notice those of Cahours and 
Frémy on the respiration and maturation of fruits.{ Cahours experi- 
mented upon apples and oranges, and found that when placed in a jar 
of oxygen or in mixtures of oxygen and nitrogen, the fruits absorbed 
the former gas and evolved carbonic acid. This went on and increased 
rapidly as the fruit ripened. In the expressed juices of the fruits he 
found carbonic acid and nitrogen, but not oxygen, hydrogen, or car- 
bonic oxide. Further than this, he found that when the same fruits 
were placed in nitrogen or hydrogen, they still evolved carbonic acid, 
and the ,volume of the external gas increased. Hence the carbonic 
acid must have been produced by changes within the fruit and inde- 
pendent of the external atmosphere. The internal changes have been 
shown by MM. Chatin, Frémy, and Decaisne to consist in the oxida- 
tion of the immediate soluble principles. Tannin, it would seem, dis- 
appears first, then the acids, and lastly the sugar. These changes are 
well illustrated in the case of the medlar, which, when gathered, is 
very acid and astringent, and only becomes eatable after having been 
kept for some time in the air. 


* «Comptes Rendus,’ May 17. 

+ ‘Chemical News,’ vol. 1x. p. 140. 

t ‘Comptes Rendus, various, March, April, and May. 
VOL, I. IAT 


460 Chronicles of Science. | July, 


French chemists are still busily occupied with the phenomena of 
fermentation. The last experimenter who has taken up the subject is 
M. Béchamp, who attempts to show* that alcohol is a waste product of 
the yeast plant. His idea is that the plant first of all transforms sugar 
into glucose by means of peculiar ferment, which he calls zymase ; it 
then assimilates the glucose and grows; finally, it throws out the 
alcohol and other compounds usually called products of fermentation, 
just as animals throw out waste products such as urea, &c. As a con- 
firmation of this idea, the author asserts that the yeast plant throws 
out alcohol when not in contact with sugar or any fermentable 
material. 

At the commencement of the present year, Mr. Smith, of Edin- 
burgh, announced the discovery of a new alkaloid, in the juice of 
fresh aconite root. He named it aconella, and stated that in compo- 
sition and all its chemical properties it was identical with narcotine, 
one of the opium alkaloids. Recently, Professor Jellett, of the Dublin 
University,t has investigated the optical properties of aconella and 
narcotine, and found that in those the two alkaloids (or one) are iden- 
tical. The extraction of one and the same alkaloid from two such 
dissimilar sources, is, to say the least, extremely curious. 

Everything that relates to the Cinchona plant, and the valuable 
alkaloids derived from it, is of so much importance to us, that we 
cannot pass over the communication of Dr. De Vry, recently made to a 
meeting of the Pharmaceutical Society.{ The author, who is the 
able superintendent of the Dutch Cinchona plantations in Java, has 
recently paid a visit to the British plantations in Ceylon, and on the 
Neilgherry Hills. He confirms the report that these are in a most 
flourishing condition, and he obtained at them numerous specimens 
of stem and root barks which he has submitted to analysis. The 
most curious result of these analyses is, that quinine is found in the 
largest quantities in the bark of the root, a statement quite in contra- 
diction to that of our English authority, Mr. Howard. But so certain 
is Dr. De Vry of his accuracy, that he goes so far as to suggest the 
cultivation of the plant for the root alone. 

In analytical chemistry some useful information has been furnished 
by recent writers. When sulphuric acid in combination with the 
alkalies is estimated in the form of sulphate of baryta, some alkali is 
always carried down, which it is impossible to wash out, and which 
exaggerates the amount of sulphuric acid. A writer in ‘Silliman’s 
Journal,’ makes known the fact that the alkali may be got rid of by 
digesting the precipitate in a solution of acetate of copper strongly 
acidulated with acetic acid. The mixture should be kept near a 
boiling temperature for ten or fifteen minutes, then, after well washing, 
pure sulphate of baryta will be left behind. 

Winckler has recently published a method by which in assaying 
tin ores, the metal can be easily obtained in a single button. After 
having separated other metals in the usual way, he mixes the binoxide 

* «Comptes Rendus,’ April 4. 


+ ‘Chemical News,’ vol. ix. p. 216. 
t ‘Chemical News,’ vol. ix. p. 237. 


1854. ] Chemistry. 461 


of tin with a known weight of peroxide of copper, and reduces the 
two metals together. The copper carries down the tin with it in a 
single button, and the weight of the tin is obtained by subtracting 
that of the copper producible from the oxide employed from the gross 
weight of the button. 

In connection with sulphuric acid we may mention the fact that 
Mr. Bottomley, of Manchester,* has proved the inaccuracy of 
Pelouze’s method of estimating sulphur in ores by deflagrating them 
with chlorate of potash and carbonate of soda, and then determining 
the amount of undecomposed carbonate by a standard acid. Some 
oxygen compound of chlorine would appear to be always evolved with 
the carbonic acid, and the percentage of sulphur is always too low. 

Sulphur is an important remedial agent, and in no form is more 
effective than in a mineral water. Dr. Sheridan Muspratt has 
recently analysed the water of the Harlow-car spring near Harrogate, 
and found therein nearly four grains of sulphide of sodium in the 
gallon. This water will probably be as highly valued as that of the 
neighbouring springs at Harrogate. 

An ingenious, and no doubt, a reliable method of estimating tannic 
and gallic acids, has recently been published t by Herr Mittenzwey. 
It is based on the capacity of these bodies for absorbing oxygen in 
the presence of an alkali. The absorption is effected in a closed 
flask, a tube from which is opened in water that this fluid may supply 
the place of the gas taken up. The water is taken from a weighed 
quantity, and each gramme sucked into the flask will correspond to a 
cubic centimeter of oxygen at the normal pressure and temperature. 
Modifications of this process, the chemist will see, are applicable for 
the determination of iron and manganese, and also the valuation of 
indigo. 

In the applications of chemistry we have not much to report. A 
process of considerable interest has been suggested by Mr. Whitelaw, 
of Glasgow, for the utilization of the brine from salt meat. He 
submits this to dialysis, and thereby separates the salt, and obtains 
the juices of the meat for soup. A further application of the process 
will serve to procure salted meat in an approximate state of freshness. 
The meat and brine are placed together in a dialysing bag, which is 
placed in water for a day or two. In this time most of the salt will 
have passed into the water, and the meat will be left, not exactly like 
recently killed, but still available for cooking in a variety of ways, to 
which salt meat is not adapted. 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE CHEMICAL SOCIETY. 


Most of the papers read at the meetings of the Chemical Society, 
are of interest only to advanced chemists, and could not possibly be 
made intelligible to the general reader, so we give merely the titles 
as arecord of the Society’s proceeedings. The first is a paper by 


* «Chemical News,’ vol. ix. p. 200. 

+ ‘Journal fiir praktische Chemie,’ No. 2, 1864. 
9719 
212 


462 Chronicles of Science. [July, 


Mr. E. J. Mills, On Nitro-compounds ; another is On Oxyaniline, by 
Dr. Schmidt; a third is On the Subformiate of Ethyl, and On the 
Basic Salts of some Organic Acids; others were On the Hexyl Group, 
by Dr.Wanklyn ; On the Action of Hydrobromic and Hydriodie Acids 
upon Polyatomic Acids, and On the Behaviour of the Iodo-substi- 
tution Compounds towards Hydriodic Acid. Lastly, we may mention 
the profoundly interesting discourse by Sir Benjamin Brodie, On the 
Organic Peroxides theoretically considered. 

Beyond this we have only to record the discovery by Professor 
Tuson of crystalline organic principles in castor and croton oils. Con- 
trary to expectation, it would appear that these principles produce no 
aperient effects; but as the President of the Chemical Society 
remarked, they deserve fuller investigation. 


V. GEOGRAPHY. 


(Including the Transactions of the Royal Geographical Society, and 
Notices of the Ordnance Survey of Great Britain and Ireland.) 


No science, probably, is more affected by political circumstances than 
geography. The development of mercantile speculation, war, and 
even the combinations and divisions of political parties and govern- 
ments, each in their turn afford opportunities peculiar to themselves 
of acquiring fresh geographical information, and even of making some 
alteration in the physical contour of various countries. At the same 
time, it must be acknowledged that war especially throws many 
obstacles in the way of the investigation of distant lands; whilst 
mercantile pursuits not only interfere with those of a scientific 
character, but the spirit of greed that is apt to be developed where 
merchandize is a principle aim, frequently defeats its own object, and 
produces an exclusion from those very places which it was its desire 
to penetrate. As an instance of the service done to science by war, 
the insurrection in New Zealand has brought to light the great 
deficiency of good maps of that country. As the conquest of Serin- 
gapatam, by General Harris, led to the accurate survey and delineation 
of Mysore, so we may look forward to a lasting monument of the 
present unhappy squabble to be erected by the careful mapping out 
of the country traversed by the troops. The want has been strongly 
felt by the commanders, and it is to be hoped that they will take 
what means he at their disposal to remedy the deficiency. In like 
manner we shall in all probability receive much additional informa- 
tion from some of the members of Mr. Hden’s suite in his ill-fated 
expedition to Bhootan, and perhaps from the more military party 
that may have to follow in his footsteps. Under any circumstances, 
the north-eastern route to China is likely to receive some elucida- 
tion. But greater wars, such as the suicidal struggle in North 
America, on the contrary, paralyze all the efforts that used to be made 


4 


1864. | Geography. 463 


on that continent. We have no longer any of those elaborate and 
costly works, issued by the War Department of the United States, 
which once were a credit to the government that encouraged their 
production. For fifteen years the American Government published 
from time to time records of exploratory work done for them, the 
greatest and best probably being those of the expedition up the 
Colorado river of the West. All that we now get from North 
America is from surveyors in British Columbia and Vancouver's 
Island. One distinguished citizen of the Republic, Mr. George P. 
Marsh, who is well known in this country for his works on the English 
language and literature, and who is an accurate and extensive scholar 
of Norse literature, has written a volume, entitled ‘Man and Nature, 
or Physical Geography modified by Human Action.”* The object 
of this work is to estimate in some degree the character and extent of 
changes produced on the physical globe by human action, and to 
suggest the possibility and importance of the restoration of disturbed 
harmonies and the improvement of waste and exhausted regions. The 
book is written in a popular style. 

It isan extraordinary circumstance that the two continents, in some 
respects so remarkably similar, Africa and Australia, furnish us now 
with most of the topics on which geographers discourse. The 
practical problem of how to produce the greatest amount of wool of 
a fine texture, and of late a similar search for land on which to grow 
cotton, combined with an outlet for our surplus population, has led to 
several attempts to penetrate into various parts of the interior of 
Australia, not leading to any very astonishing discoveries, but at the 
same time gradually adding to our knowledge of the geographical, and, 
as a necessary consequence, the geological peculiarities of this con- 
tinent. The interior of Africa affords more reasons and encourage- 
ments to the discoverer. The very profitable traffic in its peculiar 
productions is attractive to one class of minds, but many more are 
led on by a sort of romance, a desire to penetrate into the unknown, 
to live a wild life, holding in subjection nature and nature’s children, 
to discover some of nature’s secrets ; whilst others again, and these, 
perhaps, not the least heroic, are tempted to try and disseminate the 
seeds of Christianity and civilization amongst the wild tribes, whom 
one at least of the savants of the present day believes to be incapable 
of higher cerebral development without incurring the risk of falling 
forward and becoming a rational quadruped ! Thus these two con- 
tinents, each with its ‘extraordinary fauna and flora, running back into 
ancient geological periods, each of a somewhat similar geological 
formation, consisting of an external ring of mountains, and enclosing 
great central plains, with rivers running inwards, and either drying 
up or terminating in central lakes, are the points +o which our atten- 
tion is now directed. 

The colony of Queensland, at the present time, owing to the war 


* «Man and Nature; or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action.’ 
By George P. Marsh, author of ‘Lectures on the English Language,’ “The 
Student’s Manual of the English Language, &e. 8vo, Sampson Low, Son,.and 
Marston. 


464 Chronicles of Science. | July, 


in New Zealand, and the disturbing elements of gold digging in the 
other settlements of Australia, attracts considerable notice. We 
shall have occasion to speak at a later period of the surveys conducted 
by the governor of this colony. The settlers seem anxious to open out 
all the means of communication that they can. There is a design for 
a mail to Batavia to join the Dutch here. The coast will soon be 
defended by several lighthouses. The climate seems to afford great 
relief to persons afflicted with chest diseases, and the dugong oil is as 
efficacious a remedy as that of the cod liver. The cultivation of 
cotton is making a considerable advance, and bids fair in time to 
succeed to the now lost Sea Islands. Tobacco, and other productions 
of both temperate and torrid zones, flourish, and the only problem 
that remains to be solved is how far north the European can live with 
impunity. The Society of Arts at home has offered a prize for the 
discovery and working of a new coal mine in Australia. This has 
afforded much amusement to the colonists. They have no lack of 
mines, and mines in convenient localities; but the competition is so 
great that the chief difficulty is to find a market for the coal procured. 
Queensland promises in a few years to become one of the most 
flourishing of colonies dependent upon this empire. 

The African explorers have been of late pressing in upon the 
unknown central region from all sides. Some hindrances seem likely 
to stop their very rapid progress. Dr. Kirk, who was attached to 
Dr. Livingstone’s party, has returned, and Dr. Livingstone himself, the 
report of whose death has proved untrue, is on his way to Bombay, 
vid Mozambique and Zanzibar, hoping at the former place to sell his 
little steamer, the ‘Lady Nyassa.’ Bishop Tozer, who was settled 
on the Zambesi, appears to mect with less success than he had antici- 
pated, in consequence of the disturbed state of the country, and 
recommendations are being forwarded to him to retire to the frontier 
land to the north of the Zulu land. His object is to advance towards 
the interior, and his route need not be confined to any river or line of 
march. M. Jules Gérard has met with a repulse, too, from the 
King of Dahomey. He was indiscreet enough to write to ‘ The Times’ 
an account of the custom on the ascent of the present monarch to the 
throne, and in consequence he has been politely requested to retire 
from the kingdom which he had begun to describe. 

Dahomey itself has suffered a remarkable reverse at the hands of 
the Egbas of Abeokuta, who were so well described in Captain R. F. 
Barton’s book on that subject, published last year. The old grudge 
which the traveller mentioned as having been nourished for more than 
ten years, has at last broken out into active warfare. With troops to the 
number, it is said, of 10,000, of which a large portion were Amazons, 
he attacked the Aro gate of the extensive fortified enclosure of Egba 
villages, that go by the name of Abeokuta, Under-the-Stone, a con- 
federation of towns that remind us not only of the four or five hills 
that were first enclosed to make up Rome with its allied tribes, but 
also gives an explanation of some of those peculiar plural names that 
many Grecian towns possessed. Niebuhr found an explanation of 
Janus Biceps in a town lying inland on the northern coast of Africa ; 


1864. | Geography. 465 


a future critic of Livy and of Niebuhr may probably find other 
analogies between the form and government of the city of the Seven 
Hills, and the rudely defended haunt of Heba robbers, Under-the-Stone. 
For the present their Alban or Veientine assailant has been repulsed, and 
the Capitol, Olumo, the builder, stands firm. Other rumours of wars 
come from this neighbourhood. War was being carried on, and it is 
to be hoped is now stopped, against the King of Ashanti. Little is 
to be gained by throwing away in the swamps of Western Africa the 
lives of Englishmen, valued in this country, in the almost vain hope 
of destroying the lives of a few score black fellows whose lives are 
accounted nothing worth in their own land. Such is the common 
argument against this war, the justice or injustice of which we have 
not seen discussed. 

There are in this country ambassadors from Madagascar, and 
in France some from Japan. The former are described as gen- 
tlemanly, intelligent men, evidently accustomed to the European 
dress, and at ease in European society. The predecessors of the 
latter have lately published their ideas of our characteristics for the 
benefit of their fellow-countrymen. The introduction to their 
book has been translated, and it is to be hoped that before long the 
whole of this interesting narrative may be reproduced in this country. 
Naturally the differences between their habits and our own attracted 
their attention, and in this way we learn much of those peculiarities 
which are most difficult for us otherwise to discover. Thus the height 
and massiveness of our houses struck them as remarkable, and 
suggested great danger in case of earthquakes, betraying the secret of 
their own low and slight style of architecture. Partitions of paper 
supported by a few slight beams, topped by a shingle roof of the 
lightest material, would topple to pieces like a card-house at the 
slightest vibration, but at the same time would do as little damage as 
the cardboard edifice itself. Their ceremonious behaviour towards 
their friends of various ranks was so remarkably different from our own 
unceremonious nod, or even more dignified bow, that they could not 
but remark upon our utter want of common decency according to their 
ideas on this matter. Foreigners are not likely soon to be excluded 
from these islands again, for the Mikado, the spiritual ruler and repre- 
sentative of the Conservative feeling, has given permission for them to 
remain five years longer. The lower classes show quite as much good 
feeling towards strangers. A sailor, one of fifteen belonging to the 
‘Star of Peace,’ who alone swam to shore after the wreck of that vessel 
and the capsizing of the long boat, was most hospitably received 
by the inhabitants at Kadsusa, and at length forwarded to Yoko- 
hama. It is to be hoped that this kindly spirit may not again be 
disturbed by any champion of British independence, and that some con- 
sideration will be shown for the feelings and customs of the natives. 
The Prussian Scientific Expedition, which was sent a few years 
ago to Japan and China, is now preparing for the publication of the 
results of its discoveries. The artist announces a series of views, 
which are to be issued at the expense of the King of Prussia, in parts, 
the first of which is ready, and embraces six large views of Yeddo. 


466 Chronicles of Science. [ July, 


Should the inhabitants of the wonderful island of Madagascar seek to 
enlighten their countrymen and their lately resuscitated king on the 
subject of the northern nations that they are now visiting, we, too, 
may hope to learn something of the ideas, manners, and customs of 
that almost impenetrable country, whose inhabitants, animals, and 
flora differ so materially from the nearest approaching continent. In 
the meantime, we must content ourselves with the scanty information 
contained in such books as the ‘Journal of the Bishop of Madagas- 
car,’ * in which we get only incidental remarks of any geographical 
value, since the work is rather addressed to those who are interested 
in missionary labours, than to scientific inquirers. Amongst other 
little known localities, The Curieuse, the isle of Lepers, a hospital 
island whither all these afflicted creatures are consigned by the govern- 
ment of the Mauritius, was visited by the bishop in the discharge of 
his episcopal and missionary functions. 


Tur Royat GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY. 


Some extremely interesting papers have been read before this Society 
during the past quarter, amongst which Mr. Gifford Palgrave furnishes 
one on a journey from Gaza, through the interior of Arabia to El 
Khatif on the Persian Gulf, and thence to Oman. Under the disguise 
of a physician, a Syriac Christian, Mr. Palgrave passed through a 
highly-interesting and little known region. He left Gaza on the 5th 
May, 1862, went some little way along the pilgrimage route from 
Damascus to Mecca, passed within two days’ journey of the Gulf of 
Akaba over a desert inhabited only by lizards and serpents, and 
entered the kingdom of Jebel Shomer. Here commenced his most 
remarkable discovery, viz. that among the strictest Mahometans, 
and amidst the strictest kind of dissenters from the orthodox form of 
this religion, there exist remnants of the old superstition which the 
prophet of Islam intended to extirpate. The worship of the sun, of 
trees, of fire, and of the north star under the remarkable name of 
Tau, the same word as that revealed to Moses, as described in the book 
of Exodus, all find adherents in out-of-the-way parts of Arabia. 
Amongst the mountains these ancient forms still hold their ground. 
After ten days’ journeying, Mr. Palgrave and his companions reached 
the capital, Hail, where they were kindly treated by the king, Jelab. 
Hail contaims about 20,000 inhabitants, with a good market-place, 
handsome shops, and a grand palace surrounded by fortifications. 
The government of the whole kingdom is well organized, though it 
was only founded sixty years since. From this kingdom of Jebel 
Shomer, Mr. Palgrave next passed to that of the sect of the Wahabees, 
which sect originated with a fanatical Mahometan reformer, Moham- 
med Ebn Abd-al-Wahab, about 100 years ago. This kingdom is an 


* «Mauritius and Madagascar: Journals of an Hight Years’ Residence in the 
Diocese of Mauritius, and of a Visit to Madagascar. By Vincent W. Ryan, D.D., 
Bishop of Mauritius. Seeley, Jackson, & Halliday, 


1864. ] Geography. 467 


equally good specimen of official centralization, and is a remarkable 
instance of a complete despotism, both as regards religion and politics. 
The religious practices of the Wahabees or Wahabites, are very peculiar. 
With them the next most heinous sin that can be committed after 
polytheism, by which they mean any kind of idolatry, is what they 
term “drinking the shameful,” by which they designate smoking. 
Compared with this, murder, theft, false witness, &c., are venial sins ; 
but this is not to be expiated in this world. In consequence of neg- 
lect on this point, and in the matter of wearing silk dresses, the 
cholera was supposed to have invaded the province some six years ago, 
upon which the king thought it advisable to appoint a council of twenty- 
two members, the strictest and most religious men that could be 
found, to inquire into the religious observance and morals of the 
community, and to inflict such corporal punishment as they deemed 
fitting. 'The king’s own brother, and one of the principal ministers, 
a sort of First Lord of the Treasury, suffered this castigation,—the 
latter to such a violent degree that he died the next day. All the 
inhabitants of the town are obliged to attend prayers five times a day 
on pain of a beating. They attribute every action performed by 
“man, animal, or physical law, to no intermediate cause, but at once 
to the Deity himself. As an instance of this, Mr. Palgrave mentions 
that a boy who, by way of introduction exhibited some dexterity with 
a top, addressed them as follows :—* Not by my strength, nor by my 
cleverness, but by the strength of God, and by the cleverness of God.” 
In this remarkable country, previously unvisited except by the 
victorious arms of Ibrahim Pasha, were found the most celebrated of 
the celebrated breed of Nejed horses. The colour of these was mostly 
grey, a few were white or chesnut, still fewer black, and none bay. 
They were beautiful beyond compare, with clean legs, delicate 
muzzles, graceful haunches, well set-on tails, and very sloping 
shoulders. The king had 130 in his stables, which Mr. Palgrave, in 
his character of physician, visited on more than one occasion. These 
horses never find their way to Europe, as they are never sold or 
bartered. Leaving this neighbourhood with extreme difficulty, owing 
to a quarrel with the king, whom Mr. Palgrave refused to supply with 
strychnine for the but slightly disguised object of disposing of his 
own brother and some others of the great men of whom he was afraid, 
the party arrived at Khatif, on the Persian Gulf. The journey 
thence was undertaken by the companions separately to Oman, at the 
mouth of the Gulf, where they visited and were well treated by the 
sovereign. They finally reached civilization and rest at Bagdad, 
after fourteen months’ constant travelling. 

Two interesting papers on the sister colonies of Vancouver’s Island 
and British Columbia were contributed to the Society by Dr. C. 
Forbes, R.N., and Lieut. H. 8. Palmer, R.E. The outlines of the 
coast of these two colonies seem to be similar, and to resemble the 
north-western coasts of Europe. A rugged sea board westwards, in- 
dented with numerous fiords, backed by undulating ground further 
inland, gives to the island as different an aspect on the two shores as 
England itself presents. In the colony, the gentler slopes lead on 


468 Chronicles of Science. [July, 


again to a second range of mountains, which develope at length into 
the Rocky Mountains. The climate in both cases is not vastly 
different from that of the Old Country, but the absence of the Gulf 
Stream, and the presence of currents from the Arctic regions, causes 
the temperature of the sea to be much colder than the ocean to which 
we are accustomed. In some respects the conchology is peculiarly 
boreal. Again, a great extent of snow-covered hill to the north of the 
colony causes cold but bright weather as late as Midsummer day. The 
principal wealth of both colonies seems to be mineral. Coal is found 
in some abundance in several places, and is of good quality. In 
British Columbia the principal attraction at present is the gold, which, 
according to Lieut. Palmer, promises the most inexhaustible field in 
the world. The veins appear to run north and south, but to be carried 
westward by the action of the torrents. |The whole country produces 
magnificent forests, the trees of which reach enormous sizes ; 300 feet 
is an ordinary height for a pine, whilst cedars reach the girth of 
57 feet at a height of 5 ft. 6in. from the ground. The country pro- 
mises well for the farmer, being very similar in soil and production to 
our own land; but as yet there is little likelihood of much develop- 
ment of these resources, owing to the want of means of communication 
and the dearth of markets for the produce. A great number of 
Americans had emigrated to British Columbia, making excellent 
citizens, showing great enterprise, and exhibiting every disposition to 
settle permanently in the colony. The natives are, in the main, a 
peaceful and inoffensive race, though apt, if they consider their rights 
invaded, to retaliate in a manner consistent with the extremely 
degraded state of barbarism into which they have fallen. 

Two papers on Queensland were read before the Society, one on 
an ‘Overland Expedition from Port Denison to Rockingham Bay,’ by 
A. J. Scott ; the other was a communication from the Governor of the 
colony, Sir George Bowen, to the Duke of Newcastle, on the forma- 
tion of a colony at Cape York, the northernmost point of the Austra- 
lian continent, and on the survey of the inside of the Great Barrier 
Reef. The object of the former expedition was to discover a nearer 
approach to the sea from the Valley of Lagoons than Port Denison, 
which is 200 miles distant. Though no passage was made, an open- 
ing was diswovered which only required that a certain portion of 
jungle should be cut through, in order to form a convenient road to 
the neighbourhood of Rockingham Bay. A continuous line of stations 
reaches northward of the Valley of Lagoons over a country well 
suited for Europeans, and for stock, and containing coal, iron, copper, 
and gold. 

The Governor proposes a preliminary settlement on Albany Island, 
where the climate is remarkably cool for the tropics. ‘There is abun- 
dant pasturage here for sheep, cattle, and horses, and large tracts for 
the cultivation of cotton, sugar, &c., and timber, stone, and lime exist 
in abundance. The survey of the inside of the Barrier Reef com- 
pletes a most valuable and important work. It affords not only a 
safe means of communication between the colonies, but will un- 
doubtedly in time become the route of the homeward-bound mails. 


1864. Geography. 469 


The reef acts as a natural breakwater, and keeps comparative still 
water within, the only disadvantage is the necessity of anchoring at 
night. 

"The subject of Nile discovery does not yet seem fully exhausted. 
Some of the reviewers of Captain Speke’s book are inclined to dispute 
the fact of his having cleared up the whole mystery. The work of 
Phaéthon still remains uncancelled. 


“Nilus in extremum fugit perterritus orbem, 
Occuluitque caput, quod adhue latet.” 


The captain is about to furnish further particulars in a pamphlet, 
entitled ‘ What led to the Discovery of the Source of the Nile” In 
the meantime My. Petherick, late British Consul at Khartim, has 
furnished the Society a paper on his journey with his wife and Dr. 
Muire up the Nile, from Khartim to Gondokoro, in order to meet and 
assist the explorers. They sailed for some time up the river by the 
help of the north winds that blow continuously, but these at length 
failing, they were reduced to the necessity of making fast a rope to 
reeds, &c., and then hauling themselves along by means of this, being 
unable to tow from the nature of the river, which was here wide and 
shallow, and bordered by swampy marshes extending far inland. 
After proceeding some way in this manner, Mr. Petherick despatched 
an Arab whom he trusted, named Abd-il-Maed, to Gondokoro, to 
obtain tidings of Speke and Grant. Why he did not himself proceed 
on this expedition does not at present appear; and Captain Speke, in 
a letter to‘ The Times,’ complains that, as far as Mr. Petherick was 
concerned, he afforded him no assistance whatever ; in fact, had it not 
been for his rival in trade, Mr. Debono, the East African expedition 
would have been considerably delayed, if not entirely frustrated. Mr. 
Petherick seems to have been deceived by Abd-il-Magd, who was 
carrying on a little secret traffic in slaves on his own account, and 
who returned without any news of the missing travellers. He reported 
indeed that obtaining no tidings at Gondokoro, he had gone thence 
westward to a place called Nyanbera, where the consul had a station, 
and from this place he had despatched some men southward, who 
were obliged to return in a few days, owing to the disturbed state of 
the country and their inability to procure better food than a few 
roots. These men report the existence of a large sheet of water 
flowing westward ; but how much reliance is to be placed upon this 
evidence, we as yet know not. The rascality of Abd-il-Magd was 
soon discovered and properly punished. Mr. Petherick pursued his 
journey to Gondokoro, though he was obliged to travel by land west- 
ward in order to obtain porters, the demands for whom were exorbi- 
tantly high. He offered copper bracelets, but cows were required, and 
these were to be obtained only by a forage on territories of some of 
the neighbouring tribes, which he refused to attack. At last he 
procured both men and donkeys, and arrived at his own station at 
Nyanbera, and thence he proceeded eastward again to Gondokoro. 
Here he found Captains Speke and Grant already arrived, but of 
course he was too late to afford any matcrial assistance ; nevertheless, 


470 Chronicles of Science. | July, 


his name and the news of his approach seem to have influenced the 
African potentates in releasing their guests, who were glad to be rid 
of their misplaced hospitality. Until the return of the consul to this 
country, it will of course be impossible to judge of the endeavours he 
made to assist the course of discovery. In the meantime there seems 
to be a probability that Captain Speke may again be leaving this 
country for the interior of Africa, not only under the auspices of the 
Geographical Society, but with some material assistance from the 
Emperor of the French. 

Three papers on New Zealand have been read before the Society. 
They all referred to the Middle Island ; the first being an Account of 
an expedition to the west coast of the Middle Island by Dr. Hector ; 
the second, a Survey of the lake district of Otago, by James M. 
Kerrow, Esq.; and the third, On the southern Alps of Canterbury, 
Middle Island, New Zealand, by Dr. Haast. The mountains described 
in the first and third of these papers are extremely interesting. They 
rise somewhat near the west coast: first, in hills covered with beech 
forests ; then, white-blossomed willows succeed; after that, rocky 
boulders announce real mountain scenery. These New Zealand Alps 
are remarkable for their glaciers, and are said to present a counterpart 
of what Scotland must have been in what is called the glacial age. The 
snow line appears to be about 8,000 feet above the level of the sea, but 
is higher on the north-western side than on the south-eastern, the former 
being the side most exposed to wind, and also to the moisture collected 
by the wind in its passage over the ocean. But though the snow line is 
so elevated, the glaciers push down into the valleys as low as 3,500 
feet above the sea. A glacier, named after Dr. Haast at the ele- 
vation of 5,500 feet, is 500 feet thick. Another, the Tasman glacier, 
is 12 miles long, and at its lower extremity is a mile and three- 
quarters wide. The mountains themselves frequently reach the height 
of 10,000 feet in isolated peaks. The highest, Mount Cook, is 30 
miles from the west coast, and reaches the elevation of 12,460 feet 
(just that of the Adler Pass between Saas and Zermatt). The cha- 
racter of the chain is peculiar—a long ridge accessible at most points, 
though reaching sometimes 8,000 feet, interspersed with higher cols, 
forms the watershed of the island—the streams on the western side 
running in torrents to the sea, whilst the eastern flow more gently 
over a greater extent of plain, and passing through some extensive 
lakes, which act as locks to regulate the pace at which the collected 
waters make their way to the sea. Some of these lakes are of great 
extent. The Te-Anan and Manipori lakes drain a district of many 
hundreds of miles. They exhibit traces of much greater depth in former 
times, and in some cases the rocks run sheer down to the water from 
some hundreds of feet high. Great numbers of very beautiful trees 
are found in various localities, fuchsia and éutw growing to trees with 
trunks of two fect in diameter; beech, pine, and totaru being plentiful. 

A low pass has been discovered over the Andes by Don Guillermo 
Cox, whose paper, translated by Sir Woodbine Parish, was read before the 
Society. 2,800 feet was the altitude at which the summit was reached. 
The discoverer equipped an expedition at his own cost at a German 


1864 | Geography. 471 


settlement called Montt, near the island of Chiloe, on the western 
coast, whence he proceeded towards the large lake of Naguel-huapi 
(Lake of Tigers). Here they found a river flowing eastward, which 
they descended ; but at length their boat was capsized, and the party 
escaped, but only to fallinto the hands of a cacique ofa tribe of Pampas 
Indians, who wished to put Senor Cox to death, but was diverted from 
this by his playing on his flageolet. At last the cacique was induced 
to assist him as far as Rio Negro. The discovery was thus perfected, 
as well as that of a more northerly passage ; but the utility of the 
discovery is at present dubious, in consequence of the hostility of the 
Indians. 

This paper was followed by one on a railway over a northerly pass 
across the Andes, at a height of 16,500 feet, though a lower pass has 
been found a little southward ; but this latter is not so practicable for 
engineering purposes. 

Other papers read before the Society were, ‘A Narrative of an 
Exploring Expedition into the Interior of Western Australia,’ by 
Maxwell Lefroy, Esq.; ‘An Exploration of the River Moisie to the 
Edge of the Table-Land of the Labrador Peninsula,’ by Henry Yule 
Hind, M.A., Trinity College, Toronto; and one on ‘ The Frontier Pro- 
vince of Loreto, in North Peru,’ by Professor Don Antonio Raimondy, 
of Lima. 

The last proceedings of the Society that we have to record are the 
various ceremonials of the Anniversary Meeting. The report speaks 
of the pecuniary prosperity of the Society, notwithstanding very 
liberal grants to various travellers. The library and map room have 
received very considerable additions through the liberality of many 
donors. Premiums have been offered for instruments suitable for 
travellers, and a room has been set apart for the exhibition of such as 
are considered useful. The medals were this year presented—the 
founder's, to Baron von der Decken, for his remarkable journeys from 
the east coast of Africa to the mountains of Kilimandjoro, 20,065 feet 
above the sea level, and covered with perpetual snow—the patron’s, 
or Queen’s, to Captain Grant, the companion of Captain Speke, who 
last year was rewarded with the same recognition of his services whilst 
still at Gondokoro. 

The President, in recounting the geographical discoveries of the 
year, descanted at some length on the discovery of the lake Victoria 
Nyanza, and other lakes connected with it or lying in the same 
region, and stated that the council had determined to offer 1,000. 
towards an expedition up the White Nile, with a view of opening out 
the traffic with the interior, and extending the influence of the Pasha 
of Egypt in that direction, thus putting a stop to the horrors of the 
slave trade, which seems to infect all those who have commercial 
intercourse with the interior. Beyond this, the expedition is to 
explore the whole of this enormous lake (larger than Scotland accord- 
ing to Captain Speke), and gain all possible acquaintance with the 
physical geography of the neighbouring country. The President 
also gave a very elaborate account of the glacier system of the 


472 Chronicles of Science. [ July, 


Himalayas and the mountains of the Central Island of New Zealand, 
contrasting and comparing them with those of Europe, and showing 
their power in modifying the physical features of their respective 
regions. 

The rule against the continued re-election of the same President 
has been suspended, and Sir Roderick Murchison again enters upon 
the duties of the office, which he has filled so ably during the past 
session. 


THe ORDNANCE SuRVEY OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 


By that large class who love good maps, the announcement that the 
Ordnance Survey of England is completed, and is soon to be within 
their reach, will be received with pleasure. This announcement is 
made in the Blue Book, reporting the progress of the National Survey 
up to the 31st of December, 1863; and in the course of another year 
or two, we may expect to have the maps of the six northern counties, 
which have been the last to be surveyed, issued to the public. These 
counties have the special privilege of being published on three different 
scales, namely, 25, 6, and 1 inch toa mile. It has always appeared 
to us that the first of these is unnecessarily large for a national survey, 
and is only justiliable for towns and special districts. For landowners 
it is, doubtless, a great boon to have a survey of their property made 
free of expense to themselves, and on a scale which would enable them 
to measure the breadth of a furrow in a ploughed field; but for the 
general purposes of the public such a scale appears absolutely useless, 
and we therefore maintain that the public should not be saddled with 
the cost of engraving maps from which they can derive no benefit. On 
the other hand, it may be replied that one survey is sufficient for any 
number of smaller scales, and that the measurements once taken for 
the 25-inch maps only require a proportionate reduction in the plotting 
for the smaller scales. Besides this, it seems probable that the pro- 
duce of the sale of the 25-inch maps will ultimately cover the cost of 
publication ; as the return of sale (including the value of those copies 
supplied to the public department) is set down for the past year at 
2,135/. for England, and 2,624/. for Scotland. 

The value of the maps on the l-inch and 6-inch scales will not be 
disputed. As a matter of choice we should have preferred a 2-inch to 
a 1-inch scale, for the latter is so small in reference to the multiplicity 
of objects in populous districts that exaggeration and distortion can- 
not be avoided. This is particularly observable in laying down the 
turnpike roads, so as to distinguish them from country and parish 
lanes; on a scale of twice this size any undue enlargement would be 
unnecessary. We make these remarks because we feel satisfied that a 
re-survey of a large part of England will be undertaken on the com- 
pletion of the whole kingdom. This is especially to be desired in 
respect of the southern counties of Cornwall, Devon, Wilts, &c., 
which were amongst the first to be surveyed, and the maps of which 


1864. | Geography. 473 


in point of execution are very far behind those now being issued 
under the able management of Colonel Sir Henry James and his 
assistants. Indeed, we can scarcely speak too highly of the typo- 
graphical accuracy and artistic skill exhibited in the hill-shading, 
and general portraiture of the landscape features in some of the more 
recently published 1-inch maps of the north of England and Scotland, 
arising from the general advance in this art, and the great care bestowed 
on the work, both in the field and in the offices of the survey. But 
beyond all this, it is scarcely to be endured that the great manufacturing 
and mining districts of Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Derbyshire, and 
South Wales should be put off with maps on the 1l-inch scale alone— 
while other counties which have no higher claim in point of industrial 
pursuits, or extent of population, have the advantage of maps on much 
larger scales. In the mining districts of Lancashire and Yorkshire 
the 6-inch maps are general favourites, and are very largely used for 
colliery purposes. For the mining districts of the central counties 
and Wales, similar maps would doubtless be most valuable, but in 
order to their completion new surveys will, we presume, have to be 
undertaken, and the proposition we venture to make is this, that along 
with the 6-inch maps, others on a scale of 2 inches to a mile be pub- 
lished simultaneously. The 1-inch maps, both of the Geological and 
Ordnance Surveys, might of course remain as they are. 

In Scotland the progress of the survey has lately been rapid, in 
obedience, we may suppose, to the demands of some of the Scotch 
Members of Parliament. The whole of the Lowlands, with the High- 
land districts of Perthshire, are surveyed, and are in course of publica- 
tion on the three scales of 25, 6, and 1 inch to a mile. What may be 
the object of publishing parish maps of Highland moors and moun- 
tains on the 25-inch scale we cannot devine, except perhaps for the 
purpose of defining with accuracy the lands beyond which neighbouring 
sportsmen would be liable to penalty for trespass. It strikes us, how- 
ever, that the 6-inch scale might have been sufficiently large for this 
purpose. Speaking from experience, we have never found any difficulty 
when traversing the moors of the north of England with the 6-inch 
map for a guide, in ascertaining exactly when we passed from one peat- 
bog to another across the narrowest possible ditch or line of demarca- 
tion, and in determining with certainty our position on the ground. 

As regards Ireland, the plans of every county have been engraved 
and published on a scale of 6 inches to a mile, but as the plans of the 
northern counties, which were first surveyed, were made without that 
amount of detail which is now found necessary for the local valuation 
and assessments, these maps are being revised “at a great additional 
expense.” Hence, as is frequently proved to be the case, it would 
have been cheaper in the end to have done the work well at the 
beginning. The whole of the l-inch map is engraved and published 
in outline, and the engraving of the hills is being proceeded with. 

Maps of most of the cities and towns of any importance in the 
three kingdoms are published, or drawn, on scales of 5 feet, or 10 
feet to the inch; these have been proved most useful for the purpose 


474. Chronicles of Science. ' [ July, 


of sewage, water supply, repairs, and valuation. The following is a 
summary of the present state of the Ordnance Survey publications :— 


ENGLAND.—Area, 58,000 square miles. 

The whole has been surveyed, and, with the exception of a small part 
of the northern counties, is published on the 1-inch scale. The 6-inch 
maps of Lancashire, Yorkshire, Westmoreland, and Durham, containing 
9,743 square miles, have been published; the engraving of those of 
Northumberland and Cumberland is far advanced. ‘he six northern 
counties, and the southern counties of Essex, Hampshire, Kent, Middlesex, 
and Surrey, are being published on the scale of 25 inches to a mile. 


Wates.—The whole principality is published on the 1-inch scale. 


ScornanD.—Area, 30,000 square miles. 

The 1-inch maps, with hill shading, have been published to the extent 
of 5,047 square miles, belonging principally to the shires of Ayr, Wigton, 
Kirkcudbright, Dumfries, Edinburgh, and Haddington, and the Isle of 
Lewis; while the whole of the tract south of the Friths of Forth and Clyde 
is engraved in outline. 

On the 6-inch scale nearly the whole of the district south of the Friths 
of Forth and Clyde has been published, with the exception of parts of the 
shires of Renfrew and Lanark. Besides these, parts of Fifeshire and the 
Isle of Lewis have been completed, making in all 7,652 square miles. 

On the 25-inch scale, plans of parishes for the counties of Ayr, Ber- 
wick, Dumbarton, Dumfries, Lanark, Linlithgow, Peebles, Renfrew, Rox- 
burgh, and Selkirk, have been published. 

Besides the above, the maps of Perthshire and Stirlingshire are in 
course of preparation, and the surveyors are carrying on their field-work 
amongst the highlands of Aberdeenshire and Argyleshire. 


TRELAND.—Area, 32,813 square miles. 

The outline maps on the 1-inch scale have been published for the whole 
country. The hill shading of these maps is in progress, and an area of 
3,557 square miles belonging to the counties of Donegal, Londonderry, 
Meath, and Dublin has been published. 

With reference to the 6-inch maps, it has been already stated that they 
have been completed fcr the whole country, but that those of the province 
of Ulster have been found to require revision. This has been, to a great 
extent, accomplished. 


VI. GEOLOGY AND PALAONTOLOGY. 
(Including the Proceedings of the Geological Society.) 


Waite new facts are generally more or less plentiful in all sciences 
of observation or experiment, new theories worth anything are few and 
far between, at any rate in Geology; and although every new fact 
must be to some extent an advance, a new theory may be, and often is, 
the cause of a decided retreat. But if a theory can withstand such a 
test as a well-directed effort at its proof, it may be considered an 
advance in science, as also may one which explains, or assists in ex- 
plaining, in a rational manner, causes of phenomena hitherto obscure. 


1864.] Geology and Palcontology. 475 


Of the many geological phenomena whose causes are still more or 
less obscure, that of the elevation and depression of portions of the 
earth’s crust is one of the greatest importance, because of its being 
an element of change always present in the mind of the geologist, 
and one of the greatest difficulty because of the protean character 
of the circumstances attending its production, as well as on account 
of the numerous secondary results of which it is the proximate 
cause. 

A new theory of elevation and depression has recently been pro- 
pounded by Professor Bischof (in a second German edition of his 
‘Lehrbuch der chemischen und physikalischen Geologie’), who con- 
siders that all the observed phenomena can be explained by supposing 
them to have resulted from an increase or decrease of volume in 
deeply-seated rocks, in consequence of the more or less complete dis- 
placement of the silica of their silicates by carbonic acid. ‘The 
chemical action and the physical result, which are together believed 
by the author to be the cause of the phenomena in question, may 
conceivably take place in nature, as we know that they can be pro- 
duced by experiment. 

Geologists have long been aware that the greater portion of the 
Scandinavian area has for ages been gradually rising at the rate of a 
few inches in a century, and this circumstance has hitherto baftled the 
ingenuity of every one who has attempted to explain it. But Professor 
Bischof’s statement that the country is undergoing this upheaval only 
in those portions of it where siliceous rocks occur, renders it very 
probable that his theory will apply to a case of this kind, for he would 
scarcely make a statement of such importance had he not ascertained 
the fact to be such as he represents it. In a similar manner he ex- 
plaims the sinking of Greenland, the hydrous silicates which occur 
there undergoing a loss of volume through the displacement of the 
silica by carbonic acid. 

It is, therefore, very probable that Professor Bischof’s theory may 
be found to apply to such cases of gradual upheaval and depression, 
and thus it is surely a great advance in our knowledge of geological 
causes. Had the distinguished author been contented with this limited 
application of his hypothesis, we should not have been disposed to 
cavil at any of his arguments; but when he strives to account for the 
dislocation, contortion, and overturning of strata by merely supposing 
the upheaval to have been of unequal amount in different places, we 
confess that we are more than sceptical. It is easy for a chemist in 
his laboratory to propound such an hypothesis, but it is equally 
easy for a geologist in the field to see that it is very improbable, if 
not impossible. 

Leaving now the region of theory, we may remark that the first 
announcement of a new and startling fact is often a much less impor- 
tant episode in the history of its discovery than the first attempt at 
its confirmation. The case which we are about to notice, namely, the 
discovery of fossils in the Laurentian rocks of Canada, well illus- 
trates this proposition, for when the announcement was first made by 
Sir William Logan, nearly five years ago, at a meeting of the Ameri- 

VOL. I. 2K ; 


476 Chronicles of Science. [ July, 


can Association for the advancement of science,* that one of the 
geologists of the Canadian Survey, Mr. John M*Mullin, had found 
some specimens in the Laurentian formation of Ottawa, which 
appeared strongly to resemble the fossils from the bird’s-eye lime- 
stone known under the generic name of Stromatocerium, the statement, 
though printed in most of the scientific journals, received but little 
credence ; but now that it is made for the second time, it has attracted 
the attention of most paleontologists, and won the belief of not 
a few. 

One of the original specimens is figured in Sir William Logan’s 
‘Geology of Canada,’ and, as he observes, it certainly bears a won- 
derful resemblance to Stromatopora, which genus, we believe, is now 
thought to belong to the class Polyzoa. 'The Geological Survey of 
Canada has recently, however, had the good fortune to find other spe- 
cimens of the same, or a similar organism, in the serpentine-limestone 
of Grenville; and as these specimens have been carefully prepared for 
a rigid examination, which has been undertaken by Dr. Dawson, F'.R.8., 
F.G.S., who is well known as an able investigator of the minute struc- 
ture of fossils, and who considers them to be Foraminifera, there 
appears to be no longer room for doubt as to their organic character, 
though until Dr. Dawson’s figures and descriptions are published, the 
place they really occupy in the animal kingdom must remain un- 
certain. 

The Laurentian rocks of Canada are older than any of the British 
strata, with the exception, perhaps, of some masses of granitic gneiss, 
which are supposed by many eminent geologists to be their equiva- 
lents, and which occur in the extreme north-west of Scotland and in 
the neighbouring isles. This statement may give some idea of the 
antiquity of the fossils, but their date is even more remote than would 
be supposed from a comparison of that nature, for Sir Wiliam Logan 
has recently discovered that the Laurentian system consists of two 
great groups, the upper of which—the Labrador series—rests uncon- 
formably upon the more ancient or Laurentian series, and it is in the 
latter that these fossils have been found. Below the whole series of 
British stratified rocks and their unconformities it is therefore neces- 
sary to add the Labrador series, then another unconformity, and another 
great series of rocks, and not until then do we arrive at the geological 
position of these old Foraminifera. 

There is yet another point of interest connected with these ancient 
organisms, namely, their mineralization, Mr. Sterry Hunt having 
determined the substance which was formerly supposed to replace the 
calcareous skeleton of the animal, but which is now known to fill up 
the interspaces, to be true serpentine ; so that, although it was pretty 
certain before, there can now be no doubt whatever that that rock is 
sometimes of metamorphic origin. 

In a recent memoir, M. Alphonse Milne-Edwards discusses the 
‘Geological Distribution of Fossil Birds.’ Although most of the 
fossil remains of birds hitherto discovered have been found in Ter- 


* See ‘Canadian Naturalist and Geologist,’ vol. iv, 1859, p. 300. 


1864. | Geology and Paleontology. 477 


tiary strata, yet they are known to have existed at a period as early, 
perhaps, as that of the Connecticut sandstone, the footprints so abun- 
dant in that rock exhibiting characters such as belong normally to this 
class only; but inasmuch as bones of birds have not yet been found in 
the same rock, the fact of the existence of such animals at this remote 
period, can scarcely, as yet, be considered established, although Pro- 
fessor Dana, in analysing a coprolite discovered near the footprints, 
found in it so large a quantity of uric acid as to render it probable 
that it had been formed by a bird. 

If birds existed in the Triassic periods, their descendants or allies, 
must have lived during the deposition of all the succeeding strata ; 
and, until the discovery of the Archcopteryx, this was the only reason 
that could be given for supposing them to have existed during the 
Jurassic epoch. The discovery of that noted fossil supplied a link, 
until then wanting, in the life-history of the class, and thus rendered 
the probability of the Connecticut footsteps being due to birds much 
greater than it was before, by diminishing, in a wonderful degree, the 
gap between the two oldest known indications of ornithic life. The 
Archeopteryx has been described scientifically by Professor Owen, and 
popularly by a dozen or so of soi-disant ornithologists, so that further 
notice of it need not be taken here. 

Most of the bones of supposed birds found in Cretaceous strata 
have turned out to belong to other classes of animals, and in their 
investigation even Professor Owen appears not to have been free from 
error, as he described, under the name of Cimoliornis Diomedeus, some 
remains found by Lord Enniskillen in the chalk near Maidstone, 
which were afterwards shown by Dr. Bowerbank to be reptilian, and 
probably to belong to Pterodactylus giganteus. The result at which 
the author arrives is that the only undoubted evidences of Cretaceous 
birds are—(1), Their remains discovered by the late Mr. Barrett in 
the Cambridge Greensand ; and (2), Those cited by Mr. Harlan from 
the Greensand of New Jersey. 

Respecting the ornithic fauna of the Tertiary period, it must be 
sufficient to remark that remains of about 12 genera, represented by 
many species, have been found in the Paris Basin, besides at least 
seven kinds of tracks; and that the Miocene and later strata have 
afforded still more numerous remains, and the author of this paper 
indicates in it the characters of twelve new species from the Miocene 
strata of the Limagné. It must also be remembered that while a single 
species is of great interest when it constitutes all that is known of a 
fauna, it sinks into comparative insignificance when it forms, perhaps, 
but the fiftieth part of a known population. 

M. Alphonse Milne-Edwards concludes his paper by observing— 
(1) That the existence of Gastornis Parisiensis and of the imprints of 
gigantic feet in the Paris gypsum shows that during Eocene times there 
existed a fauna at least as perfect as that of the recent period ; (2) That 
the birds of the Miocene period differed but little from those of the pre- 
sent day, certain families, however, such as the Phenicopteride, which 
are scantily represented now, being rich in genera and species then ; and 


(8) That in the Quaternary period only the fauna of the present day 
2x2 


478 Chronicles of Science. | July, 


existed, such extinct species as occur in deposits of that age having 
since disappeared through the agency of man. 

Dr. Duncan has given in full the results of his researches on the 
Fossil Corals of Scinde, in a paper which appeared in the April num- 
ber of the ‘ Annals and Magazine of Natural History.’ He finds that 
of forty-two species occurring in the Hala mountains, in Scinde, and in 
Cutch, fourteen of which are new, at least eleven species are not of 
EKocene date, notwithstanding that MM. D’Archiac and Haime appear 
to have ignored the occurrence of coral-bearing Miocene strata in the 
great chain of hills extending from the ‘ Salt-range’ almost due south 
to Kurrachee, as they referred all such beds to the Nummulitic forma- 
tion. It has for a long time been suspected that this so-called 
Nummulitic formation of India might include a later Tertiary deposit, 
as was originally determined by Messrs. Grant and Sowerby, and from 
what has recently been done it appears that there is now very little 
doubt as to the correctness of this view, notwithstanding the assertions 
to the contrary made by MM. D’Archiac and Haime in their great work 
on the fossils from the strata in question. 

Mr. Searles Wood, jun., has this quarter published another con- 
tribution to the literature of the more recent strata, in continuation of 
those noticed in the last number of this Journal. From his researches, 
as detailed in his memoir “On the Belgian Equivalents of the Upper 
and Lower Drift of the Eastern Counties,” published in the ‘Annals and 
Magazine of Natural History’ for May, it appears that the sands and 
gravels underlying the Boulder-clay in Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex, to 
which he has given the name “ Lower Drift,” are probably the equiva- 
lents of the Campinian sands of Belgium ; and that the Boulder-clay, 
or “ Upper Drift,’ is the equivalent of the Loess of Belgium and the 
Rhine. This view differs essentially from that taken by many eminent 
geologists respecting the correlation of these deposits, and as the ques- 
tion rests entirely on stratigraphical and physical considerations, it 
can be discussed only by those who possess very considerable local 
knowledge of the deposits. 

Mr. Wood’s papers have, however, placed the matter on a footing 
somewhat different from that on which it rested previously to their 
publication, for he has applied the terms “ Upper Drift” and ‘“ Lower 
Drift’ to deposits which have until now been confounded together, 
with other more recent accumulations, under the general title of 
‘“‘ Drift.” So indefinite has been the meaning attached to this word 
“ Drift,” in respect of the age of the deposits to which it has been 
applied, that Mr. Wood does not appear to have been quite happy in 
his choice of terms; for if we confine the application of the term 
“ Upper Drift” to the Boulder-clay, and of that of ‘“ Lower Drift” to 
the sands and gravels between it and the Red Crag, which have never 
before been treated of as a distinct deposit, what are we to call all 
those accumulations of sand, gravel, and clay, which are newer than 
the Boulder-clay, and to which the term “ Drift” has hitherto been 
more commonly applied ? 


1864. | Geology and Paleontology. 479 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SocIEery. 


The last number of the Quarterly Journal of this Society can 
scarcely be said to be “full of interest” in other than a purely tech- 
nical sense; but the Anniversary Address of the President, Herr von 
Koenen’s paper on Oligocene Deposits in England, Professor Hind’s 
remarks on Glacial Drift, and a memoir on Permian Rocks, by Sir 
R. I. Murchison and Professor Harkness, all contain matter of general 
interest ; we shall, therefore, notice them first, and then discuss the 
Annual Report of the Council. 

1. Professor Ramsay’s Anniversary Address is prefaced, as usual, 
by the award of the Wollaston Medal and Donation-fund, the former 
of which was this year given to Sir R. I. Murchison; and were it not 
for the President’s explanation—that the distinguished recipient had 
served uninterruptedly on the Council of the Society for thirty-two 
years, and was thus prevented from having conferred upon him befcre 
an honour he so well deserves—we should have marvelled at the 
omission. The accident of his temporary retirement from the Coun- 
cil, as one of its senior members, has been well and gracefully taken 
advantage of by his associates for the purpose of showing their appre- 
ciation of his vast services to geology in a manner so agreable to 
himself. 

The Address itself is a continuation of that of last year, noticed in 
the last number of this Journal. As on the former occasion, Professor 
Ramsay discussed the ‘Breaks in the Succession of the British 
Paleozoic Strata,” so in this Address he treats more especially of the 
** Breaks in the Succession of the British Mesozoic Strata ;” but there 
are some collateral subjects discussed first, to which we must refer for 
a moment. 

The first subject is that of the “‘ Commencement of the Prevalence 
of Secondary Genera in Carboniferous Times,” and it is certainly a 
remarkable one as treated by Professor Ramsay. Every disbeliever 
in cataclysms and sudden great creations must have long been familiar 
with the idea that some of the secondary genera appeared by degrees 
for the first time during some one or more of the Palzozoic periods ; 
but, so far as we know, it has never before been shown what great 
fauna contains the first faint indication of secondary types. We may 
be certain of the existence of a needle in a haystack, but few of us have 
the energy or the skill to find it. But it is just such an operation as 
would be required in that case, that Professor Ramsay has performed 
with the vast mass of Paleozoic genera. 

Referring, next, to the enormous lapse of time between the Permian 
and the Trias, as evidenced by “the disturbance, contortion, partial 
upheaval into land, and vast denudations which the Paleozoic rocks 
underwent before and during the deposition of the New Red Sandstone 
in the west of Europe,’ and as sufficient reason why there should be 
so great a difference between the fauna of the latest Paleozoic period, 
and that of the earliest Secondary epoch, Professor Ramsay then dis- 
cusses the relations of the faune of the different Secondary formations 


480 Chronicles of Science. | July, 


and their subdivisions. He bases his arguments upon the percentages 
of species common to the formations next in time to one another, as 
shown in tables perfectly bewildering in their complexity, and accord- 
ing as he finds them great or small, aided by stratigraphical consider- 
ations, so does he infer the existence or non-existence of an uncon- 
formity or of a break between them. 

The two principal breaks shown to exist are—l. That between the 
Bunter and Keuper strata—represented on the continent by the Mus- 
chelkalk and the St. Cassian beds; and—2. That between the Oolitic 
and Cretaceous formations, which is represented, wholly or in part, by 
the Wealden and Purbeck beds. 

In conclusion Professor Ramsay enunciates a general principle 
which he has inferred from his researches on breaks in succession, as 
follows :—“ Making, as we can often do, all liberal allowances for diver- 
sities of marine and terrestrial conditions, I cannot resist the general 
inference that, in cases of superposition, in proportion as the species are 
more or less continuous, that is to say, as the break in life is partial or 
complete, first, in the species, but more importantly in the loss of old and 
the appearance of new allied or unallied genera, so was the interval of 
time shorter or longer that elapsed between the close of the lower and the 
commencement of the wpper formation ; and so it often happens that 
strata a few yards in thickness, or, more notably still, the absence of 
these strata, may serve to indicate a period of time as great as that 
represented by the vast accumulations of the whole Silurian series.” 
Let him now calculate the age of the world who can. 

2. Herr von Koenen’s short paper, ‘“‘ On the Oligocene Deposits of 
Belgium, Northern Germany, and the South of England,” is the result 
of a visit made by the author—a young German geologist—to the Isle 
of Wight and Hampshire, during which he managed to show, by means 
of fossils collected by himself, that certain strata known as the Middle 
Headon beds, which contain freshwater shells in the Isle of Wight, 
but marine fossils at Brockenhurst, belong to the Lower Oligocene 
formation of Germany. Of course Herr von Koenen advocates the 
adoption of Professor Beyrich’s term “ Oligocene,” on the propriety, 
or rather the necessity, of which opinions are divided in England, but 
the question is too complicated to be discussed in an abstract, 
However, the paper shows us that in that often-explored region— 
the Isle of Wight and Hampshire—the young geologist may still be 
rewarded by making discoveries of interest. 

3. In his paper on “Supposed Glacial Drift in the Labrador 
Peninsula, Western Canada, and on the South Branch of the Saskat- 
chewan,” Professor Hind describes phenomena, some of which occur 
on so grand a scale that, paradoxical as it may appear, they would be 
overlooked by the ordinary observer. Many of these phenomena have 
resulted from the operation of the forces that produced the present 
physical configuration of the surface. Of this nature are the terraces 
so abundant in the line of country between Lake Winnipeg, and the 
Grand Coteau de Missouri, in which region occur several precipitous 
escarpments facing North or North-east, the opposite face of the 
mountain always consisting of gently sloping plateaux separated by 


1864. | Geology and Paleontology. 481 


terraces. ‘These escarpments, though hundreds of miles in length, 
are all roughly parallel to one another, and appear to have a common 
origin, The author considers that they are all due to glacial action 
in some form or another, and he adopts Mr. Jamieson’s explanation of 
the origin of the Parallel Roads of Glen Roy to account for the 
formation of the beaches and terraces of North America, The 
probability of their not being due to the action of the sea is increased 
by a very curious fact, namely, that in the state of Wisconsin there is 
an area of more than 3,000 square miles in extent, which is perfectly 
barren of drift and terraces, and in which no organic remains have 
been found other than those of Paleozoic rocks, with the exception of 
those of land-animals and plants. The inference drawn from these 
facts by the geologist who explored the region—Professor Whitney— 
was that this area has not been submerged since the Upper Silurian 
period, If this be so, of course the terraces, beaches, and drift in the 
neighbouring regions could not have been the result of the action of 
the sea, but must have been produced by a local cause ; and the same 
inference will hold good if it can be shown that the driftless area of 
Wisconsin has remained above the level of the sea ever since the 
close of the Pliocene period, a conclusion much more likely to be 
accepted than the larger inference of Professor Whitney. The re- 
markable abundance of erratics in the regions described renders their 
absence in the “ Driftless Area” still more singular, although in the 
valley of the Moisie they appear to be entirely wanting at less heights 
above the sea than 1,000 feet. 

Professor Hind endeavours to explain all the phenomena, including 
beaches, terraces, escarpments, lakes, striw, &c., as well as the forced 
arrangement of blocks of limestone (at an angle of about 45°) in 
Boulder-clay, by reference to ice-action, either direct or indirect ; 
and he also reminds us that he promulgated the view that the great 
lakes were excavated by ice in the year 1859. His views regarding 
the particular form of ice-action by means of which lake-basins have 
been excavated appear rather improbable; he supposes that anchor- 
ice, formed in the rapid streams issuing from glaciers, may have begun 
the excavation by floating masses of rock from their beds to the 
surface, and that the glacier itself may have afterwards enlarged the 
depression. It is easy to see that the formation and action of anchor- 
ice could not be continued very long, as the process is self-destroying ; 
for in proportion as the depression produced became larger and 
deeper, the quantity of anchor-ice formed would become less, that is, 
granting the author’s own premises ; and it seems scarcely probable 
that a glacier, if it can excavate a lake-basin, should do so at or near 
its termination, or where it is on the point of melting, its force being 
there reduced to a minimum. 

4. The chief object of the paper “ On the Permian Rocks of the 
North-west of England, and their Extension into Scotland,’ by Sir 
R. I. Murchison and Professor Harkness, is to prove that certain 
masses of red sandstone in the north-west of England belong to the 
Permian formation and not to the 'l'rias. By this alteration in the 
classification of these rocks, which is necessarily founded on strati- 


482 Chronicles of Science. | July, 


graphical considerations, the authors are enabled to show that the 
Permian strata of the north-west of England consist of three members, 
namely, the Rothliegende or Lower Permian, the Magnesian Lime- 
stone (Zechstein) or Middle Permian, and the sandstones in question 
forming the Upper Permian; and they bring forward this fact as an 
argument against the adoption of the new term * Dyas,” proposed by 
Dr. Geitnitz. Whether this particular view of the relations of the 
Permian Rocks in the north-west of England be right or wrong, we 
do not see why an old-established name, against which there can be 
no possible objection that is not frivolous, should be abandoned for a 
new one, which is very likely not to be appropriate in all cases. 
The term “Trias” was adopted for two reasons: firstly, because it 
was proposed by von Alberti, who first clearly showed the relations 
and connection between the different members of the formation ; 
and, secondly, because it was found to be appropriate. On the same 
principle, the term Permian, which was proposed by Sir R. I. 
Murchison, and has answered every purpose for so many years, having 
been used by every writer on the subject since it was established, may 
surely be allowed to remain now, when there is no good cause for 
displacing it ; for although Dyas and Trias may sound well together, 
Geology is not Poetry, that it should reject reason for want of rhyme ! 

5. The Annual Report of the Council contains this year a résumé 
of the contents of the Society's Museum, in addition to the usual 
statements respecting the general condition of the Society, which 
appears to be extremely prosperous. The remarks on the Collections 
of Specimens of Rocks and Fossils are chiefly utilitarian in character, 
as they refer more to the value of the collections as materials for 
study, and to the facilities afforded by the Society for that purpose, 
than to the absolute scientific worth of the Museum. We very much 
doubt whether this is the legitimate light in which the matter should 
be looked at, but to discuss it thoroughly would require us at once to 
plunge into the depths of that fundamental question— What is the proper 
object for the Society to keep in view, as the end and aim for which 
they retain and keep in order a large Collection at a great expense. 
This matter, though very important to the Society, can scarcely be 
argued here; but so far as we understand it, it appears to us that 
the Museum of a learned Society is designed, not so much to instruct 
the tyro, as to form a storehouse of classical specimens, such as have 
been specially described in the Society’s own publications or else- 
where, as well as those from remote and little known localities, 
which have never been determined. Of course, specimens for com- 
parison are indispensable, but mere show-specimens and endless 
varieties of rocks and fossils from all sorts of localities—duplicates 
in all essential respects —are out of place. 

The excellent collection of British Rocks and Fossils at the 
Museum of Practical Geology renders the Society’s British Collection, 
so incomplete as it is, of comparatively slight value, and it seems a 
question worthy the consideration of the Council, whether it would 
not be advisable to re-arrange their British specimens on the same 
plan as that on which their Foreign Collection is now disposed, 


1864. | Microscopy. 483 


rejecting all but type specimens, in which, especially those relating to 
the early days of the science, the Society is very rich. 

These remarks have occurred to us from reading the statement 
respecting the present unsatisfactory condition of the Collection of 
British Rocks and Fossils, and contrasting it with the really useful 
manner, in which, thanks to the late Mr. Horner, their foreign 
specimens are now arranged. 


VII. MICROSCOPY. 
(Including the Proceedings of the Microscopical Society.) 


Tur immense field of research which is open to the microscopical 
worker is daily entered upon by fresh labourers. The journals of 
Natural Science throughout Europe and America teem with new dis- 
coveries and new details of knowledge obtained by the use of this 
instrument. The length of our Chronicles, however, compels us to 
postpone many interesting facts to a future number, and we must con- 
tent ourselves chiefly with a brief record of what is passing at home 
in accordance with the limited space at our disposal. 

Professor Allman has recently shown that certain parts of the 
organisms of the Hydroida consist of Amcebiform protoplasm, and that 
pseudopodia in every way comparable to the pseudopodia of the 
Ameebe are emitted from these masses. The singular bodies known 
as “nematophores,” which are produced as buds at definite spots upon 
the hydrosoma of the Plumulariade, and contain clusters of large 
thread-cells, appear to consist of a granular protoplasm similar to that 
composing the Amcebzee. When examined in a trough of sea-water 
under the microscope, this mass of protoplasm may be seen to slowly 
elongate itself into variously-shaped processes, exactly like the pseudo- 
podium of an Amceba. This occurs more particularly in Antennularia 
antennina. 

Professor H. Karsten has been renewing his researches on the 
development and structure of the Vegetable Cell. His very lengthy 
and elaborate paper, containing as it does an interesting notice of 
original observations on this subject, has been translated in the‘ Annals 
and Magazine of Natural History’ for March and April. 

The microscope, when applied to investigating the minute anatomy 
of the smaller forms of insect life, is sure to be productive of new and 
interesting facts; and it is, indeed, much to be desired that we had 
more observations of this nature on record. Dr. Leonard Landois has 
published a very complete monograph of the anatomy of Ptharius 
inguinalis, in which the minutest details of its structure and anatomy 
have been followed out with great care and highly interesting results. 
The blood of insects is one of those fluids among the invertebrate 
animals about which so much remains to be learned. Like the blood 
of vertebrate animals, it is corpusculated, and contains much mineral 


484 Chronicles of Science. | July, 


matter. The fluids of the Annelida, though hardly comparable to the 
blood of the insect, also contain corpuscles, the intra-visceral fluid 
being the most remarkable on this account, whilst the respiratory fluid 
contained in distinct vessels is in general brightly coloured, and also, 
though less obviously, contains corpuscles. Dr. H. Landois has 
devoted considerable attention to the study of the blood of insects. 
By allowing the liquid to evaporate, he has succeeded in obtaining the 
various salts of the blood in a crystallized condition, and has been 
enabled thus to ascertain the nature of the mineral constituents of the 
blood in many of, the commoner forms of Coleoptera and Orthoptera. 
They are found to differ in various species, as does also the form of the 
blood corpuscle. 

We may notice here a form of microscope made by Mr. Ladd, of 
Beak Street, and specially adapted for use in museums and public 
galleries. Two of these instruments have for some time been in use 
in the Food Museum at South Kensington, and have answered their 
purpose most satisfactorily. The instrument is an ordinary compound 
microscope, with a revolving stage capable of receiving a dozen objects 
at the same time. By turning the disc, the objects are brought in suc- 
cession under the eye of the observer. The focus is kept fixed, as is 
also the reflector, so that an inexperienced person cannot disturb the 
arrangement, which may be made by one of the functionaries of the 
Museum. If such instruments as these were placed in the galleries of 
the British Museum and such places of public instruction, supplied 
with suitable objects, it would add greatly to their general usefulness 
and interest. Among the various works which have been published 
during the past quarter, for the purpose of assisting the student im the 
use of the microscope, is one by Dr. J. W. Griffith, conjoint author of 
the ‘ Micrographical Dictionary,’ entitled ‘An Elementary Text-Book 
of the Microscope.’ The figures, of which there are over four hundred, 
are very well executed, and contain drawings from among almost every 
class of objects likely to come under the student’s observation. We 
notice the work fully in another section of this Journal. 

The formation of societies intended to unite individuals engaged or 
interested in studies connected with the microscope must always be 
hailed with pleasure, as indicating an advance in the progress of 
Microscopical Science. A Microscopical Society has been formed at 
the University of Oxford, under the presidency of Dr. Acland, the 
Regius Professor of Medicine: many distinguished members of the 
university have joined the Society, and it is to be expected that an 
impulse will be given thereby to independent research, which cannot 
but lead to important results. 


MicroscoricaL Soctery or Lonpon. 


Although the meetings of the Society have been well attended during 
the past quarter, yet few papers of interest have been communicated. 
Dr. Greville, who has worked so indefatigably at the group of the 
Diatomacesw, continued his series of papers on “New and Rare 


1864. | : Microscopy. 485 


Diatoms.” Indeed the deposit in the Barbadoes, from which most of 
his new species are derived, seems to be inexhaustible. Like similar 
deposits in the island of Mull, in Sweden, and the coast of Africa, 
the “ Barbadoes earth” is composed of little else but the skeletons of 
these most beautiful and elegant plants. The abundance of species in 
a single locality is indeed very remarkable, for here is a truly fossil 
deposit, richer already in some extensive genera than any other known 
locality, while various genera of singular structure appear to be alto- 
gether peculiar to it. Forty-four species were detected some short time 
since in an examination of the water of the river Thames, as supplied 
to London by the various water companies, but here we have a variety 
of species which far exceed that number. The new species described 
by Dr. Greville belong to the genera, Hupodiscus, Aulacodiscus, Auliscus, 
Biddulphia, Triceratium, and Entogonia, Microscopists and natural- 
ists generally are much indebted to Dr. Greville for the persevering 
manner in which he pursues his researches on this subject. 

On the 8th of June a most valuable and important paper on “'The 
Structure of the Sarcolemma of the Muscular Fibres of Insects, and on 
the Exact Relation of the Nerves and Trachee to the Contractile 'Tis- 
sue,” was communicated by Dr. Lionel 8. Beale, F.R.S., physician to 
King’s College Hospital, and Professor of Physiology and General and 
Morbid Anatomy, in King’s College, London. This paper contained 
new observations by the author relating to the mode of distribution of 
nerves to voluntary muscles. It is a continuation of his researches 
upon this subject, published in the ‘ Philosophical Transactions’ for 
the years 1860, 1862, and 1863, and in the ‘Archives of Medicine,’ 
vols. ii. and iy. In the present communication he showed that the air- 
tubes or trachez ramified very finely over every part of the sarcolemma, 
anastomosing with one another, so as to form a network, the meshes of 
which were a little wider than the strize of the muscle. The nerve 
fibres divided until very delicate ultimate branches, less than +,4,,th 
of an inch in diameter, resulted ; but each of these consisted of a great 
number of individual fibres. 'These branches appear to become lost upon 
the surface of the sarcolemma ; but by examining specimens preserved in 
strong glycerin, and in which the contractile tissue had been ruptured 
at the moment of death within the tube of the sarcolemma, the bundle 
of nerve fibres was seen to break up into a plexus of extremely minute 
fibres, from which branches passed and ramified in the form of a net- 
work, or secondary plexus over every part of the sarcolemma. The 
appearances demonstrated in the author’s specimens were utterly 
incompatible with the notion entertained by certain continental physi- 
ologists, that the nerve terminated by free ends upon the surface of 
the sarcolemma, or by blending with this structure; and also with 
the doctrine that the nerve perforates the sarcolemma and comes into 
actual contact with the muscular tissue. 

The observations were made upon the common maggot or larva of 
the meat fly with the aid of powers varying from 1,000 to 2,500 
linear. 

The general conclusion is, that as in vertebrate animals, the nerve 
forms a network or plexus, which ramifies over every part of the 


486 Chronicles of Science. [ July, 


elementary muscular fibre; but the branches do not come into contact 
with the contractile tissue itself, or with its nuclei in any part. 

These observations of Dr. Beale, in connection with his former 
researches, must serve to establish very important results with regard 
to the morphology of the nervous system. It seems to be now a 
definitely established fact that the ultimate fibres of the nervous cords 
do not end in free extremities, but form a connected network or plexus. 


VIII. MINING, MINERALOGY, AND METALLURGY. 


Minne. 


Tue rapidity with which our blast furnaces swallow up iron ore na- 
turally gives rise to much anxiety, lest the supply should be unequal 
to the demand. 

Nearly eight millions of tons of ore are required to meet the pre- 
sent necessities of manufacture. Eagerly, therefore, are the native 
stores of iron ore sought out, and this eagerness is rewarded by many 
new and important discoveries. 

At Belsdale, the place probably which was once worked by the 
Monks of Rivaulx Abbey, a large deposit of iron ore has been dis- 
covered. It had been traced in the Howardian Hills, the Derwent 
Valley, and near Malton. At Oldstead, near Coxwold, and at Keldy 
Castle, near Pickering, an excellent ore has been opened upon. We 
are gradually finding the links which form the chain of the vast de- 
posits of ore extending from Whitby, with some brief interruptions due 
to geological changes, through Lincolnshire, across Northamptonshire 
and the adjoining counties, to Oxfordshire. 

In the Western counties, a similar activity exists, and many new 
discoveries have been made. We are receiving some considerable im- 
portations of iron ore from Norway. This Norwegian ore is of a re- 
markable character, being, indeed, a titaniferous iron ore, much of it 
containing 30 per cent. of titanic acid. It is thought that this ore 
will be of great value in the manufacture of steel, and an English com- 
pany is formed to work the Norwegian mines. 

A series of experiments have been tried in Doleoath Mine, in Corn- 
wall, on the use of gun-cotton instead of gunpowder, in blasting the 
rocks. Baron Lenk’s gun-cotton, as prepared by Messrs. Prentice and 
Co., was used, and the results were, on the whole, satisfactory; a 
larger quantity of rock being displaced with a quantity of gun-cotton 
less than one-half the weight of gunpowder required. We shall re- 
port all further experiments which may be made. 

There are no novelties to record in connection with British mining. 
Nearly all our Mineral industries are, at present, working under the 
pressure due to the low prices of metal. There has been, and, to a 
certain extent there still continues, a great deal of unnatural excite- 
ment in connection with mining speculations. The result must prove 
to be, in every way, disastrous for the actual satisfactory exploration of 


1864. | Mining, Mineralogy, and Metallurgy. 487 


mineral districts. Gambling transactions, and they are nothing more, 
cannot be associated healthfully with any legitimate industry. 

We had hoped the Mines Commission would ere this have made 
their Report to the House of Commons. We are informed that this 
Report, which is a most voluminous one, will be published during the 
ensuing month. It is unfortunate that the recommendations it may 
give, will not have the advantage of that consideration, during this 
session of Parliament, which so important a matter, as the health of 
our mining population, demands. We hope that Lord Kinnaird, or 
some of the Members of the House of Commons, who are on this 
Commission, will embrace an early opportunity next Session of pro- 
curing some legislative enactments to prevent the recurrence of those 
conditions which are easily remediable, and which involve the loss of 
life and the destruction of health amongst the metalliferous miners. 

We are pleased to see that Mr. H. Curwen Salmon has commenced a 
series of papers ‘On the Mines and Mining Operations of Cornwall.”* 
No man can treat this subject more satisfactorily than Mr. Salmon, 
some of whose descriptions of our large and important mines have been 
very valuable contributions to this class of literature. At the Dudley 
Scientific Art and Industrial Exhibition, there was held a conference 
on Practical Mining. Mr. Rupert Kettle read on that occasion a paper 
“On the wasteful methods of working the South Staffordshire coals,” 
and called attention to many sources of loss in connection with the 
system persevered in by the ground bailiffs of that district. There 
was some angry feeling manifested; but there is every reason for 
hoping that much good will result from this conference, and that the 
South Staffordshire coal proprietors, and the colliers, will have to 
thank Mr. Kettle for calling attention to their shortcomings. 

Mr. Arundel Rogers, Barrister-at-Law, of the Inner Temple, has 
supplied a want in a very satisfactory manner. Few things are more 
obscured than the laws relating to Mining and Minerals. Mr. Rogers 
has endeavoured to give in a clear and comprehensive manner a state- 
ment of the laws of mines in England, Ireland, and Scotland.t Every 
one being connected with mining explorations, would act wisely to 
possess this work. 

Having a remote connection with our subject, we may direct at- 
tention to a singular instance which has been brought forward to prove 
the preservative powers of the waters of old mines. M. Morin ex- 
hibited before the Academy of Sciences of Paris a piece of pine-wood, 
a portion of a wheel which has been found in an ancient mine in Por- 
tugal. It is believed to be at least 1,400 years old, and is now ina 
tolerably complete condition in the Conservatoire des Arts et Meétiers. 
This preservation is due without doubt to the influence of solutions of 
sulphates of iron and of copper in the waters of this abandoned mine. 

* «The Mining and Smelting Magazine: a Monthly Review of Mining, Quarry- 
ing, and Metallurgy,’ &e. May, 1864. Simpkin & Marshall, London. 

+ ‘The Laws of Mines, Minerals, and Quarries in Great Britain and Ireland ; 
with a Summary of the Laws of Foreign States, and practical directions for 


obtaining Government Grants to Work Foreign Mines. By Arundell Rogers, Esq. 
London : Stevens, Sons, & Haynes. 


488 Chronicles of Science. [ July; 


The writer of this notice has in his possession a piece of timber, 
believed to be oak, which was found in Pontpean mine, Normandy, 
where it had no doubt lain from the period when the Romans worked 
the mine. It is intensely black, but as solid as it ever was. 

At the “Stream Works” for tin at Carnon and at Pentnam, in Corn- 
wall, seventy feet below the present surface, oak shovels have been 
discovered which were probably used by the British miners who sup- 
plied the Tyrian merchants with tin. Similar implements have been 
found in the ancient mines of Dartmoor, and in the Roman mines of 
Cardiganshire. ‘These instances sufficiently prove the preservative 
powers of the sulphates of the metals. 


MINERALOGY. 


An interesting examination of some minerals of the chlorite group 
has been made by Mr. John B. Pearse.* The diversities of colour 
among the varieties of the mineral species are in many cases still un- 
explained. The Kaémmererite from Lancaster county, Penn., for ex- 
ample, is of three kinds, one coloured pure green, a second red and 
green, while the third is pure red. Mr. Pearse’s investigations were 
to determine the cause of this variation. We cannot transfer to our 
pages all the results obtained and the discussion on them ; these must 
be sought in the original paper. The chief conclusion is, that “ the 
cause of the difference of colour is unanswered by analysis. It is 
possibly due to molecular arrangement.” 

The name of Grastite is proposed for the new green variety, and 
Grastite and Kimmererite may be supposed to be formed thus :— 


Grastite—1 atom of kaolin. Kammererite—1 atom of kaolin. 
2. a. olivine. 3 » olivine. 

5 »  brucite. 1 » Serpentine. 
5 »  brucite. 


Mr. T. Sterry Hunt commences in ‘ Silliman’s Journal’ his “ Con- 
tributions to Lithology.’t No one has contributed more to the 
Chemistry of Rock-formations than Mr. Sterry Hunt; we may there- 
fore regard those papers as valuable aids to our knowledge. Re- 
ferring especially to the formation of granite, and to Mr. Sorby’s dis- 
covery of fluid cavities in the quartz crystals,—one of the constituents 
of that rock,—Mr. Sterry Hunt has the following remarks, which from 
their high interest we think especially deserving of note :— 


“The admirable investigations of Sorby on the microscopic structure 
of crystals, have demonstrated that water has intervened in the crystalliza- 
tion of almost all Plutonic rocks. He has shown that quartz, both of granite 
and of crystalline schists, contains great numbers of small cavities partially 
filled with water, or with concentrated aqueous solutions of chlorides, 
sulphates of potassium, sodium, calcium, magnesium, sometimes with free 
chlorhydric acid. . . . As these fluid-cavities enclosed the liquid at 
an elevated temperature, its subsequent cooling has produced a partial 


* «The American Journal of Science and Arts.’ (Silliman.) Vol. xxxvii. No. 
110, March, 1864. 

+ ‘The American Journal of Science and Arts.’ (Silliman,) Vol. xxxvii. No. 
110, March, 1864. ~ 


1864. | Mining, Mineralogy, and Metallurgy. 489 


vacuum, which is again filled on heating the crystal ; so that the tempera- 
ture of the crystals at the time of their formation may be approximately 
determined.” . . . Mr. Sorby has determined this temperature, and 
“represents the lowest temperature at which the consolidation could have 
taken place, which varies from 340° C, to 380°C, in the Vesuvian minerals, 
and 356° in the quartz of the trachyte of Ponza; to the mean of 216° in 
the Cornish granites, to 99° in those of the Scottish Highlands, and even 
descends to 89° in some parts of the granite of Aberdeen. Mr. Sorby has 
calculated the pressure in feet, of rock, which would be required to com- 
press the liquid so much that it would just fill the cavities at 360°C. The 
numbers thus obtained will therefore represent the actual pressure, pro- 
vided the rock was in each case consolidated at that temperature. It 
would thus appear that the trachyte of Ponza was solidified near the sur- 
face, or beneath a pressure of only 4,000 feet of rock ; while for the Aber- 
deen granite the pressure was equal to not less than 78,000 feet, and for 
the mean of the Highland granites 76,000. The Cornish granites vary 
from 32,400 to 63,000, and give, as a mean, 50,000 feet of pressure. In 
this connection Mr. Sorby remarks that, from Mr. Robert Hunt’s observa- 
tions on the mean increase of temperature in the mines of Cornwall, a 
heat of 360° C. would be attained at a depth of 53,500 feet.” 


In relation to this subject, the experiments made by Dr. Fairbairn, 
in Dukinfield Colliery, should be named. Ina lecture on “ Natural 
Laws’’* recently delivered by that gentleman, the results are thus 
given. It should be stated that Dukinfield is above 2,100 feet, or 
upwards of 350 fathoms in depth. “The amount of increase indi- 
cated in these experiments is, from 51° to 57° 40’, from 20 to 693 feet 
below the surface, or 1° in 99 feet; but, if we state the results which 
are more reliable, namely, those between 693 and 2,055 feet, we have 
an increase of temperature from 57° 40’ to 75° 30’, or a mean increase 
of 1° in 76°8 feet. This rate of increase is not widely different from 
that obtained by other authorities, such as Walfeoden and Arago, who 
found an increase of 1° in 59 feet. Other experiments have given an 
increase of 1° in 71 feet.” Dr. Fairbairn, with Dr. Joule, made an 
extensive series of experiments to ascertain at what depth beneath the 
surface of the earth the rocks would become fluid with this increase of 
temperature. “If,” says Dr. Fairbairn, “we assume the rate of in- 
crease to be continued to a depth of nearly 3 miles, we arrive at the 
temperature of boiling water ; at 39 miles we attain an amount of heat 
equivalent to 3,000°, which would melt the hardest rocks.” The ex- 
periments to which we have referred were specially to determine if the 
melting point of bodies was influenced by pressure—the result was, 
“an increase in the temperature of fusion proportional to the pressure to 
which the fused mass was subjected.” ‘* All these conditions tend to 
increase the solid thickness of the earth’s crust, and we may venture to 
state that ata depth of 100 miles we should find a pressure equal to 
1,200,000 Ibs., or nearly 600 tons on the square inch.” The ratio of 
increase in the temperature of fusion being 1° for every 500 Ibs. pres- 
sure; therefore, taking 2,000° F. as the temperature of fusion at the 


* Two Lectures on Iron and its Applications, &c., and on Natural Laws, 
delivered to the members of the Literary and Philosophical Society, Newcastle-on- 
Tyne, by William Fairbairn, C.E., LL.D., F-R.S., F.G:S. 


490 Chronicles of Science. [July, 


surface of the earth, a temperature of 4,600° would be required at the 
depth of 100 miles. ‘“ Reasoning from these facts, we came to the con- 
clusion that the earth’s nucleus, under the enormous pressure to which 
it is subjected, may not be fluid but solid, or probably in a semi-fluid 
state.” 

In the Swiney Lectures on Geology, recently delivered by Dr. 
Perey in the Theatre of the Royal School of Mines,* the lecturer 
states, that there are many difficulties which have always stood in the 
way of receiving the hypothesis that granite is an igneous rock, 
** difficulties” known, at all events, to those who have been accustomed 
to make experiments on the fusion of minerals at high temperatures. 
This is especially seen by examining the condition of quartz; it is 
always found in the crystalline condition, and has invariably a spe- 
cific gravity of 2°6. There is not a single instance known to the con- 
trary. Hence there is reason to believe that the quartz never could 
have been fused, for the moment silica is fused, no matter in what 
condition it was previously, a peculiar glass-like colloidal mass is pro- 
duced, having a specific gravity, which never exceeds 2:3. Therefore, 
there is good reason to conclude that granite could never have been 
formed under the condition of a high temperature. 

Rammelsberg has recently presented to the Physico-Mathematical 
class of the Berlin Academy of Sciences a memoir upon the combi- 
nations of the oxide of lead and titanic acid which are found native. 

Some very fine examples of the mineral vanadinite had been ob- 
tained from Windiskappel, in Carinthia. 

We find an extensive examination of the vanadium minerals 
has been made by Czudnowicz.t He shows that the determination of 
vanadiec acid in the rhom/ic vanadinite from Carinthia is incorrect, and 
the conclusions that the mineral was a simple vanadate of lead is not 
justified. His analyses show it to be a ter-basic vanadate of lead and 
zine. 

e the granite of the Island of Elba, associated with beryl, tour- 
maline, and quartz, two substances were found long since, to which 
the names of Castor and Pollux were given. These minerals were - 
described by Breithaupt, and subsequently examined by Plattner. On 
the authority of this analysis Gmelin says, ‘ Pollux appears to contain 
a larger quantity of alkali than any other known silicate mineral.” It 
has now been more closely examined by M. Felix Pisani, and the 
results obtained by this chemist have been communicated by Henri 
Sainte Claire Deville to the Academy of Sciences of Paris. The 
analyses of Plattner and Pisani agree very nearly as far as the silica 
and alumina are concerned. In place, however, of the potash and 


* These lectures have been most satisfactorily reported in the ‘Chemical 
News.’ 

+ ‘ Poggendorff’s Annalen,’ vol. cxx. 

+ ‘Revue Universelle des Mines, de la Meétallurgie, des Travaux Publics, des 
Sciences et des Arts—appliqués & I’Industrie,’ sous la direction de M. Ch. de 
Cuyper. This journal contains several valuable papers on mineralogy, metallurgy, 
and mining, with notices of the allied science geology, and of the applications of 
science to manufacture. We shall, from time to time, avail ourselves of the useful 
matter which this journal may communicate. 


1864. | Mining, Mineralogy, and Metallurgy. 491 


soda of the former, M. Pisani has given owide of caesium, which metal 
was mistaken for the alkalies by Plattner. This is the first mineral 
discovered with a known base of the new metal czesium. 

M. Pisani has also discovered cxsium in the rose lepidolithe or 
lithia mica of Elba, and with it a considerable quantity of the metal 
rubidium. * 

Sources from which the new metal thalliwm—which was discovered 
by Mr. Crookes—may be obtained, are increasing upon us. Mr, Emer- 
son Reynolds informs the Royal Geological Society of Ireland of the 
existence of a thalliferous pyrites in Ballydehob, county Cork; and 
M. Schrotter announces to the Imperial Academy of Sciences of Vienna 
the presence of this metal in the lepidolithe of Moravia (a lithia mica) 
and in the mica of Linnwald, Bohemia. 

‘A Popular and Practical Exposition of the Minerals and Geology 
of Canada’ has t been published by Professor Chapman. This volume 
gives a popular, yet full sketch of the Mineralogy and Geology of 
Canada, ; 

Mr. N. 8. Maskelyne communicates { the discovery of a new 
mineral] from Cornwall, “ prismatic, in crystalline form, and consisting 
probably of a basic sulphate of copper, insoluble in water. It occurs 
in minute but brilliant crystals, and in fine masses of the richest blue 
colour; it forms a thick incrustation upon a tender killas.” 

The phenomenon of asterism in natural crystals will be familiar 
to most persons; it 1s not so generally known that this may be pro- 
duced artificially. Rose showed long since that the star of mica 
could be produced upon isinglass by impressing the mica on it. G. 
A. Griiel§ gives a very simple method for producing asterism ; a piece 
of glass is cut into a triangular figure, and then rubbed backwards 
and forwards a few times on a sheet of fine emery paper, each of the 
three sides being successively guided against a metal rule, which, at 
the same time being pressed on the emery paper, keeps it in position. 

We have found that we may obtain glasses exhibiting any number 
of radial lines by fixing the glass on a lathe. The lathe enables us to 
produce a figure with any number of sides, and the application of the 
emery paper or a fine file, parallel to each side, is carried out without 
difficulty. 

A lignite of superior quality is said to have been discovered in the 
Punjaub. This discovery has been made about 150 miles north of 
Lahore, upon the borders of Jhelum, a little to the west of the road 
to Peshawur, nearly on the line of the railway projected by Mr. 
Andrews from Lahore to Peshawur. It has been analysed for the 
Railway Company, and it is said to be for use in locomotive engines 
superior to the coal found in Bengal. This lignite is therefore neces- 
sarily exciting considerable interest, for if it exists in large quantity, 
which is said to be the case, it will materially facilitate the extension 
of the railway system in the Punjaub. 


* L'Institut, and Les Mondes. 

+ By E. J. Chapman, Ph.D., Prof. University College, Toronto. Toronto, 1864. 
{ ‘Philosophical Magazine,’ No. 182, April, 1864. 

§ ‘ Poggendorff's Annalen,’ vol. exvii. p. 635. 

VOL. I. 21 


492 Chronicles of Science. | July, 


METALLURGY. 


Various attemps have from time to time been made to obtain mal- 
leable iron or steel directly from the blast furnace. A few only of 
these experiments can be regarded as having been successful. At the 
present time arrangements on a very large scale are being made in 
immediate connection with the Barrow Hematite Iron Works of 
Messrs. Schneider and Hannay, to receive the cast-iron directly from 
the blast furnaces into the “ converters ” of the Bessemer process, and 
thus produce steel without allowing the melted mass to cool. On the 
Continent this is adopted in many of the larger iron-producing esta- 
blishments, and we hear of several works about to be erected in this 
country, by which, without doubt, steel will be produced at a cost but 
a little exceeding that of cast-iron. 

M. Lamy has been carefully studying the conditions of iron pro- 
duced in the blast furnace. He notices a loss sustained from the cast- 
iron meeting with an oxidizing heat and atmosphere in the hearth, 
causing part of it to pass into slag. Again, in refining, the iron is 
fused under an oxidizing flame, by which about 10°\, is scorified. In 
puddling, the process is carried on in an oxidizing atmosphere with a 
further loss. M. Lamy estimates the total loss in converting pig-iron 
into wrought-iron as not less than from 15°\, to 20°\,. He therefore 
proposes to combine the three operations in one, or rather, as we 
understand it, to carry out the three operations consecutively in the 
same furnace. The apparatus proposed consists of two distinct parts ; 
one placed above the other. The upper furnace is the blast furnace 
in which the iron is smelted from its ores; this part differs from the 
ordinary blast furnace in the body and boshes being formed of distinct 
truncated cones—connected by their bases—but separated from each 
other by an opening, which the inventor calls the pyrote. The twyers 
are in the upper part of the boshes, and the blast is directed down- 
wards. The hearth is formed of a slightly inclined plane, which leads 
to the lower apparatus. This is essentially a turbine of wrought-iron 
attached to, and moved by, an axle protected by solid masonry ; this 
works on a platform furnished with several ranges of perpendicular 
knives, which are for dividing the metal driven out by the centrifugal 
force of the turbine. On each side are two fireplaces, arranged so as 
not to give off oxidizing gases. 

When the furnace is charged, the blast is turned on by the upper 
twyers, and thus a high temperature is produced in the boshes. The 
oxidizing atmosphere is changed into a reducing one by the conver- 
sion of the carbonic oxide into carbonic acid. The iron ores, therefore, 
in descending, only meet with reducing gases, and the product 
perfectly liquified flows along the inclined plane to the crucible, and 
may, if the object is to get cast-iron, be tapped in the usual manner. 
When wrought-iron is to be made, the melted cast-iron is directed on 
the centre of the turbine, which is in motion, and air and superheated 
steam are turned through twyers fixed at the lower part of the furnace. 

The cast-iron is divided by the centrifugal motion, and is brought 
into contact with an oxidizing atmosphere, the air acts on the carbon 


—* 


ae eee a ee 


1864. | Mining, Mineralogy, and Metallurgy. 493 


and silicon, and, it is said, the stream on the phosphorus and sulphur, 
so that refined iron is produced very rapidly. 

In the third stage of the process, the carbon of the cast-iron acts 
on the bed, which is composed of rich slags and sheets of wrought- 
iron, and after “rabbling,’ the puddled ball is ready for shingling. 
When it is required to make stecl, the coverings of the sole (rich 
slags, &c.) are omitted—the rotation of the turbine is accelerated, and 
the blast in the twyers increased. 

We are not aware of any experiments, on a large scale, having 
been tried, except by M. Lamy himself, but there is so much ingenuity 
in the arrangements, and each stage of the process has been so care- 
fully studied that, except there are mechanical difficulties in the way, 
it appears to promise a successful issue, and much economy. 

The most severe labour to which man is subjected is, that of 
puddling iron—the process by which pig-iron is converted into malle- 
able iron. The “puddler’’ has to manipulate balls of iron, weighing 
from 2 ewt. to 3 ewt., in front of an intensely heated reverberatory 
furnace. Many schemes have been devised for performing this oper- 
ation by machinery, but hitherto it does not appear that any of them 
have been successful. In 1861 a patent was secured by Mr. W. H. 
Tooth. Dr. Percy, in his “ Metallurgy,” notices the fact, but he 
gives no indication of the character of the machinery employed, or of 
the results of its application. It may, therefore, be concluded that it 
did not answer the desired end. Mr. James Nasmyth sought to 
facilitate the process of puddling, by the introduction of steam “to 
mechanically agitate the molton iron, and thereby keep exposing fresh 
surfaces of the iron to the oxygen of the iron contained in the atmo- 
sphere passing through the furnace.” This process has not, as far as 
we know, been successfully applied in any of our iron works. 

The latest attempt to apply machinery for puddling iron is, that of 
Mr. John Griffiths. This application is more promising than any 
which have preceded it, and is now, we are told, on trial in several 
works. 

The puddling process consists in stirring the melted cast-iron on 
the bed of a reverberatory furnace, so as to expose it to the action of 
the air. This is usually performed by means of a stirring tool, called 
a rabble, by which the workman stirs the melted iron. Mr. Griffiths, 
by means of machinery, gives nearly the same motion to a rabble as is 
given to it by the puddler, and the puddling is effected without manual 
labour, or nearly so. 

The construction of the machinery will be easily understood by 
reference to the accompanying woodcuts (pages 494 and 495). 
a @ are two cross bars fixed on the furnace b, on which rests a circular 
bed-plate c, above which is another circular plate d, which has a 
reciprocatory motion through about a quadrant. This upper plate d 
is supported on the bed-plate c, by spheres or balls e, which move in 
a groove. <A vertical shaft f, working in the bearing g, in the bed- 
plate, passes through and works loosely in the movable plate d. 
This shaft below the bed-plate ¢ carries a bevil-toothed wheel 2, which 
gears with another bevil-toothed wheel k, on the horizontal shaft J, 

2u 2 


494 Chronicles of Science. [ July, 


from which the several motions of the machine are derived. Rotary 
motion is communicated to this shaft by a chain or band from a prime 
mover, passing over the loose clutch pulley m, near which is a fixed 
clutch n, capable of sliding on a feather on the shaft, and by means of 
the forked lever 0, and rod p, it can be thrown into and out of gear 
with m, and motion communicated to the horizontal shaft, or arrested. 
To the movable plate d is fixed a jib g, which projects 18 inches 
beyond the furnace door, to this by a socket-joint s, is suspended a 
hanger r, which moves both longitudinally and transversily. The 
lower end of this hanger is made into two forks ¢, u, one on each side, 
into one or other of which forks the puddling tool or “rabble” v, can 
be jointed by the axis w. This description, with the woodcuts, will 
enable the reader to understand the principle of this invention, the 
object of which is to impart to the puddling tool a backward and for- 


1864. | Mining, Mineralogy, and Metallurgy. 495 


N\ 
ee N 


LLL 


ward motion in combination with a reciprocatory motion of partial 
rotation. It would be tedious to describe minutely those parts, 
through the agency of which these motions are obtained. To the 
mechanic those parts of the machine marked with numerals from 1 to 
11, will sufficiently explain themselves, and to those who are not 
familiar with the detail of gearing machinery, a brief description 
would not be intelligible. The end to be attained in a machine for 
puddling is to communicate to the “rabble,” or puddling tool, every 
motion which can be given to it by aman. Mr. Griffiths has certainly 
devised a machine which gives most of them. It will be understood 
that by the combined motions the puddling tool is made to travel up 
and down, and across the furnace. The main question is, whether 
this or any other machine can substitute those motions which are 
dependent upon the trained skill of an experienced puddler, and on 
which depends the production of good or bad iron. 


496 Chronicles of Science. [ July, 


In order to facilitate the process of oxidation, and to refine the 
iron, Mr. Griffiths substitutes, at the proper times during the process, a 
hollow rabble, or puddling tool. The object of this being to convey 
air, either hot or cold, to the iron, this blast being supplied to the 
hollow tool by a flexible tube capable of ready attachment to, and 
detachment from, the tool. 

In the Annales des Mines in 1862,* MM. Dumeny and Lemut 
described a mechanical puddler which had been adopted at the Clos- 
Mortier Forges, Haute Marne. Hven then the inventors conceived 
they had obtained an improvement in the quality of the products, an 
economy in the consumption of materials, and a diminution in the 
labour of the puddler. In a recent number } of the same journal, M. 
Lemut informs us that the result of working at seven furnaces fitted with 
the mechanical puddler is so satisfactory, that there is no hesitation 
felt in applying them without further modification to all the other 
furnaces. In the present state of things in this country, it is very 
important to obtain the advantage of the experience of two years’ prac- 
tice in large and well-conducted forges. M. Lemut gives the following 
summary :— 

The consumption of fuel for each ton of malleable iron made is 
considerably reduced. 

Economy is effected in the general expenses, as the work is acceler- 
ated, and the production of each furnace increased. 

The ‘“underhand” is dispensed with, and the labour of the 
puddler is diminished. 

But, he says, the improvement in the quality of the iron is the 
most important result of mechanical puddling. Grey pig-iron made 
with coke, which was difficult to refine under the action of three or 
four heavy rabbles, “came to nature” in a very short time with the 
addition of cinders, and produced iron of a superior quality. 

It may be incidentally noticed that, on the Continent, considerable 
attention has lately been given to the construction of the blast furnace. 
In 1859, Mr. Alger, an American ironmaster, formed a company for 
introducing a new form of furnace, the hearth being an elongated 
ellipse. Although some experiments made appeared to indicate a 
favourable result, this furnace has not been, in this country, adopted. 
A Russian mining engineer, General Wladimir Rachette, showed at 
our Exhibition of 1862, a model of his new blast furnace. This did not 
excite much attention in this country, but in Russia and in Germany 
some of Rachette’s furnaces have been constructed, and the results are 
said to be in every way satisfactory. Like Alger’s furnace, Rachette’s 
has a hearth of a narrow and elongated section. A good account of 
this furnace and its applications has been given by Dr. L. Beck, of 
the Metallurgical Laboratory, Royal School of Mines. 

M. Eugéne Peligot has recently brought before the Academy of 
Sciences, of Paris, the result of his experimental researches on the 
alloys of zinc and silver, and of silver and copper. ‘These examina- 

* « Annales des Mines,’ 6th series, tome li. 1862. 
+ ‘ Annales des Mines,’ 6th series, tome iv. 1864. 
{ ‘Mining and Smelting Magazine,’ April, 1864. 


1864. | Physics. 497 


tions have been made with a view to some alterations in the French 
coinage system. An alloy prepared with 835 parts of silver, 93 parts 
of copper, and 72 of zinc, presents many advantages. The fact that 
this alloy is obtained by adding 77 grammes of zine to each kilo- 
gramme of the existing money, is considered a strong recommendation. 
All the alloys of silver with zine are found to be perfectly homoge- 
neous, and for coining possesses all the advantages which belong to 
the alloys of silver and copper, giving a metal, at the same time, of a 
fine white colour. 

An alloy of 850 parts of silver, with 150 parts of zine, is said, from 
its fine colour, to be well fitted for bijouterie.* 


IX. PHYSICS. 


Licut.—Since our last Chronicles of the progress of optical science, 
many interesting researches have been made, foremost of which should 
be mentioned the striking discovery by MM. Plucker and Hittorf, 
that certain bodies, such as nitrogen and sulphur, give two very 
different spectra, according to the temperature to which the incan- 
descent vapour is submitted. To show this, they pass through the 
tubes (containing the gas or vapour in a highly rarefied state) the 
ordinary current of an induction coil ; in this manner they obtain what 
is named the first spectrum, formed of large bands more or less regular, 
and often presenting the appearance of channelled spaces cut out by 
black rays. This corresponds to the lowest temperature. By inter- 
posing a Leyden jar, and varying the surface of this jar, the calorific 
action is likewise varied; in this manner, by gradually raising the 
temperature of the gaseous body, they find that at a certain point an 
essential modification takes place in its molecular constitution, and 
another and entirely different spectrum suddenly takes the place of 
the former one. This second spectrum, corresponding to the higher 
‘temperature, is generally characterized by brilliant rays on a more or 
less luminous ground. Sulphur shows in a striking manner the abrupt 
passage from one spectrum to the other. Upon gradually increasing 
the temperature, the first spectrum gets brighter and brighter ; when 
at the moment it attains its maximum of brilliancy, it suddenly disap- 
pears and gives place to the second spectrum, the richest in brilliant 
rays which the authors had ever seen. On lowering the temperature, 
the second spectrum disappears equally suddenly and gives place to 
the first. 

Nitrogen gives three spectra, showing three different molecular 
conditions. Naming these according to the general character of the 
bands they show, MM. Plucker and Hittorf consider that nitrogen has 
two distinct first spectra,—one of a yellow colour, corresponding to 
the less degree of incandescence, and the other of a blue colour, corre- 


* ¢Les Mondes, Revue Hehdomadaire des Sciences,’ tome iv. 15 livraison. 
* L'Institut, Journal Universel des Sciences.’ 


498 Chronicles of Science. | July, 


sponding to a higher degree of incandescence. The second spectrum 
is produced by a very much more intense heat than that required to 
show the two first spectra. Oxygen, chlorine, bromine, and iodine 
have only one spectrum. 


Mitscherlich has found that when a drop of a solution of chloride 
of barium mixed with sal ammoniac is introduced.into the flame of a 
spectroscope, two brilliant green rays, having no connection with the 
barium spectrum, make their appearance. Sometimes these two green 
rays are unaccompanied by the barium spectrum, and sometimes they 
are superimposed upon it. He also finds that most metallic spectra 
are modified by the presence of hydrochloric acid, or chloride of am- 
monium vapour; in some the lines entirely disappear, while in others 
new lines make their appearance. He explains this by assuming that 
in the one case the spectrum is that of the metal itself, whilst in the 
other it is that of the compound. 


The spectrum of carbon has attracted considerable attention lately. 
From an examination of the spectra produced by carbonic oxide, car- 
bonic acid, sulphide of carbon, cyanogen, and olefiant gas, either ignited 
in the air or rendered incandescent by the spark of an induction coil, 
Dr. Attfield was led to the conclusion that certain lines which were 
common to all of these compounds were due to carbon, and constituted 
the spectrum of this element. M. Morren, in examining a candle 
flame, finds that the blue portion at the base of the flame “is the 
vapour of carbon preserved from combustion, but kept at a very high 
temperature by the envelope of hydrogen,” M. Morren leaves us in 
the dark as to how the carbon gets into this vaporous state, neither 
does he explain how it is that the low temperature of the blue part of 
the candle flame is hot enough to keep free carbon ina state of vapour, 
when it is notorious that the highest artificial heat yet produced is in- 
sufficient to effect this. According to Dr. Roscoe, the spectra which 
these various forms of carbon compounds give when in the state of 
incandescent gas are not quite identical. Thus, the so-called carbon 
rays obtained with the flame of olefiant gas differ from those ob- 
tained by the electric discharge through a vacuum of the same gas; 
whilst a spark passing through a cyanogen vacuum produces a spec- 
trum identical with that of the olefiant gas flame, and the spark 
through a carbonic oxide vacuum gives a spectrum coincident with 
that of the olefiant gas vacuum. 


A series of experiments on the intensity of the solar radiation has 
been made by Father Secchi; his apparatus consists of two cylinders 
placed one within the other, the space between the two being filled 
with water at a certain temperature. The aperture of the inner cylin- 
der is closed at one end by a plate of glass, and the other is partially 
closed by a diaphragm with an aperture ; a black bulb thermometer is 
placed in the axis of the inner cylinder. On exposing this instrument 
to the sun, it was found that the same difference of temperature between 
the black bulb thermometer was always maintained. whatever was the 
temperature of the water, and that the sun at mid-day produced no 


1864. | Physics. 499 


greater difference between these two temperatures in summer than in 
winter, although in the latter case the rays have to travel through 
about twice as much atmosphere. The explanation of this is, that 
there is more aqueous vapour in the air in summer than in winter, 
thus fully bearing out the observations of Professor Tyndall as to the 
power of the vapour of water to intercept the sun’s rays. 


A discussion has been going on between MM. Van Monkhoven 
and Bertsch on the possibility of constructing a system of lenses 
which will augment the intensity of the solar rays without changing 
their parallelism. M. Bertsch has proposed an arrangement intended 
to effect this object, consisting of a convex lens, on which the solar 
rays fall, forming an image of the sun in its focus. Between the lens 
and focus, however, a small concave lens is interposed, in such a 
position that the convergent rays, after passing through the second 
lens, emerge parallel and concentrated. A similar effect may be 
obtained by having a small convex lens of short focus placed beyond 
the focus of the larger lens. M. Van Monkhoven argues that 
although an apparatus of this kind would be applicable to light issu- 
ing from a luminous point at an infinite distance off, the instrument 
is inapplicable to sun-light, because this body has a sensible diameter ; 
and since the image formed at the focus of the larger lens would be 
necessarily of greater diameter than that formed by the other at its 
focus, no condensation can possibly take place. To this argument 
M. Bertsch replies, that he has made the instrument, and it does an- 
swer; and that as the angles of the pencils of rays proceeding from the 
sun never exceed half a degree, they are so small that they may be 
neglected. 


We have already * called attention to some researches by M. G. 
Quincke, on the optical properties of the metals, in which he showed 
that their refractive indices were less than unity ; in a second memoir 
by the same author on this subject, the theory is followed out mathe- 
matically as well as experimentally, and the further discovery is 
announced that the refractive index of the metals is dependent upon 
the angle of incidence and increases with an increasing angle. 


When a luminous body is viewed through some kinds of trans- 
parent minerals, such as certain varieties of mica, rays of light are 
seen to diverge from the luminous centre, at equal distances apart. 
This appearance has received the name of asterism. A method of 
producing asterism artificially, in a manner as clear and perfect as is 
met with in some of the naturally-occurring minerals, has lately been 
published by M. C. A. Griiel,f of Berlin. A clear piece of plate-glass 
is cut in the form of an equilateral triangle, with sides measuring 14 
to 2 inches. The surface of this triangle is then rubbed backwards 
and forwards a few times on a sheet of fine emery-paper ; each of the 
three sides being successively guided against a metal rule, which at 
the same time being pressed on the emery-paper, keeps it in position. 

* © Quarterly Journal of Science, vol. i. p. 542. 
+ ‘ Phil. Mag,’ series iv. vol. xxvii. p. 400. 


500 Chronicles of Science. [ July, 


The feeble striping of the glass surface thus obtained produces accu- 
rately the condition of a series of lines crossing at an angle of 60°, 
which is fulfilled by the similarly directed edges of the groups of 
microscopic crystals observed in some kinds cf mica, &c. By cutting 
the glass to the shape of any other regular sided figure, and rubbing 
it with emery-paper in directions parallel to the different sides, an 
eight-, ten-, or multi-fold star will be produced, according to the 
angle under which the series of lines cross. These are best observed 
by holding the glass near the eye, and looking at a fine hole in a plate 
of metal behind which a candle-flame is placed. 


A new analysis of Fraiinhofer’s line D has lately been communi- 
cated to the Royal Society by Mr. Gassiot. The spectroscope with 
which it was performed was made by Browning, and is, without 
doubt, the most magnificent instrument of the kind which has ever 
left the workshops of that optician. The train consists of no less 
than eleven bisulphide of carbon prisms, the sides of which are pre- 
pared by Professor Cooke’s method, so as to remedy the curvature of 
the glass-plate from the hardening of the glue. On examining the 
double line D, after passing through this train, it was found that its 
two components were separated 3/6”, and that there was a third line 
exactly equidistant between them, together with other lines, filling 
up the intermediate space. But the most remarkable circumstance 
was, that the two dark lines composing the double line, were them- 
selves each split up into three lines, the centre one being the thickest. 
It is intended to examine other parts of the spectrum with this appa- 
ratus, and there is no doubt that very valuable results will be obtained 
from such an extended investigation. 


Spectrum analysis is not only applicable to the detection of 
metallic elements. By a slight modification of the apparatus, this 
powerful agent may be applied to the discrimination of a vast number 
of organic bodies; hitherto, however, this branch of the subject seems 
to have been unaccountably neglected, Professor Stokes being almost 
the only person who has assiduously devoted himself to the subject. 
One of the most recent results at which he has arrived is likely to 
be of considerable practical importance. He has submitted blood to 
searching spectrum analysis, both before and after treatment with dif- 
ferent chemical re-agents. This liquid exhibits two well-marked dark 
bands in the yellow and green. ‘These were first noticed by Hoppe, 
and -are eminently characteristic of blood. The addition of an 
alkaline solution of copper to this fluid still shows these characteristic 
bands, although to the eye the colour is quite changed. On adding, 
on the other hand, acetic acid to a solution of blood, the colour was 
very slightly changed, but the bands had entirely disappeared. A 
comparison of these bands with those given by some iron salts, nega- 
tive the supposition that the colour of blood is due to a salt of iron, 
as such, even had we no other means of deciding. 


In a note by M. Marignac, on silico-tungstic acid, he describes a 
remarkable series of compounds, most of their properties, however, 


1864. | Physics. 501 


belonging more to the domain of chemistry than optics; one com- 
pound, the silico-tungstate of soda, is likely to be of great use in the 
manufacture of fluid prisms, inasmuch as a solution can be obtained 
having the specific gravity of 3-05, and being very fluid, but on which 
glass, quartz, and most stones will float. If its refracting powers are 
equal to its density, this solution will be invaluable for fluid prisms. 
We may also mention that a compound of thallium with the elements 
of alcohol, ethylate of thallium, has also been proposed for the con- 
struction of fluid prisms. It is a heavy, oily liquid, of about the 
density and refracting power of bisulphide of carbon, but unlike the 
latter liquid, non-volatile. 


A most ingenious application of scientific principles to the illumi- 
nation of theatres has just been carried out by M. Soubra. The foot- 
lights in front of the stage of a theatre are almost invariably argand 
burners, surrounded by glass; not only is there very great danger of 
the thin dresses worn by the actresses taking fire, but the products of 
combustion vitiate the atmosphere of the stage, whilst the heated air 
rising from them just across the line of sight of the spectators in the 
stalls, renders the view from these seats less pleasant than it would 
otherwise be. The reason why the flame of an argand burner, or any 
any other light, points upwards, is owing to the heated air and pro- 
ducts of combustion being lighter than cold air; the former, therefore, 
rise upwards, and cause the flame to rise also. If, however, a down- 
ward movement could be impressed upon the heated products of 
combustion, the flame would equally well follow the same direction, 
and would continue to burn downwards. M. Soubra, therefore, takes 
a wide glass pipe, bent in the form of the letter U ; one leg, however, 
being considerably longer than the other one. Just inside the 
shorter leg of the two, an argand burner is inverted, and the longer 
leg of the tube being heated for a short time, so as to rarefy the air 
in it, and cause a downward current in the short end, the argand 
burner is lighted, and the flame, following the direction of the 
current of air with which it is surrounded, continues to burn upside 
down—the current once established being sustained by the heat from 
the inverted flame. The advantages from this new arrangement are 
as follows:—The supports of the globes, or lamp-glasses, are placed 
above the flame, and do not intercept the light ; the reflectors also are 
in no danger of becoming blackened by smoke, and they collect rays 
that would otherwise be lost in the air; the flame has a more elevated 
temperature, on account of the heat being concentrated by the syphon, 
and the carbon is consequently rendered more incandescent ; the pro- 
ducts of combustion may easily be carried away through the longer leg 
of the tube into a chimney, instead of vitiating the air of the apart- 
ments. The advantages as to safety, &e., of this plan are so obvious, 
that no time should be lost in introducing this method of illumination 
in this country. It is, we understand, already adopted in France with 
great success. 


Many years ago Mr. Fox Talbot discovered that when a continuous 
spectrum is examined by covering one-half of the pupil of the eye 


502 Chronicles of Science. | July, 


with a thin transparent plate, so as to modify that part of the pencil 
of rays on the side of the violet part of the spectrum, a number ~ 
of transverse bands, alternately light and dark, appear to traverse 
it. Brewster discovered that these bands were not formed when the 
thin plate was placed on the side of the spectrum corresponding with 
the red rays. It has since been discovered that these bands may be 
produced by interposing the thin plate in other portions of the path 
of the ray, besides putting it close to the eye. Baden Powell, and 
Stokes have since studied the phenomena both experimentally and 
theoretically, and the latter physicist found that the effects were best 
produced by the partial immersion of a transparent plate in the liquid 
of a fluid prism. M. Bernard has lately studied these phenomena, 
and has arranged his apparatus in the following manner :—A ray of 
solar light passing through a narrow orifice falls on the slit of a spec- 
troscope, the defringent plate being then placed between the aperture 
admitting the light and the slit of the spectroscope, and some adjust- 
ments and arrangements are made, into the detail of which we need 
not enter. In this manner M. Bernard is enabled to obtain a very 
luminous spectrum, and he has been led by an examination of the 
phenomena to the discovery, that through them he is enabled to 
obtain the length of the waves of any desired ray of light or spectrum 
line with much greater accuracy than by the ordinary diffraction 
method. In his memoir he has given the wave lengths of the seven 
principal rays of the solar spectrum, together with that of the ray A, 
which, owing to its faintness, has not yet been satisfactorily deter- 
mined, and the green ray of thallium. Their values, expressed in 
millionths of a millimetre, are— 
A = 760-6 
352i 

The diffringent plate of quartz is about a millimetre thick, and its 
thickness can be determined with absolute accuracy with the sphero- 
meter; and when it is remembered that between A and H there are 
for this thickness more than 700 interference bands, and that it is 
easy to estimate to the tenth of a band, it is seen that there are more 
than 7,000 invariable points in this portion of the solar spectrum, and 
it is by reference to these that M. Bernard proposes to classify the 
rays of the alkaline metals and other interesting spectra. For this 
purpose he has constructed an apparatus which acts both as a spectro- 
scope and a goniometer, and which enables the observer to measure to 
within 10”, the indices, a knowledge of which is necessary to calculate 
the wave lengths. 


Heat.—Some important results have been communicated to the 
Berlin Academy by M. Hagen,} respecting the heat of the sun’s rays. 
He has come to the conclusion that the heating effect produced by 
the sun’s rays on entering this atmosphere may be expressed by say- 


* Dr. J. Miiller (¢ Quarterly Journal of Science,’ vol. i. p. 157) finds the length 
of the wave of the green thallium line to be 53848 mitlionths of a millimetre. 
t ‘Phil. Mag.,’ ser. iv. vol. xxvii. p. 478, 


1864. | Physics. 503 


ing that a bundle of rays having a section of a square inch, would in 
one minute raise the temperature of a cubic inch of water by 0°733 of a 
degree centigrade. On comparing these results with those of Pouillet, it 
is seen that the latter observer found the heat of the sun’s rays to be one- 
eighth less. Pouillet, however, assumed that the height of the earth’s 
atmosphere was jequal to the 80th part of the earth’s radius, whilst 
M. Hagen finds that the height of the atmosphere, assuming that the 
layers of air have the same power of absorption, is only equal to the 
178rd part of the earth’s radius. 


In his remarkable work on heat considered as a mode of motion, 
Dr. Tyndall observed that it would be interesting to see whether the 
balls of rifled guns would not show signs of fusion. M. Schroeder 
remarks, that, by having a ball constructed of zine, he thinks it would 
be possible to estimate the amount of heat given out on striking the 
target. He finds that at a temperature above boiling water zinc be- 
comes granular, and that if the heat is very gradually increased, the 
metal will, without losing its form, assume exactly the appearance of 
zinc that has been melted. It is not unlikely that an experiment with 
this metal might furnish some information, but the determinations of 
temperature would not be very accurate, and it would probably be 
possible to discover a more certain way of estimating the heat given 
out by the concussion ; at the same time the suggestion is useful in 
the absence of a better measure of temperature under the conditions of 
the experiment. 


Dr. Tyndall has been for some time past engaged in some investi- 
gations on the non-luminous heat-rays of the spectrum with reference 
to their deportment towards certain bodies which are perfectly opaque 
to light. He has found that a solution of iodine in bisulphide of 
carbon entirely intercepts the light of the most brilliant flames, whilst 
to the ultra red rays of the spectrum the same solution is perfectly 
diathermic. Ifa hollow prism is filled with this opaque liquid and 
placed in the path of the beam from an electric lamp, the light-spec- 
trum will be completely intercepted, whilst the heat-spectrum passes 
through, and can be examined by a thermo-electric pile. A liquid of 
this kind, which will allow physicists to sift the heat-rays from the 
light-rays, will be of great value in many experiments in physical 
optics. Indeed, the discoverer is not the person to allow such a 
valuable adjunct to experiment to remain idle in his hands. 


It has long been known that heat weakens or destroys the mag- 
netic force in permanent magnets, but we are not aware that any very 
accurate researches have been made on this subject. M. Mauritius 
has lately published* some results, in which he shows that when a 
permanent magnet is alternately exposed to the temperatures 100° C. 
and 0° C., the magnetism ultimately becomes sensibly constant on 
the return of the same temperature. It is now found that when the 
magnetism at 0° and then the magnetism at 100° are measured, a dimi- 
nution takes place at the higher temperature and a corresponding 


* «Bibliotheque Universelle de Geneve,’ March, 1864. 


504 Chronicles of Science. | July, 


increase at the lower temperature, and that the diminution of the mag- 
netic foree from 0° to 100° is proportional to its magnetism at 0°. 
With regard to temporary magnetism induced in soft iron, cast-iron, 
and steel bars by means of an electro-magnetic coil, it was found that 
at a bright red heat none of the bars were magnetic. Approximate 
determinations of the descending temperature at which magnetism 
begins to be manifested gave 1,000°. With the steel bar the increase 
of magnetic power takes place at first very rapidly, then for a certain 
time it goes on slowly, and then again follows a period of rapid 
augmentation. With the cast-iron bars the second period of rapid 
increase is also observed, but in a less marked degree ; but with the 
wrought-iron it does not exist. The author believes he may con- 
clude from his experiments that the magnetic properties of iron are 
developed suddenly at a determinate temperature. 


Execrriciry.—A very valuable instrument for the production of a 
constant stream of electricity has been for some months past exhibited 
in the scientific circles of London. It is an electro-magnetic induc- 
tion machine, but unlike ordinary machines of this kind the stream is 
constant in one direction, and it can be produced of any tension or 
quantity that may be required. Many attempts have been made to use 
induced electricity for telegraphy, but they have generally failed be- 
cause the tension of the current is too great, and the electricity is in 
impulses. What has long been wanted is as near an approach to a 
battery current as possible, and of any required tension or quantity 
without multiplying the number of battery cells used. The machine 
must also be perfectly self-acting. The way in which these desiderata 
are effected in the machine now alluded to is by using two series of 
induction coils, which are so arranged that one is being magnetized 
nearly at the same time that the magnetism is subsiding in the other, 
so that the two induced impulses may be said to overlap each other ; 
and though these are in opposite directions, the spools are so arranged 
that in the general induction circuit they flow in the same direction, 
thus making a compound impulse of longer duration, composed of the 
two opposite inductions. Such a compound impulse is produced from 
each induction coil, and by an ingenious arrangement of the commu- 
tator, they are all turned into one direction, producing a slightly un- 
dulating but continuous flow. The machine is made for quantity, the 
inner coils being of number 12 wire, and the outer of number 18. To 
an electrician the very name induction coil speaks danger, as it conjures 
up visions of powerful sparks, many inches long, darting from pole to 
pole, and capable of piercing through considerable thicknesses of 
gutta-percha, or even glass. Experiments have, however, shown that 
such fears are groundless with an instrument of this construction ; 
the two wires may be brought so close together that a considerable 
magnifying power is required to show that there is any space at all 
between them, before a spark will bridge across the interval, and it is 
then of the feeblest and most innocent description, being unaccompanied 
with noise and scarcely visible in daylight. The striking distance is 
less than the thousandth of an inch. 


1864. | Physics. 505 


Whilst the electrical relations of metals, &c., in aqueous solutions 
of acids, alkalies, and salts, have been repeatedly, and we may almost 
say exhaustively examined, few, if any, experiments have been made on 
the similar relations in fused substances. This gap has now been filled 
up by Mr. Gore,* who has examined the electrical relations of carbon, 
magnesium, aluminium, silicium, zinc, tin, lead, iron, nickel, copper, 
silver, gold, and platinum, in sixty-seven salts or mixtures of salts 
kept in a state of fusion, in small porcelain crucibles, either by an or- 
dinary Bunsen burner, or when difficultly fusible, by one of his small 
gas furnaces already described in this Journal. The results are care- 
fully tabulated, and amongst others it is found that the most negative 
substances in fused salts are generally platinum, gold, carbon, and 
silver ; the most positive substances are generally magnesium, alu- 
minium, and zinc. Silicium is generally electro-positive to carbon, 
and is strongly positive, and quickly corroded in fused alkalies, alka- 
line carbonates or fluorides. Carbon is not generally very positive to 
iron. This investigation throws some light upon the desirable object 
of obtaining a cheap source of electricity by the combustion of coke or 
gas carbon. The discovery of some suitable fused salt or mixture, in 
which carbon is highly electro-positive at a high temperature to iron, 
nickel, or other infusible and suitable conductor would probably prove 
a cheap and powerful source of electricity : cheap, because of the low 
equivalent number of carbon, and the low price of coke and gas carbon ; 
and powerful, because of the intense affinity of carbon for oxygen at 
high temperatures,—an affinity sufficient, indeed, to set the alkali 
metals free from their oxides. The nearest approach in these experi- 
ments to this object was with carbon and nickel in a fused mixture of 
soda, lime, and silica. 


Many experimentalists have examined the stratified light of the 
electric discharge, and have assigned various causes for this curious 
phenomenon ; they seem, however, all to have ended in the establish- 
ment of one fact only, that the alternate light and dark bands require 
for their production an imperfect conductor. M. L’Abbé Laborde + 
has lately succeeded in producing an analogous stratified appearance, 
and permanently fixing it on a plate of glass. For this purpose he 
prepares a glass plate with iodized collodion, and then lets it undergo 
all the operations customary in preparing a photographic image. It is 
exposed for a brief time to light, and then the silver is reduced by a 
developing agent. A surface is thus obtained which possesses an in- 
termediate conductibility. The two ends of the induction wire being 
placed a little distance apart on the surface, the spark will produce 
stratification in passing from one to the other. A suitable surface 
cannot invariably be obtained ; when the plate presents the appearance 
known as solarization, and has a reddish transparent tint, the surface 
is not sufficiently conducting, and the spark passes over without at- 
tacking it. If on the contrary the silver is completely reduced, and 
presents a metallic and mirror like layer, it conducts too well, and the 


* «Chemical News,’ June 4, 1864. 
+ ‘Comptes Rendus,’ lviii. 661. 


506 Chronicles of Science. [July, 


spark traverses without modifying it. Between these two extremes, 
surfaces are obtained on which the spark produces more or less com- 
plete stratification of very varied appearance. ‘The designs traced by 
the electric current are transparent on an opaque surface, so that they 
can be copied directly on positive photographic paper. 


It has not hitherto been possible to obtain a deflection of the mag- 
netic needle by the secondary current of the Leyden battery, but by 
means of an apparatus which he calls the “ electrical valve,’ M. P. 
Riess* has succeeded in obtaining evidence of this deflection, and has 
deduced the convenient rule that by means of the electrical valve, and 
in any position, the secondary current of the Leyden jar deflects a mag- 
netic needle in the direction of a current proceeding from the dise to 
the point of the valve. M. Reiss describes a numerous series of ex- 
periments which show in a very striking manner the occurrence of the 
extra current in the circuit of the battery itself, and are not less con- 
clusive than are the previous experiments of the author on the heating 
of the branches. 


X. SANITARY SCIENCE. 


Tuart the weather exercises a considerable influence over the health 
of individuals and communities has long been a favourite article in 
the popular creed, and this belief has been embodied in many a wise 
saw and pithy proverb. But it is not only in such apophthegms that 
this conviction of the influence of the weather upon disease and 
mortality has been expressed ; it has formed the subject of many 
laborious and learned memoirs, and since the time when Hippocrates 
penned his celebrated treatise ‘On Airs, Waters, and Places,’ it has 
taken a permanent position in the medical literature of all civilized 
lands. In more modern times the researches of Casper, Quételet, 
Boudin, Guy, Sir James Clark, and many others, have done much to 
throw light upon the effects produced by external causes on the con- 
stitution of the human frame. During the past year, the literature of 
this subject has received an addition, in the form of an elaborate 
memoir ‘ On the Influence of Weather upon Disease and Mortality,’ + 
by Dr. R. E. Scoresby-Jackson, in which an endeavour is made to 
treat the subject in a somewhat more exact manner than has often 
been attempted. His investigations are restricted to the climate and 
death-rate in the eight principal towns in Scotland, and the data he has 
employed in the course of his inquiry have been furnished by the 
collected returns from the stations of the Meteorological Society of 
Scotland, and from the mortality tables constructed from the returns 
made by the Scottish Registrar-General. The period over which his 
investigations have extended is six years. At the outset of his me- 
moir he lays down the following proposition, one, we think, to which 


* «Phil. Mag.,’ series iv. p. 313. 
+ Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1863, and reprint. 


1864. | Sanitary Science. 507 


sufficient attention is not at all times given :—‘‘ We are not to assume 
that because certain conditions of weather, as indicated by meteorolo- 
gical instruments in this country, are opposed to recovery from certain 
diseases, that therefore patients so suffering are not to be sent 
into any country where meteorological instruments afford exactly, 
or even nearly, parallel readings. In other words, in estimating 
the value of a foreign climate, or the different climates of our 
own country, we are not to depend so much upon a comparison of 
the meteorological data of the several places, as upon the meteorolo- 
gical data and the prevalent diseases and death-rate of one and the 
same locality. To argue that because a given condition of tempera- 
ture, atmospheric pressure, and humidity, in Scotland, is accompanied 
by a certain ratio of mortality, therefore, meteorological data being 
equal, the same death-rate will be observable in Torquay or Madeira, 
would be most fallacious. All other things being equal, the death- 
rate would also coincide, but it requires much more than mere me- 
teorological analogy to establish such a parallelism.” From the 
materials employed by the author, the conclusions he has arrived at 
are to be regarded as applicable only to those localities in Scotland 
from which his data were obtained. With regard to the influence of 
temperature on mortality, he concludes that the relationship between 
mortality from all causes and mean temperature is inverse when the 
mean is below 50°, and direct when the temperature is higher, i.e. 
the relationship is inverse in winter, spring, and autumn, but direct 
in summer. Again a low winter temperature increases the mortality 
from phthisis pulmonalis, especially when ‘it is very and continuously 
low, and both with it and bronchitis the relationship between mean 
temperature and death-rate is inverse all the year round. A high 
mean summer temperature increases infantile mortality. But in all 
statistical inquiries into the influence of temperature on mortality, in 
which the deaths occurring during a given period are compared with 
the temperature of the same period, it should never be forgotten that 
cold and heat do not necessarily act immediately, but that the diseases 
engendered or aggravated by them must run their course, and the 
deaths arising therefrom may be registered at a time when the ther- 
mometric scale exhibits a very different mean from that which it pre- 
sented when the disease originated. 

Again, the prevailing opinion that northerly winds act injuriously 
on health is confirmed by Dr. Jackson’s tables, for a high death-rate 
attends winds blowing from a point between N.W. and 8.E. (north 
about), whilst winds blowing from a point between S.E. and W. 
{south about) occur more frequently during months in which the 
mortality from all causes is low. 

Many other interesting relations are suggested by the tables and 
diagrams with which the memoir is copiously illustrated, such as the 
relationship between the barometric pressure and the death-rate, and 
the influence of drought and humidity on mortality. But for an 
account of the results indicated or arrived at we must refer our 
readers to the original memoir itsclf. 

VOL. I. 2M 


508 Chronicles of Science. [July, 


Since the year 1851, when Schénbein communicated to the 
Medico-Chirurgical Society of London a memoir, in which he 
pointed out that the inhalation of ozonized air occasioned a painful 
affection of the chest,—a sort of asthma,—accompanied with a 
violent cough, the attention of the medico-meteorologist has been 
directed to the determination of the proportion of ozone in the atmo- 
sphere, and its relation, if any, to the prevalent diseases of the time or 
of the place.* Both in this country and in Germany careful registers 
have been kept of the variations in the amount of atmospheric ozone 
during a number of years. But we cannot as yet say that any very 
trustworthy results have been arrived at, as to the relations between 
its excess and deficiency, and the diseases which may have been most 
rife during the same period. This indefinite condition of the 
question may perhaps be in part explained by the somewhat inexact 
nature of the test employed. For, although the ozone papers may be 
sufficiently delicate to indicate absolute deficiency or excess of atmo- 
spheric ozone, yet the determination of minute shades of difference 
will vary much with the individual observer, with his power of 
appreciating the exact tint produced on his test paper, and of referring 
it to the corresponding shade on his reference paper. And it is, 
perhaps, to the difficulties which exist in comparing the results ob- 
tained by observers stationed in different localities, that we must, in 
some measure, ascribe the very different statements which have been 
made of its action on the animal frame. For whilst one set of ob- 
servers declares that there is a remarkable coincidence between an 
excess in the amount of atmospheric ozone and the prevalence of 
affections of the respiratory passages, on the other hand, M. de 
Piétra Santa t states that at Algiers, where bronchial affections are 
rare, ozone exists abundantly in the atmosphere. 

Again, the attempts which were at one time made to show that 
diseases fof the alimentary canal, and even cholera, were more rife 
when the proportion of ozone in the air was small, have not been 
borne out by subsequent investigators. 

More exact results of the power of ozone when in excess, to act 
upon the human frame may, however, be obtained by direct experi- 
ment, as when air is artificially ozonized, and animals are compelled 
to breathe it for a given period. This line of inquiry has now been 
followed out by various experimenters, Schénbein,$ Schwarzenbach, || 


* References to the following papers on the subject may prove useful to some 
of our readers :-— 

Spengler. Influenza und Ozon. Henle u. Pfs. Zeitschrift, vii 1. 1848. 

Heidenreich. Ozon und Katarrh, Neue med. chir, Ztg. vii. 3. 

Clemens. Wirkungen Ozonzerst : Gase auf den Mensch: Organismus. Henle. 
u. Pfs. Zeitschrift, vii. 2. 1848. 

Annales d’Hygiene publique. Paris. 1863. P. 439. 

+ This side of the question has been very recently advocated by Dr. Hjaltelin, 
of Reikjavik, in an able paper on “ Epidemic Pneumonia in Iceland,” in the year 
1863, published in the ‘Edinburgh Medical Journal,’ May, 1564. 

t ‘L’Union Médicale,’ 30 Mai, 1861. 

§ Henle und Pfs. Zeitschrift. N. F. Bd. 1. SS. 384, 

|| Canstatt’s Jahrb, 1851. 1, 128, 


1864. | Sanitary Science. 509 


Béckel,* and Desplats,f have all confined animals in air, ozonized 
either by means of phosphorus or by passing electric sparks through 
it. In every case, the animals died with symptoms of affection of the 
respiratory organs, though Schwarzenbach thinks that the nervous 
system, and more especially the nervus vagus, was also involved. 
During the past year, another series of experiments has been recorded 
by Dr. W. Iveland,{ from which he has been led to form the following 
conclusions :— 


Ist. Ozonized air accelerates the respiration, and, we may infer, 
the circulation also. 

2nd. Ozonized air excites the nervous system. 

3rd. Ozonized air promotes the coagulability of the blood, pro- 
bably by increasing its fibrine. In the blood, however, ozone loses 
its peculiar properties, probably entering into combination with some 
of the constituents of the circulating fluid. 

4th. Animals can be subjected to the influence of a considerable 
proportion of ozone in the air for hours, without permanent injury ; 
but in the end, ozone produces effects which may continue after its 
withdrawal, and destroy life. In ozonizing the air for his experiments, 
Dr. Ireland pursued a plan differing from that adopted by his pre- 
decessors. He introduced sulphuric acid and permanganate of potash 
into a glass bottle, and collected the ozonized air, produced by their 
action on each other, in a glass jar under water. This method seems 
to present decided advantages over the plan commonly pursued, of 
burning phosphorus in air. For in this latter process, not only are 
fumes of phosphoric acid generated, which it is not very easy to get 
rid of, but a part of the oxygen of the air is consumed in the com- 
bustion, and its proportion to the nitrogen, therefore, necessarily 
diminished. 


Whilst on the subject of ozone, we may notice some recent experi- 
ments by A. Schmidt,§ which seem to show that ozone, or a substance 
capable of producing it, exists in the blood. Instead of employing 
iodide of potassium as the reagent for the ozone determination, he 
used strips of paper soaked in a tincture of guaiacum (1 part wood to 
6 parts alcohol), and when the alcohol had evaporated, a drop of blood 
was added to the paper. <A blue ring appeared in the course of a few 
minutes, where the layer of blood was the thinnest. The depth of 
colour of the ring varied with the blood employed: with that of the ox 
and horse it was the strongest ; with that of man, without the addition 
of water, feeble; and with birds’ blood, not at all, until after the 
addition of water, and then strongly. Pure colourless serum did not 
act at all. Schmidt considers the hematin of the blood-corpuscles 
to be the ozone-producing material. He also noticed the oxidizing 
action of the blood-corpuscles on a solution of indigo. Schmidt con- 
cludes that in the blood a quantity of oxygen ready to become ozone 


* Théses de Strasbourg, 1856. 

y+ Théses de Paris, 1857. 

t ‘Edinburgh Monthly Medical Journal,’ February, 1863. 
§ Ueber Ozon im Blute. Dorpat. 1862. 


510 Chronicles of Science. [ July, 


exists. When putrid, the blood lost its power of affecting reagents, 
though four weeks after having been drawn, it was not quite inactive. 

Before closing our chronicle, we may direct attention to the report 
by Messrs. Hewlett, Stanley, and Reed, on the ventilation of the new 
barracks, at Gravesend, contained in the recently-issued statistical 
sanitary and medical reports for the Army Medical Department.* 
The observations made by these gentlemen show the importance of 
attending to the organic impurities floating in the atmosphere, and 
they bear out in many respects the conclusions arrived at by Pouchet 
and others. The method they employed was to draw the air, by 
means of an aspirator, through a solution of permanganate of potash, 
of known strength. The liquid became discoloured during the 
experiment, and a deposit occurred. This deposit was examined 
microscopically and found to contain fragments of epithelium, pus- 
cells, pieces of cotton fibre, shreds of wool, and large numbers of 
amorphous bodies. Dr. Parkes, in his remarks on these and other 
allied observations, points out that they put in a clearer light than 
before the necessity of ventilation, and the advantage of isolating 
patients, from whose bodies arise such quantities of organic particles. 
They would also seem likely to put on an experimental basis the 
doctrine of the transference of morbific agents from one person to 
another. The volume contains, besides, a large amount of very in- 
structive matter, not only as regards the health of the British Army, 
but on sanitary questions generally. 


XI. ZOOLOGY AND PHYSIOLOGY. 
(Including Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London.) 


Tue two topics which have received the greatest attention during 
the past quarter are the discoveries of M. Lartet, respecting the co- 
existence of man and the reindeer in central France, and the theory 
of Dr. Hunt as to the Negro’s place in nature. The former subject 
comes perhaps more strictly within the range of the paleontologist, 
still it will not be out of place here to mention, that seventeen stations 
have been discovered in France where the presence of the reindeer 
has been ascertained in a state of subjection to man; but as to the 
epoch when the reindeer ceased to inhabit what is now temperate 
Kurope, there is no positive historical or chronological account. Its 
remains are not even found in the French turbaries, nor in the Swiss 
lacustrine pile-works; but remains are found in a cave of Mont 
Saléve, in which they are associated with simply worked flints; and 
in the grottoes of Perigord are found flint flakes, and utensils and 
weapons manufactured of the horns and bones of the reindeer. 


* London, 1863. 
_ +t A very interesting account of these remains, accompanied by illustrations, 
will be found in the letter of our Paris correspondent. (“Notes and Correspondence.’’) 


1863. | Zoology and Physiology. 511 


With regard to Dr. Hunt’s views of the Negro’s place in nature, his 
paper proposed to show, that in the proportions of the arm, the form 
of the hips, thighs and fingers, the flatness of the foot, and the size of 
the molar teeth, there appeared a nearer approach to the ape than was 
seen in the European. The brain was comparatively small, the facial 
angle low, and all development of the brain ceased at puberty, while the 
form of the skull became more ape-like as he advanced in years. The 
structure of the brain was distinct from that of any other race of man ; 
and it had yet to be established whether the offspring of the Huropean 
and Negro were indefinitely prolific. There was not a single instance 
of a pure Negro being eminent in science, literature, or art; and Dr. 
Hunt concluded from all his observations, that there was as good 
reason for classifying the Negro as a distinct species from the 
Buropean, as there is for making the ass a distinct species from the 
zebra,—that the analogies are far more numerous between the Negro 
and apes, than between the European and apes—that the Negro is 
inferior, intellectually, to the European—that the Negro is more 
humanized when he is in his natural subordination to the European 
than under any other circumstances—that the Negro, indeed, can only 
be humanized and civilized by Europeans, and that Huropean civiliza- 
tion is not suited to the requirements and character of the Negro. 

These premises evoked a considerable amount of discussion at the 
time the address was delivered, in which, although some were 
decidedly opposed to the whole theory, the balance of opinion 
appeared to be in Dr. Hunt’s favour. Subsequently, Professor 
Huxley, in his Hunterian lecture, alluded to the paper for the 
purpose of condemning it, which called forth a paper war in the 
columns of the ‘ Reader,’ between Dr. Hunt, Mr. C. Carter Blake, 
and Professor Huxley. This discussion, however, which promised to 
be a very acrimonious one, and was not carried on with the most 
desirable courtesy, was nipped in the bud by the reticence of the 
Professor, who having had his word, let the matter drop, and returned 
no response to the replies of the leaders of the Anthropological 
Society. 

M. Gratiolet has been discoursing upon Man’s place in nature, 
and his remarks are, of course, worthy of great attention. Speak- 
ing of the brain of the apes, he says: “There is an enormous 
posterior cornu with lateral ventricles, and it occupies all the interior 
of the posterior lobes of the hemispheres. This fact has been denied 
by Professor Owen, but his error is obvious.” He goes on to observe 
that the encephalon of man and that of the apes present a typical 
resemblance, and this resemblance is exclusive—man resembles the 
apes and the apes only. All the differences relate to secondary 
characteristics—the volume, complication, and reciprocal proportions 
of the parts. But at no epoch is the human brain, typically so like 
an ape’s brain, actually an ape’s brain. One can make of material 
man neither a kingdom, a division, a class, an order, nor a family of 
an order. He is apart from the beings which most resemble him. He 
also compares the hand of the ape and man. In the former, in reality, 
the hand is free only when the animal is at rest, and this liberty 


512 Chronicles of Science. [ July, 


reduces itself to the movements of brutish prehension, What a 
difference is there in the hand ofman! From a simple prehensile organ 
it becomes a measuring instrument—from a hook it becomes a com- 
pass, and the compass presupposes the geometrician. With regard to 
the disputed question of the Negro’s place in nature, M. Gratiolet 
exclaims—“ Do these races (i. e. the Negroes and certain other 
degraded races) form a passage between man and the apes? No—a 
thousand times No! Their deformity even protests against such an 
assertion. Far from dwindling down, the human characteristics 
become more decided, and even exaggerated in their case. The lobe 
of the ear, the nostrils, the lips, which are the exclusive character of 
man, are developed even to deformity. Everything in the Negro’s 
degraded face protests against this impious assertion.” 

The Society of Arts and Sciences of Utrecht has propounded some 
questions for which it is proposed to give prizes, viz. for each a gold 
medal, value 300 Dutch florins. The following relate to the subjects 
under consideration :—1. Observations on the influence exerted by 
small variations of exterior circumstances upon the evolution of the 
embryo of one or more species of vertebrate animals. 2. Chemical 
and physiological observations on the digestion of freshwater fish. 
3. Chemical and physiological observations on the digestion of 
reptiles. 4. It has long been known that fish have the faculty of 
producing sounds; the Society requires observations on the manner 
in which the sound is produced in one or more species where the 
cause has not yet been pointed out. 5. Observations upon the 
development of one or more species of invertebrate animals, the 
history of which is not yet known, accompanied by the figures 
necessary to explain the text. The successful essays will be published 
in the memoirs of the Society, and all replies must be sent to the 
Secretary, Professor O. Van Rees, Utrecht, before the 30th November 
next. 

In a paper by Dr. W. H. Dickinson, read before the Royal 
Society, upon the Functions of the Cerebellum, he infers from 
numerous experiments upon the lower animals, that the cerebellum 
has nothing to do with cranium sensations, with the sexual propensity, 
with the action of the involuntary muscles, with the maintenance of 
animal heat, or with secretion; but the only function which his 
experiments seemed to assign to it was such as concerns voluntary 
muscles, which receive from it a regulated supply of motor influence. 
Kach lateral half affects both sides, but the one opposite to itself the 
most. The anterior limbs are chiefly under the influence of the 
cerebrum ; the posterior, of the cerebellum. Cerebellar movements are 
apt to become habitual, while cerebral are impulsive. In the human 
subject, the only faculty which constantly sufiers in consequence of 
changes in the cerebellum is the power of voluntary motion. When 
congenitally defective, there is want of action in the muscles of the 
lower extremities. The occasional occurrence of loss of visual power, 
and alterations of the sexual propensity in diseases of the cerebellum, 
are referred to the conveyance of irritation to the corpora quadrigemina 
in the one case, and to the spinal cord in the other. From all 


1864. | Zoology and Physiology. 513 


experiments on animals and on man, it is concluded that the cerebel- 
lum isa source of voluntary power to the muscles supplied by the 
spinal nerves. It influences the lower more than the upper limbs, and 
produces habitual rather than impulsive movements—and it has a 
power, which has been described as that of co-ordination—and it is 
suggested that the outer portion of the organs may be the source of 
its voluntary motive power, while its inner layer is the means of 
regulating its distribution. 

Mr. Rowley, of Brighton, has recently added to his collection the 
only egg of the Atpyornis maximus which ever came to this country, 
and has in a shilling pamphlet, published by Tribner and Co. (and 
noticed amongst our reviews), made some interesting observations, not 
only on the unique zoological specimen, but upon the bird which 
laid it. 

G. O. Sars, son of the celebrated Norwegian Professor, has been 
dredging in freshwater lakes in Norway, and has met with some curious 
confirmations of former observations, that true imhabitants of the sea 
can, under certain circumstances, gradually accustom themselves to 
live in thoroughly fresh water. The conditions of change, as exhibited 
in some Swedish lakes to Professor Lovén, may be very gradual, 
operating throughout thousands of years, but, in the present instance, 
it must liave been much shorter. Sars found in the mud at the bottom 
of this lale a small red crustacean, in which he at once recognized a 
saltwater species, although the water was perfectly fresh and pleasant 
to the taste. In the case of this lake, apparently some very high flood, 
or a furious storm from the west, has driven the sea up on some occa- 
sion into the loch, which lies close to the coast. Their residence in a 
foreign medium, however, appeared to have changed the mode of life 
of these animals, for, instead of being found as usual in the shallowest 
pools, they were here in the deepest part of the water, sunk in the mud. 
Dredging in Mjésen Lake, which flows through a large river, he dis- 
covered a crustacean, Mysis relicta, of Lovén, belonging exclusively to 
salt-water ; one of those extraordinary relics of the glacial period, whose 
presence in some of the great inland lakes of Sweden has lately excited 
so much interest. Associated with it were numerous examples of a 
Gammarus (G. cancelloides), first discovered in the seas of Baikal and 
Angora, and which has lately also been found in Sweden, and which 
Lovén considers originally to have belonged to the sea. 

These observations of Lovén and Sars may tend to modify mate- 
rially certain geological theories. 

A valuable and interesting paper has been communicated to the 
Linnean Society by Mr. A. R. Wallace, on the ‘ Phenomena of Varia- 
tion and Geographical Distribution as exhibited by the Malayan 
Papilionide.’ The large butterflies of this region are well adapted 
for this purpose, since their gaily-painted wings register the minutest 
changes of organization, and exhibit on an enlarged scale the effects of 
the climatal and organic conditions which have influenced more or 
less profoundly the organization of every living being. The variations 
occurring among the 120 species inhabiting the Malayan Archipelago 
are classed by Mr. Wallace under the heads of, 1st, simple variability ; 


514 Chronicles of Science. [July, 


2nd, dimorphism or polymorphism ; 3rd, local forms; 4th, coexisting 
varieties ; 5th, races or sub-species ; and, 6th, true species. The first 
includes all great instability of specific form; the second, polymor- 
phism or dimorphism, differs from the first in this—that the offspring 
differs from the parents in a considerable degree, and in a manner 
more or less constant and regular—so that, of the offspring of a single 
pair, some will resemble their parents, while others will differ from 
them, but the difference will be tolerably fixed and definite, and inter- 
mediate varicties will never occur. He explained how such a state of 
things came about in a Philippine island butterfly, Papilio alphenor. 
But the most interesting portion of his observations was directed to 
the subject of variation as specially influenced by locality, for example, 
the fact that the species of this Indian region (Sumatra, Java, &c.) 
are almost invariably smaller than the allied species of Celebes and 
the Moluccas. The most remarkable of these cases was that of the 
island of Celebes, almost all the Papilionidex, Pierids, and some of the 
Nymphalide of which had acquired a peculiar curve of the upper 
wings, amounting in some instances to an abrupt bend. If, he argues, 
the butterflies of the Celebes acquired their longer and more curved 
wings owing to the persecution of bird or insect enemies, from which 
they could only escape by increased powers of flight, it is evident that 
those which had already some other means of protection would receive 
no benefit from a change in the form of their wings, and therefore 
could not acquire it by the action of natural selection. This also ex- 
plains why none of the Danaidz are so modified, for they are univer- 
sally the objects of mimicry by other groups, and are therefore already 
protected. These Danaide are a nuisance to the collector from their 
abundance and ubiquity, and their strong and peculiar odour is be- 
lieved to be the cause of their safety, and they are, for this reason, 
habitually passed over by insectivorous creatures. Mr. Wallace, 
therefore, with Mr. Bates, argues that mimicry is in all these instances 
a means of protection. 

In a discussion which recently took place in the Entomological 
Society with reference to the luminosity of fire-flies, Mr. Bates re- 
marked that the Honduras fire-fly (Fulgora lanternaria) was pretty 
common in the upper Amazons, but he had never found it luminous ; 
moreover, although the creature figured in their fables, and was 
reputed to be poisonous, there was no rumour current among the 
natives of its being luminous. 

M. Siebold has communicated to the Helvetic Society of Natural 
Sciences a curious fact of parthenogenesis of bees. A hive at Con- 
stance furnished for four years a considerable number of hermaphro- 
dite bees, which immediately after their hatching are expelled from 
the hive by the workers. None of these individuals resemble one 
another ; sometimes one side is male and the other female, or the an- 
terior parts (head, eyes, antenne, &c.) are of one sex, while the pos- 
terior belong to the other; while sometimes the internal apparatus 
belongs to one sex and the external to the other. Some individuals 
are, in the interior, males on the right side and females on the left, 
while the reverse is the case on the exterior. The eggs from 


1864. | Zoology and Physiology. 515 


which these hermaphrodites issue, are laid in the workers’ cells, and 
ought, therefore, to become workers, but the queen-bee, having pro- 
bably some defect in organization, a part of these eggs are only incom- 
pletely fecundated, so that the development of the female organs 
remains in a more or less rudimentary condition. 

The cultivation of silkworms is so important a branch of industry 
in some portions of the globe, that any information respecting their 
diseases and modes of cure becomes highly valuable. Captain Hutton, 
F.G.S., of Mussooree, N.W. India, attributed the enormous loss of 
worms by “ muscardine”’ and other diseases to the combined effects of 
bad and scanty food, want of sufficient light and ventilation, too high 
a temperature, and the constant interbreeding for centuries of a debili- 
tated stock. He regards, after long experience, the occasional occur- 
rence ina brood of one or more dark grey or blackish brindled worms, 
—the vers tigrés, or vers zébrés—as an attempted return, on the part 
of nature, to the original colours and characteristics of the species ; in 
fact, the dark worms, hitherto rejected by the sericulturist, were the 
original and natural worms, and the whiteness or pale sickly hue of 
the majority was a positive indication of degeneracy and the destruc- 
tion of the original constitution. He recommends the sericulturist to 
separate his dark worms from the general stock, and to set them apart 
for breeding purposes, thus annually weeding out all the pale-coloured 
worms. 

M. Onesti has found that wood-soot, if sprinkled over silkworms 
attacked with /ébrine, effects an almost certain cure, or, at all events, 
prolongs their lives until the cocoons are finished. The French 
Minister of Agriculture has addressed a circular to the préfets of the 
sericultural departments of France, and has requested that a com- 
mission be formed to report on the value of M. Onesti’s discovery. 

Professor N. Wagner has discovered a fact in natural history, 
which at first sight appears incredible; but it is supported by prepa- 
rations, an inspection of which has convinced Professor de Filippi of 
the truth of the observations. Professor Wagner found in June 1861, 
under the bark of a dead elm, some whitish apodal worms, which 
proved to be the larvee of insects. Each larva was filled with smaller 
larvee, at first supposed to be parasitic; but the smaller larve were 
found upon closer examination to be identical, even to the smallest 
details, with the enveloping larvee, by which identity Professor Wagner 
was led to assume that the included larve represented a second gene- 
ration produced by the enveloping larva. This would be a case of 
alternation of generations, even more surprising than that of the 
aphides; and this interpretation has several circumstances in its 
favour, viz. the identical character of the inclosed and enclosing 
larve—their simultaneous development—the presence of enclosed 
larve not in some but in all the larve—and, lastly, that in the inte- 
rior of the larve of the second generation, a third generation is pro- 
duced precisely similar to the first two. Professor Wagner has 
observed three other species of the same genus, all presenting this sin- 
gular mode of reproduction. The perfect insects are still unknown, but 
from the appearance of the larvee, they seem to be of the order diptera. 


- 516 Chronicles of Science. [ July, 


We read in ‘ Cosmos’ a letter from M. Duchesne Thoureau relating 
to a pattern taken from a large tapis, entirely due to the work of a 
group of spiders in a state of captivity. He expresses his belief that 
it is quite possible to produce by the aid of such auxiliaries, and with- 
out expense, soft and warm carpets, to arrive at which results it would 
only be necessary to dispose of a number of working spiders, and 
over a space proportionate to the magnitude of the work desired. 

From the works of Oersted, Grube J. Miller, &c., it appears that 
the genus Autolytus presents the peculiarity so rare among Aurelids of 
a striking polymorphism, the males being so different from the females, 
that the two sexes have been described as belonging to distinct 
genera. There exists also in each species a third form, namely, the 
asexual form, which produces the sexual individuals, by gemmation 
at its posterior extremity, the alternation of generations in these 
worms being thus well established. M. A. Agassiz has found in the 
harbour of Boston, the Autolytus of which the males were described by 
Oersted in 1848, from Greenland, under the name of Polybostrichus 
setosus. He has, likewise, observed in the same locality, another 
species, to which he has given the name of Autolytus cornutus, a species 
which appears to be nearly related to the European species, A. 
Heligolandie. The differences between the individuals of the two 
sexes are of the same nature as in the European species. ‘The females, 
at the moment of their detachment from the organic individuals, 
possess no ovigerous sac, but it is soon formed, and the ova deposited 
in its interior. The embryos are rapidly developed, and their escape 
from the sac appears to cause the death of the female, for M. Agassiz 
has never met with females after their embryos have escaped. The 
embryos at the moment of issuing from the sac have a triangular out- 
line, their body diminishing rapidly towards the posterior externity. 

The frequency with which the minute parasitic worm, Trichina 
spiralis, has been found of late in the muscles and intestines of the pig, 
and the fatal and serious results which have attended the consumption 
of flesh so contaminated, has spread a panic throughout Germany, and 
a committee has been appointed by the Berlin Medical Society, con- 
sisting of Virchow, Remak, Gurlt, and others, to examine into and report 
upon the subject. Thus far the disease has not been met with in any 
animal that is a vegetable feeder; but Dr. Langenbeck says, that 
trichine have been found in extraordinary numbers in earthworms 
last year—as many as 500 or 600 having been observed in a worm of 
middling size—and these worms form part of the food of those animals 
which swine devour when left at liberty. He advises that the swine 
should be always fed in styes, and debarred access to localities where 
worms are numerous. 

It is seldom that a natural object proves so complete a puzzle to 
the initiated as one which has recently been brought to ight. It is an 
elongated semicylindrical body, whitish, and rough like shagreen, 
length about two feet. It was purchased by the Rev. H. H. Higgins 
of a dealer in London, for the Liverpool Museum, where, struck by 
its remarkable and anomalous character, he showed it to Dr. Gray, 
who took it to London. It has been examined by Milne-Edwards, and 


18064. | Zoology and Physiology. 517 


other savants, but no one appears able to identify it. The impression 
is, that it is echinodermatous in its nature, and it has been provisionally 
named by Dr. Gray Myriosteon Higginsii. This remarkable object has 
been transferred to the National collection in the British Museum. 


Tur ZoonocicaAL Socrery or Lonpon. 


Little of general interest has transpired at the meetings of this 
Society during the past quarter, the most important communications 
being those of the Secretary, Dr. Sclater, either from persons residing 
abroad, or his own observations upon recent arrivals, and upon the 
animals in the Society’s gardens. Perhaps, the most interesting com- 
munications were those relating to the collection of animals made by 
Captain Speke, during his expedition to Eastern Africa. 

Dr. Sclater described the mammals and birds; Dr. Giinther, the 
reptiles and fishes; Dr. Dohrn, the mollusca; and Mr. F. Smith, the 
insects collected by the great African traveller. Thirty-eight species 
of mammals were enumerated, amongst which the most remarkable was 
a new antelope of the genus Tragelaphus, which it is proposed‘to call 
T. Spekit ; and sixty-one birds, including five new species. 

This was at the meeting on the 8th of March. Mr. F. Buckland 
also read an interesting communication upon the habits of the spawning 
trout. He had learned easily to distinguish between the male and 
female at a glance as they swam ; the male is always long in body, and 
generally has a hook-like projection from the lower jaw, the colour of 
the abdomen always chocolate, and a white line running along the 
pectoral fin, and usually on the ventral also. The female is shorter 
and rounder, and more wild and timid. He had succeeded in hybridiz- 
ing the salmon and trout, and hoped in time to naturalize in the 
Thames a fish two parts trout and one part salmon, which should so 
combine the habits and excellencies of the two, that the non-migratory 
instinct should predominate over the migratory, and the fish thus be 
induced to remain up river. 

On the 22nd March the Secretary drew attention to some recent 
additions to the ménagerie, the most remarkable of which were a 
young American monkey (Pithecia Satanas), and four examples of 
the Rufous-tailed pheasant (Kuplocamus erythrophthaimus), the latter 
having been presented to the Society by their corresponding member, 
the Baboo Rajendra Mullick, of Calcutta. 

These birds formed part of a collection brought over by Mr. J. 
Thompson, the Society’s head-keeper at Calcutta, and presented by 
the native gentleman just named. Mr. Thompson had so ably 
managed the transport from Calcutta, as only to have lost a single 
bird on the passage. 

Amongst other arrivals announced by Dr. Sclater (April 12th) was 
a living example of the tooth-billed pigeon (Didunculus strigirostris), 
presented to the Society by Dr. George Bennett, of Sydney, along 
with some other rare Australian birds. At the subsequent meeting, 
April 26th, Dr. Sclater announced that My. Latimer, the Austrian 


518 Chronicles of Science. | July, 


Consul at Porto Rico, had offered, through Lieut.-Colonel Cavan, to 
obtain for the Society some living Manatees (Dugongs), and that 
arrangements were being made for the transport of the animals to 
this country. 

Amongst the papers descriptive of new collections, read by the 
Secretary (the specimens being, in some cases, exhibited), was one of 
birds collected by Rev. H. B. Tristram, now in Palestine. Amongst 
these were two new species, which Mr. Tristram proposed to call 
Passer Moubiticus, and Caprimulgus Tamarioca. Also a paper refer- 
ring to a collection made by Mr. G. H. White, in the vicinity of 
Mexico, amongst which were several additions to the avi-fauna of 
that country, and other papers describing single examples of special 
interest to zoologists. 

At the meeting on the 22nd of March, Dr. Gimther read the 
first part of an account of a large collection of fishes made by Capt. 
Dow, and Messrs. Salvin and Gorman, at Panama, among which were 
many new and interesting species. He pointed out the structure, and 
mode of operation of a poison apparatus in a new species of fish of 
the genus Thalassophryne, belonging to the family Batrachide, which 
it was proposed to call T. reticulata. The poison organs consist of 
four hollow spines, two of them being dorsal, and the others formed 
by the acute termination of the operculum posteriorly. The canal in 
the interior of the spines terminates in each case in a sac, in which 
the poisonous fluid is collected. In the specimens examined by Dr. 
Giinther, which had been preserved in spirits for nine months, the 
slightest pressure of the sac, situated on the operculum, caused a 
whitish fluid contained in it to flow freely from the hollow extremity 
of the opercular spine. 

In the account of this apparatus, which appeared in the last 
number of the ‘ Natural History Review,’ it was stated that, “although 
many fishes have long had the reputation of being considered poisonous, 
no trace of any poisonous organ has been detected in them.” This is 
an error. In the Proceedings of the Liverpool Literary and Philoso- 
phical Society, No. V. p. 156, is an excellent account of the anatomy 
of the stinging organs of the sting-fish, or Lesser Weever (‘Trachinus 
vipera), by Mr. I. Byerley, F.L.S., Seacombe, Birkenhead, accom- 
panied by illustrative plates. In this paper the existence of poison 
glands in connection with the dorsal spines is demonstrated, and the 
character of these organs in our well-known British fish appears to 
be very similar to that described by Dr. Giinther, in the Thalassophryne 
from Panama. 

One or two communications of interest have been made by Dr. J. 
K. Gray, F.R.S. On the 24th May, that gentleman described the 
cetaceous animals which have been observed in the seas surrounding 
the British isles, of which he enumerated twenty-eight species as 
having occurred on the coast of this country. At the same meeting 
he read a note upon Urocyelus, a new genus of terrestrial gasteropo- 
dous mollusks, discovered by Dr. Kirk (of Dr. Livingstone’s expedi- 
tion), in the Zambesi river. On March 8th, Dr. Gray described a 
new species of tortoise, discovered by Mr. Osbert Salvin, in Guatemala, 


1864. | Recent Scientific Progress in America. 519 


to be named Stawrotypus Salvinii. He also read a paper upon the 
Chelydide, as distinguished by their skulls; and gave a synopsis of 
the sand-moles of Africa, including a description of two new species 
discovered by Captain Speke. 

Amongst the notes read at the various meetings were the follow- 
ing :—by Mr. Flower, of the Royal College of Surgeons, on a lesser 
Fin Whale (Balena rostrata), stranded upon the coast of Norfolk ; 
by Dr. E. Crisp, on the Anatomy of the Eland ; by Dr. Geo. Bennett, 
on the habits of the tooth-billed Pigeon (Didunculus strigirostris) ; 
and by Mr. J. K. Lord, upon the use of a shell of the genus Dentalium, 
as a currency medium by the natives of Vancouver's Island, British 
Columbia. 


XII. CHRONICLE OF RECENT SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS 
IN AMERICA. 


By Henry Draper, M.D., Professor of Natural Science in the 
University of New York. 


Suvcz the breaking out of the civil war in the United States in 1861, 
a strong military tendency has been communicated to scientific pur- 
suits. This is well seen in the records of the Patent Office at Wash- 
ington, where, during the past three years, not less than 1,140 
improvements in cannon, projectiles, cartridges, &c., have been 
patented. A considerable number of these refer to attempts at 
producing breech-loading weapons of large calibre. The application 
of this principle has thus far been unsuccessful, and probably will 
continue to be so, on account of the difficulty of securing strength 
without unwieldiness. In smaller cannon it has been partially suc- 
cessful, while in fire-arms it has done so well as to give rise to 
serious discussion concerning the propriety of abandoning muzzle- 
loaders altogether. 

The most effective artillery that the war has produced has been 
the Parrot rifle, and the Rodman hollow-cast 15 and 20 inch guns. 
The former consists of a cast-iron barrel, strengthened at the breech 
by a reinforce of wrought iron. The durability of these weapons is 
so great, that a 30-pounder used against Charleston was fired 4,615 
times before bursting. The range was five miles. The largest size 
as yet furnished for active service is a 300-pounder; many 200- 
pounders have been made. 

For heavy battering purposes and the destruction of iron-plated 
vessels, the Government has encouraged the construction of smooth- 
bore cannon of great calibre; one of the forts in New York harbour 
having a battery of 15-inch guns, carrying 440-pound balls. The 
efficacy of these was tested in the battle between the ‘ Atlanta’ and 
‘ Weehawken,’ in which the latter virtually decided the contest by the 
first discharge of her 15-inch gun prostrating 40 men. 


520 Chronicles of Science. [July, 


A 20-inch gun too has been recently successfully cast at Pitts- 
burg on Rodman’s principle. In order to make this monster piece of 
ordnance, which will throw a solid shot of 1,000 pounds, 104 tons of 
metal were melted, though the gun will only weigh, when finished, 
56 tons. The essential feature of this system of casting is to cool the 
iron mass from the interior by means of a stream of water, which is. 
sent to the bottom of the bore in a properly protected pipe, while the 
exterior is kept hot by a fire round it. In this instance air was sub- 
stituted for the water after a certain length of time, as the water was 
found to lower the temperature of the metal too quickly. The run- 
ning of the iron occupied only 214 minutes, and the gun was ready 
for the lathe ina fortnight. These hollow-cast guns are also very 
durable, the 15-inch at Fortress Monroe having been already fired 
505 times. 

The use of gun-cotton, which is attracting so much notice on 
account of the Austrian experiments, has not met with favour. Up to 
the present, it has only been the solution in ether and alcohol that 
has been rendered available. By the aid of a coating of collodion, a 
cartridge of compressed gunpowder is made perfectly waterproof, and 
yet may be inflamed by a percussion cap without being torn open by 
the soldier. The advantage in rapidity of loading and freedom from 
dampness is very obvious. 

Much attention too has been directed to defensive as well as 
offensive warfare. Iron-plated vessels in large numbers have been 
built, the Government having a fleet of 75 on hand, or to be soon 
completed. The favourite style of protection has been with many 
layers of plates bolted or riveted together, and, where possible, 
backed with two or three fect of oak. A few vessels with solid plates 
of 44 inches thickness have been constructed ; but since it has been 
found that the 21-inch gun with cast-iron round shot would penetrate 
such armour, they are no longer regarded as perfectly protected. The 
‘ New Ironsides,’ a ship of this kind, has, however, done well, not less 
than ten 10-inch shot having struck her near the water line, without 
doing any serious damage. She has been hit 213 times without losing 
a man. 

When a person enters a Monitor turret, he cannot fail to feel a 
sensation of absolute protection, surrounded as he is on all sides by 11 
inches of iron. The only loss of life in these structures has been 
from boltheads flying off; but now that the use of through bolts has 
been dispensed with, this cause of insecurity no longer exists. In the 
iron-clad cruiser ‘ Dictator, —320 feet long, 50 feet beam, and 20 feet 
depth of hold—which is at present making ready for a trip to Europe, 
the turret has been increased to 15 inches, and the side plating to 
11 inches, with three feet of oak. She is expected to be quite fast, 
having two 100-inch cylinders of 4 feet stroke. The armament is 
only two guns, but they are of built-up wrought iron, and of 13 inches 
calibre. The maker, Mr. Ericsson, is to receive 1,000/. for every 
pound of powder over 50 pounds that they will burn. The risk of 
encountering a sea voyage has already been undertaken by Mr. Webb, 
who has just sent the ‘ Ré d'Italia, iron-clad 44, to Naples. She made 


1864. Recent Scientific Progress in America. EPA 
d 


the passage in 18 days and 18 hours, though the sea was so rough that 
the accompanying Italian frigate was almost lost. 

As regards the protection of forts by iron, a paper has been written 
by General Barnard, in which it is shown that the only parts necessary 
to be protected in sea-coast works are the embrasures. In landworks 
he suggests having turrets in the salients, and, perhaps, sheathing the 
searp wall. In the constructions of this kind, hitherto tested under 
fire, the plating has been with a double layer of railroad iron. After 
the capture of Fort de Russy, some experiments were made on such 
casemates, when it was found that they were very soon wrecked by the 
fire of 9-inch guns. The appearance in the figure shows the effect 
on casemate No. 2, at Fort Hindman, of the fire of the iron-clad 
‘Lexington,’ at 400 yards. It is copicd from the official drawing. 


aiff | 


The most interesting mineralogical novelty is the development of 
petroleum boring. The quantity of this fluid exported during the 
past year was about 28,000,000 gallons, and the amount derived from 
its sale 2,400,0002. The export in 1861 was 1,112,476 gallons; in 


522 Chronicles of Science. [July, 


1862, 10,887,000 gallons. The total production in 1863 is estimated 
at 80,000,000 gallons. 

The greater proportion is obtained from Oil Creek Valley in Penn- 
sylvania. Many of the borings are 500 feet deep, though some much 
less deep have yielded largely. These latter, however, required 
pumps, while the former, called “ flowing wells,” eject their conterts in 
some cases to a height of 100 feet above the ground. The petroleum 
is discharged by pipes into vats, where the salt water with which it is 
associated separates. In this state it is worth about fourpence a 
gallon, though there have been occasions, when the market was glutted, 
in which it has sold for not more than two shillings a barrel of 40 
gallons. The owners of the wells are now able to control the dis- 
charge by stopcocks fixed on the pipes that line the borings, and 
when the price is low, limit the supply. 

Crude petroleum has to be submitted to distillation in order to 
separate the benzine, which boils at 140° F. from the heavier oils, and 
these, in their turn, from the solid hydrocarbons. The proportion of 
these ingredients varies so greatly (some wells producing so large a 
percentage of the heavy oils), that the product is only suitable for 
greasing machinery. Unfortunately, it “ gums,’ as mechanics say, and 
unless tallow or animal oils are added to it, it cannot replace sperm 
oil. 

The exact source of petroleum is, up to the present, uncertain, 
whether it has all been produced by distillation from bituminous 
coal, anthracite being formed at the same time, or whether it has 
resulted directly from the bituminous fermentation of marine plants 
antedating the coal and containing a larger proportion of hydrogen. 

The amount thrown out by some of the wells is enormous. One 
of them ejected 3,740 barrels a day, three 1,000 barrels, one 800 
barrels. To “strike ile,” has become throughout that region the 
synonym for rapidly growing wealthy. ‘Transportation to market is 
effected by carrying it down the stream in vessels, many of which are 
merely tanks. Occasionally, when collisions occur, thousands of 
gallons are lost, floating away on the surface of the water. It is pro- 
posed to collect the fluid again by means of floating dams, shaped like 
a V, with the point up stream. 

The effect that this illuminating agent has produced throughout 
the country is very striking. It has entirely displaced all other means 
of lighting, except gas, and is used even in cities by many who desire 
an absolutely steady light. The great desideratum is, a perfect chim- 
neyless burner. The petroleum requires a large amount of air for 
complete combustion of its carbon, and by no other means than a tube 
6 or 8 inches long has the supply been rendered sufficient. Although 
by the substitution of mica for glass the difficulty of breakage has to a 
certain extent been overcome, there is still great room for improve- 
ment. 

Kerosene, as the oil suited for burning is called, has in one sense 
increased the length of life among the agricultural population. Those 
who, on account of the dearness and inefficiency of whale oil, were 
accustomed to go to bed soon after sunset, and spend almost half their 


1864. | Recent Scientific Progress in America. 523 


time in sleep, now occupy a portion of the night in reading or other 
amusements ; and this is more particularly true of the winter season. 

Benzine has come largely into use to supply the place of turpen- 
tine, especially for painting. It seems to be a good substitute for 
that now almost unpurchasable commodity, though painters have 
been forced to change their processes of mixing. 

Professor Wolcott Gibbs has recently investigated the relations of 
hyposulphite of soda to certain metallic oxides. He finds that it can 
be used instead of sulphydric acid in precipitating nickel, cobalt, iron, 
alumina, zinc, and manganese from their solutions, if the mixture be 
raised to 120° C. In the old process as suggested by Himly, the 
temperature employed was not greater than the boiling point at the 
ordinary pressure of the air, and the reduction, though occupying 
several hours, was often incomplete. Gibbs uses a combustion tube 
hermetically sealed, heating it in an air bath for about an hour. 

Mr. M. Carey Lea has examined the influence of ozone and some 
other chemical agents on germination and vegetation. He finds that 
ozone tends to check the growth of young plants ; wheat in air grow- 
ing 10 inches, while that exposed to ozone grew 4 inches. Ozonized 
air also diminishes the length of the roots, those exposed to it only 
becoming ;%,th of an inch long, whilc the others increased to 24 inches. 
He concludes, that though ozone is a highly oxidizing agent, it may 
in some cases put a stop to putrefaction, by destroying the low order 
of vegetable organisms, which Pasteur has shown to be to a large 
extent the medium of effecting such changes. Mr. Lea has also noticed 
that oxalic and picric acids, even in very weak solutions, entirely pre- 
vent germination. The seeds were placed in all these experiments on 
gauze, resting on the surface of water. 

Some facts regarding the great mass of copper found in the Minne- 
sota mine, 120 feet below the surface, have been lately published. It 
was 45 feet in length, 22 feet at the greatest width, and 8 feet at the 
thickest part. It weighed 420 tons, and contained 90 per cent. of copper. 

Mr. James D. Dana has continued the publication of his memoir 
on the classification of animals, based on the principle of cephalization. 
It is also being printed in England. 

Professor J. D. Whitney is steadily progressing with the geological 
survey of California. The maps are mostly on a scale of $ inch to the 
mile. He has discovered that Mount Shasta, 14,440 feet high, pro- 
bably overtops all other peaks in the United States ; Popocatapetl, 
17,783 feet high, the loftiest mountain in North America. 

Professor Charles A. Joy has given the analysis of a meteorite 
found in Chili, weighing 1,784 grammes ; it contained— 

Nickel iron (with Co, Mn, and Cu) 48-689 


Sulphide of iron FeS 7405 
Chrome iron Cr,O, FeO 0-701 
Schreibersite (Fe 1:38 Ni 0°67 P 0-115) 1-563 
Olivine ROy SiOz 1677, 
Labradorite (R, O; SiO; +4 ROS8iO;) 29-852 
Tin stone Sn O, 0:189 

100-076 


VOL. I. 2N 


524. Chronicles of Science. [ July, 


Mr. T. Sterry Hunt, of the Geological Survey of Canada, has, 
under the title ‘Contributions to Lithology,’ given an exposition of 
the theoretical considerations which he thinks should serve as a basis 
to lithological studies. He has also pointed out desirable reforms in 
the classification and nomenclature of crystalline rocks. 

Dr. John Dean has published in the Smithsonian Contributions to 
Knowledge a beautifully illustrated memoir on ‘The Gray Substance 
of the Medulla Oblongata and Trapezium.’ The object has been to 
give the topography of those parts, with illustrations from a series of 
photographs made by himself. The photographs are of two kinds, on 
albumen paper and photo-lithographs. The former are only furnished 
for private distribution, but the latter are so well executed, that all the 
essential features are preserved. Photo-lithography has now advanced 
to a high degree of perfection; but in 1856, when Professor J. W. 
Draper was making the microscopic photographs, which his work on 
Human Physiology demanded, it was found necessary to copy them by 
hand on the wood. 


1864. | ( 525 ) 


REVIEWS. 


METALLURGY.* 


In all probability, the art of reducing Metals from their ores dates 
amongst the very earliest of the evidences, which we possess, of the 
exercise of human reason, in the infancy of mankind, upon the crude 
natural products of the Earth. The poets have imagined the discovery 
of the metals to have been accidental. 
* When shady woods, on lofty mountains grown, 

Felt scorching fires, whether from thunder thrown, 

Or else by man’s design the flames arose,— 

Whatever ’twas that gave these flames their birth, 

Which burnt the towering trees and scorched the earth ; 

Hot streams of silver, gold, and lead and brass ; 

As Nature gave a hollow proper place, 

Descended down and formed a glittering mass.” + 

Accidents do not strictly belong to the advances of science. The 
same phenomenon may occur unnoticed for ages; but, eventually, a 
mind prepared to receive the truth, seizes the indication and gives it 
a practical value. Many strong objections could be urged to the 
poet’s view; but since the story of Metallurgy is lost to history, 
the above tradition is as worthy of reception as any other. 

The oldest records inform us that a considerable degree of perfec- 
tion in the working of Metals had been acquired ere yet History had 
begun to keep her record. Job and Jeremiah use the refining of 
silver as symbolic of the condition of the people, by whom they were, 
each in his respective age, surrounded. Hesiod and Homer describe 
the precious metals, and especially notice the valuable applications of 
Bronze and Iron. Archeologists have, as it appears to us, somewhat 
hastily, made the divisions of a Stone age, a Bronze age, and an Iron 
age, to represent certain steps in the upward march of our race. That 
the use of Bronze should have preceded the use of Iron is not pro- 
bable. That they were used at the same period, in the early days, 
is certain, since we have examples from Assyria of Bronze being cast 
upon cores of Iron. 

Tubal Cain, “the instructor of every artificer in brass and iron,” 
is curiously repeated by every nation as the one originator of these 
arts. The name varies with the people; but whether it be the Tubal 
of the Hebrews, or the Voeliind of the Scandinavians—the “ Master 
Smith ” is the one man who is worthy of “ worship and honour.” 


* ‘Metallurgy : The Art of Extracting Metals from their Ores, and adapting 
them to various Purposes of Manufacture.’ By John Percy, M.D., F.R.S. 

‘Fuel, Fire-clays, Copper, Zinc, Brass. &c.,’ vol. i. 

‘Tron and Steel,’ vol. ii. Murray, London, 

+ ‘Hesiod.’ See ‘Watson’s Chemical Essays,’ 


2n2 


526 Reviews. [ July, 


However discovered, men must have used the simple metals before 
they employed the alloys. Nothing is more curious, in the history of 
human progress, than the fact, that the oldest tombs of Egypt, the 
buried palaces of Assyria, the “ giants’ graves” of Northern Europe, 
and the Celtic remains of our own Islands, yield Bronzes identical in 
their composition, and differing not from that which we now employ. 
Bronze is a mixture of Copper and Tin. Before these could have 
been combined, either in Egypt or Assyria, man must have obtained 
his Copper from the Peninsula of Sinai—and his Tin from the British 
Isles, or the Islands of the Indian Archipelago. Therefore, naviga- 
tion must have advanced to that state which would have taught him to 
traverse wide and distant seas; and when the metals were obtained, 
experimental science must have determined the true proportions for 
making the best combination for implements or weapons. 

The history of the Arts points to a much higher antiquity than that 
which we have hitherto been in the habit of assigning to the human 
family. 

We have not to deal especially with the history of Metallurgy in 
considering the volumes which are before us, since they treat mainly 
of the practice of this Art. It was difficult, however, to resist the 
temptation of a few remarks on its antiquity, and the state of perfec- 
tion at which it had arrived, at a very early period. To many, the 
mere smelting of the ore of a metal is a simple operation which an un- 
trained mind could carry out. A glance at the two volumes on Metal- 
lurgy by Dr. Percy will show that every stage of reduction demands 
an amount of knowledge which can only be acquired by long-con- 
tinued experiments, or close scientific study. By the latter the labours 
of the former may be much reduced, but never dispensed with. 

England is the great metallurgical country of the world. Within 
her sea-girt Isles she possesses a greater variety, and a larger quantity, 
of the metalliferous minerals than are found in any other part of the 
Earth, within the same area. Gold and Silver—Copper—Tin—Lead 
Tron—Zinc—-Antimony—Cobalt-—Nickel— Bismuth—and the ores 
of the rarer metals are found; and from one end of the land to the 
other, the blaze of the furnace proclaims the industry of her sons in 
reducing them to the metallic state. Tin smelting-houses in Corn- 
wall; Copper works around Swansea; Zinc works in many places; 
Lead “ smelt-mills ” in the Northern Counties, North Wales, and other 
districts—and 562 Blast Furnaces in operation, proclaim the activity 
of our Metallurgies. Although we produce annually Metals and Coals 
to the value of 34,691,000/., our literature has remained barren of 
Works treating of this subject. If we name some half-dozen on 
Metallurgy our list will be exhausted—and in no one of these is 
the subject treated with the desired comprehensiveness.* 


* The following are the works alluded to :~ 

1. ‘A Treatise on the Progressive Improvement and Present State of the 
Manufactures in Metal’ 2nd edition. Edited by Robert Hunt. 1853, Long- 
mans, London. 

2. ‘A Manual of Metallurgy.’ By John Arthur Phillips. Griffin, London. 

3. ‘The Useful Metals and their Alloys.’ By Scoffern,'Truran, Clay, Oxland, 
Fairbairn, and Aitkins. Houlston & Wright. 


1864. ] Metallurgy. 527 


The ‘Metallurgy’ of Dr. Percy is published to mect a want 
which has long been felt, and which we rejoice to see, at last, ade- 
quately supplied. The two volumes which are completed (we think 
it wise to include both in our notice, although Vol. I. was published 
in 1861) embrace the most important Metallurgies, and they really 
leave but little to be desired. The author is peculiarly fitted by his 
education, and his opportunities, for the production of a work which 
must be equally acceptable to the manufacturer and the man of 
science. 

To place an Ore of Lead—or Copper—or Iron in a fire, and by 
the intensity of heat to run out a fluid metal, is certainly a simple 
matter. But when we remember that nearly all ores are of a very 
compound nature; that the chemical affinities in action are of the 
most powerful kind; and that the metallurgist has so to direct his 
skilled labour, that a metal, as nearly pure as possible, may be the 
result, we shall be convinced that a considerable amount of scientific 
knowledge is required. 

“ As the word science in relation toa manufacturing art is often vaguely 
used, it may be well to give the following illustration of its meaning :— 
When an ore of copper, consisting essentially of copper, iron, sulphur, and 
Silica, is subjected to a series of processes, such as heating with access of 
air under special conditions, melting, &c., copper is separated in the metallic 
state. ‘The sum of these processes is termed the smelting of copper. In 
this operation of smelting, certain chemical changes take place : the sulphur 
combines with the oxygen of the air, and is evolved chiefly as sulphurous 
acid ; the iron is similarly converted into oxide, which combines with the 
Silica present to form a fusible compound or slag. There are thus several 
facts’ which are proved on chemical evideuce. These facts, when sys- 
tematically arranged, may be said to constitute the scientific knowledge of 
copper smelting : and that knowledge implies necessarily a knowledge of 
the chemical relations of copper, iron, sulphur, oxyzen, and silica to each 
other. . . . The man who conducts the process of copper-smelting in 
ignorance of these facts, has simply an empirical, in contradistinction to a 
scientific, knowledge of the art.” * 


Dr. Perey’s aim has been to give, in this work, clear technical de- 
scriptions of each process, and to explain by the light of science, the 
philosophy, if the word may be allowed, of every step. To do this, close 
and laborious study, at the furnace mouth, has been necessary, and 
this has been followed by a searching analysis of the products, in the 
quiet of a well-regulated laboratory. 

This work is intended to convey the largest possible amount of 
information relating to the production of the Metals Nature gives 
us but two or three in a pure or native state, and, as it is designed 
with all things, the power of mind is necessary to mould them to a 
condition in which they become useful. Therefore, this work, very 

4. ‘Papers on Iron and Steel, Practical and Experimental.’ By David 
Mushet. John Weale, London. 

5. ‘The Iron Manufacture of Great Britain, Theoretically and Practically 
Considered.’ By William Truran, C.E. E. & F. N. Spon, London. 

6. ‘An Elementary Treatise on Iron Manufacture.’ By Samuel Baldwyn 
Rogers. Simpkin, Marshall, & Co., London. 

* «Metallurgy :’ Introduction. 


528 Reviews. [ July, 


logically commences with the Physical Properties of the Metals—and 
some General Considerations on Metallurgical Processes, proceeding to a 
full examination of Fuel, and then entering on the special Metallurgies 
of the useful Metals. 

The development of Heat is necessarily a most important study to 
the Metallurgist. Heat of high degrees of intensity is required—and 
this must be produced with the utmost economy. The characteristics 
of various kinds of Fuel—such as Wood, Charcoal, Peat, Lignite or 
Brown Coal, Coal, Coke, and Anthracite, are therefore matters of 
interest. Hence Dr. Percy has devoted a large portion of his first 
volume to their consideration. We should be wanting in justice if we 
failed to state our high appreciation of the original matter,—experi- 
ments made with the most scrupulous care, and deductions drawn with 
philosophical acumen,—which marks this division of our author’s 
labours. 

That, notwithstanding all that has been written on the subject of 
Coal, and all the examinaticns to which this Fuel has been subjected ~ 
by Chemist, Geologist, and Naturalist, we should be unable to answer 
the question, “ What is Coal?” is a sad reflection on European philo- 
sophy. In 1853 a remarkable trial took place at Edinburgh before 
the Lord Justice General and a special jury to try this question. The 
result is well put by Dr. Percy :-— 


“At the trial there was a great array of scientific men, including 
chemists, botanists, geologists, and microscopists ; and of practical gas engi- 
neers, coal-viewers, and others, there were not a few. On the one side it 
was maintained that the mineral was coal, and on the other that it was a 
bituminous schist. The evidence, as might be supposed, was most conflict- 
ing. The judge accordingly ignored the scientific evidence altogether, and 
summed up as follows :—‘The question for you to consider is not one of 
motives, but what is this mineral? Was it coal in the language of those 
persons who deal and treat with that matter, and in the ordinary language 
of Scotland ? because to find a scientific definition of coal after what has been 
brought to light within the last five days, is out of the question. But was it 
coal in the common use of that word, as it must be understood to be used 
in language that does not profess to be the purest science, but in the ordi- 
nary acceptation of business transactions reduced to writing? Was it coal 
in that sense? That is the question for you to solve.’ The jury found it 
was coal. Since this trial the same mineral has been pronounced not to be 
coal by the authorities of Prussia, who accordingly have directed it not to 
be entered by the custom-house officers as coal.” * 


While these paragraphs are being written the question is again 
before the Courts. Evidence equally as conflicting as that given on 
the former trial has been tendered by the men of science on this. 
Judgment has again been given in the plaintiffs favour, and for the 
third time the Boghead mineral is decided to be a coal. This trial 
furnishes another example of the degradation of science, whenever its 
students are induced to use their ingenuity as Special Pleaders in a 
Court of Law. Dr. Percy says, ‘‘ In the present state of science I do 
not believe it possible to propose an exact definition of the term coal.” 


eAVolsiep. to. 


1864. | Metallurgy. 529 


This confession shows the limited capacity of our language—the poverty 
of our knowledge—the uncertainty of our scientific definitions—and 
of the nomenclature of science when it advances—or rather attempts to 
advance—from mere details to enlarged generalities, : 

Naturally following the subject of Fuel, the Fire-clays and Cruci- 
bles come under notice, together with Sands, Sandstones, and all the 
natural refractory Minerals employed in the construction of Furnaces, 
and as the means of exposing the Ores to the action of intense heat. 
This section cannot but be of great value to the practical man. Not 
only have we the results of the labours of our best Chemists and 
Metallurgists given in concise and clear terms, but we have a con- 
siderable amount of original research communicating much that is 
important. ; 

The Metallurgy of Copper has the first attention, and that of Zine 
follows. There are few metallurgical processes which require so large 
an amount of chemical knowledge as Copper Smelting. Dr. Percy has 
carefully described every stage in the process, and, at the same tine, 
explained the chemical changes which mark each stage. Nearly every 
condition of the furnace products in their passage from the ore to fine 
copper, has been submitted to the most searching examination in the 
author’s laboratory. There is one feature in connection with this 
research, and indeed with all the original investigations included in 
these volumes, which must be recorded with unqualified praise. In no 
case has Dr. Percy avoided giving his own assistants the full merits 
due to their labours. In some instances indeed we feel that he may 
have overstated the claims of those who have worked merely under his 
guidance. 

The history of Copper Smelting in Great Britain has evidently been 
a favourite subject of inquiry. It is therefore very complete. Not 
only have we full details of all the processes employed in this country 
—with drawings of the furnaces, &c., to scale, but we have accounts of 
Copper Smelting in Sikkim, Himalya, and other parts of India, in 
Japan, Sweden, Prussian Saxony, and Russia. It is quite impossible 
to do more than thus hastily notice these valuable contributions to 
applied science, which must be studied in the work itself by all who 
are desirous of obtaining accurate knowledge on the subject. 

The History of Zine Smelting is touched on, but it is not so satis- 
factorily given as that of Copper. Indeed the, in every way, interest- 
ing story of this Metallurgy in our own island is dismissed in a few 
lines. This is to be regretted, since the mining and smelting of 
Calamine—especially that which was raised in the Mendip Hills— 
was, in the time of Elizabeth, so important as to give rise to Acts of 
Parliament directed to prevent the Exportation of Zinc, mainly to 
compel “‘ Copper to be brought in for the manufacture of Gun-metal, 
Bell-metal, Schrof-metal, Latten,” &c., &e. Dr. Perey quotes much of 
the matter collected by Dr. Watson and Beckman, who dealt mainly 
with the ancient use of Zine, and but little of interest besides. 

The second volume of 934 pages is devoted to Iron and Steel. This 
is, without doubt, the most important division of Dr. Percy’s labours, 
He has departed from the plan pursued by him in treating of Copper 


530 Reviews. | July, 


and Zine. We have no special history introductory to the Manufac- 
tures of Tron and Steel, but a short sketch at the conclusion of the 
work. Much, it is true, will be found in the descriptions of the 
various processes, which is, in fact, their history. Still, we should 
have been pleased, as we believe many others would also have been, 
had the author devoted as much research to the History of the Metal- 
lurgy of Iron and Steel as he has done to that of Copper. 

The Physical and Chemical properties of Iron are most ably dealt 
with, and every problem of interest im connection with the production 
of this valuable metal is carefully examined. The different states of 
grey iron, white iron, and mottled iron have been subjects of close inves- 
tigation. Dr. Percy gives us his own researches into the modes of 
existence of Carbon in Iron on which these states depend, and also 
some account of every inquiry of any value which has been made by 
British or by Continental Chemists and Metallurgists. 

Spiegeleisen, or specular cast-iron, which is now a product of the 
highest importance to the Iron and Steel manufacturer, has, of course, 
claimed a considerable share of Dr. Percy’s attention. He clearly 
refers the peculiarity of this metal to the Manganese, which he finds 
in combination. Yet, he states sufficiently all the evidence which has 
been adduced to prove Spiegeleisen to be a definite compound of 
Carbon and Iron, the Manganese playing an unimportant part. 

All the great questions of the combination of Silicon, Phosphorus, 
Sulphur, Titanium, and Tungsten with Iron or Steel are carefully 
examined, and this section of the work deserves the most careful 
attention of every Iron master. The numerous alloys of Iron are 
described, and most of the patent inventions (?) connected with this 
much disputed question, of the merit or demerit of alloying Iron or 
Steel with other metals, have a large share of attention. 

The analyses of British Iron Ores is exceedingly complete. In 
1851 Mr. 8S. H. Blackwell collected with much care, industry, and 
cost, examples of the ores then known. These were displayed by that 
gentleman in the Great Exhibition, and a very careful description of 
them, by him, will be found in the large catalogue of that Exhibition. 
This collection was given by Mr. Blackwell to the Museum of Prac- 
tical Geology, and with it the sum of 500/ “towards defraying the 
cost of analyzing all the more important of those ores.” Analyses 
have been made in Dr. Percy’s Laboratory of a very large number of 
these ores, and published, with descriptions of their modes of occur- 
rence, at the expense of the Government.* The collected analyses, 
therefore, given in this work, are of the most trustworthy and 
complete character. The processes of smelting [ron in all parts of 
the world are described. We believe we may safely say that the 
author gives descriptions of every variety of Iron Furnace in use, and 
in nearly every case, the accompanying drawings are to scale. The 
sections of the English Blast Furnace which are given, are remarkable 
examples of the amount of care which has attended every stage of the 


* «Memoirs of the Geological Survey of Great Britain; The Iron Ores of 
Great Britain, parts 1. 2, 3,4.’ Longman & Ce, London. 


1864. | Metallurgy. 531 


inquiry into this important division of Iron manufacture, and of 
the zeal with which author and engraver have laboured to produce the 
most satisfactory results. With the enormous development of our 
Iron industries, there has been, naturally, greatly increased attention 
to all the details of manufacture. Every stage of the process, from 
the casting of “mine” (iron ore) into the furnace, to the flowing out 
of pig-iron, has been rigorously investigated by the author; and, again, 
every step in the progress of manufacture, into “merchant bars,” or 
the conversion of iron into steel, has been subjected to the most 
minute examination. The attention which has been given by Dr. 
Percy to all these points has ensured a great degree of exactness in 
his descriptions, and there is little left to be desired in any one of 
them. 

The invention of “ Puddling” by Henry Cort is now very satis- 
factorily éstablished ; and the story of his ruin, through the fraudulent 
conduct of his partner, Mr. Samuel Jellicoe, and the stupidity and 
blundering of the government officials with whom he had to deal, is 
stated by Dr. Percy with great lucidity, and with the most honourable 
and kindly feeling. We should perhaps explain, for the benefit of 
some of our readers, that “puddling” is a name given to a process by 
which pig-iron, molten on the bed of areverberatory furnace heated by 
flame, is converted into malleable tron through the decarbonizing action 
of the oxygen of the air circulating through such a furnace. Pig-iron 
is, essentially, a compound of Carbon and Iron: other matters are 
combined with, and influence its quality, such as Sulphur, Silicon, 
Manganese, and Phosphorus. These are removed either by combina- 
tion with oxygen when they escape in the gaseous form, or by mixing 
with the slag, when they are mechanically removed. The mean of 
many analyses of Pig-iron gives about 3 per cent. of Carbon, 23 per 
cent. of Silicon, and 94 of Iron; that of Malleable Iron beg about + 
of a percentage of Carbon, and } of Silicon. This is to be considered 
as a general statement of the character of these two varieties of iron, 
the difference it will be seen depending upon the absence of Carbon 
or Silicon. Many processes have been devised to supersede the 
laborious operations of puddling, but none of them have been as yet 
entirely successful. 

Steel is a third condition of Iron, in which some Carbon exists in 
a peculiar state of chemical combination with the Iron. Dr. Percy 
says :— 

“The production of Cast-iron into Steel by partial decarburization may 
be effected in several ways: and of these are three of chief importance, 
namely, fining in a hearth with charcoal as the fuel, puddling in the rever- 
beratory furnace, and the Bessemer process. The first is the ancient 
method, which is still extensively practised ov the Continent, especially in 
Styria; the second is only of recent date, but has, nevertheless, made 
rapid progress ; and the third is the most novel, and certainly destined to 
play an importaut part in the world. If Steel be regarded simply as Iron 
carburized in degrees intermediate between Malleable and Cast-iron, then 
it is obvious that the latter, during its conversion into the former in the 
process of fining and puddling, must pass through the state of Steel. 
Accordingly, it is found that by suitably regulating and arresting the 


532 Reviews. | July, 


decarburizing action in these processes, Steel may be obtained instead of 
Malleable Iron.” 


The ‘“ Finery” process as practised over Europe is very satisfac- 
torily described, and, as far as we are acquainted with it, the same 
may be said of the descriptions given of the production of Steel by 
puddling. The “Section on Decarburization by blowing atmospheric 
air through molten pig-iron,” admitted by Dr. Percy to be a process 
“destined to play an important part in the world,” does not strike us 
as being so complete as is desired. This is the Bessemer process, 
which consists essentially in placing molten pig-iron in a vessel called 
a “converter ”—an ellipsoidal vessel, made of wrought-iron,—and then 
forcing, by blowing engines, a blast of air through it. Dr. Percy says 
of this process :— 

“T never witnessed any metallurgical process more startling or impres- 
sive. After the blast was turned on, all proceeded quietly for a time, 
when a volcano-like eruption of flames and sparks suddenly occurred, and 
bright red-hot scoriz or cinders were forcibly ejected, which would have 
inflicted serious injury on any unhappy bystanders whom they might 
perchance have struck. After a few minutes all was again tranquil, and 
the molten malleable iron was tapped off.” 


By the action of the atmospheric air on the molten pig-iron, a 
temperature is obtained, higher than any ever before attained in 
metallurgical operations. This process is now Im active operation in 
some of the largest works in this country, and others are engaged in 
adapting their works to receive the required machinery. In Sweden, 
Prussia, and France, the Bessemer process is superseding every other, 
and it promises indeed, as Dr. Percy says, “to play an important part 
in the world.” 

This invention was clearly arrived at by persevering industry, and 
an irrepressible hope which led the inventor to pass by failures as 
things of course, and steadily to work to the end which he has 
achieved, and for which he is now receiving a substantial reward. 

We hope, in the second edition of this work, that Dr. Perey will 
give us the benefit of such a close examination of every stage of the 
Bessemer process as its high, admitted, importance demands, and which 
he has given to some of the other processes described by him. 

We cannot refrain from expressing our regret that one feature, so 
strongly marked as to become a peculiarity, runs through this work. 
We allude to the desire, almost always shown, to trace back each 
man’s thought to some often undeveloped thought of earlier and yet 
earlier date. The analytical character of Dr. Percy’s mind has, to a 
great extent, led to this. The kindly spirit with which he reviews the 
history of the discoveries made by Henry Cort is a most pleasing 
exception to his rule. What the poet Coleridge said of those critics 
who were always endeavouring to find yet earlier footsteps in the 
snows of Helicon, in which the last adventurers on the hill of Fame 
had trodden, applies with equal force to the historian of science or of 
manufacture. We do not for one moment intend to dispute the cor- 
rectness of any one of the statements made regarding early or foreign 
processes, nor do we intend to say that they are not in many respects 


1864. | Metallurgy. 533 


like those more modern processes with which they are compared. 
But in every instance where success has attended the recent process, 
it will be found to be due to some original thought, which renders the 
manipulatory details on which that success depends, an original dis- 
covery. Do not let us encourage the habit of endeavouring to 
diminish the small rewards, which, in the aggregate, are gained by 
inventors. In some few cases a substantial recompense for benefits 
gained is bestowed by the public on the originator of a novelty, but in 
by far the larger number, the sole reward is the consciousness that 
success has been deserved, although it has not been achieved. 

There cannot be any difference of opinion, amongst those who are 
acquainted with Metallurgy, on the value of this work, as elucidating 
nearly every point of importance in the processes by which the ores 
are converted into metals. The man of practice may possibly think 
it would have given a more complete character to the work if the 
author had minutely dealt with the numerous phenomena which 
present themselves to the smelter. The man of science may feel that 
he desires on many points, an examination yet more searching than 
that which Dr. Percy has given. To the first we may reply that the 
minuteness desired by him would have detracted from the use of this 
work. It deals sufficiently with all the principal changes, chemical 
or physical, which are essential to the production of marketable metal. 
The minute details if described in a book, cannot be learnt from it, 
and therefore only tend to obscure the more important matters. 

To the latter, we say, for special examinations you must go to 
special treatises, and remember that Dr. Percy has in nearly every 
instance indicated the sources from which he has drawn his facts, and 
from which the additional evidences can be obtained. 

“ Merratturey” is a most valuable contribution to the Literature 
of Science and the Arts. It removes from us the censure that we did 
not possess a treatise on the metals, of any standard character, and it 
gives us a work to which we can with satisfaction refer, as setting 
forth in clear and intelligible language all that itis necessary to know 
of the processes employed in our large works, to give those results 
which have placed us as the first Metal-makers in the world. 

We cannot conclude our notice without speaking of the numerous 
woodcuts which add greatly to the value of the book. In execution 
they are superior to any that can be found in our works on Science. 
The precision with which they have been copied, and the clearness 
with which the minute parts have been engraved, constitute them 
examples to all wood engravers who may have to deal with Mechanics 
or Engineering. The scale which accompanies each engraving adds 
greatly to its value, since this renders it easy to construct a machine 
or build a furnace without any other drawings. 

The author, and all who have aided in the production of this 
work, merit the utmost reward whichan appreciating public can 
bestow on a careful record of the most important of British industries. 


584 Reviews. [ July, 


COMPARATIVE ANATOMY AND CLASSIFICATION.* 


Ons of the most striking qualities of the human mind is the perception 
of the order which pervades the universe ; and one of its most remark- 
able tendencies is to arrange and classify all visible objects and per- 
ceptible forces. It matters not whether the objects are vast and 
distant, as the heavenly bodies; near and appreciable to the touch, as 
the constituent parts of the earth or the living objects on its surface ; 
whether visible to the eye, as organic and inorganic beings of definite 
form and colour, or cognizable only through chemical or physical 
agencies, as gases, &c.; it is immaterial whether the forces be physical, 
as magnetism, electricity, light and heat, or vital, such as those which 
are especially manifested in plants and animals, or, lastly, even the phe- 
nomena of the human mind itself; the habit of man is always to deal 
with these various objects and powers in an orderly, systematic manner. 
And if this systematic or classificatory treatment were simply applied 
to such objects as minister to his own wants and desires, to plants, 
animals, useful or ornamental minerals and so forth, one might be 
disposed to regard this quality of the mind as an instinct analogous 
in some degree to the power of selection for utilitarian purposes pos- 
sessed by some of the lower animals. But we find the very reverse to 
be the case; namely, that individuals and races of men who appear to 
have no higher aim than to satisfy their bodily wants, care little about 
the order or arrangement of the things which surround them, whilst men 
of the highest intellects (those, indeed. who often think the least about 
the practical uses of the objects that engage their attention) have from 
time immemorial been employed in detecting relations in natural 
objects, and in drawing up systems of classifications to embrace all 
forms having characteristic features in common, whether in the or- 
ganic or inorganic realm of nature. 

That such systems of grouping or classification are chiefly, if not 
entirely, the creations of the human intellect, few will be disposed to 
doubt who have perused the past history of any branch of science, 
and it is obvious that like many other aids to education, they have 
been invented for the purpose of facilitating the acquisition of know- 
ledge. Were man acquainted, for instance, with the form, structure, 
and vital attributes of all living and fossil animals, he would not con- 
ceive of the animal kingdom as parcelled out into sub-langdoms, 
classes, orders, families, &c., but it would present itself to his mind as 
one perfect connected whole; and if for the convenience of reference, 
it pleased him to retain these old boundaries, it would only be as he 
now rules the meridians upon his maps; for they would no more have 
a real existence than have the lines of latitude and longtiude upon 
the surface of the globe. 

Another curious phenomenon in connection with this faculty of 


* «Lectures on the Elements of Comparative Anatomy,’ by Thomas Henry 
Huxley, F.R.S., Professor of Natural History, Royal School of Mines, &e; ‘On 
the Classification of Animals, and on the Vertebrate Skull” John Churehill & 
Sons, 1864. 


1864. | Comparative Anatomy and Classification. 535 


classification, is that it has a value apart from the knowledge of the 
objects of which it treats. As this is a somewhat vague expression, 
we would explain it by saying, that the knowledge how to classify is 
one science, whilst an intimate acquaintance with the subjects classified 
is another ; it is not at all unusual to find a clever systematiser who 
has little intimate practical knowledge of the large majority of objects 
which he arranges according to their leading properties, whilst there 
are innumerable so-called practical men of science to whom systems of 
classification are almost unknown. When, however, we meet with 
an individual proficient in both departments of knowledge, it may 
naturally be expected that any new arrangements proposed by such 
an one, will be valuable to students and observers. In no branch 
of science have there been greater changes in regard to classifica- 
tion than in natural history; and when we restrict that term to its 
popular signification, zoology, we cannot fail to be struck with the 
great number of systems which have from time to time been recom- 
mended by men of undoubted eminence, subjected to alterations, 
corrections, and emendations, and which have superseded one another 
with astonishing rapidity. To the young beginner this circumstance 
is often a matter of great perplexity, and he frequently finds that when 
at the recommendation of a friend or teacher, having a particular bias, 
he has mastered the arrangement of some well-known systematic 
zoologist, he has a great deal to unlearn, before he can renew his 
studies on a par with those who have availed themselves of more 
recent, or perhaps more accurate systems of classification. 
Some years ago, a favourite book with beginners was Rymer 
Jones’s ‘ Natural History of Animals,’ * a very attractive little work, 
well written, and beautifully illustrated, and one that has no doubt 
raised up many an active and useful devotee of science. The author 
of this book, believing all methods of classification propounded up to 
his time to have been very imperfect, set to work to build up a new one 
based upon the most recent experiences of his day. Aristotle, he told 
his readers, had simply classed all animals under two great heads,the one 
possessing colourless, and the other red blood, divisions which corre- 
spond with the invertebrata and vertebrata. Passing from the old Greek 
philosopher to the fathers of modern zoological science, he touched 
upon the systems of Linnzus and Cuvier, both of whom, recognizing in 
the structural peculiarities of animals suitable guides for classification 
(the external horny cases in insects, or the internal bony framework 
of the vertebrata, for example), based their arrangements upon these 
characteristics. But because the author could not find in them squares 
ready fitted to receive some of the more recently discovered forms of 
life, he was dissatisfied with both these systems, and regretting that 
the celebrated John Hunter had not lived long enough to carry out his 
physiological views in regard to classification (inasmuch as that great 
anatomist had obtained “an indistinct glimpse of the clue that would 
have served to guide him”’), he announced that the researches of 
modern physiologists had “ fortunately left us in no doubt upon the 


* Van Voorst, 18+5. 


536 Reviews. [July, 


important question,”’ for that the essence of all physiology points to 
the nervous system as the basis of all correct arrangements, and upon 
the presence, absence, or supposed characters of that system, he (the 
author) therefore based his classification. But supported as he was 
in this view by many men of the highest eminence, he soon found 
himself in the same dilemma in which he had placed Cuvier, the 
greatest systematic zoologist of the age ; and in a work published some 
years afterwards,* he himself acknowledged the imperfection of his 
“neural” system of classification, and stated that “in the lower forms 
of the animal kingdom especially, we are far from being able to avail 
ourselves of such a guide.” He did not venture, however, to substitute 
a better system, but employed the old one as a pis aller. 

In referring to this fact, we by no means seek to disparage the 
author’s labours in the cause of science ; on the contrary, we consider 
that the acknowledgment of the imperfection of his system redounds 
to his praise, and exhibits a moral courage not often possessed by 
scientific men. 

Turning now to the Continent, we find two recent works on system- 
atic zoology, both still regarded with great favour in scientific circles, 
and the authors of which have built their systems upon almost entirely 
dissimilar foundations. In his Guide to the Study of the Invertebrata,t 
Siebold has founded his classification upon the form and structure of 
animals, ranging them according to the simplicity or complexity of their 
organization, and availing himself of all known data of structure and 
development; whilst Vogt (whose work, with all its imperfections, is 
perhaps the best zoological handbook extant) t has built up his system 
solely upon the phenomena of development. 

Nor is it surprising that Vogt should have singled out these 
phenomena; and although we shall presently perceive that his system 
was as much open to objection as that of other naturalists who direct 
their chief attention to one phase only in animal existence, we cannot 
be surprised at his having selected this one, for at the time he under- 
took his task, every day was revealing new features in the develop- 
ment of animals which appeared to set at defiance all previous modes 
of classification. To speak popularly, Echinoderms were found, first, 
to lead the life of “ Acalephs ;” Medusz, that of the hydra; winged 
insects gave birth to others without organs of flight, and these again 
produced offspring resembling their grandparents; creatures that 
swam freely about in the water appeared to become degraded, and to 
belong to quite a different class, as entozoa, when their old habitat 
was changed for the internal organ of some warm-blooded creatures : 
and thus it became as difficult to define the true position of a vast 
number of animals which, in various stages of their existence, changed 
their form and character, as it would be for an uneducated man to 


* «The General Structure of the Animal Kingdom.’ Van Voorst. 

+ ‘Lehrbuch der Vergleichenden Anatomie der wirbellosen Thiere,’ by C, 
Th. V. Siebold, being the first volume of the ‘ Lehrbuch der Vergleichenden Ana- 
tomie,’ by Siebold & Stannius. Berlin: Veit & Co., 1848. 

+ Zoologische Briefe: Naturgeschichte der lebenden und untergangenen 
Thiere.” 2 vols. Frankfort am Main Literarische Anstalt. J. Ruetten, 1851. 


1864. | Comparative Anatomy and Classification. 537 


decide whether a butterfly ought to be ranked as a worm or as an 
insect ; and it was found necessary to raise this and degrade that form 
of life, according to the stage in which it had been observed when its 
place in the animal kingdom was first assigned to it. But Vogt was 
not content to rectify the boundaries of former systems, and fill u 
gaps that had been left open through the imperfect knowledge of those 
who preceded him, The phenomena of development had taken such 
complete possession of his mind, that he allowed them to serve as his 
chief guide in classification ; and thus we have the whole animal 
kingdom divided, according to his method, into three great groups, 
each possessing, as he believed, some marked embryonic peculiarity, 
or, more correctly speaking, each having a distinct method of repro- 
duction. The lowest of these groups, comprising the forms now 
known as Protozoa, had (according to Vogt) no true ova; the second, 
embracing the Radiata, Vermes, and all the Mollusca, except the Cepha- 
lopoda (cuttle-fishes, &c.), was the result of the transformation (or 
absorption) of the whole yolk into the embryo; and the highest 
group in which he found the embryo developed distinct from the yolk 
(Gegensatz zwischen Embryo und Dotter) comprised the Cephalopoda, 
Articulata, and Vertebrata. In like manner, he was guided in the sub- 
division of these groups, especially of the last-named, by certain 
features in the development of the embryo in ovo, or of the foetus. 

This system of classification was always considered faulty by the 
leading zoologists of Germany; and we need only state that the 
Infusoria, which he classed in his group possessing no ova (kein Ei), 
have, through the recent researches of Dr. Balbiani, of Paris, been 
shown to be sexual and to produce ova; and that he would be com- 
pelled to seek some other feature in their structure or development in 
order to define their true position, to show that his system is quite as 
imperfect as those based upon any other single phase in animal life. 

But our limited space prevents us from referring to other systems 
of classification, and with a passing tribute to the great zoologist 
Milne-Edwards, the worthy disciple of the illustrious Cuvier, whose 
labours have been transferred, with or without acknowledgment, 
to innumerable so-called Hand-books and 'Text-books, which have 
been published in almost every European language, we must now 
direct the attention of our readers to the work before us. 

The first portion of the treatise, which is a reprint of a series of 
Lectures delivered by the Author at the Royal College of Surgeons, 
is devoted solely to the subject of Classification, and to the relations 
of one group of animals with another. Asa series of essays on this 
branch of zoological science, it is not only very valuable to students 
who already possess some knowledge of the subject, but will be found 
deeply interesting to more advanced readers, who have not had the 
opportunities afforded to the author of watching the progress of sys- 
tematic zoology during the last few years, or to those whose studies 
have been directed rather to practical and experimental zoology than 
to the literature of the science. 

As regards the author’s system of classification, he tells us that 
it is based “ upon purely structural considerations,” and that animals 


538 Reviews. [ July, 


have been regarded “not as related to other forms of life and to 
climatal conditions—not as successive tenants of the earth, but as 
fabrics, each of which is built upon a certain plan.” 

Availing himself of the Cuvierian classification, instead of aspiring 
to be the founder of a new method, he has built up the following im- 
proved zoological system :— 


TABLE OF THE CLASSES OF THE ANIMAL KINGDoM. 


The Linvits of the Four Cuvierian Sub-Kingdoms are indicated by the Brackets 
and Dotted Line. 


Rapiata. 
: Gregarinidu. Infusoria. Scolecida (?). 
: Rhizopodu (?). Echinodermata. : 
: Spongidu. Oa : 
: : Annelida. 
Ir : Crustacea. 
s Alene i sCrastace ARTICULATA. 
: Actinozou. ‘ Arachnida. 
: Myriapoda. 
: Polyzoa. : Insecta, 
Brachiopoda, 
Ascidioida. 
Pisces. 

Lamellibranchiata, Amphibia. 

) MoLiusca. Reptilia. VERTEBRATA, 
Branchiogasteropoda. Aves. 
Pulmogasteropoda, Mammalia. 
Pteropoda, 
Cephalopoda. 


As each of the foregoing groups, the author says, “embraces one of 
the principal types or plans of modification of the animal form,” a 
precise knowledge of that which constitutes the typical structure of 
each of these groups” will serve to convey an exhaustive knowledge of 
the animal kingdom. He proposes, therefore, to “ define the various 
groups,’ or where definition is not yet possible, “to describe a 
typical example.” And it is due to Professor Huxley to say, that in 
thus seeking to present to his readers a correct outline of the animal 
kingdom, he has fulfilled all the conditions essential for the execution 
of his task; and where he falls short in its performance (as he 
acknowledges from time to time, in the course of his survey), it is not 
from any inability to classify and arrange, but owing to the want of 
materials with which to operate. 

His illustrations (we mean his drawings), which necessarily form 
a most important feature in the work, have the merit of being to a 
great extent original, and those which are not so, are in most cases 
taken from the newest works bearing upon the special subject to which 
they refer, the observer’s name being in every instance appended to 
them,—a rule which we recommend for more general adoption. The 
careful dissections of the author, more especially of the typical 


1864. | Comparative Anatomy and Classification. 539 


examples Phallusia,* Anodon, Helix, and Sepia, are remarkably well 
adapted for displaying the organization of the groups to which they 
belong, and, in addition to a great number of typical illustrations 
taken from life, the student will find two little diagrams exhibiting, in 
asimple but striking manner, the distinctions between the general 
structure of the vertebrate and invertebrate types of the animal king- 
dom. In adopting, as he has done, the system of Cuvier, the author 
has displayed sound judgment, and, generally speaking, his additions 
and modifications, necessitated by the advances in zoological science, 
appear to be the best he could have made. We recommend this portion 
of his work to “ science teachers,” and to students who wish to base 
their knowledge upon a good foundation. For these purposes the 
language might have been simplified with advantage, but in no case is 
there a want of clearness, nor do we find in it any affectation of 
learning, although, as we have already said, the most important facts 
which have recently been contributed by the leading observers of the 
day, both at home and abroad, are included in his comprehensive 
review of the animal kingdom. To this retrospect the first six 
chapters of the work are exclusively devoted. 


In our notice of those Lectures in Professor Huxley’s work, in 
which the structure and development of the vertebrate skull and “ the 
theory of the vertebrate cranium” are treated of, it is not our inten- 
tion to attempt an analysis of the multitudinous details (many of which 
are of a most elaborate nature) therein discussed, but to confine our- 
selves to the consideration of some of the leading propositions laid 
down and conclusions arrived at. 

Since the year 1807, when Oken, in his “ Programm,” first an- 
nounced the remarkable hypothesis that the skull is but a peculiar 
modification of the vertebral column, the “vertebrate theory of the 
cranium” has more or less occupied the attention of many distinguished 
anatomists, and Spix, Bojanus, G. St. Hilaire, Carus, and Professor 
Owen, have published elaborate Memoirs, in which they have adopted 
the general conception of Oken, with more or less modification in-the 
details of his plan. 

The great reputation of the celebrated English anatomist, and the 
weight attached to his opinions, have induced many anatomists in this 
country to accept his views, without, perhaps, inquiring minutely into 
the data on which his conclusions are based. And in some of our 
anatomical text-books the nomenclature, and system of arrangement 
of the cranial bones into vertebrae, advocated by Owen, have been 
introduced, not without creating confusion, into the descriptions of 
the human cranium. There were, however, always a few anatomists 
who declined to give in their adhesion to the system of Professor 
Owen. Most prominent amongst these was Professor Goodsir, who, 
applying to the investigation of the subject the embryological 
researches of Von Baer, Rathke, Reichert, and Remak, pointed out, 
not only in his Lectures delivered in the University of Edinburgh, 

* The description of this form, and perhaps of one or two more, is rendered 
somewhat obscure through an apparently incorrect lettering of the earns 

VOL. I. ) 


540 Reviews. | July, 


but more systematically in some highly philosophical Memoirs read 
before the British Association in Cheltenham, August, 1856,* the 
uuapossibility of reconciling many of the morphological conceptions 
of Owen with what is known of the mode of development of the 
cranium, and of its relations to the vascular and nervous systems. 
The necessity of combining embryological investigation with compa- 
rative anatomy in all our morphological inquiries was at once put on 
a firm and scientific basis by these Memoirs of Mr. Goodsiz’s. 

In pursuing his investigations into the morphology of the skull, 
Mr. Huxley has employed both these methods of research, and has 
arrived at the conclusion “ that the skull is no more a modified vertebral 
column, than the vertebral column is a modified skull: but the two 
are essentially separate and distinct modifications of one and the same 
structure, the primitive groove.” 

To make this proposition clear to our readers, it is necessary we 
should explain that one of the first indications of the development of 
the body of the vertebrate embryo is the appearance of an elongated 
linear groove in the blastodermic membrane, the anterior end of which, 
somewhat dilated, corresponds in position to the future head. At the 
bottom of this groove a cellular cylindrical rod, the notochord, is 
formed, which extends throughout the whole length of the future 
vertebral column. ‘lhe anterior end of the notochord passes into the 
dilated cephalic end of the primitive groove, and corresponds in 
position to a part at least of the future basis cranii. Hmbryologists 
do not agree as to the distance to which this notochord passes forward 
in the base of the embryo skull. Mr. Huxley, grounding his state- 
ments mainly on the observations of Rathke, pronounces very positively 
that in all the vertebrata, Amphioxus only forming an apparent 
exception, it stops short immediately behind that part of the basis 
eranii which lodges the pituitary body. 

Now, highly as everything should be valued which Rathke has 
written on developmental matters, yet it ought not to be forgotten 
that this position of his has not been allowed to pass unchallenged by 
embryologists of equal, and of almost equal repute. Thus Reichert, 
the eminent professor of anatomy in the University of Berlin, states 
that it passes at an early stage of development into the frontal region, 
and Kolliker also has observed it to reach farther forward than Rathke 
allows. In that very remarkable fish, the Amphioxus, in which the 
cranium remains membranous throughout lite, the notochord extends 
almost to the anterior end of the head, far in front of the origins of 
the olfactory and optic nerves, and therefore beyond the region which 
would correspond to the pituitary fossa. The very striking exception 
which this fish affords to the universality of Rathke’s proposition, may 
well make us pause and ask if our investigations into the mode of 
development of the vertebrate cranium were more extended than they 
have as yet been, might not other animals be found in which simi- 
larly well-marked exceptional arrangements exist ? 


From the sides of the “ primitive groove” thin membranous 


* Subsequently published in detailed abstract in the ‘Edinburgh New Philo- 
sophical Journal,’ January, 1857. 


1864. | Comparative Anatomy and Classification. 541 


lamine, “the dorsal lamine,” grow up, and gradually inclining 
inwards coalesce by their edges i in the middle line. They form the 
foundations of the lateral walls of the skull and spinal eines and 
they assist in enclosing the spaces known as the cranial cavity and 
spinal canal, 

The notochord then becomes surrounded in its whole length by a 
gelatinous investing mass which gives off anteriorly two bands, the 
“trabecula cranii.” These are prolonged forwards, and, according to 
Rathke, embrace the pituitary fossa, and extend as far as the region 
in which tho ethmoid bone is subsequently developed. ‘artilage is 
then formed in this investing mass in by far the greatest majority of 
erania, and this constitutes the cartilaginous base of the skull and the 
bodies of the different spinal vertebre. Mr. Huxley strongly insists 
on the essential difference in the mode in which this chondrification 
of the investing mass takes place in connection with that part of the 
notochord which corresponds to the spinal column, and that which 
lies in the basis cranii. In the former, he states a separate nodule of 
cartilage is developed for each of the bodies of the future vertebrae, 
whilst in the latter a continuous bar of cartilage is formed which 
never exhibits any transverse division or segmentation. And with 
this difference in the mode of chondrification he considers that the 
skull and spine at once begin to diverge from each other in their 
mode of development, each putting on its own special characters, each 
pursuing its own road to its final construction. But we may here 
pause and ask, are our inquiries into the “ history of development” 
so far advanced —established on so sound a basis—as to permit us to 
accept, as unconditionally as Mr. Huxley would wish us to do, the 
primary continuous nature of the cartilaginous bar in the basis cranii 
developed in the investing mass of the notochord? Is its non-seg- 
mented nature to be looked upon as an ultimate fact in development ? 
For our own parts, we doubt much if the subject as yet admits of so 
sweeping a conclusion to be drawn. But if we put altogether on one 
side these doubts which we have just raised, and accept the statement 
asa fact in development, what value are we to attach to it as an 
indication that, at this stage, the skull and spinal column diverge so 
strongly from each other that the one can be no longer regarded as a 
modified form of the other? Is it altogether to outweigh the generally 
admitted fact that the most perfect of all the forms of skull, viz. the 
osseous cranium, exhibits, like the spinal column, in advanced stages 
of its formation, undoubted evidence of segmentation, and in the 
primordial cranium it may be assumed that this segmentation is at 
least potentially indicated? And in the construction and arrange- 
ment of certain, at least, of these segments, there is an approximation 
to the plan of vertebral conformation, more especially in their central 
and neural elements, which at once appeals to the eye of the 
anatomist. 

That the skull in its completely ossified state assumes a very 
definite segmentation is fully admitted by Mr. Huxley, and there runs 
throughout the lectures a very ingenious argument to show that in the 


whole series of osseous crania, from the pike to the man, three origi- 
9 >) 
202 


542 Reviews. [July, 


nally distinct segments may be traced, This concordance in the 
arrangement of the cranial bones, composing these segments, he con- 
siders, “places the doctrine of the unity of organization of the ver- 
tebrate skull upon a perfectly sure and stable footing; ” whilst from 
the considerations already advanced, as to the non-segmentation of 
the cartilaginous bar in the- basis cranii, “the hypothesis that the 
skull is in any sense a modification of vertebree is clearly negatived.” 
The three segments, which Mr. Huxley traces throughout the series, 
are the occipital, composed of the basi-, ex-, and supra-occipital 
bones; the parietal, of the basi- and ali-sphenoids and parietal bones ; 
the frontal, of the pre- and orbito-sphenoid and frontal bones. These 
segments closely correspond with the central and neural portions of 
the occipital, parietal, and frontal vertebree of Oken, Owen, and some 
other morphological anatomists. But we would ask, is it not possible 
to trace a still greater number of segments—whether we call them 
vertebrae or not, is of little consequence to this part of our argument 
—in the cranium? Mr. Huxley does not, in the above generaliza- 
tion, limit his segments to the region in which, or to the parts of the 
' skull in relation to which, on his own showing, the notochord is 
confined. But, by accepting a presphenoidal segment, he admits of 
a cranial segmentation anterior to the pituitary fossa, i.e. in front of 
the spot where the notochord, as he contends, terminates anteriorly. 
Now, if the proposition be granted that the principle of cranial seg- 
mentation is not necessarily limited to the region of the notochord, 
but is applicable to the primordial cartilaginous cranium generally, 
we see no reason why, in those cases in which the structure and 
development of the skull admit of it, a still greater number of seg- 
ments should not exist, ethmoid, vomerine, or even rhinal, as the 
case may be. We may illustrate this by a reference to the mammalian 
head. In the head of the mammal alone the nasal cavities are fully 
completed. And there enters, in a most important manner, into their 
formation, a series of cartilages, the nasal cartilages, which remain 
unossified. One of these, forming a part of the nasal septum, is the 
anterior prolongation of the basal portion of the primordial cranium, 
and ought therefore to be taken into consideration in coming to any 
conclusion as to the number and nature of the cranial segments. But 
the septal and lateral nasal cartilages, also, are quite passed over by 
Mr. Huxley, in his determination of the segments of the skull. Now 
this we cannot but think is a most important omission, and one, too, 
which, if supplied, might still more strongly serve to show, than has 
been done in these lectures, that, though there is in some respects a 
unity of plan in the cranial structure of the pike and the man, yet that 
there is in others “a no less marked diversity, each type exhibiting 
structures and combinations peculiar to itself.” If the reception of a 
rhinal and a vomerine segment be objected to on the ground that they 
bear no relation to the neural axis, and differ in this, as in some other 
particulars, from the frontal, parictal, and occipital segments, it may 
be answered that at the caudal end of the spinal column great modifi- 
cations in the form and composition of the vertebral segments often 
occur ; modifications so great that the segment is often reduced to a 


1864.| Comparative Anatomy and Classification. 543 


mere centrum, and its correlation with the nervous axis completely 
lost. 

Mr. Huxley has devoted much care and labour to the determi- 
nation, throughout the vertebrate scrics, of the bones which are homo- 
logous to the petromastoid portion of the human temporal bone, and 
the mode of their development. Partly by a critical inquiry into the 
almost forgotten researches of Kerckringius and Cassebohn, and 
partly by the more recent observations of Meckel, Hallmann, and him- 
self, he has shown that it ossifies from three distinct centres, to which 
he has given the convenient terms of pro-otic, opisthotic, and epiotic 
bones. These bones enclose the organ of hearing and “are very 
generally represented, sometimes in a distinct form, and sometimes 
coalesced with one another, or with other bones, throughout the series 
of skulls provided with cartilage bones ; and the pro-otic especially is 
one of the most constant and easily identifiable bones throughout the 
series of vertebrate skulls.” 

He does not allocate these bones, either in their separate or con~ 
junct capacity, to any of the cranial segments, but regards them, lke 
the osseous chambers of the olfactory organs, as bony capsules inter- 
posed between the arches of the segments. Their true morphological 
position may, however, be still held to be an open question. For 
they are developed in cartilage which forms a fundamental part of the 
primordial cranium, and, as such, it may be and has been argued, both 
by Carus and Goodsir, that they should have a place amongst the 
cranial segments. 

In studying the morphological relations of the inferior, or, as they 
are sometimes called, hemal arches of the cranium, it is of great im- 
portance that the nasal cavities should be carefully examined and the 
position of the nostrils determined. Great weight was attached to 
these points by Mr. Goodsir, in one of the memoirs already referred 
to, and we find that Mr. Huxley has also carefully entered into the 
subject. It has now been satisfactorily determined that the posterior 
nostrils in the mammalia are openings of a totally different character 
from what are called the posterior nares in a bird, an amphibian, a 
snake or a lizard. Inaman, for example, the nostrils open posteriorly 
behind the palate bone, whilst in the other animals named, they open 
in front of those bones, between them and the maxille, and cannot 
therefore be regarded as homologous apertures. 

The nature of the mandibular and hyoidean arches, situated behind 
the orifice of the mouth, has always been a difficult problem for the 
morphological anatomist. The embryological researches of Rathke 
and Reichert have done much to clear up many of the obscure and 
complex questions involved in their investigation. Many sound mor- 
phological data were also furnished by Mr. Goodsir, both as to their 
relation to the cranial segments, and the homology of their constituent 
elements. With much that Mr. Huxley has written we are disposed 
to coincide, though we confess ourselves unable to accept all his pro- 
positions regarding these arches in the present somewhat uncertain 
state of our knowledge of their mode of development. 


544 Reviews. | July, 


Although much has been done in these lectures to endeavour 
to supply an exact conception of the morphology of the vertebrate 
cranium, yet the author has evidently been unable to find a place for 
many of the bones existing there. We may mention, amongst others, 
the bones marked 1,2, and 38, in the pike’s skull, the supra-orbital and 
sub-orbital bones, and the transverse bone, the morphological position 
of which he leaves quite undetermined. Looking then at these and 
other residual quantities still unaccounted for, the anatomist cannot 
accept, nor do we think it is intended by Mr. Huxley that he should 
accept, many of the statements advanced in these lectures as furnish- 
ing a final settlement of that “‘much vexed question,” the morphology 
of the cranium. There is much work yet to be done before we can 
hope to arrive at anything like a definite conclusion respecting it. 

The lectures on the vertebrate cranium ought, however, to.be read 
and carefully thought over by every anatomist, not merely because 
they record the opinions of so distinguished a teacher as Mr. Huxley, 
but because, from the singularly lucid way in which one of the most 
complex subjects in the whole range of anatomical science has been 
treated, they may well serve as a model to be studied by future writers. 

We have felt justified in bestowing a large amount of space and 
consideration upon Professor Huxley’s book (which should, in reality, 
have formed two distinct works), because we believe it will take a 
high place in the classical scientific literature of our country, and will 
be handed down to posterity as one of the most comprehensive treatises 
on some at least of the subjects with which it deals; but along with its 
valuable information, and excellent illustrations, it will also transmit 
the fact, too well known in our day, that its author entertains feelings 
of bitter hostility against his most eminent. contemporary, Professor 
Owen, for there is hardly a chapter in the work in which these feelings 
are not manifested. 

It is, no doubt, true (and is very much to be regretted), that in 
Professor Huxley’s earlier days, and even more recently, he was pained 
by unfair criticisms upon his anatomical investigations, criticisms 
which were all the more ungenerous, because the object of them was 
then a young man struggling for a position amongst men of science ; 
but is it any more creditable to retaliate upon his commentator, by 
characterizing his mistaken views as mendacious ? 

It matters little to us, whether or not the strife continues; and 
as far as the public are concerned, they either take it as a matter of 
course that Professor Owen will be attacked whenever Professor 
Huxley speaks or writes ; or they crowd to the lecture hall with the 
same feelings as they would go to witness a prize fight ; all we can 
say is, that it imparts to the non-scientific world a false estimate of 
the spirit which exists amongst scientific men, a very false estimate 
indeed, and what chiefly concerns us as reviewers is that it does great 
permanent injury and reduces the intrinsic value of an author’s works, 
for it is difficult to accredit a writer with strict impartiality, who can- 
not exercise a little control over his feelings. ‘These remarks are made 
in the most friendly spirit; and we hope shortly to have from the pen 


1864. |. Atheism and Science. 545 


of the author a work of equal merit, without even this one serious 
defect. We havo already spoken of the value of Professor Huxley’s 
illustrations, and now conclude our notice with a word of praise to 
Mr. Wesley, the artist, for the excellent manner in which those illus- 
trations have been transferred to the work itself. 


ATHEISM AND SCIENCE.* 


Tse extraordinary author of the extraordinary book before us says, 
quoting “ Hirschel,” that ‘‘nothing is so improbable but a German 
will find a theory for it,” and he has favoured his readers with a most 
striking example of that truth in the publication of his own atheistical 
and materialistic theories, which are founded, as he believes, upon 
the newest discoveries of natural and physical science. We should 
certainly have allowed his book to run its course unheeded, without 
affording him an excuse for adding another to the four prefaces in 
which he defends himself against the attacks of his persecutors, were 
it not for another truth that it contains—namely, that “ the scientific 
agitation in regard to the question discussed is daily spreading, and 
becoming, without exaggeration, a sign of the present time.” 

The inquiry is, indeed, spreading most rapidly, not strictly 
speaking as an “agitation,” for those who agitate are for the most 
part men of limited knowledge and of no influence in society, and the 
bigotry of narrow theologians effectively prevents men of high 
eminence in science, who hold temperate philosophical views, from 
openly expressing their opinions. The effect is, that a substratum of 
materialism and atheism is silently forming beneath the visible surface 
of intelligent society, and such works as this, or others of a less 
offensive character, are the unhealthy eruptions whereby the disease 
is made manifest. 

We give prominence to the present work in the hope, first, that it 
will awaken in teachers of religion an anxious desire to possess accu- 
rate information on all scientific subjects which have a bearing on 
theology, or where it is not possible for them to devote the necessary 
time to such a study, that they may be induced to seek the co-opera- 
tion of talented savans, instead of regarding them with distrust, or 
driving them into open antagonism by stigmatizing their honest 
labours in the cause of truth as deeds of evil; and in the next place, 
we desire to show our intelligent men of science how necessary it is 
to be cautious in giving utterance to philosophical speculations which 
are lable to misconstruction, though they may appear to be based upon 
scientific data ; and to satisfy them that the men who affect atheism are 
now, as heretofore, persons who possess indeed a larger amount of gene- 


* «Force and Matter.’ Empirico-philosophical Studies, intelligibly rendered, 
&e. By Dr. Louis Biichner, President of the Medical Association ot Hessen- 
Darmstadt, &c.,&e. Edited from the last edition of * Kvaft und Stoff? by J. Fredk. 
Collingwood, F.R.S.L., F.G.S. Triibuer & Co. 


546 Reviews. _ [July, 


ral knowledge than those whom they seck to pervert, and quite enough 
sophistry to turn what they do know to bad account; but whose 
theories will not bear a critical examination, and whose practice can 
hardly be expected to be such as would recommend them to honourable 
men, or even to justify their admission into respectable society. 

We have deemed these prefatory observations necessary before 
acquainting our readers with the nature and contents of a work, the 
perusal of which has been a most painful task to us, although we are 
ever ready to listen to the theories of scientific sceptics, and to allow 
them a large share of liberty in their speculations. 

The following is the philosophy of the author and of his school :— 
Matter and Force are both immortal. The forces are inherent, or 
immanent in matter; they are, in fact, properties of matter. Matter 
is infinite; it is “dignified,” for “it is the vehicle of all mental 
power, of all human and earthly greatness.” 

The laws of nature are immutable and universal. “Spirit and 
nature are the same,” and “reason and the laws of nature are identi- 
cal.” 

The worlds were formed ‘“‘from a shapeless mass of vapours by 
the rotary motion of specks, so as gradually to have become condensed 
into compact globular masses,” and are kept in constant and regular 
motion by the law of attraction. 

The idea of an “external personal” activity, or God, is excluded 
“by the many irregularities, contingencies, &c., in the economy of 
the universe and individual bodies.” If there had been a personal 
creative power, “there would not have been these enormous waste 
useless spaces in which but here and there suns and planets swim, 
floating about as imperceptible points;” the moon would have had 
an atmosphere and water; the planets would have been all the same 
size; and, asks “Hudson Tuttle,” an eminent atheistical authority, 
whose opinions are frequently quoted, but of whose writings we can- 
not help pleading ignorance beyond what we find in this book,* 
“Why did the Creator give rings to Saturn, which, surrounded by his 
eight moons, can have little need of them, whilst Mars is left in total 
darkness?” All changes in the Earth have been produced by ordinary 
known physical forces during enormous periods of time, and it would 
be absurd to suppose that an arbitrary Almighty power “should re- 
quire such efforts to attain its objects.” 

When the Earth had cooled down from the state of a “fiery 
globe,” and the watery vapours were precipitated upon it, then 
“organic life developed itself.” In the lowest deposits in which 
organic forms could have existed, we find their traces, and they 
became developed with each ascending stratum, until in the upper- 
most man appears, “the climax of gradual development ”—“ Man is 
descended not from several, but from very many pairs.” 

There is no such thing (in the abstract) as design in nature, nor 
are there any traces of an active creating hand. Our reflecting reason 

* Tt appears he published the ‘ History and Laws of Creation,’ in 1860, but we 


are not told who and where is the publisher, or we might have included the work 
in this notice. 


1864. ] Atheism and Science. 547 


is the sole cause of the apparent design. “There is no natural con- 
trivance which might not be imagined more perfect than it is ;” the 
order which “appears to us as produced by design,” “ was established 
by natural conditions.” ‘Nature has produced a number of beings 
and contrivances in which no design can be detected, and which are 
frequently more apt to disturb than to promote the natural order of 
things.”* Very little has yet been done to show the use of such 
“ troublesome and disgusting creatures” as “ dangerous reptiles and 
insects.” 

It is a mistake to suppose that nature has done anything in antici- 
pation of the advent of man, “there are no ends which nature had in 
view to favour a privileged being. Nature is an end in itself.” 

The brain is in all animals the seat and organ of thought. The 
two are inseparable, and the brain is proportioned in size, shape, and 
structure, to the magnitude of its intellectual functions. “ Mental 
function is a peculiar manifestation of vital power, determined by the 
peculiar construction of cerebral matter.” 

The peculiar chemical constituents of the brain, and its complica- 
ted structure, account for the remarkable functions it performs. It 
is easy to prove that mind and brain are inseparable, for accidents to 
the brain cause a concomitant imperfection of the mind, and the 
entire removal of the brain leaves the body alive, but the soul is gone. 

“Thought is a motion of matter,” and the brain is “only the car- 
rier and the source, or, rather, the sole cause of the spirit or thought. 
‘The senses are the source of all truth and all error, and the human 
mind is a product of the change of matter.” 

The souls of brutes differ from those of men in quantity, not in 
quality. The term “instinct” is a misnomer, and all so-called in- 
stincts are the consequences of “ deliberation, the result of comparisons 
and conclusions.” The transition from the lower animals to man is 
imperceptible; the Crétin is below the brute, and the Negro has all 
the “characteristic peculiarities of the Ape.” 

Language is not a distinctive feature in Man. The lower animals 
can speak, some by signs, others by sounds, whilst there are whole races 
of men who are no better than animals in this respect, speaking more by 
signs than by articulate sounds. Educability is not peculiar to man ; it 
is chiefly the difficulty of communication which prevents animals from 
rising in intelligence. The soul has no “personal continuance,” for 
thought cannot exist without brain, and with the dispersion of the 
“ force-endowed materials, and their entrance into other combinations, 
the effect which we call soul must disappear.” This doctrine cannot 
be objected to on the ground that the “ thought of eternal annihilation 
is revolting to the innermost feelings of man,” for “the thought of an 
eternal life is more terrifying than the idea of eternal annihilation.” 
Neither is there anything to be gained by a continuance of life. 


-* We cannot refrain from quoting here a sentence of the author's, from 
another part of the work (p. 251):—‘ Exact science inculeates modesty.” This 
expression is, however, used in the chapter of “concluding observations,” and 
perhaps it was a conclusion at which the author had not arrived at so early astage 
of his investigations. 


548 Reviews. | July, 


“ Perfect truth would be a sentence of death for him who has acquired 
it, and he must perish in apathy and inactivity.” The idea of a 
“Free Will” is based upon superficial observation of nature; if man 
have a free will, it is of the most limited kind. His will is dependent 
upon “a fixed necessity,” upon climate; upon “ intellectual indi- 
viduality”’ which prescribes to him “his mode of action with such 
force that there remains to him but a minute space for free choice.” 


This is, we believe, the gist of the author’s philosophy, and it 
cannot be denied that he not only possesses a large amount of super- 
ficial information, but that here and there he has displayed con- 
siderable tact in dovetailing it into his theories. Nevertheless, we 
cannot find that these are based upon the revelations of modern 
science, and furthermore, if the numerous contradictions and incon- 
sistencies in which his work abounds, and of which examples will be 
given hereafter, and the confusion of ideas that may be found in almost 
every page may serve as our guide, we are justified in believing that 
the author is himself far from comprehending his own teaching. 

Let us examine one or two of the fundamental principles on which 
his whole doctrine is based. 

All the “ so-called imponderables, such as light, heat, electricity, 
magnetism, &c., are neither more nor less than changes in the aggre- 
gate state of matter;” in other words, they are modes of motion; 
motion is, of course, a force, and “ there is not a single case in which 
force” “can be born or annihilated.” But motion, according to the 
author’s views (in common with all force), is “immanent in matter ;” 
“the motion of matter is as eternal as matter itself,” and finally, the 
laws of heat, light, &., are “everywhere the same.” 

Now, if we liked to dogmatize, we should be quite justified in say- 
ing that “empirical” knowledge teaches us that force is not immanent 
in, but always, as far as we can judge, external to matter, and that all 
conversions of force as well as changes in matter are performed by a 
governing will, and guided by a reflecting reason, notwithstanding the 
existence of apparent exceptions to this rule in nature. On a limited 
scale human reason and human will are constantly bringing about 
more or less important changes of this kind, and we have the author’s 
precedent for holding that we have ‘‘not merely the right but the 
duty, in accordance with the laws of induction, to infer the unknown 
from the known, and to maintain that a universal law which is true for 
a portion of organic phenomena is applicable to all.” * 

However, we will not be so ungenerous as to turn the author’s 
weapons against himself and assume to be his teacher; we will rather 
sit meekly at his feet, and be attentive listeners and learners. Let us 
hear how his “matter” and its “immanent forces” have comported 
themselves from eternity. 

Matter, then, began its operations “by the rotary motion of 
specks,” and all the modifications of motion which subsequently 
ensued are “merely the result of a single universal law of nature— 
the law of attraction.”t ‘Why matter assumed a definite motion at a 


1864. | Atheism and Science. 549 


definite time, is as yet unknown to us,” but it is probable that the 
investigations of science will give us a clue to this mystery.* 

It may be evidence of great obtuseness on our part, but we confess 
that the author travels too fast for us, for we cannot understand how, 
if matter be eternal, and motion, which is inseparably united to it, be 
eternal also, matter can ever have begun to move; and how it is that 
the “law” of attraction was not always at work. According to the 
author’s views, “matter and force” must have had the power within 
themselves to commence a series of operations which have resulted 
in the formation of the worlds, and when they made up their mind 
to start, they did so; but we should be sorry to press even this mode- 
rate approach to a theological creed, because “we should approach to 
pantheistic ideas,’ which the author places in the same category with 
the vain fancies of believers in a Deity. ¢ 

However, granted that eternal matter with its immanent eternal 
forces, and controlled by the law of attraction, did “begin” to bestir 
itself, what followed? The inorganic world developed itself, and all 
went on smoothly until it was necessary for nature’s ends (by the 
way, nature has no ends, “it is an end in itself”—for the develop- 
ment of matter, then) that organic life should appear. How was this 
brought about? Well, when the “ fiery glohe” was cooled down, and 
the vapours had settled upon the Earth “ with the appearance of water, 
and as soon as the temperature permitted it, organic life developed 
itself.” 

And why not? ‘Where air, heat, and moisture combine, there 
appears sometimes in a few moments an innumerable world of sin- 
gularly-shaped animals, which we term infusoria.”{ This is what is 
called ‘spontaneous generation,” which “ signifies the production of 
organic beings without previously existing homogeneous parents or 
germs, merely by the accidental or necessary concurrence of inorganic 
elements and natural forces,” &e.§ 

And now we have presented to us evidences not only of the 
author's candid and impartial mode ‘of inquiry, but also of the pro- 
fundity of his research, and of the originality of his views. 

“ Generatio equivoca” is not yet quite a settled question ; Pouchet 
and Pasteur, Wyman, Jolly, Musset, and a crowd of investigators are 
still actively engaged upon the inquiry, but sufficient is ascertained to 
satisfy the author that this kind of generation “does not exactly 
possess a scientific basis,” and that “ omne vivum ex ovo” is becoming 
the order of the day. Let not this crude, unsettled state of science, 
however, afford any encouragement to believers in a Deity and a crea- 
tion. “ We might answer these believers, that the germs of all beings 
had from all eternity existed in universal space, or in the chaotic 
vapours from which the Earth was formed ; and these germs, deposited 
upon the Earth, have there and then become developed, according to 
external necessary conditions. The facts of these successive organic 
generations would thus be sufliciently explained.” || 

There, reader, that is a theory founded upon “a scientific basis.” 


Se SE ‘Tube Sil. t P. 66. § P. 69. 1 P. 71. 


550 Reviews. [July, 


Some over-curious spirits might, perhaps, inquire what could haye 
been going on in the “ chaotic vapours ” to produce these germs before 
their “ specks” began to rotate, but that would be hypereritical, and 
we feel sure that all naturalists will be grateful to Dr. Bichner for 
this lucid exposition of his views concerning the origin of living organ- 
isms, more especially the advocates of spontaneous generation, the 
believers in the creation of foraminifera from “ooze,” and in the 
spontaneous development of the gigantic reptiles of old, from the 
muddy beds of rivers, a theory which, by the way, appears to have 
the author’ s valuable but qualified support.* And now, organic life 
being once established, development proceeds actively. It is, “ per- 
haps, morally certain that a spontaneous generation exists, and that 
higher forms have gradually and slowly become developed from pre- 
viously existing lower forms, always determined by the state of the 
earth, but without the immediate influence of a higher power.’ 

Here, too, a little difficulty presents itself. The revelations of 
science are certainly tending in the direction here indicated (leaving 
out the question of the higher power) ; but still the author feels that 
he would appear ignorant in the eyes of men of science if he did not 
acknowledge that the question is not yet quiie decided; so he re- 
minds his readers that external influences upon animals are, “though 
considerable, yet insufiicient to change their specific form.” The 
alternation of generations, the metamorphoses of insects, are evidences 
which may be adduced in favour of his theory ; but even these pheno- 
mena, although they represent “a real change of the species,” are 
limited. There has, however, been ‘‘ one important and pregnant dis- 
covery” which should suffice to convince the most sceptical. It was 
made, not by an unknown observer, but by one of the greatest physio- 
logists of the day; not by a sceptic, but by a “believer,” and it was 
‘“a discovery which staggered its orthodox discoverer.”{ Johannes 
Miiller discovered “a generation of snails in Holothwrie,’ and 
“* Holothurie and snails belong to different divisions in the Animal 
Kingdom.” This discovery “removes any doubt as to the possibility 
of a permanent development of one species from a different one.” 

This is the kind of canards upon which the author bases his views 
as to the processes by which nature, as we now sce it, has, “ without 
the immediate influence of a higher power,” called itself into existence, 
or, to speak more correctly, developed itself from vaporous masses ; 
and we shall now cull from his book a few of his thoughts regarding 
the behaviour of nature whilst engaged upon its important task, so 
that we may be enabled to judge whether or not the intervention of 
any “higher power” was necessary for the perfection of the universe. 
But as our space is limited, and our criticisms upon this contribution 
to our scientific literature, however remarkable it may be, cannot be 
allowed to extend to an unreasonable length, we will at the same time 
extract a few of the author’s ideas on other difficult subjects, and our 
readers will have an opportunity of judging how clear is the con- 
ception he has formed of them himself, and what deference he pays to 
truth and reason. 


LER TT fue eae t P. 80. 


1864. | Atheism and Science. 551 


* Himpirical natural science,” hoe tells us, “ has no other object than 
to find out the truth, be it according to human notions, consolatory or 
the reverse, beautiful or ugly, logical or illogical, rational or absurd, 
necessary or contingent.”—(Cotta.) * 

This statement, with which the work closes, may possibly perplex 
some of our readers. Indeed, they may be disposed to wonder what 
other “notions” an atheist, a man “ who considers transcendentalism 
an aberration of the human mind,”} can have of truth, excepting 
human notions, or how truth can be truth, if it be illogical or absurd ; 
but this arises from their not fully comprehending the wisdom of the 
acts of “ Natural Science.” They shall now be enlightened. 


“Nature is perfect in itself, being in its development governed by un- 
alterable laws.”’ (p. 88, Prof. Giebel, of Halle.) 

“We find in the constant harmony of nature a sufficient proof in favour 
of the immutability of its laws.” (p. 33, Tuttle.) 

As ‘“ Nature does not act from a conscious design, but according to an 
immanent necessary instinct, it becomes obvious that it must be guilty of 
many purposeless absurdities.” (p. 94.) 

“Nature has produced a number of beings and contrivances in which 
no designs can be detected, and which are frequently more apt to disturb 
than to promote the natural order of things.” (!) (p. 94.) 


This will convey to our readers some idea of the author’s “ nature.” 
Another word concerning his “matter and force.” 


“Matter must have existed from eternity, and must last for ever.” 
Denis) 
: “ Force is a mere property of matter.” (p. 4.) 

‘There exists a phrase, repeated ad nauseam, of mortal body and im- 
mortal spirit. A closer examination causes us with more truth to reverse 
the sentence.” (p. 13.) 

“Although the immortality of matter is now an established truth, the 
same cannot be said in regard to force.” (p. 17.) 


This seems a little contradictory ; however, let us search a little 
further, that we may be enlightened. 


“No force can arise from nothing.” (p. 2., Liebig.) t 
“Indestructible, imperishable, and immortal as matter, is also its imma- 
nent force. Intimately united to matter, force revolves in the same never- 
ending cycle, and emerges from any form in the same quantity as it 
entered.” (p. 16.) 
“No motion in nature proceeds from, or passes into, nothing.” (p. 17.) 
“ Physics show that, as there was a time when no organic life existed on 
earth, so will the time arrive—no doubt an infinite and incommensurable 
period—when the physical forces now existing will be exhausted, and all 
animated beings plunged into night and death.” (p. 105.) 


See 208; ft P. 253. 

+ The names of Liebig, Helmholtz, &e., will be found in this work, as observers 
from whom quotations are made in support of the author's views; but in justice 
to these great and honourable men, we deem it right to say that isolated expres- 
sions are perverted in their meaning, just as dishonest publishers sometimes 
revenge themselves upon critics, by snatching from their adverse reviews portions 
of sentences apparently laudatory. 


Reviews. [ July, 


or 
or 
bo 


Let us supply or rather bring down the corollary :— 

“Force is a mere property of matter,” and “ indestructible, im- 
perishable, and immortal, as matter is also its immanent force” (until 
it is exhausted, we presume). 

And how is the universe governed ? 


“The same materials and the same laws govern the visible universe,” 
and ‘‘ everywhere act in the same manner as in our proximity.” (p 45.) 

“The laws according to which nature acts and matter moves, now 
destroying, now rebuilding, and thus producing the most varied organic 
and inorganic forms, are eternal and unalterable.” (p. 33.) 

“There exists neither chance nor miracle, there exist but phenomena 
governed by laws.” (p. 38, Jouvencel.) 

“Tt depends on an accident whether or not they (natural objects) will 
enter into existence.” (p. 90.) 


A word concerning “ vital force,” and voluntary motion :-— 
oO p) 


“Vital force cannot be appealed to; that is scientifically dead.” (p. 
XXVll.) ; 
“The motion of what is called vital force, is now rejected by exact 
observation.” (p. 215.) 
“Mental function is hence a peculiar manifestation of vital power, deter- 
mined by the peculiar construction of cerebral matter.” (p. 125.) 


When the embryo of man moves in the womb ; 


“These motions are involuntary, not determined by a mental act.” 
(p. 159.) 


But the mode in which “ vibriones, microscopical animalcules of the 
smallest kind,” of which a cubic line contains 4,000 millions; the 
mode in which these living atoms move, “leaves no doubt that they 
possess sensation and will.” (p. 24.) (!) 

Having shown (as he believes) that man has no “innate intuitions,” 
the author proceeds to argue, that those who believe in a Deity on the 
ground that the idea is innate, have no foundation for their faith, and 
mentions some nations which are said not to have any conception 
of a God. 


He also adduces as evidence that the “ Indians in Oregon” have 
for their highest divinity “the wolf,” which “seems, according to 
their descriptions, to be a hybrid of a divinity, and an animal;” * 


and that, 


“Paul Kane describes the Indian Chinooks, like most red skins, to be 
without distinct religious sentiments. They ascribe everything to the 
Great Spirit; but this Great Spirit is, according to their ideas, a very 
vague being, and not the object of any worship.” (p. 187.) 

Weighty evidence against “ innate intuitions,” and ‘ the Existence of 
a, Deity.” There is more of the same kind in the same chapter. 

Amongst his authorities for disbelieving in the immortality of the 
_ soul, are, “the celebrated Chaumette,” who, during the French revo- 
lution, “erected in the cemeteries statues representing Sleep ;”’ Lessing, 
who thought it must be a great “ennui” to live for ever ; Danton ; 


ue LES Ista, 


1864. | Atheism and Science. 553 


the Jews before the Babylonian exile (how the race must have degene- 
rated according to the author’s views!) ; Shakespeare, (!)* Pliny, 
Homer, Simonides, Seneca, Pomponatius, Frederick the Great (the 
predecessor of kings who rule by divine right!) and ‘ the enlightened 
of all nations and times,” + amongst whom the “dogma of the immor- 
tality of the soul has ever had but few partisans.” On this ground 
then, if on no other, Messrs. Biichner, Tuttle, and Co. may be added 
to the above authorities, and included amongst the “ enlightened.” 
But it appears from Preface No. IV. that some of the author’s critics 
are not disposed to admit him into this rank of society, and that others 
go still further in their malignity, and have attempted to damage him 
in public opinion by casting suspicions upon his moral character. 

Not knowing anything of his private character, we cannot, of 
course, Express an opinion on so delicate a matter ; but we will allow 
the author to state his ideas of morals and morality ; ideas which we 
presume to be held by all of like professions with himself. 


“Science has no concern with morals.” (p. xv.) 

“The person of the investigator, and that of his moral convictions, 
have nought to do with his investigations.”} (p. lxv.) 

“ Annihilation, non-existence, is perfect rest, painlessness, freedom from 
all tormenting impressions, and therefore not to be feared.” (p. 205.) 

“Free will, if it exist, can only have a limited range.” (p. 239) 

“Man is free, but his hands are bound; he cannot cross the limit 
placed by nature.” (p. 245.) 

“ Another (person) § inclines to conscientiousness ; he is just in all his trans- 
actions, and may puta term to his existence if deprived of the possibility of 
Fulfilling his obligations.” 

. 


Very convenient doctrines these for persons whose “ cerebral 
matter ” happens to be endowed with propensities to indulge in vices 
which do not come within the pale of the law, and who “act according 
to their impulses or habits,” as all men do, in the author’s opinion! | 
No free will, and a kind of conscientiousness which causes men to put 
an end to themselves, and seek the haven of “ perfect rest,” and “ free- 
dom from all tormenting impressions,” when they can’t pay twenty 
shillings in the pound. : 

This is the morality of Atheists and Materialists ! 

That any human being endowed with reasoning faculties and pos- 
sessed of a fair amount of information could have trusted himself to 
give utterance to such a tissue of contradictions and absurdities as are 
to be found in this book, and should attempt to pollute the scientific 
literature of his age with such trash as it contains, is explicable through 
the views which he entertains concerning a Deity; but whatever can 
have induced an Englishman, aspiring to a respectable position in 
the scientific world, a Fellow of the Geological Society, voluntarily to 

Bago. “Thy best of rest is sleep, 

And that thou oft provok’st; yet grossly fear’st 
Thy death, which is no more ! ” 

+ 213. * The Duke,” in *‘ Measure for Measure.’ 

¢ This depends very much upon the notions which he has concerning truth. 

§$ We italicize these lines. 

|| Quoting Auerbach, p. 244. 


554 Reviews. [July, 


sit down and translate a book full of blasphemy, to give his sympa- 
thies to a writer who sneers at all that the mind of civilized man has 
held sacred, who perverts scientific truth, and drags through the mire 
such honoured names as Liebig, Lyell, Darwin, Faraday, Humboldt, 
Flourens, Schiller, Shakespeare, Lessing, and the Scriptures, levying 
black mail upon them in support of his atheistical views; how he 
dares to print his name on the title-page as the editor, is quite incom- 
prehensible to us. 

We cannot but commend Mr. Collingwood’s prudence in not 
“always” subscribing to the “alleged facts” contained in the work, 
and to the “inferences drawn from these facts,’ but we by no means 
envy him the great “ pleasure” which he experiences in introducing 
the work to English readers; and whilst we entirely disagree with 
him as to the desirability of its being “admitted to the rolls of 
English literature,” we feel sure that all classes of scientific readers, 
from freethinkers (in the more restricted sense of the term) to ortho- 
dox theologians, will pronounce it a vulgar, blasphemous book, full 
of absurd contradictions, and presumptuous, unscrupulous assertions, 
published, with its numerous prefaces, with a view to create a sensation, 
and the only persons to whom it will give unfeigned satisfaction are the 
small semi-educated sect of men calling themselves “ Naturalists,” or 
** Secularists,” who will no doubt use it, as Dr. Biichner has attempted, 
to abuse science. 

To us, the author appears to have done his very worst for science 
and for himself. Judging from observation and experience (and 
“whoever rejects experience rejects human conception” *), we shall 
expect him at some future time to be a rabid theologian ; one who, if 
he had been an Englishman, would be found lecturing on Redemption 
in some obscure tabernacle, ‘ all seats free, and discussion invited ; ” 
and infusing into his religious discourses about as much reason as 
he has thrown into his atheism. 

We have no desire to be severe or condemnatory in our epithets, 
and shall content ourselves with saying, that if the author is sincere, 
and has undertaken a scientific expedition, it has been another illus- 
tration of the old German saying :— 


“Es ging ein Gaenschen uber’s Meer, 
Und kam als Gans auch wieder her.” 


“A gosling crossed the sea, and a goose it returned.” 


The advantages which may arise from the publication of the work 
were referred to in our introductory remarks, and it is unnecessary to 
repeat them; but the moral it teaches, is one of the wisest that ever a 
wise man uttered, and we earnestly commend it to the consideration 
of the author and translator, and to all who feel disposed to sympa- 
thize with their doctrines. It was Lord Bacon who said, “ A little 
philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism, but depth of philosophy 
bringeth men’s minds to religion.” 


* P, 253. 


cr 
Cr 
cr 


1864. | The Microscope. 


THE MICROSCOPE.* 


Ir there be a philosophical instrument before any other that has 
exercised a beneficial influence upon modern society, it is the Micro- 
scope. It has lent an impulse to the study of Natural History, of which 
the results have been more striking than any recorded previous to its 
invention ; and through its employment, man’s acquaintance with the 
laws and operations of nature has in a very brief period increased in 
a degree almost miraculous. It has taught him to observe with greater 
care; to calculate with more accuracy; has opened out new fields for 
the exercise of the mental faculties, raising the sense of wonder and 
admiration whilst at the same time it cultivated the reason. To the artist 
and poet it has offered new scenes and themes in Nature ; and, in other 
walks of life, has employed thousands of busy hands and brains. In its 
simplest form the manufacturer carries it in his waistcoat-pocket to ex- 
amine the texture of his fabrics, the seedsman to inspect his seeds, and 
80 in many trades ; whilst the more complicated instrument has become 
almost indispensable to the higher professions—the surgeon, physician, 
and analytical chemist having recourse almost daily to its defining 
powers. Indeed, there is hardly a home where, in one form or another, 
the magnifying lens is not to be found; scarcely a cultivated family 
circle in which at least one member does not avail himself of its use. 
And how is it that even as a mere means of recreation, the micro- 
scope should have acquired a position in the homes of men which no 
other instrument has been able to command? The revelations of the 
Telescope are certainly far grander, and the performances of the Magic- 
lantern more amusing; and yet, for every one of these instruments, we 
may count im the houses of the intelligent classes at least twenty 
microscopes. It is because the last-named instrument brings us into 
nearer relations with that mysterious influence which we call Life—an 
influence which human curiosity has endeavoured from time imme- 
morial to fathom, revealing to our gaze the hidden springs of vital 
action in living objects with which our acquaintance was previously but 
superficial ; and exhibiting new scenes from animated nature, where 
we were before accustomed to believe only in the existence of inor- 
ganic substances influenced by physical forces. For a long period 
indeed, whilst the possession of a microscope was a privilege accorded 
only to a few professional men, and was often employed by these rather 
as a means to mystify than to enlighten, the doings of the microscopical 
world were regarded as being beyond the ken of ordinary mortals; and 
even within the last few months we were informed by a friend, who had 
deputed us to select a microscope for the use of his family, that his 
gentler half entertained conscientious scruples with respect to the ad- 


* “An Elementary Text-book of the Microscope ; including a Description of 
the Methods of Preparing and Mounting Objects, &c. By J. W. Griffith, M.D., 
ee M.R.C.P., conjoint author of the ‘ Micrographic Dictionary.. J Van 

oorst. 

‘The Preparation and Mounting of Microscopic Objects.’ By Thomas Davies, 
R. Hardwicke. 

vol. I. 2P 


556 Reviews. [ July, 


mission of such an instrument into her house, as she believed it was not 
the intention of the Creator that we should see the things it revealed, 
or He would have enabled us to do so with the naked eye! 

It may be considered ungallant to criticize the views of a lady, but 
we cannot help saying that such a remark exhibits a great want of con- 
fidence in the Creator, who has not only enlightened us by means of the 
microscope on many obscure points in Natural History, instructed us 
how to detect that adulteration which, like a false balance, must be 
“abomination to the Lord,” and enabled man to prolong the precious 
gift of life; but has taught us through this medium that His relations 
are as intimate with the minutest objects of His creation as with the 
highest ; for, as the telescope has revealed to us His power in the 
distant worlds, so has the microscope proclaimed his goodness in the 
water-drop ! 

It is not surprising, then, that the numerous practical uses of the 
instrument, coupled with its efficacy as a means of educating the mind 
and of pleasing some of our highest intellectual tastes should have 
caused it to be regarded with such great favour, and should have led to 
its extended manufacture ; and it would have been a matter of astonish- 
ment, if, with its increased fabrication and employment, the world had 
not been favoured with numerous works upon the principles and mode 
of its construction, and the methods of its application. This has fol- 
lowed as a matter of course, and each season produces a number of 
works of more or less merit, and tending in a greater or less degree to 
diffuse the love of microscopical studies. 

Amongst the treatises for the use of advanced students, the fore- 
most in rank are Dr. Carpenter’s ‘Manual, and the ‘ Micrographie 
Dictionary’ of Dr. Griffith (the author of one of the works about to be 
considered) and the late lamented Professor Henfrey. Many others of 
great merit might be added; but if we were asked to recommend an 
elementary text-book for a young beginner, or for the use of amateurs, 
we confess that we should have great difficulty in selecting one that 
might fairly be considered complete in itself. 

Even in the present incipient stage of the science, it would be 
difficult to embrace all that is desirable in such a treatise. A few hints 
as to the selection of an instrument, with an account of its chief parts, 
and how they should be manipulated; directions for securing and 
mounting useful objects in the most approved manner; a clear de- 
scription and systematic classification of easily-attainable objects im 
the inorganic and organic realms of nature, to lead the young student 
unconsciously from “philosophy in sport” to “science in earnest,” 
and cause a pleasant diversion to become the foundation of a lifelong 
study,—these are the desiderata in an elementary text-book; and such 
a treatise, we believe, has yet to be composed. 

But, although it is by no means perfect, the one before us, written 
by the surviving author of the ‘ Micrographic Dictionary, commends 
itself strongly to our favourable notice. It bears the impress of 
thoughtful care, extended knowledge, and a thorough acquaintance 
with the subjects of which it treats. Its contents are scientifically 
arranged, and the reader is made conversant with the elements of every 


1864. | The Microscope. 557 


branch of Natural History from which the illustrations are drawn ; 
indeed, as far as it goes, it is admirably written, and we feel sure that 
every large-minded microscopical writer or observer will agree with 
us, When we pronounce Dr. Griffith’s little work the best of the kind 
extant. Its chief merit consists in its truly educational character, 
which raises it above many of those brochures whose sole object seems 
to be to afford amusement for the hour; but this feature does not by 
any means render it the less interesting and attractive. 

If we take, for example, Chapters III. and IV., we find that the 
beginner is taught by means of practical illustrations, not alone the 
character of “vegetable elements and tissues,” but of the organs and 
functions of plants; and if he takes care to seek out the objects 
recommended for his observation, he cannot fail to become acquainted 
with the nature and functions of leaves, stems, roots, flowers and seeds, 
and with the leading phenomena of fertilization. But our readers 
may be disposed to think that, in order to instil into the mind of the 
tyro such an amount of general information, the author must have 
recourse to technical language, and must avail himself of illustrations 
difficult of access to the student. By no means; in all such matters 
the author has smoothed the way for the uninitiated, the burthen of 
whose labours he has to a great extent borne himself, employing the 
clearest language, explaining every technicality, and, above all (and 
this is a great merit in the little work), availing himself, not of the old 
stock subjects for illustration, but of substances well known to the least 
informed, and readily procurable by every one. 

Here, for example, are the teachings of a cell from the pulp of an 
apple :— 


*Cell-Contents.—In most cells, especially when young, a minute, 
rounded, colourless body may be seen, either in the middle or on one side, 
called the nucleus. This is very distinct in a cell of the pulp of an apple 
(Pl. 1, Fig. 2b): and within this nucleus is often to be seen another smaller 
body, frequently appearing as a mere dot, called the nucleolus. 

‘The nucleus is imbedded in a soft substance, which fills up the entire 
cell (Pl. 1, Fig. 20); this is the protoplasm (rgcdros, first, rAdca, forma- 
tive substance). As it is very transparent it is readily overlooked ; but it 
may usually be shown distinctly by adding a little glycerine to the edge of 
the cover with a glass rod, when it contracts and separates from the cell- 
walls, as in the Jower cell of Fig. 2. The protoplasm in some cells is semi- 
solid, and of uniform consistence, while in others it is liquid in the centre, 
the outer portion being somewhat firmer, and immediately in contact with 
the cell-wall. In the latter case it forms an inner cell to the cell-wall, and 
is called the primordial utricle. The terms ‘‘ protoplasm ” and “ primordial 
utricle ” are, however, used by some authors synonymously. 

‘The protoplasm is the essential portion of the cell, and it forms or 
secretes the cell-wall upon its outer surface in the process of formation of 
the cell, considered as a whole. It is also of different chemical composi- 
tion, from the cell-wall being allied in this respect to animal matter.’ 


Thus simply, and with the aid of the cell from the pulp of an 
apple, does the author convey to his uninformed readers the chief facts 
in regard to one of the most difficult questions in vegetable physiology ; 


and as he has drawn upon the apple for his illustration in this instance, 
2P2 


558 Reviews. | July, 


so he employs the commonest, but by no means the least interesting 
and attractive objects throughout his survey of organic nature. 

From the vegetable kingdom we have the leaf of a geranium, the 
starch granules of cereals, or of the potato; the stalk of garden 
rhubarb, with its exquisite structures; sections of deal and holly; 
hairs of London pride; pollen grains of the crocus, primrose, and 
sunflower; sting of the nettle; petals, sepals, and other parts of the 
common chickweed ; sections of mustard-seed, &e.; and again, the best 
known ferns, such as Polypodium and Scolopendrum vulgare, the most 
familiar mosses, lichens, and sea-weeds, a few of the commonest 
desmids and diatoms. 

From the animal kingdom, which is by no means so largely 
illustrated, we have the blood-corpuscles of man, of the fowl, &e.; 
hairs of men and of mice; fibres of flax, silk, and feathers; scales of 
familiar fishes; heads and weapons of offence of too familiar insects ; 
cilia from the gills of the oyster; along with examples of the most 
widely-distributed Rotifera, Infusoria, and Entozoa: all the objects 
enumerated, with many more (in all 451 figures) being grouped in 
twelve plates, well coloured after nature, and engraved by a new micro- 
scopical artist, Mr. W. Bagg. 

As we have already stated, however, the little work is by no means 
perfect, much as it deserves our commendation. If, instead of devoting 
by far the greater portion of his volume to the vegetable kingdom, of 
attempting to explain the more obscure phenomena of magnification, 
polarization, &c., the author had favoured his readers with a few more 
original drawings of the minute forms and microscopical features of 
animal life, some of the most important of which are left quite un- 
represented, whilst those selected are by no means the most beautiful ; 
and if he had appended a chapter on crystals and other inorganic 
objects, his work would have been greatly benefited, and it would not 
have been open to the objection that it is rather a guide to the micro- 
scopical study of organic nature, than what it professes to be, namely, 
a text-book of the microscope generally. 

We leave these hints with the able author im case a second edition 
is called for, as no doubt it soon will be, and meanwhile we recommend 
the book as a fresh, useful little work, full of accurate original deli- 
neations of well-classified microscopical objects in organic nature, and 
not as we sometimes find to be the case in such treatises, a mere patch- 
work composed of the researches of other men, and with (made up by 
the help of scissors and paste) a heterogeneous jumble of drawings, 
correct or otherwise, not one tithe of the objects which they represent 
having been seen by the authors who profess to describe them. 

There is, however, one class of persons to whom the little book 
will appear very imperfect,—namely, to those who desire, not alone to 
inspect, but to prepare and mount objects for preservation. The 
chapter on this subject is very meagre; and to readers thus inclined 
we have no hesitation in recommending the second work of which we 
give the title. It must be clearly understood, however, that we have 
not placed them thus with a view to institute a comparison between 
them, inasmuch as Mr. Davies's book is devoted solely to the mount- 


B5Y 


1864.] The Ophthalinoscope and Ophthalmoscopic Photogrophy. 55t 


ing of microscopical objects and makes no pretension to scientific 
knowledge beyond what is immediately necessary for that purpose. 

It is an unassuming little brochure, without illustrations and by 
no means attractive in appearance, but is composed by an author who 
appears as modest as he is enthusiastic, and contains, besides his own 
experiences in preparing and mounting objects, the most approved 
methods of many of our most eminent microscopists, of Dr. Beale, 
Dr. Golding Bird, Dr. Carpenter, Mr. Rylands, Mr. Hepworth, &c.; and 
it instructs the student, not only as to the best method of mounting 
objects, but how to select those which are the best suited for permanent 
preservation. It wants a table of contents, and would suffer nothing if 
the head-lines of the pages were a little more explicit, instead of being, 
as at present, a mere repetition of the title of the work from beginning 
to end. 

We offer no apology to our readers for having occupied so much of 
their attention with an account of these two little works, for they 
represent what is becoming one of the most important intellectual 
pursuits of our middle and upper classes, and is happily supplanting 
in the lives of the growing youth of our day many frivolous and mis- 
chievous practices. Hundreds there are, both young and old, who would 
like to follow some intellectual employment during their leisure hours, 
if they but knew which to select and how to proceed; to such, then, 
we would recommend a good microscope, and its employment under 
the guidance of the two little works of which we have here endea- 
voured to give an unprejudiced account. 


THE OPHTHALMOSCOPE AND OPHTHALMOSCOPIC 
PHOTOGRAPHY.* 


In the former part of this number of the ‘ Journal of Science,’ we have 
given a sketch of the history and uses of the Ophthalmoscope, the 
practical application of which the two publications whose titles are 
named at the foot are intended to forward. Mr. Hogg enters fully 
upon the principles upon which the instrument is formed, the best 
method of using it, and points out the changes in the fundus of the 
eye which are discovered by it. 

From his previous writings on the microscope, and his familiarity 
with the laws of optics, the author was well qualified to appreciate the 
importance of the ophthalmoscope ; as he was one of the first to direct 
the attention of the medical profession to the subject, so he has been 
one of the most diligent students in this country in its application. 
The first edition of this book in 1858 was a small, unpretending 


* «4 Manual of Ophthalmoscopic Surgery: being a Practical Treatise on the 
Use of the Ophthalmoscope in Diseases of the Eye. By Jabez Hogg. 3rd edition, 
re-written and enlarged. 8vo. Churchill & Sons. 

‘A New Ophthalmoscope for Photographing the Posterior Internal Surface of 
the Living Eye, with an Outline of the Theory of the Ordinary Optialmoscope. 
By A. M. Rosebrugh, M.D. 


560 Reviews. [July, 


volume, while this last edition has not only expanded into a goodly 
octavo volume, but the contents have increased in value, as the subject 
has advanced in importance. Those who are interested in the matter 
merely as one of science, cannot do better than consult Mr. Hogg’s 
book, as they will find in it all that they need ; while those professional 
men who desire to use the instrument and become qualified to esti- 
mate its value, will do well carefully to study its contents; for, as 
it is one of the latest, so it is one of the most complete, publications 
in the English language on the subject. Its illustrations, woodcuts, 
and coloured lithographs of the interior of the eye in health and dis- 
ease cannot fail to be of considerable use to the beginner. These 
coloured views are not only more numerous, but also better executed 
than those in the first edition of the work; still we would call the 
author's attention to the magnificent illustrations recently published 
by Liebreich in the ‘ Atlas d’Ophthalmoscopie,’ which as works of art 
have never been exceeded in beauty of execution, as well worthy of 
rivalry, when another edition of his book is called for. We well 
know the difficulty and cost attendant upon the illustrations of such a 
character, but we cannot doubt that artists in England may be found 
who are equal to the task, and the extra outlay would be well repaid 
by the greatly-increased value of pictures which shall equal in deli- 
cacy and beauty the original structures which they represent. 

The pamphlet by Dr. Rosebrugh is a reprint, from a Canadian 
Journal, of a paper read by him in January last before the Canadian 
Institute, in which he describes a new ophthalmoscope he has lately 
invented for obtaining a photograph “ of the posterior internal surface 
of the living eye.” It would be very difficult to convey a clear idea 
of the apparatus without diagrams. It, however, essentially consists 
of a modified ordinary photographing camera, in which the tubes and 
lenses are so arranged, that near their juncture is placed a polished 
plate of glass, with parallel surfaces, inclined at such an angle to the 
tubes that a part of the light enterimg by the illuminating tube is re- 
flected, at right angles to its original direction, into the dilated pupil 
of an eye, from which it isagain reflected upon the back of the camera, 
when, instead of the image being received upon an ordinary ground- 
glass screen of a camera, it falls upon a properly sensitized collodion. 
glass, upon which, by about five seconds’ exposure, a negative picture is 
impressed. This negative is then used in the ordinary way for print- 
ing the positive photographs, 

Though Dr. Rosebrugh does not yet appear to have succeeded in 
photographing the human eye, he states that he has obtained an im- 
pression of the eye of a cat, while the animal was under the influence 
of chloroform, which condition, however, he hardly thinks necessary, 
seeing that its impression can be obtained in so short a space of 
time. 

We welcome with much pleasure this ingenious attempt to still 
further extend the important applications of light painting, which of 
late have received so many new extensions; we can hardly conceive of 
any that can be more valuable than this suggestion, for not only are 
the structures so minute and so delicate, but so varied and so nu- 


1864. | Elementary Chemistry. 561 


merous, that if is most difficult even for the fully initiated to clearly 
define them, so as to make them clear to a bystander. Hence there is 
little wonder that a non-professional artist who knows not what he is 
to see, should be puzzled tomake them out, and still more so to depict 
them. Of this, every writer, Mr. Hogg amongst the number, com- 
plains, and all find it most difficult and costly, sometimes almost im- 
possible, to obtain truthful representations of those numerous changes 
in the eye, which the pathologist is so anxious to secure. Should 
hereafter photography be capable, as we now incline to hope it may be 
(it has already been most usefully applied in depicting accurately and 
cheaply external changes and diseases), at no very distant time, of illus- 
trating the hitherto hidden recesses of the human eye, it will supply a 
desideratum of no ordinary importance ; for an absolutely correct pic- 
ture of the living eye in health and disease will then be within the 
easy reach of every student of medicine, and thus one great cause of 
ignorance will be removed. While, therefore, Dr. Roseburgh cannot 
as yet lay claim to complete success, he deserves credit for the advance 
which he has made on the road to it, 


ELEMENTARY CHEMISTRY.* 


Dr. Arsoun, Professor of Chemistry in the University of Dublin, has 
recently added another to an already numerous class, the Manuals of 
Chemistry for beginners. It is said that few preachers close their 
useful careers without, at some time or other, publishing a sermon or 
volume of sermons. A like result appears to occur under similar 
circumstances with another class of men. Most of those who have 
to deliver at stated intervals a course of elementary scientific lectures, 
in which, owing to the quickly-changing audience, there is not scope 
for much extension or variety, feel tempted to commit to print their 
favourite explanations and demonstrations, and not a few yield to the 
temptation. 

As might be expected, the little books developed under these con- 
ditions bear a strong resemblance one to another. Dr. Apjohn’s 
manual is a fair specimen of this class, not among the worst, but, we 
must in honesty add, not among the best. 

We preter, therefore, to offer a few general remarks upon elementary 
works in chemistry, using that of Dr. Apjohn by way of illustration, 
rather than to attempt a detailed criticism of a not very characteristic 
performance. In one respect, however, Dr. Apjohn has departed from 
the established usage ; we mean, in the limitation of his subject-matter. 
He leaves the vast topic of organic chemistry untouched, excepting 
that he gives a brief account of a few of the simplest and most com- 
monly occurring combinations of carbon, such as oxalic acid and 

= ¢Manual of the Metalloids.. By James Apjohn, M.D., F.R.S., M.R.LA., 
Professor of Chemistry in the University of Dublin. (One of Galbraith and 
Haughton’s ‘ Scientific Manuals.”) Longmans. 


562 Reviews. | July, 


cyanogen. And here he appears to us to follow exactly the right 
course. But we do not understand why he has preferred to treat only 
of the metalloids in a work “intended as a handbook in Chemistry for 
students in Medicine and Engineering.” Any group of elements, no 
doubt, may furnish ample material for a volume addressed to scientific 
readers ; but what a beginner in chemistry needs is a sketch, however 
slight, of the whole subject; and it seems better that this should be 
presented to him in a continuous form than in a manual of the metal- 
loids, and, if such a work is to follow, a manual of the metals. 

A difficulty attendant upon the first steps taken in any science, is 
that of remembering or feeling an interest in the facts before acquir- 
ing some notion of the general principles under which they have been 
arranged, and on the other hand, of understanding the general prin- 
ciples without a knowledge of the facts. In chemistry, at any rate, 
there need be no hesitation as to the alternative a beginner ought to 
adopt. Dr. Apjohn has followed the usual practice in prefacing his 
detailed account of particular substances with an introduction, in which 
he deals with the laws of chemical combination, atomic weights, the 
classification of the elements, &c. We venture to think this practice 
inexpedient. Every teacher of chemistry must have had occasion to 
observe the bewilderment of a beginner, who attempts to read a 
manual in which this order has been followed. A curious compro- 
mise is adopted in the useful volume on chemistry, written by the 
late Professor Wilson for Chambers’s Educational Course. The first 
fifteen pages are occupied by an excellent account of the method of 
chemistry, and its relation to other sciences. Then follow fifty pages 
of theoretical explanations, also good, but to a beginner probably un- 
intelligible. In the preface, the reader is advised to skip these fifty 
pages, and pass on to the account of oxygen and hydrogen. The plan 
of first communicating some of the facts of chemistry, and then at- 
tempting their explanation, was adopted by Fownes, and is followed 
also by Dr. Bernays, in his ‘ First Lines in Chemistry.’ We cannot 
express too strongly our conviction, that in teaching natural science, 
the historical method should be followed as far as possible. The 
order of discovery, and of the development of scientific ideas, is 
obviously not fortuitous, but depends upon a natural connection be- 
tween one substance, or one mode of thought, and another ; and it is in 
this order that each learner will best advance from facts and ideas 
which he has already gained to others which to him are new. 

One difficult problem which the authors of scientific compendiums 
have to solve, is that of taking a comprehensive view of a large 
subject, and using the detail necessary for clearness, within the 
limits of a manual. They ought therefore to be jealous of admitting 
to their pages any matter, however useful, which will not directly 
serve the purpose of conveying to beginners a knowledge of the 
science. Too often the science lies buried beneath a mass of useful 
information. The process of purging itself of its applications is, 
we suppose, one that every science must go through at a certain stage 
of its development. Each kind of knowledge, before it has become 
extensive, and before it has imposing generalizations to show, is valued 


1864. | Elementary Chemistry. 5638 


for its uses and not yet for its own sake. Ata later stage, when the 
science is an object of interest independently of its applications, some 
account of these is not unnaturally mixed up with its teaching, being 
introduced partly for the sake of illustration, partly to exhibit its 
practical importance. For example, the books of arithmetic now in 
common use, and, we believe, still more those of an earlier date, give 
“rules” for the performance of various commercial calculations, which 
it is no doubt well to teach to those who will have occasion to use 
them, but which should be dissevered from the systematic study of the 
science of number. 

We observe to a much greater degree a similar medley of science 
and its applications in works on Chemistry. We will borrow from 
Dr. Apjohn’s manual a few examples of the kind of useful information 
which appears to us out of place in a scientific treatise. Under the 
head ‘‘ Phosphorus” (p. 889), we find an account of the manufacture 
of lucifer matches; under carbonic acid, a discussion on ventilation, 
and an account of the preparation of aérated drinks (pp. 491-493). 
No less than three-and-twenty pages are devoted to the manufacture, 
purification, and illuminating power of coal-gas. The following ex- 
tract from the chapter on Carbon will serve well to convey our 
meaning :— 

“The diamond is valuable for cutting glass, and its powder is much 
used for cutting and polishing the diamond itself, and the harder 
gems. It is, however, principally employed as an ornament for the 
person ; and is worked by the lapidary into forms whieh have received 
respectively the names of the rose and brilliant. The rose is flat 
below, and is cut above so as to exhibit 24 facets. The form of 
the brilliant is the same ; but it is domed below as well as above, and 
is similarly cut on the two surfaces. When cut and polished, a 
diamond weighing one carat is valued at 8/., and its price augments 
as the square of its weight, until this latter reaches 20 carats ; above 
this weight its price rises in a much quicker ratio.” 

It may be useful to know these facts, but assuredly they have very 
little to do with chemistry. Descriptions of the mode of preparing 
substances on a large scale, and tables for ascertaining the strength of 
an acid from its specific gravity, might also be excluded; the former, 
because they illustrate no chemical principle which an experiment on 
the small scale does not better illustrate ; the latter, because though 
invaluable in a work of reference for laboratory use, they are not 
adapted to be read through or remembered. 

The language of chemistry presents grave difficulties to those who 
are commencing the study, not only because of its lengthy and often 
barbarous character, but because of its ambiguity, one substance 
having frequently a number of names. This want of uniformity 
appears to be a necessary consequence of the rapid progress of the 
science. New ideas require new words, and until they have met with 
general acceptance or rejection, the new and the old words are in use 
together. All that a writer can attempt is to make as consistent a 
selection as possible, balancing the claims, often opposed, of scientific 
accuracy and of usage. Even if usage could be summarily disregarded, 


564 Reviews. | July, 


which is least of all possible in a text-book, a selection on scientific 
grounds is no easy matter. There are, for example, advantages in a 
name which inyolves no hypothesis, such as caustic potash, prussic 
acid, aniline ; and there are advantages in a name which suggests to 
a chemist the generally received formula of the substance, such as 
hydrate of potassium, hydrocyanic acid, phenylamine. As chemical 
knowledge advances, bodies of more and more complex constitution, 
that is, containing in one molecule a greater number of atoms and 
susceptible of a greater variety of decompositions, are separated out 
from natural products and investigated, or are built up by the now 
systematic processes of chemical synthesis. These bodies we represent 
by formule, which indicate the number and kind of atoms composing 
their molecules, and suggest as far as possible their modes of formation 
and decomposition. Chemists have striven to make the language 
of chemistry keep pace with this increase in their knowledge and in 
the complexity of their formule. Probably the attempt must be given 
up. Itis impossible to compress into a name facts which a formula 
may convey, but which require sentences for their verbal expression. 
As a consequence of this attempt, chemical names have become 
sentences, and it is often shorter as well as clearer to write down the 
formula of a substance than to call it by its name. In the future no- 
menclature of chemistry we conccive that the formula of a substance 
will be its name, and that we shall no more expect to have a word 
corresponding to every formula than to have a name for every algebraic 
expression. These considerations, however, apply chiefly to organic 
chemistry. Where the formule of substances are simple, the interval 
is greater, so to say, between one substance and another, and it has 
not been difficult to apply to each a characteristic name composed of a 
moderate number of syllables. Almost the only innovation sanctioned 
by Dr. Apjohn is the use of the names carbonate of sodium, &c., in- 
stead of carbonate of soda, &c. It is to be hoped that this change by 
which the names of salts become uniform and free from theory may 
soon meet with general adoption. The old terms ‘oil of vitriol,’ 
‘muriatic acid,’ ‘barytes, ‘strontites,’ ‘barytic water, ‘water of 
ammonia, and others, to which Dr. Apjohn adheres, appear to us to 
have been deservedly superseded. Dr. Apjohn must pardon us for 
venturing one or two verbal criticisms. The name metaphosphoric 
acid does not mean ‘ phosphoric acid associated with something else 
(water), p. 3896, but changed, or—to illustrate this use of the pre- 
position—metamorphosed, phosphoric acid. ‘ Hexangular’ is a bad 
substitute for hexagonal, and such expressions as ‘per saltum’ and 
‘quam proximé’ have no advantage over their English equivalents. 
Graver objections attach in our opinion to expressions of another 
class still much in vogue among chemists. We mean the phrases, for 
they are nothing more, which represent as the cause of a phenomenon 
some hypothetical force or law, whose existence is merely an infer- 
ence—and, as we think, an unmeaning, unscientific inference—from 
the phenomenon itself. We still recognize under different guises the 
famous explanation of Moliére’s physician. “Why,” it was asked, 
“ does opium send aman to sleep?” ‘ Because,” answered the sage, “ it 


wl 


1864. ] Hlementary Chemistry. 565 


possesses a soporific virtue.” In confirmation of this remark we will 
make a few extracts from Dr. Apjohn’s pages. When describing the 
process of filling a balloon with dry hydrogen, he says, “* The oil of 
vitriol and potash, in consequence of their great affinity for moisture, 
dry the gas in its passage to the balloon, and at the same time slightly 
augment its levity.” (p. 135.) That oil of vitriol and potash absorb 
moisture when exposed to the air, and that heat is developed when 
they are mixed with water, are facts. We pass beyond our knowledge 
when we infer from these facts the existence of a cause, resident in 
these bodies, which we call their affinity for water. And when we 
proceed to speak of this supposed force as accounting for the ab- 
sorption of moisture or the development of heat, we are simply 
deluding ourselves with words. 

The same remarks will apply, mutatis mutandis, to other similar 
passages. “Sulphur and iron filings, when mixed and moistened 
with water, have a strong affinity for oxygen. If, therefore, such 
a mixture be placed in a light capsule floating on water, and that a 
bell-shaped or cylindric jar be inverted over it, the oxygen of the air 
is gradually absorbed, and the residual gas is nitrogen.” (p. 170.) 

And again, with reference to the supposed isolation of fluorine by 
the action of chlorine gas on fluoride of silver, Dr. Apjohn says :— 

“ Such an experiment could not be made with any prospect of suc- 
cess in glass or even in a platinum vessel; for though the fluorine 
was set free, such is the energy of its affinities that it would at once 
enter into combination by acting on the materials of which the appa- 
ratus was composed.” (p. 378.) 

It we may put confidence in Kimmerer’s results, “ the energy of 
its affinities ’ does not produce this effect. A single line will furnish 
us with one more example: “ Phosphorus is a very inflammable sub- 
stance, the result of its strong affinity for oxygen.” (p. 388.) 

We will quote, lastly, from Dr. Apjohn’s introduction, his general 
account of the theory of chemical affinity. It is a clear statement 
of the common doctrine on the subject. 

“ We come now to the consideration of affinity, the force in virtue 
of which two or more simple atoms combine so as to form a compound 
atom. It is to the chemist the most important of the forces active in 
nature ; for to it he refers the numberless combinations and decompo- 
sitions of which bodies are susceptible.” 

Now, there is no point, in our opinion, which it is more important 
to set plainly before a student, than the fact that, as to the cause of 
chemical change—the forces, if there be forces, which move the 
atoms, if there be atoms—we know nothing at all. Science has to do 
with motion, with changes, with relations, but not with force. Pro- 
bably, if the term “affinity” could be got rid of altogether, it would be 
a gain to chemistry; but at least it should be used only, as “ vital 
force” is still sometimes used, under protest, as a name for the 
unknown cause or causes of chemical action. 

But it is not only in the philosophy of chemistry that this negli- 
gence in distinguishing between fact and hypothesis is observable. In 


566 Reviews. | July, 


giving a systematic account of the combinations of the elements, it 
might be thought an important part of the duties of the writer to dis- 
criminate clearly between those substances that have been separated and 
analyzed, those whose existence is rendered probable either by experi- 
mental evidence, falling short of demonstration, or by considerations 
of analogy, and those in favour of whose existence there is no presump- 
tion whatever. The reader of most elementary works on ‘chemistry 
will look in vain for this distinction. He is presented with the names 
and formule of a host of imaginary substances, many of which are so 
entirely with. ut analogues that no chemist would dream of attempting 
their preparation. Dr. Apjohn gives three lists, and similar lists may 
be found in most chemical text-books, of the oxides of Sulphur, 
Phosphorus, and Carbon. The first list consists of seven oxides, the 
second of four, the third of six. Chemists are actually acquainted 
with two oxides of Sulphur, two, or perhaps three, oxides of Phos- 
phorus, and two oxides of Carbon. Of the remaining oxides it is said 
that they “ exist only in combination.” This is one of those treacherous 
phrases of which chemistry were well rid. In this sense all bodies 
exist whose formule can be made by combining the symbols which 
compose the formula of an actually existing body. For example, the 
well-known salt hyposulphite of sodium has the constitution expressed, 
on the old notation, by the formula Na S°O*. Hence, on this principle, 
we mnay infer the existence of substances having the following for- 
mule :—Na 8, NaS’, Na O, Na 0”, Na O%, SO, SO., SO*, S70, S*O?, 
S’0*, Na SO, Na SO,, NaSO,, Na S°O, Na S?O?; of these substances 
those whose formule are printed in italics “ exist only in combination.” 
The reason why the formula of one of these imaginary bodies figures 
as that of “a known oxide of sulphur” (p. 256), is the traditional 
acceptance of the dualistic hypothesis, according to which every salt 
containing oxygen consists of a metallic oxide and an acid anhydride. 
Now we are far from saying that this oxide of sulphur may not here- 
after be made, or that there is no argument from analogy in support 
of this anticipation. Only the same may be said of nearly every one 
of the hypothetical bodies whose formule we have written down. The 
discovery of the teroxide of sodium, of the protoxide and suboxide of 
sulphur, of the sodium salts intermediate between the sulphide and 
sulphite, appears at least as probable. These indications of what we 
may hope to realize, drawn from the analogy of existing compounds, 
are the clue which must guide the chemical investigator ; but to set 
before a beginner the names and formule of certain substances selected 
on a particular hypothesis,—one out of many that have been formed,— 
from among hundreds of others, equally possible, equally unknown, is 
a course in the highest degree arbitrary and misleading. 

We wish to repeat, in conclusion, that our object has been to call 
attention to various points in which, as we venture to think, the tra- 
ditional teaching of chemistry is in fault. We have thus been led to 
notice chiefly those parts of Dr. Apjohn’s manual which illustrate the 
objections we have advanced, and have left without comment, as beside 
our purpose, the large amount of well-arranged information which it 


1864. | Botanists Guides. 567 


contains. But while we readily share the modest hope which Dr. 
Apjohn expresses, that his manual will materially assist his chemical 
pupils in the University of Dublin, we must express our opinion that 
a text-book of chemistry, such as we would desire to see in the hands 
of every beginner, has yet to be written. 


BOTANIST’S GUIDES.* 


Dr. Dickie having been for some years resident in Belfast as Professor 
of Botany and Natural History in Queen’s College, has examined the 
Flora of the northern part of Ireland, and the result is given in the 
first-named publication now before us. 

Like all the works of the same author, it displays accurate observation 
combined with a thorough knowledge of species. The district em- 
braced in the ‘ Flora’ lies to the north of the fifty-fourth parallel of 
latitude, and extends due west from Dundalk. It includes the whole of 
Ulster (except the most southern portions of Monaghan and Cavan), 
and the northern portions of Leitrim, Sligo, and Mayo, belonging to 
Connaught. As to the general geological features of the district, it is 
stated that Silurian formations occur in the South-east, Metamorphic 
and Granitic rocks in the North and North-west, Carboniferous Lime- 
stone in the South-west, and Devonian rocks in part of the interior. 
In the East there is an extensive mass of basalt and chalk; greensand 
and oolite are here and there exposed. The extreme highest points 
are ;—in county Down, Sleeve Donard, 2,796 feet ; in Donegal, Muckish 
and Engal, respectively, 2,190 and 2,400 feet; in Mayo, Nephin, 
2,646 feet. Surrounded as Ireland is by the Atlantic, and its northern 
parts so indented that arms of the ocean extend considerably inland, 
as might be inferred, the climate of even the most northern parts is 
comparatively mild and moist. The extreme ranges of temperature 
are moderate when contrasted with those recorded in different parts of 
Great Britain. ‘The character of the ‘Flora’ indicates this. In 
marine plants the occurrence of many southern species in the sea of 
the North of Ireland points out the influence of the Gulf Stream in a 
marked manner. 

Taking Mr. W. C. Watson's divisions, Dr. Dickie gives the fol- 
lowing statements as to the Ulster Flora :— 

1. Brrrist.—The number of plants belonging to this division, as 
given in the Guide, are—Dicotyledons, 347; Monocotyledons, 136. 
Several of these are not. so abundant as usual, such as Draba verna, 
Cardamine amara, Arabis hirsuta, Adoxa Moschatellina, Origanum 
vulgare, Myosotis collina, Mercurialis perennis, Milium effusum, Carex 
Fulva. 

2. Enextiso.—The total number of this type in the British Flora 
is about 396; of these there are, in this district, 141 Dicotyledons and 
36 Monocotyledons, giving a total of 177. 

* «A Flora of Ulster, and Botanist’s Guide to the North of Ireland.’ By G. 


Dickie, A.M., M.D., F.L.S., Professor of Botany in the University of Aberdeen. 
Belfast : C. Aitchison; London : Lovell Reeve. 18mo, pp. 176. 


4 


568 Reviews. [ July, 


3. ScorrisH.—The total number in Britain may be estimated at 
about 69; those in the Ulster list are 34 Dicotyledons and 19 Mono- 
cotyledons ; total 44. 

4, Hiauianp.—Species of this type are estimated at 100; in the 
North of Ireland the number is 29, of which 26 are Dicotyledons. 

5. Artantic.—The total number in Britain is about 60; of these 
there are in the list 23, of which 20 are Dicotyledons. 

6. Grrmanio.—The representatives of this type are 190, and only 
8 are in the list, of which 2 are Monocotyledons. 

7. Locau.—Under this head are included 2 species not found in 
Britain—Arenaria ciliata and Carex canescens, and one, Calamagrostis 
stricta, extremely local in Britain. 

The plants which occur on the summits of the higher mountains 
are as follows :—Arbutus Uva-Ursi, Calluna, Empetrum, Galium sazxatile, 
Salix herbacea, Vaccinium Myrtillus, Carex pilulifera, C. rigida, Festuca 
ovina, and var. vivipara, Luzula sylvatica, Juncus squarrosus, Poa 
pratensis, Armeria vulgaris, Campanula rotundifolia, Euphrasia officinalis, 
Potentilla Tormentilla, Rumex acetosa, Agrostis vulgaris, Aira flecuosa, 
Lycopodium Selago, Saxifraga umbrosa, 

The author includes in the ‘ Flora’ the Phanerogamous plants 
along with Ferns and their allies. A list of the species is given, with 
full reference to their localities, a notice of their period of flowering, 
their range, and the type to which they belong. A supplement is 
given containing a list of the species which are either not strictly 
indigenous, or regarding whose occurrence in the district there is some 
doubt. We have no hesitation in recommending the work as one of 
great value to the botanist who wishes to explore the Flora of the 
North of Ireland. 


The counties embraced in Dr. Dickie’s ‘ Botanist’s Guide ** to Aber- 
deen, &c., are very interesting in a botanical point of view. They 
exhibit a Flora ranging from the sea-shore to the height of 4,295 feet. 
The author gives a general view of the physical character of the coun- 
ties, and notices specially their meteorology. The geology of the 
counties is also given, from the pen of Mr. Cruickshank. The British 
Dicotyledenous orders not represented in the Flora are Berberidaceex, 
Frankeniacee, Tiliacee, Aceracee, Balsaminacex, Celastraceze, Rham- 
nacez, Tamariscacee, Cucurbitacez, Loranthacew, Jasminacex, Oro- 
banchacer, Amarantacerw, Eleaguaceee, Thymelaceare, Santalaceer, 
and Asaracesee. The Monocotyledonous orders not represented are 
Amaryllidacexw, Tamacex, Hydrocharidacee, and Restiaceer, 

Taking Mr.H. C. Watson’s Floral types, the following report by the 
author gives an idea of the characteristic features of the Aberdeen- 
shire Flora :— 

1. Brrrrsu.—Most of these constitute our common plants, almost 
everywhere diffused, and many of them familiar to all as ordinary 
weeds. Some of this type, however, though abundant in more southern 

* « Botanist’s Guide to the Counties of Aberdeen, Banfi, and Kincardine.’ By 


G. Dickie, A.M., M.D., Professor ot Botany in the University of Aberdeen. 18mo, 
pp. 344. Aberdeen: A. Brown & Co.; London: Longman & Co, 1860. 


1864. | Botanist’s Guides. 569 


parts of Britain, become scarce here, and may be reckoned among 
our rare species; such as Ranunculus auricomus, Arabis hirsuta, 
Arenaria trinervis, Bidens cernua, Lycopus Europeus, Listera ovata, 
Malaxis paludosa, Alisma ranunculoides, &e. 

2. Enatisu.—Of this type comparatively few reach Aberdeenshire, 
and some of them, though now extensively spread, very probably may 
have been introduced along with seeds of agricultural plants. 

3, ScorrisH.—Plants of this division are well represented in this 
part of Scotland, being 58 in number, and, therefore, about 2 of the 
British species, so designated, occur here. Most of them are abun- 
dant, and several are species highly prized by Southern collectors. A 
few examples may be mentioned :—Rubus saxatilis, Trientalis Europa, 
Linnea borealis, Pyrola media, Pyrola minor, Goodyera repens, and 
Listera cordata. Three of these, Linnexa, Trientalis, and Goodyera, 
may be specially noted as very widely distributed and abundant here. 

4, Germanio.—There are only 8 examples of this type on our list, 
and they are mostly rare or local plants; the total number of such in 
the British Flora being estimated at more than 190. 

5. Artantic.—Sedum anglicum and Scilla verna are the only 
representatives ; the latter confined to the North-western part of the 
coast, on the borders of the Moray Firth. 

6. Hieunanp.—The plants belonging to this division are esti- 
mated at about 100 species in the whole British Flora; of these 
;*, are found in the list. Many of these are very local, and 
entirely confined to the higher districts. A few of these reach 
the coast, and are found almost at the sea-level, viz. Sedum Rho- 
diola, Saxifraga oppositifolia, 8. hypnoides, and Polygonum vivi- 
parum. Some others appear at a lower altitude along the course 
of the Dee and Deveron. Such have, probably, been transported 
by floods, wz. Oxyria reniformis, Epilobium alpinum, and Alche- 
milla alpina. Among the more interesting of this type found in 
the interior, and usually very local, may be mentioned Astragalus 
alpinus, Mulgedium alpinum, Arbutus alpina, and various species of 
Saxifraga, Hieracium, Salix, Juncus, Carex, and Poa. 

As regards altitudinal distribution, the following remarks are 
made :—The upper limit of Pteris aquilina is considered as marking 
the upper limit of the Super-agrarian Zone, and therefore also that 
of cultivation in Britain. The limit of this fern varies here from 
1,600 to 1,900 feet: very rarely, however, does it attain the latter. 
In several localities, on the bare stony sides of the hills, the limit is 
found to be 1,600 to 1,700 feet. At various places, even more than 
forty miles from the sea, cultivation at high altitudes is frequent. In ~ 
some of the inland or higher parts of the Super-agrarian Zone, several 
plants of the Highland type constitute a permanent feature of the 
vegetation, such as Cerastium alpinum, Aspleniim viride, Polygonim 
Viviparum, and Arabis petra. 

The Zones of Watson’s Arctic region are well represented in 
Aberdeenshire. The Mid-Arctic Zone is peculiarly rich in rare forms 
of the Highland type, such as Astragalus alpinis, Carex rupestris, 
C. leporina, C. Vahlii, Erigeron alpiniis, &e. At the extreme part of 


570 Reviews. | July, 


the Super-Arctic Zone, the Highland forms alone occur. Thus, on the 
summit of Ben Maedui, only seven flowering plants are found, viz. 
Silene acaulis, Saxifraga stellaris, Salix herbacea, Luzula spicata, 
L. arcuata, Carex rigida, and Festuca vivipara. Along with them are 
associated Lycopodium Selago, and several other Cryptogamic plants. 

A complete list is given in the work of all the Phanerogamie and 
Cryptogamic plants of the counties, and full references to their localities. 
There is also a map of the district, with a delineation of the various 
zones of vegetation, and a notice of the plants which mark different 
altitudes. The ‘Guide’ is compiled with great care and correctness by 
one who is thoroughly conversant with the Flora, and who has for 
many years been in the habit of visiting the localities. Dr. Dickie 
has done good service to practical botany by this publication, which 
ought to be the pocket companion of every one who means to explore 
the floral treasures of the North of Scotland. 


BRITISH AND AMERICAN CONCHOLOGY.* 


WuHatEver may be the future destiny of those constituent groups 
which collectively form the genera of natural science, it is certain, 
that from the time of Linneus they have, in numberless instances, 
endured a considerable amount of severe cross-examination, and 
have stood their ground with much firmness. Species are indeed, 
at present, somewhat stubborn facts, and exhibit not a few very re- 
markable idiosyncrasies, which have to be disposed of before the 
theory of development can be regarded as perfectly established. 

To an unprofessional observer, the aspect of a named collection, 
in almost any branch of natural history, is very perplexing. In 
entomology, for instance, he may notice a series of insects, under the 
same specific name, yet differing from each other in size, colour, and 
even in form; whilst not far from these, two groups may appear, in 
one of which the specimens are so like those of the other, as to be 
apparently indistinguishable, yet he may find the groups marked by 
different specific, perhaps even by different generic, names. The 
arrangement may, nevertheless, be perfectly accurate and easily in- 
telligible to the entomologist, who, in a variable species, at once 
recognizes the specific identity of insects, differing at first sight, 
as much as a magpie does from a jay; whilst between two constant 
species, he knows the characteristic difference is very slight. We 
may be more or less inclined to attach importance to specific dis- 


* «British Conchology; or, an Account of the Mollusca which now inhabit 
the British Isles and the surrounding Seas.’ Vol. II., ‘ Marine Shells : compris- 
ing the Brachiopoda and Conchifera, from the Family of Anomiide to that of 
Mactride.’ By John Gwyn Jeffreys, F.R.S., F.G.8., &c. Van Voorst. 

‘Observations on the Genus Unio : together with Descriptions of New Species, 
their Soft Parts and Embryonic Forms in the Family Unionide.’ By Isaac Lea, 
LL.D., President of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, &e. With 
ten plates. Philadelphia : Printed for the author. 


1864. | British and American Conchology. 571 


tinctions, but at all events, it must be evident that discrimination 
between species is a matter of empiricism, and can only be accom- 
plished by a naturalist who has a thorough practical acquaintance 
with all the constituents of a genus in their various relations towards 
each other, and under all the circumstances of the life-history of each 
species. 

Dr. Lea has devoted a large share of his lifo to the attainment of a 
thorough acquaintance with the single conchological family Unionide. 
The Unios are not general favourites with shell collectors, perhaps 
because there is, to say the least, a strong family resemblance between 
all the species, and a good series requires the whole of a very capacious 
cabinet for its reception. Nevertheless, these fresh-water mussels 
have had afew enthusiastic admirers and collectors, from and before 
the time of Featherstone, whose book of travels in North America 
gives an amusing account of perils and hardships undergone in pur- 
suit of Unios. The tenth volume of Dr. Lea’s work on the Unionide 
contains a very valuable description of the soft parts and embryonic 
forms of many species, the shells alone of which had been previously 
described. It is a pity that the work is so strictly confined to techni- 
calities. Books of natural science will never gain their due respect 
from mankind till they openly recognize the fact that an accurate 
description of the habits and dispositions—in short, the biography of 
a living thing—is just as purely and as truly scientific as the most 
elaborate treatise on its physiology. 

The North American Unionide include, according to Dr. Lea, more 
than seven hundred species, whilst the rivers in Europe do not produce 
more than a dozen. 

The second volume of British Conchology, by Mr. Jeftrey’s, exhibits 
equally with the first, on the part of the author, a profuse expenditure 
of time and energy ungrudgingly bestowed on his favourite pursuit. 

In reading the book, it is easy to fancy oneself inhaling the fresh 
odour of the sea-shore, or of the sea-bottom ; turning a stone for a 
chiton, or poring over the dripping contents of a dredge in search of 
rissoz ; on the whole, however, the proportion of matter unattainable 
from other sources seems to be somewhat less in this than it was in 
the former volume. Many readers will, no doubt, think that the 
author has acted judiciously in abstaining from drawing inferences 
from his vast store of facts, either in favour of, or in opposition to, 
the theory of natural selection ; yet it is daily becoming more difficult 
to awaken any interest in matters which were the subjects of warm 
discussion only a few years ago. Even the discovery of a new species 
is less cared for: we want to know more of the old ones; for if Mr. 
Darwin’s theory be the correct one, there is not an animal or a plant of 
any species—far more than this, there is not a single character belong- 
ing to an animal or a plant of any species, but it has its own wondrous 
ancestral history to yield as a reward for patient study. On the other 
hand, if we regard “natural selection” as a mere conjecture, every 
part of every living thing may be examined as a witness to the proba- 
bility or the improbability of the grounds on which the conjecture has 
been made. All must admit that Mr. Darwin has fairly challenged 

VOL. I. 2a 


572 Reviews. | July, 


refutation ; he has propounded no misty, indefinite, unintelligible 
theory ; he has made two assertions that anybody may understand— 
Ist. That species have arisen by divergence in descent from a com- 
mon stock ; 2nd. That the direction of the divergence has been deter- 
mined on utilitarian principles. It is inconceivable that such a theory 
can long remain undecided. It is a reproach to science, that the 
materials for its support or refutation are not at hand in over- 
whelming plenitude. From a Rhizopod to an elephant, from a par- 
ticle of red snow to a Wellingtonia, every organism invites the 
inquirer after truth to come and hear what it has to say upon the 
question. The fact is, that naturalists have been too much occupied 
with systems of classification, and with establishing their various per- 
sonal claims to scientific honours ; and now the work that might have 
been done long ago, remains to be done; for Mr. Darwin himself 
would be the last man in the world to assert that he had arrived at 
anything like a demonstration. He has, however, succeeded in giving 
the great problem a most unexampled prominence ; the rising genera- 
tion will probably possess its satisfactory solution. 


PAMPHLETS. 


Tuer CotossaL Brrp or Mapacascar.* 


Ty the year 1850, a French ship-captain, named Abadie, being on the 
south-east coast of Madagascar, observed in the hands of a native the 
shell of a gigantic egg, which had been perforated at one of its ex- 
tremities and employed for domestic purposes. M. Abadie being 
attracted by the unusual dimensions of the egg, set to work to procure 
specimens of it, and ultimately succeeded in obtaining from the 
natives, besides the example first seen, two others. One of these was 
found in the débris of a recent land-slip, the other was disinterred from 
a recent alluvial formation, together with some bones of apparently no 
less gigantic size.— Upon these objects, which were shortly afterwards 
forwarded to Paris, the late Professor Isidore Geoffroi St. Hilaire 
founded a new genus and species of extinct Struthious birds, allied to 
Dinornis, for which he proposed the name, Afpyornis maximus.| The 
most striking character of the eggs of A’pyornis is their enormous 
size. The largest of the two received at Paris measured in circum- 
ference lengthwise no less than 2 feet 10 inches, and breadthwise 2 feet 
4 inches. Its extreme length in a straight line was about 12 inches. 
Professor Geoffroi St. Hilaire estimated that it would contain 104 
quarts, or nearly as much as six ostrich-eggs. <A large ostrich egg, 
we may mention, measures only about 61 inches in length, being little 
more than half that of the Apyornis. But it would be very hazardous, 

* «A Paper upon the Egg of ASpyornis Maximus, the Colossal Bird of Mada- 


gascar. By George Dawson Rowley, M.A. 
+ Compt. Rend. de l’Ac. Se., 1851, Jan. 27. 


. 1864. | ~ Pamphlets. 573 


as Professor Owen has remarked, when making observations on these 
eges before the Zoological Society,* to conclude hence that the size 
of the bird was in proportion to the great dimensions of its eggs. The 
little Apteryx, or kiwi of New Zealand, produces an egg 4? inches in 
length, and, when freshly laid, “ nearly equal to one-fourth of the 
weight of the living bird.”+ In fact, Professor Owen considers that 
the “pyornis did not surpass in height or size the Dinornis giganteus, 
and that it was probably a somewhat smaller bird.” 

The eggs of the Afpyornis are now well known to scientific men, 
from casts which have been prepared to imitate the originals in the 
French collection, and liberally distributed amongst all the principal 
Museums of Europe and America. But, as regards originals, the 
Parisian examples have remained, as far as we know, unique, until the 
arrival of the example described in the present pamphlet, which was first 
exhibited in the International Exhibition of 1862. It was obtained, 
Mr. Rowley informs us, at Mananzari, on the east coast of Madagascar, 
at a depth of 5 feet in a hill of ferruginous clay, by some Malgaches 
digging for iron ore. Mr. Rowley tells us that this specimen, which 
he obtained by purchase from a M. Brunet—the secretary of a French 
charitable association — slightly exceeds the two Parisian eggs in 
dimensions, and is, therefore, the largest known example of the eggs 
of Aipyornis. Without grudging Mr. Rowley the acquisition of such 
an addition to his collection of eggs, for which, we believe, he paid a 
handsome price, we cannot help expressing our regret that the autho- 
rities of the British Museum, to whom we know the offer was made, 
did not secure such a prize for our national collection. 


Speotrum ANALysIs.{ 


WE may commend this little book to our readers as an excellent 
practical guide to the use of the Spectroscope, which all who are 
beginning to experiment with the instrument will do well to study. 
Whether its revelations, so far as the materials of our own globe are 
concerned, are come to an end or not, it will always be looked upon as 
an important means of research, with the use of which every chemist 
will do well to make himself acquainted. Although the application 
to qualitative analysis seems limited and somewhat delusive, there are 
some who anticipate the day when further researches may show that 
the spectroscope will be available not only to discover the presence of 
different substances, but also to show their several proportions. In 
these hopes we hardly share, but we are glad to lend any aid to extend 
the use of the instrument. 

One objection often brought against the usefulness of the spectro- 


* See P. Z. 8., 1852, p. 9. 

+ See Sclater, in P. Z. S., 1859, p. 350. 

t ‘Instruction Pratique sur l’Analyse Spectrale, comprenant: 1. La Descrip- 
tion des Appareils; 2. Leur Application aux Recherches Chimiques: 3. Leur 
Application aux Observations Physiques; 4. La Projection des Spectres.’ Par M. 
Louis Grandeau. Paris : Mallet-Bachelier. 

2Q2 


574 Reviews. [July, 


scope is its excessive delicacy. It is hard, sometimes, to tell whether 
the spectrum seen is given by the material under examination, or 
whether it is not caused by minute portions of the substances floating 
in the atmosphere. It is for this reason that M. Grandeau insists 
strongly upon the necessity for a scparate and distinct laboratory in 
which to carry on spectrum investigations. This laboratory, he adds, 
should be provided with the means of effecting a thorough ventilation, 
so as to get completely rid of volatilized matter. 

The author also points out the advantage of securing a room with 
a southern aspect, the window of which can be darkened with wooden 
shutters, a circular hole in one of which may admit a beam of solar 
light for examination and comparison. 

No less useful to chemists beyond the reach of gas, is the hint that 
in the absence of a Bunsen’s jet the best source of heat and light to 
employ is a lamp fed with wood spirit. It is also very properly pointed 
out that when either such a lamp or a common spirit lamp is em- 
ployed, the brass collar through which the wick passes should be well 
platinized to prevent the appearance of the spectrum of copper, some 
of which metal is always carried along by the spirit. 

The spectrum of copper is rather complicated, but it may mislead 
a young experimenter, who would, however, be able to set himself right, 
if he checked his results with the spectroscope by an ordinary 
chemical analysis. And here we may mention what M. Grandeau 
calls a most happy coincidence. It is the circumstance that those 
substances which are most difficult to detect by purely chemical means, 
are just those which give the most simple and characteristic spectra. 
Take as an illustration the fact mentioned in our Chemical Chronicle. 
Plattner had a large amount of cesium in his hands, and yet failed 
by chemical means to discover that it was anything different from 
potassium. Bunsen had a very minute proportion, but instantly recog- 
nized in the two blue lines the sign of something new. How minute 
a proportion of some metals may be discovered is stated by the author, 
and we quote his statement without, however, guaranteeing the accu- 
racy of the determination. He says, that the observation of the 
lines of the spectrum enables us to prove most distinctly the presence 
of 0:000,000,3 of a milligramme of sodium, and 0:000,000,9 of a 
milligramme of lithium ! 

The exact value of the spectroscope in analysis is, as we have 
hinted, yet to be determined, but the value of the results already 
arrived at by its means are unquestioned. Four new simple bodies 
have been brought to our knowledge in the same number of years, a 
result unprecedented since the time of Davy ; and although a chemist 
can hardly wish the mumber of simple bodies to go on extending at 
this rate, we hope there is yet a rich harvest to be reaped to reward 
the labours of other observers. 

We have already expressed a warm commendation of this book, 
which we have only to add extends to every part but the chromo- 
lithographs at the end. If anyone should arrange for its translation 
into English, he had better get fresh plates executed. 


1864. ( 


NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 


Recent Contributions to Natural History and Ethnology in France.—1. Pas- 
teur on Ferments; 2%. Tremaux on the White and Black Races in 


Africa; 3. Lartet and Christy on Pre-historic Human Remains. 


By 


Th. Lacaze Duthiers (Professeur 4 l Ecole normale sup. de Paris). 


At the time when Lamarck wrote, 
it was still possible to believe in 
spontaneous generation; and, in- 
deed, it was easy to justify such a 
theory by a reference to facts then 
unexplained, and otherwise inexpli- 
cable. But since then, further light 
has been thrown upon a whole 
series of living forms, whose origin 
and development had before been 
regarded as insoluble problems. 
The advocates of the theory of 
generation without parents, or ‘‘ he- 
terogenesis,” as it is termed, rapidly 
decreased in number, owing to the 
difficulty they found in sustaining 
their opinions, and a period seemed 
to have arrived when such inquiries 
had attained a degree of precision 
which excluded the possibility of a 
revival of this old world controversy. 

Nevertheless, M. Pouchet, of 
Rouen, doubtless unconvinced by 
the most recent discoveries which 
had thrown such light upon the 
mystery of generation amongst the 
lower animals, some years since 
presented to the Academy of 
Sciences a number of detailed facts 
which, he believed, demonstrated 
satisfactorily the production of 
microscopic organisms without 
parents. ‘This communication led to 
a controversy, and the Academy of 
Sciences adopted the question as 
the subject for one of its prizes, and 
finally awarded the distinction to 
an eminent chemist, M. Pasteur, 
whose labours clearly exhibited the 
errors into which M. Pouchet had 
fallen. Still the naturalist of Rouen 


does not acknowledge himself van- 
quished. Far from this, he is 
incessantly attacking M. Pasteur; 
with him have allied themselves 
MM. Jolly and Musset, naturalists 
holding similar views, and the com- 
bination of these three observers 
necessarily gives weight to the op- 
position raised against the decision 
of the committee which had already 
judged the whole question. 

In the interests of science, and 
for the dignity of the Academy of 
which he is now a member, M, 
Pasteur has requested that a com- 
mission should be appointed with 
a view of witnessing a series of com- 
parative experiments to be institu- 
ted by his adversaries and himself, 
and the decision of the judges should 
finally dispose of the controversy. 
The challenge was frankly and dis- 
tinctly given ; it was accepted in the 
same spirit by his opponents; and 
each party was to repeat its experi- 
ments before the committee in con- 
firmation of its views. 

The time arrived, when MM. 
Pouchet,Jolly, and Musset requested 
an adjournment, fearing that the 
changes of temperature in the 
spring might cause the failure of 
their so-called physiological experi- 
ments. The delay has been granted, 
and the commission will not meet 
until the 19th of June of the pre- 
sent year. As we may wellimagine, 
M. Pasteur has not failed to draw 
attention to the fact that he was 
ready at any time, and at the call 
of the Academy, for with a stove 


576 


any requisite temperature may at 
all times be obtained for any kind 
of experiments. 

We trust that there may be no 
further delay, for it is necessary 
indeed that a solution, free from 
any kind of suspicion, should be 
arrived at, in order to close a debate 
already too long protracted. 

The experiments of M. Pasteur 
are possessed of singular clearness, 
precision, and interest, and are 
conducted on the broadest general 
basis. He is not content to take at 
hazard a few special results ; but he 
studies the more extended pheno- 
mena of putrefaction, fermentation, 
and disorganization of organized 
beings. Wherever he observes the 
decomposition of an organic com- 
pound he also encounters myriads 
of forms, be they animal or vege- 
table, which accomplish this decom- 
position. He seeks the conditions 
necessary for their existence, in order 
to deduce from these the laws of 
their development and reproduc- 
tion, and in the roajor portion of the 
phenomena attributed to slow oxi- 
dation, such as fermentation and 
putrefaction, he sees only the mani- 
festations of the vital force exerting 
itself in the world of infinitely mi- 
nute beings. 

“« Life,” he says, “‘ presides every- 
where over the work of death,” a 
remarkable expression, which exhi- 
bits strikingly the practical and 
philosophical mind of the great 
academician. As a naturalist I 
heartily approve this statement, 
emanating from a cheinist, for it is, 
to me, an indication of a.return to 
the study of true biological science 
—a science far too much neglected, 
and one, the importance of which 
is often misapprehended, and its 
action too much restricted. 

When, owing to the new line of 
inquiry here indicated, the results 
due to vital force, or, if the phrase 
be preferred, due to the action of 
the organized world upon itself, 
are fully recognized; results of 
the most striking character which 
are often attributed to the chemicul 


Notes and Correspondence. 


[July, 


or physical forces in the explanations 
of the phenomena of daily life, then 
it will be seen that the return of 
the primitive elements to the inor- 
ganic world is but the manifestation, 
the most striking, though appar- 
ently the humblest, of the endow- 
ments of animal and plant life. It 
would be impossible to refer here to 
all the varied observations of M. 
Pasteur on this subject; all we can 
do is to direct attention to his latest 
communications, which are of a 
specially practical character, and itis 
pleasing to see science descend from 
the lofty heights of theory in order 
to guide the researches of the ex- 
perimentalist, so often conducted in 
the dark. 

Everyone is aware that the 
‘‘must,” or sweet juice of the grape, 
is converted into wine by the pro- 
cess of fermentation, but this being 
accomplished, whence does wine ob- 
tain its exquisite properties? how 
does it acquire age ? 

That the oxygen of the atmo- 
sphere was indispensable for fermen- 
tation was proved by Gay-Lussac ; 
but M. Pasteur teaches us that, 
when the fermentation is ended, its 
part in the process becomes chang- 
ed. It is absorbed, and, combining 
with some of the elements of the 
wine, modifies its flavour and im- 
parts to it its characteristic bouquet. 

This explains why wine acquires 
age more quickly and more readily 
in porous wooden vessels, where the 
conditions of absorption are favour- 
able, than in glass vessels ; in casks 
rather than in bottles ; in a state of 
motion rather than when at rest. 
More attention should therefore be 
devoted than is usually the case to 
the aeration, not only of cellars, but 
also of wine contained in casks. 

The must is changed into wine by 
the action ofalowly-organized plant* 
which, while developing and multi- 
plying itself infinitely, acts upon the 
sugar and separates its elements, 

When the alcohol resulting from 
this process is produced, absorption 


* Mycoderma Vini. 


1864.] 


of oxygen commences; the wine 
loses some of its qualities and ac- 
quires new ones. In a word, it ac- 
quires age. But this absorption 
may be hindered or interrupted by 
the production of many kinds of 
vegetables ; true parasitic growths, 
which act like ferments, and so form, 
by their own peculiar influence, 
those wines which are commonly 
named in France sour or acid wines, 
sweet, bitter, turned, and dry wines. 

M. Pasteur, without any hasty at- 
tempt at imposing new names on 
each of these vegetable forms (and 
in this respect how few botanists 
would have imitated him), regards 
them, nevertheless, as so many dis- 
tinct species, which, by their special 
action, cause the disagreeable char- 
acters of which we have just spoken ; 
and he adopts this practical applica- 
tion well worthy of attention. 

The disagreeable flavour of acid 
wines, of those which are sweet, 
bitter, changed, &c., cannot be re- 
cognized by taste until the change 
is far advanced, and it is no longer 
possible to apply a remedy to the 
mischief; while by microscopic ex- 
amination the destructive crypto- 
gam may be discovered as soon as it 
is fairly developed, and its increase 
may then be checked. A wine may 
thus be out of condition for a long 
time before its state is really sus- 
pected, and microscopic examination 
alone can ensure the detection of this 
state, or watch over its progress. 

Doubtless it will be long before 
full use is made of these scien- 
tific data, as well as of the micro- 
scope ; but we shall not be the less 
indebted to M. Pasteur for having 
entertained the happy idea of apply- 
ing his researches, tirst undertaken 
from high and purely theoretical 
views, to the benefit of a branch of 
industry so widespread as that of 
the manufacture and preservation 
of wines. 


Although the variability in a spe- 
cies is considered by some natural- 
ists to be unlimited in extent, yet in 


Notes and Correspondence. 


577 


the case of man the races to which 
it has given rise are, some of them 
at least, so characterized and fixed 
as to have been regarded by cer- 
tain ethnologists as distinct spe- 
cies. Now, however, the impression 
exists, and in this there is very 
general agreement, that only one 
single species should be admitted 
for the human race. But this very 
intricate and difficult question still 
remains to be solved: Do the dif- 
ferent human races spring from one 
and the same stock very widely 
modified, or were they distinct at 
their origination ? 

The perplexity we experience 
in giving a satisfactory answer to 
this query must cause us to wel- 
come with the most lively interest 
all observations which are able to 
throw any light upon it; and in 
this view we shall here refer to the 
researches that M. Tremaux has 
just laid before the Academy of 
Sciences, for the purpose of showing 
that in spite of the most distinctive 
characteristics which appear to 
divide these races, they may still 
merge one into another. M. Tre- 
maux was induced, by a concurrence 
of private events, to undertake a 
long expedition towards the source 
of the Nile, and whilst there he was 
led to make some observations, 
the results of which, if they are 
confirmed by subsequent inquiry, 
will become of very material value. 
He has remarked that the physical 
characteristics of the white races 
are changed into those of the black 
to the south of the mountains 
of Upper Egypt, and that on the 
other hand the black races become 
white towards the north. In deli- 
neating upon a map the position 
of the peoples of the Soudan, he has 
drawn tortuous lines, representing 
promontories, gulfs, and islands, as 
the limits of the various tribes, and 
corresponding to the variations in 
the tribes; and he has found that 
this map, originally intended only 
to give an idea of the ethnography, 
has proved in reality to be the 
geological map of these countries. 


578 


This result, very curious in itself, 
led him on very naturally to inquire 
whether some relation might not 
exist between the nature of the soil 
and the physical forms of the in- 
habitants. M. Tremaux has not 
failed to prosecute this line of re- 
search, and by comparing the facts 
gleaned from science concerning the 
geology of different points of the 
globe, with the well-known charac- 
ters of the people there resident, 
he has been led to the conclusion 
that remarkable coincidences exist 
between the geological formations 
and the human types. The man 
who differs most widely from our 
present white type, lives on the 
soils of oldest formation, whilst 
he whom we may regard as 
the most perfect, belongs to those 
countries which in the smallest 
space exhibit the greatest variety 
of soils, and appertaining to the 
most modern deposits. ‘The obser- 
vations of M. Tremaux cannot easily 
be verified ; for long, costly, painful, 
and even dangerous journeys would 
be imperative; but the attention 
of those travellers, who are also 
naturalists, may well be directed to 
the opinions which he advances. 
For they have this especial pecu- 
liarity (one rarely to be met with in 
science) that they are not the result 
of preconceived ideas, and that the 
author has only been induced to 
give them to the world, because, so 
to speak, he was compelled to yield 
to the evidence of facts which pre- 
sented themselves before him whilst 
engaged in a totally different pursuit. 

His conclusions tend to show 
what influence the dwelling upon 
certain soils, or in certain localities, 
would have upon the physical cha- 
racteristics of man; an influence, 
which, if fully demonstrated, would 
explain how the white man has 
become so modified as to produce 
the type from which he most widely 
differs, the Negro—namely, by 
coming to inhabit those countries 
where the soil has been formed 
from the earliest deposits. and 
how the Negro, on his side, has 


Notes and Correspondence. 


[July, 


been able to reach the white type, 
viz. by emigrating to countries 
formed from soils varied in cha- 
racter, and of recent origin. We 
repeat, it is necessary to confirm 
these conclusions, and it would be 
as imprudent to accept them with- 
out reserve as it would be to reject 
them without due investigation. 
The inquiry is full of interest, 
not only so far as the philosophy of 
science is concerned (for it is in- 
timately linked with the question 
of mutability of species), but also in 
connection with the progress of the 
natural history of man, with which 
we are now so actively employed. 


Naturalists will certainly not have 
forgotten the sensation which was 
created last year by the presen- 
tation to the Academy of Sciences 
by M. de Quatrefages of a human 
jawbone found in the quaternary 
deposit of the Somme by M. Bou- 
cher de Perthes. Incredulity, dis- 
dain, and irony greeted the new 
discovery of the learned and now 
celebrated archeologist of Abbeville, 
as, indeed, it had been the case with 
his earlier announcements. 

Very shortly afterwards a sort of 
scientific congress met at Moulin 
Quignon, to decide whether the fam- 
ous jawbone found in this locality 
were really authentic and contempo- 
rary with the deposits where traces 
of human industry had been recog- 
nized side by side with huge fossil 
mammalia. How the conditions 
are now changed! how far we 
are removed from that! ‘To-day 
every one is convinced; and all 
listen eagerly to any new communi- 
cation relating to the drift which 
attests the antiquity of man, Such 
evidences it is, indeed, easy to find 
in a country which, like France, is 
rich in the indications of the very re- 
mote existence of an aboriginal race. 

The traveller who departing from 
Paris for the plains of the Garonne, 
follows the line of the central rail- 
way of France, cannot fail to be 
struck in the neighbourhood of 


1864. ] 


Périgueux with the appearance of 
‘a bed of gravel intermixed with 
flint, which reminds him of the 
diluvium of St. Acheul, near Amiens; 
and after passing further southward, 
and having reached the valleys of the 
Beune and of the Vezére, especially 
towards the station of Eyzies, he 
must notice, even in the hasty rail- 
way journey, the excavations into 
which the steep rocks, which border 
on the course of the river, are 
hollowed out. This part of the 
centre of France had been until 
lately very imperfectly explored, but 
MM. Lartet and Christy, both well 
known as geologists, have jointly 


Notes and Correspondence. 


579 


examined the grottos of Périgord. 
They have collected some objects 
of extremely high scientific value, 
which certainly throw a very clear 
light upon the history of primitive 
man.* Amongst a mass of flints 
formed into hatchets, knife-blades, 
arrow-heads, of bones worked into 
the shape of needles, of barbed 
arrows, of harpoons, of amulets or 
ornaments, and of daggers; and 
evidencing the existence, among a 
primitive people as yet ignorant of 
the use of metals, of a certain kind 
of industry, and even of art; these 
gentlemen have been so fortunate 
as to discover some daggers,t the 


1die, aly 


handles of which, although roughly 
carved and sculptured (Figs. 1 and 
2), allow us to recognize without 
the possibility of a doubt that the 
engraver has wished to represent 
the reindeer then living before his 
eyes. Thus not only the material 
of which the weapon is formed, but 
also the designs which ornament it, 
bear witness to the presence of this 
animal in the middle of France in 
pre-historic times. 

A piece of carving upon an arrow, 
unfortunately mutilated in its most 


important part, the head, gives the 
impression that the Aurochs (bos 
urus) was also existing in this same 
country. For the height of the 
line of the back above the shoulders 


* The observations of these gentlemen, 
at first presented to the Academy of 
Sciences (part 58) in 1864, have been 
published in the ‘Reyue Archéologique,’ 
1864. 

+ These drawings are copied from the 
“Memoir of MM. Lartet and Christy,” 
in the ‘ Revue Archeéologique.’ 


580 


in this drawing can only refer to that 
animal (Fig.3). Lastly, one other 


Notes and Correspondence. 


| July, 


relic presented to the Academy of. 
Sciences is a lumbar vertebra of a 


young reindeer, traversed from side 
to side by a flint with sharpened 
edge, which is still fixed in the 
wound it had made in the bone. 

Who would, for an instant, refuse 
to recognize in this the action of 
the hand of man ? 

M. Peters has besides discovered 
in the specimens which MM. 
Lartet and Christy had forwarded 
to the museum at Vienna a human 
incisor. 

It results, then, from the whole of 
these observations that a race of 
men ignorant of the use of metals 
lived in Périgord upon the animals 
procured in the chase and upon 
fish at a time when the reindeer, 
the aurochs, and other animals also 
existed ; that they had not tamed 
any species of animal, not even the 
dog, and that they made use of the 
skins of animals sewn together as 
garments. 

This is proved by the discovery 
of needles made of bone, and of the 
incisions recognized upon the bone 
of the leg of the reindeer, from 


which the people had taken the 
tendons in order to employ them as 
thongs, just as the Esquimaux now 
use them to stitch their dresses. 

M. Lartet, whose acquirements in 
paleontology are at the same time 
extended and accurate, has studied 
much more thoroughly than those 
who have preceded him, the dilu- 
vium and the deposits of the qua- 
ternary caverns, and has determined 
the existence of four periods, 
marked out by the presence of the 
aurochs, the reindeer, the cave- 
bear, and the elephant (E. primige- 
nius). The predominance of the 
bones of the reindeer in the centre 
of France, would prove that man 
has lived in Périgord during one of 
these periods, but would not weaken 
this truth, admitted as indubitable 
by the eminent geologist, that is, 
that man has been coexistent with 
other huge quaternary mammalia, 

Nevertheless, M. Elie de Beau- 
mont, in referring to one of the 
very numerous communications on 
the subject of the caverns which 


1864. | 


are constantly addressed to the 
Academy, has protested against 
this conclusion. For, says he, the 
more convincing the demonstration 
of the existence of the reindeer 
becomes, precisely in the same de- 
gree is the insufficiency declared of 
the supposed proofs of the long- 
past coexistence of man and the 
elephant (E. primigenius). 

The learned and_ well-known 
French geologist cannot admit this 
contemporary existence, despite the 
facts and the proofs which seem to 
be accumulating both in number 
and weight. M.de Vibray, whose 
opinion is above suspicion, since, 
as he says himself, he had at first 
been a sceptic, has also just brought 
forward some proofs, having felt 
himself obliged to yield to the evi- 
dence adduced. M. de Lastic has 
discovered in the grotto of Bruni- 
quel (Aveyrou) a prodigious quan- 
tity of bones of the reindeer, of the 
horse, &c., mingled with human 
bones, and with objects carved in 
the form of arrows. 

MM. Garrigou, Martin, and Tru- 
tat, after examining the débris 
of the human jawbones found at 
Bruniquel, have believed themselves 
warranted in coming to some gene- 
ral conclusion ; and in saying that 
the three jawbones (human) found 
in the quaternary deposits are to 
be referred to the brachycephalic 
type, although they have been met 
with in different localities by the 
side of the cavern-bear in the cave 
of Aurignac, now rendered famous 
by the tombs and the traces of 
funeral festivals described by M. 
Lartet ; by the side of the elephant 
at Moulin-Quignon, and along with 
the reindeer at Bruniquel. Man 
then having lived at different dates 
with animals of various species, ap- 
pears not the less to have retained 
his brachycephalic type. 

In the grotto of Lourdes, already 
explored by MM. Lartet and 
Milne-Edwards, below the layers in 
which these gentlemen had deter- 
mined the proofs of the coexistence 
of man (stone age) and of the rein- 


Notes and Correspondence. 581 


deer; there should be found, ac- 
cording to a recent communication 
from MM. Garrigou and Martin, 
still deeper deposits in which the 
coexistence of man and of the 
aurochs would be obvious. In a 
similar grotto we can then meet 
with the traces of two distinct ages 
superposed, one above the other. 

MM. Garrigou and Martin have 
such confidence in the succession of 
these ages, that in reference to the 
cavern of the valley of Espalungue, 
they put forward this positive 
opinion, that in order to find 
in this locality the traces of 
the coexistence of man, of the 
cavern-bear, and of the elephant 
(E. primigenius), the search should 
be made above the cavern, if it is 
to be attended with any chance of 
Success. 

This question of the antiquity of 
man, only recently so much con- 
troverted, is making, as it will be 
seen, great and rapid progress. We 
have not mentioned all the labours 
undertaken, and all the communica- 
tions made in France, but we may 
well judge from those which have 
been referred to, that French geolo- 
gists have fully appreciated the 
task which they had to fulfil, and 
they are giving themselves with a 
praiseworthy ardour to the study 
of the soil of their country, so rich 
in matters relating to races now 
extinct. 

We could not close our notice 
without acknowledging the readi- 
ness MM. Lartet and Christy have 
shown to communicate their dis- 
coveries in the Perigord to the 
scientific world. After having 
placed specimens of the highest 
value from their excavations in the 
museum of Périgueux, in that 
of Paris, and having reserved one 
specially important example for 
the museum which is being pre- 
pared in the Chateau de St. Ger- 
main to receive the beautiful col- 
lections presented by M. Boucher 
de Perthes, and which will be ex- 
clusively set apart for illustrations of 
the history of the antiquity of man ; 


582 


these gentlemen have forwarded to 
a large number of the museums of 
the most important towns of France 
and of Europe specimens from the 
excavation of Eyzies. 

Whilst he was proprietor of most 
of the caves which have been ex- 
plored, Mr. Christy has made the 
special reservation, that only the 
unique specimens should remain in 


Notes and Correspondence. 


[July, 


the country in which they had been 
found. Is not this disinterestedness 
above all praise, and does it not 
prove how thoroughly that antago- 
nism, which petulant minds too 
often try to foster, between the two 
first nations of the world, becomes 
obliterated between men who love 
science thoroughly and sincerely ? 
Paris. Tu. Lacaze DUTHIERS. 


Improved Machinery for Boring Rocks. 


The last number of the ‘Jour- 
nal of Science’ contained a brief 
reference to my patent boring-ma- 
chine, in which it was stated that 
it does not differ materially from 
others. 

In this, your “Chronicler ” is un- 
der a misapprehension, and I trust 
I may be permitted to say that my 
patent machine has many important 
advantages over those of other 
makers. 

In order to make good this state- 
ment, or rather to enable my pro- 
fessional brethren to judge for 
themselves in the matter, and also 
because I think that the subject 
must be one of interest to all classes 


q\\N 


miR 
YT Moai 
SNS 
XA 


f 


By George Low. 


of readers, I forward to you the 
following account, illustrated with 
representations of my boring-ma- 
chine, and request the favour of its 
insertion in the Journal. 

The cylinder and boring tool of 
my machine are arranged on a 
telescopic principle, being only 4 
feet 6 inches in length, from end 
to end, and sufficiently short to 
swing round in any direction in a 
tunnel. They are so arranged that 
they can be set to work in any part 
of the face, perpendicularly, hori- 
zontally, sideways, or at any angle 
and in any direction, as best suited 
to the strata, and to meet the con- 
venience of blasting. 


" 
af 
ah 

H 


In Figures 1 and 2, for instance, 
which represent a machine adapted 
for tunnelling, adits, &c., the cylin- 
der is provided with five different 
movements, and is mounted on a 
jib, which allows the cylinder and 


boring tool to be set at any angle, 
perpendicularly to horizontally ; 
the jib being moved up or down the 
columns on a screw inside, and the 
columns can be moved from side 
to side. The jib is also capable of 


1864. ] 


being swung round the columns, 
and with the cylinder it can swing 
round sideways at any angle in 
front of the columns. Each of these 
movements is effected by a hand- 
wheel, and each set of gear is pro- 


Notes and Correspondence. 


ATT OD nA nm 


583 


vided with a tightening break, so 
as to render the whole perfectly 
steady whilst in operation. ‘The 


working parts are covered to pro- 
tect them from the rock-dust and 
débris. 


Fie. 3. 


Figure 3 shows the cylinder and 
boring-machine and tool in detail. 
The chief peculiarities of these are, 
the shortness of the whole, the fixed 
cylinder, with telescopic tool, cen- 
tral screw, and parts completely 
covered. The screw which propels 
the tool in progress of boring (ac- 
tuated by a diagonal slot attached 
to the cylinder by a roller-ratchet 
wheel) goes up inside the piston- 
rod, receiving the percussion blows 
centrally, and thus obviating any 
danger of the tool leaning to either 
side. 

It will be observed that the 


cylinder is, as remarked, stationary, 
the tool and screw being propelled 
from it in course of boring, instead 
of a motion being imparted to the 
cylinder itself. This arrangement 
allows of wil the working parts of 
the cylinder and boring motion 
being completely covered from rock- 
dust, wet, &c., which have been 
found so destructive to boring-ma- 
chines. 

The tool is arranged so that it 
travels (self-acting) at any rate that 
may be requisite, proportioned to 
the hardness of the rock, this being 
regulated by the position of the 


584 


propelling slot. The latter may be 
placed with a greater or less slope, 
so as to actuate either one, two, 
three, or four teeth in the ratchet- 
wheel, and thus to move the screw 
more or less quickly. 

Figure 4 represents a machine 
intended for quarries of every de- 
scription, and Figure 6 is for sinking 
perpendicular shafts. 

With regard to the whole ma- 
chine, I may add that the carriage 
frame is provided with a propelling 
gear, to draw it to or from the face 
of the rock to be acted on at inter- 
vals required for blasting. The 
various moving gears are so ar- 
ranged that one man can draw and 
adjust the borers to work in the 
necessary direction in a few mo- 
ments ; and the machine may be 
worked either by compressed air, 
steam, or water, the first-named 


Notes and Correspondence. 


[July, 


being preferable in tunnels, as the 
escape air provides ventilation. In 
case steam is used for quarries and 
perpendicular shafts, it is provided 
with a condensing apparatus, and 
the condensed water is injected into 
the holes at every stroke, whereby 
these are kept clean. The machines 
are constructed with carriage frames 
of different forms, so as to adapt 
them for driving incline levels, 
adits, tunnels, perpendicular, slope- 
face, and flat surface of quarries, 
open cuttings, &c. ; and, according 
to recent trials, we have been en- 
abled to bore holes with them in 
hard rocks at the rate of two to four 
inches per minute. 

I trust this brief account may be 
deemed interesting to your readers. 

GEORGE Low. 

Newark-on-Trent, 

June, 1864. 


[1864. ( 585 ) 


Books received for Webiew. 


From Mr. John Murray :— 


Merauiurey: the Art of Extracting Metals from their Ores, and adapting 
them to various Purposes of Manufacture. By John Percy, M.D., F.R.S. 
Vol. IL., ‘Iron and Steel.’ 


From Messrs. Longman § Co. :— 


Saxpy’s WEATHER System; or, Lunar Influence on Weather. By S. M. 
Saxby, R.N., Principal Instructor of Naval Engineers, H.M, Steam Reserve, 
&ec., &e. 2nd edition. Post S8vo, cloth. 

Tur Dotomrre Mounrains: Excursions through Tyrol, Carinthia, Carniola, 
and Friuli. By J. Gilbert and G. C. Churchill, F.G.8. Square crown 8vo, 
with Illustrations. 

OvurtinEs or Astronomy. By Sir J. F. W. Herschel, Bart. 7th edition. 
750 pp., illustrated. 

Tue ABBEVILLE Jaw; an Episode in a Great Controversy: being a Paper 
read before the Hull Literary and Philosophical Society. By J. L. Rome, 
F.G.8. 84 pp. 

Tue Laws or THouGcHT, OpsEcTIVE AND SuBsEcTIVE. By Alexander Robert- 
son. 110 pp. 8vo. 


From Mr. Van Voorst :— 


Evenwne THoucuts. By a Physician. 3rd edition. Post 8vo. 

Aw Eementary TExTBOOK OF THE Microscope ; including a Description of 
the Methods of Preparing and Mounting Objects, &. By J. W. Griffith, 
M.D., F.L.S., &. 12 coloured plates. Post 8vo. 


From Messrs. J. Churchill & Sons :— 


LEcTURES ON THE ELEMENTS OF CoMPARATIVE ANATOMY ; ON THE CLASSIFICA- 
TION OF ANIMALS; AND ON THE VERTEBRATE SKULL. By Thomas Henry 
Huxley, F.R.S., Professor of Natural History, Royal School of Mines, and 
Professor of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology to the Royal College of 
Surgeons of England. 


From Mr. Lovell Reeve :— 


A Frora or ULsTer, AND Borantst’s GUIDE TO THE NorTH oF IRELAND. By 
G. Dickie, A.M., M.D., F.L.S., Professor of Botany in the University of 
Aberdeen. (Joint publishers: Aitchison, Belfast.) 


From Messrs. Simpkin, Marshall, & Co.:— 


GeoLocicaAL Essays AND SKETCH OF THE GEOLOGY OF MANCHESTER AND THE 
Neicupournoop. By John Taylor, author of ‘Coal Measures of Great 
Britain, &c. (Joint publishers: Ireland & Co., Manchester.) 


From Messrs. Triibner & Co. :— 


Force anp Marrer. Empirico-philosophical Studies intelligibly rendered ; 
with an Introduction written expressly for this edition by Dr. Louis 
Biichner, President of the Medical Association of Hessen-Darmstadt, &e. 
Edited from the last edition of *‘ Kraft und Stoff, by J. Frederick Colling- 
wood, F.R.S.L., F.G.S. Post 8vo. 


From Mr. Stanford :— 


TE PuysicaAL GEOLOGY AND GEOGRAPHY OF Great Brrrarw. Six Lectures 
to Working Men delivered in the Royal School of Mines in 1863. By 
A.C. Ramsay, F.R.S. 2nd edition. 200 pp. Post 8vo. 


586 Books Received. [ July, 


From the Authors :— 


Tue Urimization or Minute Lire: being Practical Studies on Insects, Crus- 
tacea, Mollusca, Worms, Polypes, Infusoria, and Sponges. By Dr. 'T. L. 
Phipson, F.C.S., &e. (London: Groombridge.) 

Ancient Meoits; or, Some Account of the Antiquities found near Dove 
Point, on the Seacoast of Cheshire; including a Comparison of them, with 
Relics of the same Kinds respectively procured elsewhere. By the Rey. A. 
Hume, LL.D., D.C.L., &e. (London: J. R. Smith.) 

Borany For Noyicrs: a short Outline of the Natural System of Classification 
of Plants. By L. &. B. (London: Whittaker.) 

OBSERVATIONS ON THE GENUS Unto: together with Descriptions of New Species, 
their Soft Parts and Embryonic Forms in the Family Unionde. By Isaac 
Lea, LL.D., President of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. 
Imperial 4to. 

Atr-BREATHERS OF THE Coat Prrtop: a Descriptive Account of the Remains of 
Land Animals found in the Coal Formation of Nova Scotia. By J. W. 
Dawson, LL.D., F.R.S., F.G.S., &., Principal of McGill University, Mon- 
treal. (Dawson Brothers.) 


PAMPHLETS, LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 


Two Lecrures on Iron AND rts APPLICATION 10 THE MANUFACTURE OF STEAM- 
ENGINES, MILLWORK, AND MAcHINERY ; and On Natura Laws. Delivered 
to the Members of the Literary and Philosophical Society, Neweastle-on- 
Tyne, by Wm. Fairbairn, C.E., LL.D., F.R.S., F.G.S. (Neweastle : Lambert.) 

A PAPER UPON THE Ecc or ASpyornis Maximus, THE CoLossaL Brrp or Mapa- 
Gascar. By G. Dawson Rowley, M.A. (Triibner & Co.) 

On THE New Rep SANDSTONES AND PERMIAN F'oRMATIONS AS SOURCES OF 
WATER Surety ror Towns. By Edward Hull, B.A., F.G.S., of the Geolo- 
gical Survey of Great Britain. (Proceedings of Literary and Philosophical 
Society, Manchester.) (Taylor & Francis.) 

Synopsis OF THE FLORA OF THE CARBONIFEROUS PERIOD IN Noya Scorra. By 
J. W. Dawson, LL.D., F.R.S., F.G.S., &c. 

A DerscriIPTION OF SOME INSTANCES OF THE PASSAGE OF NERVES ACROSS THE 
Mippte Line or THE Bopy. By Jeffries Wyman, M.D., Hersey Professor 
of Anatomy at Harvard College. 

A New OpHTHALMOSCOPE FOR PHOTOGRAPHING THE PosTERIOR INTERNAL SUR- 
FACE OF THE Lrvine Eyre: with an Outline of the Theory of the Ordinary 
Ophthalmoscope. By A. M. Rosebrugh, M.D. (From the ‘ Canadian 
Journal.’) 

Tue Comparative Properties oF Human and Anmat Minks, &e., &e. By 
M. A. Baines. (Churchill.) 

On Crannocies tN Lovucu Rea. By Henry Kinahan, of the Geological 
Survey of Ireland. 

ON THE Eskrrs OF THE CENTRAL PLAIN OF IRELAND. Same author. 

Tue CLASSIFICATION OF THE ScreENCES: to which are added Reasons for Dis- 
senting from the Philosophy of M. Comte. By Herbert Spencer. (Williams 
& Norgate.) 

On THE PRACTICE OF EMPLOYING CERTAIN SUBSTITUTES FOR THE GENUINE INGRE- 
DIENTS IN SOME ARTICLES oF Datty Foop, &e. A Paper read before the 
Brighton Literary and Scientific Institution. By a Lady. (H. K. Lewis.) 

Aw Inrropucrory Appress, delivered before the Torquay Natural History 
Society, December, 1863, by William Pengelly, F.R.S., F.G.S., President. 
(Simpkin.) 

Tur Rep Sanpsrones, CONGLOMERATES, AND Marts oF Drvonsutire. Part II. 
Same author. (W. Birmingham, Plymouth.) 

Hints on Narionan Drrence, &e., &e., &e. By Sampson Sandys. ( Westerton.) 

Screntir1c D1IsQuisITIONS CONCERNING THE CIRCLE AND EXuiiese. By Lawrence 
S. Benson. (Aiken So. Ca.) 

GromerricaL Disquistttons. Same author. (Saunders, Otley, & Co.) 


1864. | Books Received. 587 


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AnnuAL Report AND TRANSACTIONS OF THE PLymMouTH INSTITUTION, AND 
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ANNUAL Report or THE CamBRipGE UNIversiry NatTurAL ScrENcE Society, 
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THE QUARTERLY 


JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 


OCTOBER, 1864. 


ORIGINAL ARTICLES. 


ON RADIANT LIGHT AND HEAT. 
By Batrovur Stewart, M.A., F.R.S. 


Waite the progress of knowledge more and more reveals the intimate 
relationship which subsists between different truths, it may nevertheless 
be sometimes expedient to set apart for separate consideration some 
field of science possessing a boundary line which is perfectly natural 
and definite. The subject of our choice has this advantage. We all 
know that heated bodies give out a species of influence capable of 
traversing space with enormous velocity, and in virtue of which the 
eye is enabled to perceive the sun and stars. Science further informs 
us, that such bodies emit also non-luminous rays, some of which have 
a chemical virtue, and all, including also the luminous ones, have the 
power of heating those substances upon which they fall and whereby 
they are absorbed. 

The remarks we are now about to make are capable of extension 
to the whole of this complex radiation, but we have preferred to 
embrace them under the term Radiant Light and Heat,—a title which, 
although not complete, yet recalls those properties of rays with which 
we are most familiar. 

Our limited space will not, however, permit of our discussing 
more than one of the many interesting problems presented by this 
subject for our consideration. 

An idea very generally adopted until lately, was that which regards 
a luminous body as discharging through space innumerable particles 
of exceedingly small magnitude with the almost incredible velocity of 
nearly 200,000 miles per second. But objections of a very formidable 
nature have gradually gathered around this view, until it has been 
generally abandoned, and light is now rather considered as an undulation 
which is propagated in all directions from a luminous centre, through 
some very attenuated medium pervading space. Accepting this view 
of the case, let us now briefly inquire into the nature of these waves, 

VOL, I. 28 


590 Original Articles. : 7 | Oct., 


ascertaining also how this is modified by the various qualities of those 
bodies which give rise to luminous rays, as well as by the qualities of 
those other bodies whereon they fall. 

If we fasten one end of a long cord to a peg, and holding the 
other end not too tightly in the hand, then strike the cord with a rod, 
we shall perceive that the blow causes an agitation, which travels 
along the cord with a progressive motion. We shall also at once 
comprehend that this something which travels is not a substance but 
a form, and that it is similar in this respect to that appearance which 
sweeps across a field of corn on a windy day. Our readers will 
obtain a very good idea of the undulations which constitute light, if 
they suppose them similar to the waves that travel along such a cord. 

So much for the nature of the light-waves; let us now consider 
their length. Wave-length, or the distance between the crest of one 
wave and that of its neighbour, is a term which explains itself. 
Anyone who has witnessed the phenomena of the ocean, or even of a 
pool of water, can have no difficulty in comprehending what this 
means. If a stone be dropped into a pond, the space between two 
consecutive circles of agitation affords a measure of the wave-length, 
which is, however, very small as compared with the distance between 
two great ocean waves. In the theory of sound the wave-length is an 
important element, and determines the pitch of the note; the rule 
being, that by descending one octave you double the wave-length. 
Now, what have we in optics analogous to pitch in a musical note ? 

Colour will at once be recognized; and we shall all be prepared 
to find that the wave-length of a ray of light determines its colour, 
and that red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, &c., have each their 
appropriate wave-length. We need hardly remind our readers that 
a ray of sunlight contains, blended together, not one but many of 
these wave-lengths; for we all know that many colours go to form 
white, and we are no doubt familiar with the method by which a ray 
of white light may be decomposed into its many-coloured components. 
Nevertheless, as this is a subject of very great importance in the 
present inquiry, we may be allowed to discuss it at some length. 
Newton was the first to show that a ray of white light is, in reality, 
compound, and his fundamental experiment may be thus described. 
Let us take a glass prism, and place it in a vertical position. 


Fic. 2. 


Fig. 1 represents an elevation, and Fig. 2 the ground plan of 


1864.] Srewarr on Radiant Light and Heat. 591 


such an arrangement. Now, let a ray of light, as in Fig. 2, strike 
obliquely against the side of the prism, enter it, and pass through. 
It will be greatly deflected by this process, so that its line of exit 
will differ very much in direction from that of incidence. This is 
sufficiently well shown in our figure, but there is yet something more. 
All rays are bent, but rays of one colour are deflected differently 
from those of another. If, now, the ray which impinges upon the 
prism be a single one of white light, that which leaves it will be no 
longer a single ray, but rather a pencil of rays, in which we shall 
obtain, in a separated condition, all those colours which together 
constitute white, because each one has been bent in a different 
direction. 

We may now easily comprehend what is meant in optics by the 
term ‘“‘ Spectrum.” In order to do so let us recall before us the ordinary 
photographic camera, not however to be used in obtaining the likeness 
of a landscape or of a friend’s face, but only that of a slit illuminated 
by white light. If our arrangement be the ordinary one, we shall of 
course obtain as an image on the screen which is placed in the focus 
of the camera a single line of light; but if we interpose a glass prism 
between the illuminated slit and its image, each individual colour 
which goes to form white light will be bent in a different direction by 
this prism, and will give rise to an image that will be thrown upon a 
different part of the screen. Instead therefore of having one image of 
the slit of light upon the screen, we shall in reality obtain a number, 
each having its appropriate colour. The image will, in truth, form not 
a line at all, but rather an oblong space differently coloured at each 
part. This oblong illuminated coloured space is called a “ spectrum ;” 
and if the line of light whose image we are viewing be that which 
proceeds from a slit illuminated by the sun, then we shall obtain the 
solar spectrum. 

Let us arrange so that those rays which are least bent may le to 
the left, and those most bent to the right, and we shall then have 
colours proceeding in the following order from left to right: viz. red, 
orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. Red therefore is the least, 
and violet the most, refrangible ray ; but at the same time the wave- 
length is greatest towards the left, that of red being about s7d5s, 
while that of violet is only szio0 of an inch. We thus see that light- 
waves are extremely small as compared with those of sound, and 
also that there is hardly one octave compreended in the visible 
spectrum, since the wave-length of violet is rather more than half that 
of red. 

But while this embraces the whole of the visible solar spectrum, 
we yet know by means of the thermometer that there is a very con- 
siderable heating effect to the left of the red, thus denoting the presence 
of invisible rays; and we likewise know, through certain experiments 
which we cannot here detail, that the spectrum extends very much to 
the right of the violet, the invisible region in this direction being 
chemically powerful although its heating effect is but small. We 
now come to a very curious fact, first pointed out by our countryman 
Wollaston and afterwards by Fraunhofer. It is found that the solar 

282 


592 Original Articles. | Oct., 


spectrum does not contain every possible ray, from the red at the one 
end to the violet at the other, but that the appearance it presents is 
that of a luminous ground crossed by black lines, which denote the 
absence of certain rays. 

The origin of these lines was for a long time a most perplexing 
question. Sir David Brewster was the first who prepared the way for 
its solution, by showing that analogous (not identical) lines might be 
artificially produced by interposing a jar containing nitrous acid gas in 
the path of the ray. His inference was that the solar lines do not denote 
rays originally wanting in the light of the sun, but are due rather to the 
absorption produced by some substance interposed between the source 
of light and the spectator. His subsequent researches in conjunction 
with those of Dr. Gladstone and others led, on the whole, to the belief 
that this absorption was probably not due to the earth’s atmosphere, 
and of course the only remaining field for such an influence was the 
atmosphere of the sun. But it remained for Kirchhoff, a distinguished 
German philosopher, to set the matter at rest, not however before the 
true explanation had been divined by Professor Stokes. This belongs 
to another part of our subject : in the meantime we shall describe what 
has been already accomplished in delineating these wonderful phe- 
nomena, the lines. 

In the solar spectrum, as in the starry firmament, every new 
accession of magnifying power enables us to reap a fresh harvest of 
discovery. Thick lines split themselves up into a bundle of thin 
ones; nebulous bands resolve themselves into distinct lines; new 
groups spring into existence, and the appearance of things is so entirely 
altered, that an observer accustomed to a small instrument would not 
be able to recognize those very parts of the spectrum with which he 
used to be most familiar. This cannot be better exemplified than by 
referring to the double line known as “p,’ a prominent line between 


Hic. 3; 


the orange and the yellow. Fraunhofer only just succeeded in recog- 
nizing its duplicity. Kirchhoff, in his admirable map of the spectrum 
recently published, a small portion of which is represented in Fig. 3, 


1864. | Srewart on Radiant Light and Heat. 593 


has drawn it as the two strong lines with a Fic. 4. 
faint one between, shown in our cut. Pro- 
fessor Cooke, of America, has still further 
filled up the intervening space, while very 
lately Mr. Gassiot, by his magnificent spectro- 
scope of eleven sulphuret of carbon prisms, 
has’ obtained the appearance presented in 

Fig. 4. 


In order to give our readers an idea of the amount of separation 
between the different kinds of light produced by the prism, we may 
mention that Kirchhoff lengthens out the visible spectrum into 8 feet, 
while a map is being prepared at Kew Observatory from Mr. Gassiot’s 
spectroscope, which, when finished, will probably attain the very great 
length of 24 feet. But even with instruments of the highest power, 
we yet perceive nebulous bands in the spectrum, which a still higher 
power might not improbably resolve into lines; just as with Lord 
Rosse’s telescope we observe nebule in the heavens which a higher 
power might possibly resolve into stars. 

Spectra of the fixed stars have likewise been obtained by several 
observers. Fraunhofer noticed that the double line p was present 
in some of these. Secchi, Airy, and others, and more lately Huggins 
and Miller, have obtained the spectra of several stars. The last- 
mentioned observers, in particular, have furnished detailed maps of 
those of Aldebaran, Alpha Orionis, and Beta Pegasi. We shall 
return again to this subject, but in the meantime we may remark that 
the general character of stellar spectra is a luminous ground inter- 
sected by dark lines, many of which are identical with lines in the 
solar spectrum, while others however are different. 

But we must not omit to mention the appearance presented by, the 
spectra of heated vapours. Electricity and other agents enable us to 
obtain the vapours of metals and other bodies at an extremely high 
temperature, and when the rays which these emit are analyzed by the 
prism in the way already mentioned, we have results which are exceed- 
ingly curious. The metal sodium, or any of its compounds, such as 
common salt, produces a flame which is intensely yellow; and this 
flame, when analyzed by the prism, is found to consist of two simple 
rays exactly corresponding in position with the two lines p. We are 
thus furnished in the salt flame with two rays which are absent in the 
light of the sun, and with these rays alone, for there is not a vestige 
of any other, and we have a perfectly dark ground—the appearance 
being that of the upper portion of Fig. 5. Again, when the vapour 
which we examine is that of iron, we have as before bright lines on a 
dark ground, and these have been found by Kirchhoff to coincide with 
certain dark lines in the solar spectrum. Generally speaking, all 
heated vapours give spectra, consisting of bright lines scattered over a 
dark space, but in many of these the bright lines have not as yet been 
found to coincide with dark solar lines. It has been shown by Bunsen, 
Kirchhoff, and others, that these bright lines are always character- 
istic of the vapour which is ignited to produce them. Each ele- 


594 Original Articles. | Oct., 


mentary substance has its peculiar lines, and probably no line of any 
one element is exactly coincident with that of any other. We are 
thus furnished in the spectroscope with an exceedingly delicate test of 
the presence of any substance. We have only to pass the electric 
spark through the body which we wish to analyze, and the sudden 
flash perceived is in reality a small portion of the vapour of that body 
in a state of intense ignition. If we analyze this by the spectroscope, 
we shall obtain lines that will enable us to determine the substance 
employed. So delicate is this method, that we can detect with ease ° 
the presence of quantities of a sodium salt less than saoom of a grain 
in weight. Nor is it valuable only for substances with which we are 
familiar, but it has also been the means of our discovering new 
elements. The metals Cesium and Rubidium were thus discovered 
by Bunsen ; Thallium, by our countryman Crookes; and Indium, by 
Messrs. Reich and Richter. 

So much for ignited vapours. On the other hand, the spectra of 
incandescent opaque solid or liquid bodies, or of all bodies of very 
great thickness, are continuous throughout, and consist of a bright 
space, varying in colour from one portion to another, but without 
lines. We have thus three varieties of spectra. 

First. Solar and stellar spectra, exhibiting a bright ground inter- 

spersed with dark lines. 

Secondly. Those of heated vapours, consisting of bright lines on a 

dark ground. 

Thirdly. Those of opaque, solid, and liquid bodies, consisting of a 

continuous brightness without lines. 


loess 


We must now request our readers to accompany us to quite a 
different part of our subject, although in the end we hope to trace its 
connection with that which has preceded. 


1864. | Srawarr on Radiant Light and Heat, 595 


Towards the latter part of last century Professor Pictet, of Geneva, 
performed a curious experiment which appeared to prove the reflexion 
of cold. He placed two polished metallic concave reflectors facing 
one another, as in Figure 5, and while in the focus of the one he 
put a thermometer, in that of the other he placed a lump of ice, the 
effect of which was to lower the temperature of the thermometer. 
At first sight this result would seem to indicate that cold is some- 
thing more than a mere negation, and indeed that it is an influence 
susceptible of radiation and reflexion in the same manner as heat. It 
soon, however, occurred to Professor Pierre Prevost, of Geneva, that 
this was by no means a necessary conclusion, and this sagacious 
reasoner proposed, as an explanation of the experiment, the theory of 
Exchanges, or, as he termed it, a movable equilibrium. In order to 
comprehend this definition, let us suppose that we have a room walled 
in on every side, and that its walls, including the floor and ceiling, 
have the temperature of 60° Fahrenheit. Now in whatever part of 
such a room a thermometer is placed, it will ultimately attain the 
temperature of the walls ; that is to say, it will indicate 60° Fahrenheit, 
after which the mercury will neither rise nor fall, and there will be 
an equilibrium of temperature. When this has happened one of two 
things must be taking place. Hither the thermometer does not give 
out radiant heat, or if it does it receives back continually just as much 
as it gives out. Prevost supposes the latter to be the case, and that 
all bodies even of the same temperature are continually giving out 
heat to one another, and receiving in return just as much as they give 
out. Therefore, according to his theory, a body will fall in temperature 
when it radiates or gives out more heat than it absorbs, its temperature 
will be constant when the radiation and absorption are equal, and will 
rise when the absorption is greater than the radiation. 

Let us now see how this idea will explain Pictet’s experiments. 
By this theory, although the bulb p is of the same temperature as the 
reflector uF, yet there is a constant interchange of heat between them. 
Hence rays of heat will leave the bulb in the direction p£ and pF, 
and these will finally be reflected upon a. The body a is however 
giving out rays in return, which finally fall upon p. But since a is 
colder than p, the rays which leave p and fall upon A are more intense 
than those which leave a and fall upon p. The consequence of this 
will be that on the whole there will be a transference of heat from D 
to a, and the temperature of the thermometer will fall. And this 
transference from p to a will be just as much intensified by the 
reflectors as that from a to p would have been had a been hotter 
instead of colder than p. . 

Thus we see how easily the observation of Pictet is accounted for 
by the principle of exchanges—a principle which soon exhibited all 
the marks of a true theory by explaining facts as they were elicited by 
experiment, and at the same time by suggesting new truths, in which 
latter aspect more especially it has been of very signal service to 
science. But it is not our intention to give the history of this problem ; 
let us rather remark its more interesting and important applications. 
Let us for this purpose imagine a red-hot chamber having the tem- 


596 Original Articles. [Oct., 


perature of 1,000° Fahrenheit, the sides of which are composed of 
every variety of substance from polished metal to lamp-black. Let 
us place in this room a suitable instrument for measuring temperature 
call it a thermometer—it is clear that in whatever part of the room 
we place this instrument it will always denote 1,000", since all the 
walls are of that temperature, Let us bring our thermometer near to 
the polished metal, it will still denote 1,000°. Now the rays which 
reach the thermometer from the polished metal are twofold. First, 
there are those given out by the metal itself since it is red hot; and 
secondly, there are those which it reflects from the lamp-black surface 
beside it. But this twofold supply of heat from the ‘polished metal, 
partly given out and partly reflected, will be too much for the ther- 
mometer, unless it happens that the metal, in virtue of the heat 
which it reflects, gives out so much less on its own account. This is 
found to be the case, and it is very easy to convince ourselves by 
experiment that a reflecting body when heated gives out little light. 
Let us take a piece of platinum, partly polished and partly tarnished, 
heat it to a white heat and then immediately examine it in the dark. 
We shall find that the polished portion is much less luminous than 
the tarnished. Or, in like manner, let us heat some lead or tin to a 
good red heat, and then take the vessel containing it into the dark; 
if we skim its surface with a red-hot iron spoon we shall find that the 
heated metal underneath is much less luminous than the dross. We 
may vary the experiment by heating a piece of porcelain of a black 
and white pattern, and examining it in the same manner, when we 
shall find that the black is much more luminous than the white, the 
reversal of the pattern producing a very curious effect. 

But let us return again to our chamber, and now suspend in a 
vertical position, near one of the walls, a sheet of transparent colour- 
less glass, leaving it, of course, for a sufficient length of time to 
enable it to acquire the temperature of the chamber. Let us place 
our thermometer in front of this plate. Now, the plate being trans- 
parent will permit to pass through its substance all the red heat from 
the wall behind it: if, in addition to this, it gave out a great deal on 
its own account, we should have, just as in the previous case, a 
twofold supply of heat falling upon the thermometer, so that its 
temperature would rise above that of the chamber. Since this cannot 
be the case, it follows that transparent glass will give out very little 
red light on its own account when heated to redness. We may verify 
this for ourselves by taking various pieces of glass, some colourless, 
and others more or less coloured; let us heat them to a good red 
heat, and examine them in the dark. It will then be found that a 
colourless piece gives out very little light, while a highly-coloured or 
opaque specimen gives out verymuch. The law may be stated thus :— 
a body which absorbs much heat will also give out much on its 
own account when heated. 

But one important fact yet remains behind. Let us revert to the 
plate of glass suspended in the red-hot chamber, and suppose this 
plate to be of such a colour as to stop all the red rays that reach it 
from the wall behind. We have already seen that, if it stops a good 


1864. | Stewart on Radiant Light and Heat. 597 


many rays, it will give out a good many. We have further to observe, 
that the rays it gives out must be precisely of the same kind as those 
which it arrests: it stops the red rays. Now, if it give out dark heat, 
but not red, then, looking towards the glass, we shall get no light from 
it, since it stops the red rays from behind, and gives out none of its 
own. But this is evidently impossible in a red-hot chamber, for 
universal experience teaches us, that any substance left in such a 
chamber will ultimately appear red hot. If, therefore, the glass be 
of such a nature as to stop any particular ray of light or heat, it will, 
when at a high temperature, give out on its own account that very 
ray. This may be exemplified by several very simple experiments. 
Take a piece of ruby glass, coloured with gold. This glass, as its 
name sufficiently denotes, allows all the red rays to pass, but stops 
the green. Heat it in the fire to a good heat, and examine it in 
the dark, when it will be found to give out greenish rays. On the 
other hand, green glass (which stops red rays) will, when heated, 
give out a dark-red light. These curious facts may be noticed at 
any place where coloured glasses are spun. Another good illustra- 
tion of this law is obtained by puttimg a number of differently- 
coloured glasses into the fire, and it will be found that they all 
appear to lose their colour when they become of the same temperature 
as the coals around them. Not that the glasses have changed their 
nature in the least, for the red glass still stops the green, and the 
green glass the red rays, from the coals behind ; but each glass gives 
out, on its own account, precisely those rays which it stops, so that 
the light (transmitted and radiated together)-which comes from the 
glass is just the same as would have come from the coals alone. 
Kirchhoff has beautifully extended this law to those individual rays 
which compose the spectra of luminous bodies. We have already 
stated that the spectrum of sodium consists of two bright lines p, and 
in general that the spectrum of a heated vapour consists of bright 
lines on a dark ground. Now, if instead of using these vapours as our 
source of heat, we use them in a comparatively cold state as a screen, 
our source being an incandescent solid body which gives out all rays, 
then we shall find that each vapour stops precisely those rays which 
it gives out when heated. Thus, a salt flame, or incandescent sodium, 
gives out the double line p; vapour of sodium (when cold) also 
stops the same line, and a similar rule holds for all vapours. When- 
ever, therefore, we have a source of light containing all rays, but 
which is surrounded by an atmosphere of metallic vapours at a low 
temperature, each of these vapours will stop its own appropriate rays, 
and the spectrum of such a system will exhibit a bright ground inter- 
sected by dark lines, This is precisely the character of the solar 
spectrum, and we have seen that one of its lines, namely p, is that 
which is produced by the absorptive power of sodium vapour. We 
are therefore entitled to conclude that this vapour exists in the 
atmosphere of the sun. Again, the vapour of iron gives out certain 
bright lines which appear as dark in the sun’s spectrum, we conclude 
therefore that iron vapour exists there in a comparatively cold state ; 
and in like manner we find that a number of the solar lines are due to 


598 Original Articles. [Oct., 


the presence of nickel, and that calcium, magnesium, barium, copper, 
zinc, all well-known substances, are suspended in the atmosphere of 
our luminary. By a similar process, sodium, magnesium, hydrogen, 
calcium, iron, bismuth, tellurium, antimony, and mercury, have been 
found in Aldebaran, and other elements in other stars. 

We have thus arrived at the wonderful result that many of these 
substances with which we are most familiar occur also in the sun and 
stars, and the great law which has led us to this conclusion may be 
stated thus :—a body absorbs those very rays which it gives out when 
heated. Let us now see if we have not a similar law in other branches 
of science. When a musical note is sounded in the presence of a string 
which would give out the same note, the string catches up or absorbs 
the musical note in order to give it out on its own account. We may 
place the two laws side by side in the following manner. 

A body when cold absorbs the ray which it emits when heated. 
A string when at rest catches up the note which it gives out when 
struck. Nor perhaps are we without an indication that the same 
law holds in medicine. Similia similibus curantur (like cures like) is 
the doctrine of a certain school; but we leave homceopathists to follow 
out the analogy here suggested. 

We have offered these observations in order to show our readers 
that the law which we have endeavoured to place before them is one 
whose foundation lies very deep in the present system of things: and 
the result that Kirchhoff has deduced from this law is one altogether 
worthy of its greatness ; a result bringing vividly before us the one- 
ness of the universe, inasmuch as it discloses the prevalence throughout 
the solar and stellar systems of those very forms and species of matter 
with which we are here familiar. No fact hitherto discovered so 
much exhibits the unity of creation—none more the unity of the 
Creator ; and thus the last great achievement of science becomes as it 
were a comment on the first page of Sacred History, in which we are 
told that “ He made the stars also.” 


ON THE SOURCE OF LIVING ORGANISMS. 
By James Samvuetson, Editor. 


TuereE are two subjects in Natural History which, more than any 
other, attract the attention of modern biologists, —the Origin of 
Species, and the Source from which the lowest known Forms of Life 
are derived; in other words (reversing the order of subjects), the 
Beginning of Life, and its Continuance. ; 

To those persons who have followed the discussions relative to 
these two inquiries, it is quite obvious why they should simultaneously 
occupy the attention of the scientific world, for it has with truth been 
observed, that an earnest advocate of the Darwinian theory, one who 
teaches that every living form is and has been the result of a modifi- 


1864. | Samvuetson on the Source of Living Organisms. 599 


cation of some lower and preceding form of life, brought about solely 
by secondary causes, cannot halt midway in his teaching, and be 
content to hold that life began with four or five primitive types, such 
as he may be able to trace in the lowest inhabited strata; he must 
carry his investigations still further, and must account satisfactorily 
for the appearance of life-endowed beings in any shape, before he 
can be said to have fully established his position. 

It is in this spirit that the inquiry is now prosecuted ; and those 
who take a deep interest in the subject, do so, not as formerly, for the 
purpose of ascertaining from what source a particular group or 
species of animals is derived, but with an earnest desire to obtain 
some knowledge as to the conditions under which life is first mani- 
fested on the earth’s surface. Nor is the consideration of the subject 
confined to the ranks of biologists only, for some of the most important 
discoveries have already been made by chemists and physicists, and 
it is more than probable that the solution of the problem (should that 
follow in the course of time) will be due to the joint researches of 
men engaged in the study of these various branches of science, every 
one of which cannot fail to be indirectly benefited by the investi- 
gation. 

Probably the attention of reflecting observers was first directed to 
the subject of the origin of living beings through the mysterious 
appearance, in the decaying bodies of animals and elsewhere, of the 
larvee of insects; and the earliest treatise of any note on the subject 
was most likely that of Redi, ‘De Generatione Insectorum,’ Amster- 
dam, 1686, up to whose time it was currently believed that decaying 
substances became converted, during their decomposition, into insects 
and some other forms ranking below them in the animal scale, This 
is called ‘‘ spontaneous generation.” 

After the publication of Redi’s researches on the mode of repro- 
duction in insects, the theory of abnormal generation was for a time 
discarded ; but about sixty years subsequently, in 1745, Needham 
revived it in a work published in London, entitled ‘New Micro- 
scopical Discoveries ;’ and, on the other hand, about fifty years after 
that, another observer, Spallanzani, an Italian, attempted to disprove 
the existence of “spontaneous generation ” by experiments and philo- 
sophical induction. He sought to show that animalcule which make 
their appearance in decaying organic substances are not accidentally 
generated by the reconstruction and reorganization of such matters, 
but that their ova, er germs, exist in the atmosphere, and being con- 
veyed into the decaying substances, find in them a suitable pabulum, 
and thus become developed. He stated that if the air is excluded 
from such substances no animalcule make their appearance. 

This was the state of the discussion sixty or seventy years since ; 
and although considerable progress has no doubt been made in the 
inquiry, the field of research being necessarily more restricted than 
formerly, inasmuch as every day the appearance of some form or 
other is accounted for without any appeal to “ spontaneous generation,” 
still the elements of the dispute remain much the same as they were, 
and the chief efforts of investigators are directed to the proof or 


600 Original Articles. ; | Oct., 


disproof of the existence of the germs of living beings in the atmo- 
sphere. 

: The clearest and most tangible exposition of the views of those 
who formerly advocated the theory of heterogenesis, or abnormal 
generation, is to be found in Todd and Bowman’s ‘ Cyclopedia of 
Physiology,’ in the edition published in 1839 ;* and it will be found 
useful for our purpose to extract some of the writer’s remarks, inasmuch 
as they will show the student of to-day how the recent revelations of 
science have struck away, one by one, the props upon which the doc- 
trine was based, and have so reduced the inquiry within the narrowest 
limits. 


‘‘ The following considerations appear to us to throw the balance of 
evidence in favour of the spontaneous production of infusoria, mould, and 
the like. Firstly, those organic matters which are most soluble in water, 
and at the same time most prone to decomposition, give rise to the 
greatest quantity of animalcules or cryptogamic plants. Secondly, the 
nature of the animalcule or vegetable production bears a constant relation 
to the state of the infusion; so that, in similar circumstances, the same 
are always produced without this being influenced by the atmosphere. 
There seems also to be a certain progressive advance in the productive 
powers of the infusion, for at first the animalcules are only of the smallest 
kinds, or monads, and afterwards they become gradually larger and more 
complicated in their structure: after a time the production ceases, 
although the materials are by no means exhausted. When the quantity 
of water is very small, and the organic matter abundant, the production 
is usually of a vegetable nature ; when there is*much water, animalcules 
are more frequently produced. Thirdly, on the supposition that infusory 
animalcules are developed from ova, it is necessary to conclude, from the 
experiments already referred to, that these ova are in some instances 
derived from the atmosphere ; but yet the number of infusoria is by no 
means in proportion with the quantity of air. We are also reduced to 
the necessity of holding that every portion of the atmospheric air is 
equally impregnated with infusorial germs or ova, and that these bodies 
may remain for years dissolved, as it were, or invisibly suspended in the 
atmosphere, and in a perfectly dry state,—a supposition contrary to 
analogy, and not fully warranted by the fact that vibriones may be resus- 
citated by means of moisture after they have been kept in a dry state for 
long periods. Fourthly, it may be remarked that the existence of ova, 
as belonging to many of the infusoria, is entirely hypothetical, since most 
of these animals are known, when once formed, to propagate by other 
means, as by the division of their whole bodies, or by budding.” 


If the writer of these remarks had been aware when he penned 
them (and we hope he still lives to witness the results of scientific 
progress since his observations were made), that the same general laws 
which regulate the growth and development of the higher animals 
are found to operate very low down in the scale, he would not have 
leaped to such conclusions. The rapid increase of animalcules in 
substances “ most prone to decomposition,” would merely have satisfied 
him that the abundance or scarcity of living forms in infusions was 


* In which the student will also find additional information concerning the 
history of the controversy. 


1864. SamuEtson on the Source of Living Orqanisms. 601 
g Urg 


in proportion to the amount of nourishment afforded to them; and in 
the appearance of certain characteristic types in particular infusions, 
he would have recognized the operation of the law which causes every 
plant (speaking in general terms) to be peopled by its appropriate 
parasite. His statement that the same animalcule are always found 
in similar infusions, is however only partially correct, and, as it will 
be shown hereafter, is far from being a correct phenomenon. 

Next, as regards the “progressive advance in the productive powers 
of the infusion,” the appearance in fact of successive generations of 
living forms rising in the developmental scale, in one and the same 
infusion. An acquaintance with the phenomena of the “alternation 
of generations,” and a little reflection upon the fact that “ Monads ” 
may grow into ciliated infusoria whilst the eye of the observer is 
engaged otherwise than in their examination, would have materially 
shaken the writer’s faith in the “‘ productive powers” of the infusion. 

The researches of my esteemed coadjutor, Dr. Balbiani, of Paris, 
have set at rest the question of the existence of ova in the infusoria, 
for he has shown that in addition to the other processes by which they 
multiply, these forms possess also the sexual elements common to all 
animals, * 

The only question, therefore, of any importance to which a satis- 
factory reply is required, is the one already referred to:— Do the 
germs of infusoria, or do they not, exist in the atmosphere in sufficient 
quantities to account for their entrance into infusions ? 

Before proceeding to consider this vital question, however, it is 
right that I should touch upon a phenomenon referred to by the 
writer in “ Bowman” in another part of his article, and thrown by 
him into the scale in favour of the theory of heterogenesis. That 
is, the appearance of entozoa, or internal parasites, in the tissues 
(or, as he says, the bodies) of living animals. This is really a most 
difficult problem to solve, but we never hear it mentioned at the 
present day even by the advocates of heterogenesis. The presence of 
some of these parasites is still a great mystery, on which a partial light 
only has been thrown by the recent researches of zoologists in regard 
to the transformations that such forms undergo in their passage from 
one animal into another, from the prey into the stomach, and then into 
the vascular, or other systems of its devourer. As already observed, the 
advocates of the doctrine under consideration do not now affirm that 
any of these forms are spontaneously produced from the living tissues 
in which they are found; and I believe that at no very distant 
period their presence will be, in all cases, fully accounted for. 

The chief investigators who have recently asserted that the 
germs of living beings do noé exist in the atmosphere, or that they 
exist only in such small quantities as to render it impossible that the 
swarms of animalcule which appear in infusions should be derived 
from that source, are—Messieurs. Pouchet, Jolly, and Musset 
(France); Dr. Jeffries Wyman, of Boston (America); Schaffhausen 


* * Recherches sur les Phénomenes sexuels des Infusoires,’ par le Docteur 
A. Balbiani. Paris: Masson. 1863. 


602 Oviginal Articles. | Oct., 


(Germany); and Mantegazza (Italy); whilst amongst those who 
maintain that the atmosphere is the chief source from which such 
forms spring, are—Schultze and Schwann, and Schroeder (Germany) ; 
Pasteur and Quatrefages (France); and there are many other biologists 
of note who accept the latter view, but whose conclusions are based 
rather upon induction than experiment. 

Taking first the views of the believers in heterogenesis, we have 
those of Dr. Pouchet, of Rouen, whose investigations, it cannot be 
denied, have been very elaborate and persevering. He finds in the 
dust of the air, “the detritus of the mineral crust of the earth, animal 
and vegetable particles, and the minutely divided débris of the various 
articles employed in our wants ;” but he says (after narrating what 
kind of animal remains he has found, these being unimportant in our 
inquiry), “ twice only in more than a thousand observations, have 
I observed one of those large ova of infusoria having a diameter of 
0,0150 m.m., denominated by naturalists ‘cysts.’”* Amongst the 
numerous experiments tried by Dr. Pouchet, in order to satisfy him- 
self that the “ova” of infusoria do not exist in the atmosphere, is 
the following :|— 

‘““By means of an inhaling flask, I caused 100 litres of air to pass 
through a safety tube, whose bulb contained two cubic centimetres of 
distilled water. At the end of eight days I was unable to discover a 
single animalcule or ovum in this small quantity of water, in which the 
latter themselves could not escape observation, now that they have been 
completely described and measured, and are well known in several 
species.{ On the contrary, if I place ina cubic decimetre of distilled 
water five grammes of fermentable substance, sheltered by a bell glass 
having a capacity of one litre, at the end ‘of eight days, and at a 
temperature of 18° C, the whole surface of the water is occupied by 
incalculable myriads of animalcules.” 


It would be impossible to follow Dr. Pouchet through his experi- 
ments, all of which lead him to the conclusion that “ spontaneous 
generation’ is the sufficient and sole explanation of the appearance 
of Protozoa in infusions; suffice it to say that he has examined the 
air of towns and of mountain heights, the dust from ancient temples 
and subterranean sepulchres, and nowhere has it yielded him the 
slightest evidence of “panspermie ;” the universal diffusion of living 
germs, 

Of Messieurs Jolly and Musset it is only necessary to say, that 
they have recently been the coadjutors of Dr. Pouchet, and that they 
testify fully to the accuracy of his statements.$ 

Leaving for a time the ranks of the champions of “spontaneous 


* «Comptes Rendus, March 21, 1859: translated in the ‘ Microscopical 
Journal,’ 1860, p. 130. 

+ Loe. cit. p. 134. 

{ I presume Dr. Pouchet refers to “ cysts,” for Balbiani’s discoveries were not 
published until two years afterwards. 

§ They also tried some independent experiments, which will be found described 
in the ‘ Microscopical Journal,’ new series (1861), p. 47, to prove that “ spon- 
taneous generation”? may take place in the infusions inserted in the cavities of 
fruits. I must leave the consideration of these to scientific judges, but do not 
deem them sufficiently important for transcription here. 


1864. ] Samug.son on the Source of Living Organisms. 603 


generation,” we shall now enter those of its opponents, and briefly 
consider their investigations. 

In the year 1837 two German observers, Schultze and Schwann, 
endeavoured to show that the germs of infusoria do exist in the 
atmosphere, and that when means are taken to destroy these germs 
before the air in which they are suspended reaches the infusion, no 
animalcule appear in it, even after a lapse of some weeks. By means 
of an apparatus consisting of a flask and tube, provided with bulbs 
which contained sulphuric acid and caustic potash, they submitted the 
air to a kind of purification (from animal germs), before allowing it to 
play upon the infusion ; and they asserted that infusions which had been 
subjected to the influence of air thus treated, showed no signs of animal 
life even after two months’ exposure, whilst others that had been freely 
exposed to atmospheric influences contained innumerable infusoria. 

More recently, Schroeder, a German chemist, arrived at the same 
results by a different method, and one that appears to me to be more 
conclusive ; inasmuch as it might be advanced by the advocates of the 
theory of ‘‘ spontaneous generation ” that the same chemical and physical 
agents (for in some cases the air has been heated to an extreme degree) 
which are said to destroy the germs of living forms in their passage to 
the infusion, might also render the atmosphere unfit to sustain life on 
any terms. Schroeder then* filtered the air by passing it through 
cotton wool, and found that when infusions which had been previously 
boiled were exposed to the atmosphere thus filtrated, no decomposition 
took place. This result he believed to be owing to the fact that 
ebullition destroys the germs which would otherwise be contained in 
the infusion, whilst the cotton wool prevented the access of fresh germs 
with the atmosphere. In this manner he accounts for the preservation 
of fruits, &e., which are boiled and then covered with bladder or other 
materials that serve to filter or exclude the air. 

The experiments of this observer (which have not, I think, been 
sufficiently acknowledged by those who have availed themselves of his 
experience) I have myself repeated with scrupulous care, and the result 
has been that although I cannot fully confirm what he says in regard 
to the entire absence of Protozoa in infusions which have been protected 
by cotton wool, yet I can attest that their numbers and proportions, as 
compared with those in infusions freely exposed to the atmosphere, 
have been so insignificant as to leave me in no doubt as to the truth 
of the general principle which he has enunciated. 

We now come to the researches of M. Pasteur, a French chemist 
of great celebrity, upon whose experiments such stress has been laid 
by certain English and French biologists, that they were regarded 
as having given a deathblow to the doctrine of ‘spontaneous gene- 
ration,” and to have proved beyond a doubt that the germs of protozoa 
are held suspended in the atmosphere. 

Whilst conducting some experiments on the origin of ferments, 
M. Pasteur found in an infusion of yeast, “certain corpuscles, whose 
form, volume, and structure show that they are organized after the 


* ¢«Annalen der Chemie und Pharmacie,’ vol. cix. p. 35. 


604 Original Articles. [Oct., 


manner of the infusoria or of the spores of Mucidinee ;’ * and was 
induced through this discovery to undertake certain experiments, one 
of which we find thus described in a paper read before the Academy 
of Sciences :|— 


“Tn a series of flasks, containing 250 cubic centimetres, the author 
introduces the same putrescible liquid, in quantity sufficient to occupy 
about a third of the total volume of the vessel. ‘The necks of the flasks 
are drawn out in the spirit-lamp and the liquid is made to boil, the slender 
extremity of the neck being closed during ebullition. A vacuum is thus 
produced in the flask. He” (the experimenter) ‘‘ then breaks off the points 
in a given locality. The air enters with violence, drawing along with it 
all the dusty particles it may hold in suspension, and all the principles, 
known or unknown, associated with it. The flask is then immediately 
closed with the blowpipe, and placed in a stove heated to 20° or 30° C. 
(70° to 85° Fahr.), that is to say, in the best condition for the development 
of animalcules and mucores. The results of the following experiments are 
not in accordance with the principles generally admitted, but they are 
perfectly in agreement, on the other hand, with the idea of a dissemination 
of germs. In most cases in a few days the liquid begins to decompose, 
and in the flasks, although they may be placed in identical conditions, 
organisms of the most varied kinds will be seen to arise, far more varied, 
in fact, especially as regards the Mucidinee or Torulacez, than would have 
been produced if the liquids had been exposed to the common air. But 
on the other hand it often happens several times in each series of experi- 
ments, that the liquid remains absolutely unaffected, whatever may be the 
duration of its exposure in the stove, and just as if it had been filleé with 
air that had been exposed to a red heat.” 


M. Pasteur infers from the latter fact, that it is possible to find in 
certain localities a given quantity of air which contains no germs ;— 
his general conclusion being, however, as the reader will have observed, 
in favour of a diffusion of germs through the atmosphere. He also 
tried other experiments, in which various measures were adopted to 
intercept the germs in their passage to the infusions (on a similar 
principle to that employed by Schroeder), and his previous conclusions 
were verified by the results.$ 

But Pasteur’s experiments, satisfactory and conclusive as they may 
have appeared to some naturalists, have by no means passed unchal- 
lenged. Dr. Jeffries Wyman, of Boston, repeated them, as well as 
those of Schulze, with, as he affirms, precisely the opposite results ; 
and found that in cases where every precaution had been taken to 
eaclude germs from his infusions, they made their appearance after a 
few days. The vessels were opened in the presence of Professor Asa 
Gray, and in them were found chiefly the very lowest known forms ; 


* «Comptes Rendus,’ May 7, 1860: translated in the ‘ Microscopical Journai,’ 
1860, p. 255. 

+ ‘Comptes Rendus,’ Sept. 8, 1860: translated in the ‘Microscopical Journal,’ 
April, 1861. 

+ Albuminous water from the yeast of beer; albuminous water containing 
sugar, urine, &e. 

§ He even went so far as to “sow” the germs intercepted by cotton wool in 
infusions which had before been unproductive of infusoria, and stated that animal- 
cule then made their appearance, 


1864. | Samuutson on the Source of Living Organisms. 605 


but mention is made also of “colpoda-like bodies, having ciliary 
motion.” 

Still more recently, too, a trustworthy observer at Oxford, Dr. 
Gilbert W. Child, communicated to the Royal Society the account of 
a series of experiments, twenty in number, performed with various 
infusions and a great variety of gases; and although the author 
modestly states that no definite conclusion can be drawn from so 
limited a range of experiments, “it is worthy of remark,” he says, 
* that organisms were found here under the precise circumstances in 
which M. Pasteur states that they cannot and do not exist ;” and, he 
adds, that “the very abnormal conditions under which some of these 
so-called organisms are found, would render it doubtful whether 
bacteriums, vibrios, &c., ought to be considered as independent organ- 
isms in any higher sense than are white blood-corpuscles, pollen- 
grains, mucus-corpuscles, or spermatozoa,’”* 

Due allowance being made for the brevity necessitated by the 
limited space at my command, I believe that my readers have had 
presented to them a faithful and unbiassed review of this controversy 
concerning the origin or derivation of living organisms. 

A large amount of feeling has been imported into the discussion, 
especially amongst our esteemed neighbours across the Channel (who, 
it is right to add, have done the most effective work), and that is one 
reason why I refrain from commenting upon the evidence of each 
investigator.f One circumstance must, however, have struck all who 


* «Proceedings of the Royal Society,’ vol. xiii. No, 65: “Experimental Re- 
searches on Spontaneous Generation.” 

t+ Since the present article was completed, I have read, and recommend for 
perusal, an able review of the Pouchet-Pasteur controversy, which appeared in 
the July number (1864) of the ‘ Medico-Chirurgical Review ’ (“ Recent Researches 
on the Production of Infusoria ”’), 

Although the writer leans to the doctrine of heterogenesis, he has given a 
very impartial account of the controversy, and has narrated many detailed experi- 
ments which my limited space bas compelled me to pass unnoticed, 

There are, however, two points which it appears to me that the writer has 
not well considered in his essay. In the first place, he speaks of the formation 
of “spontaneous eggs,” the production of which has been observed by Dr. Pouchet, 
and says that “this observation has not been controverted by the opponents of 
spontaneous generation ;” and, secondly, he believes that the work and opinions 
of Dr. Pouchet, the champion of “ heterogenesis,” deserve more consideration than 
they have received here and abroad. 

As regards the first, I would remind him that in another portion of his 
essay (p. 105) he tells us that the germsin dispute are incapable of being brought 
to the test of our senses; how their formation can have been observed is there- 
fore somewhat mysterious. And this leads to the inquiry whether Pouchet’s 
published observations have been such as to inspire confidence in their trust- 
worthiness: I fear not. This is not the first controversy concerning the 
nature of the infusoria in which Dr. Pouchet has taken a prominent part ; 
for when, some sixteen years since, the discussion between the veteran micro- 
seopist Ehrenberg and Dujardin was at its height, as to whether the so-called 
polygastrica possessed a series of distinct stomachs connected together by an 
intestine (as affirmed by Ehrenberg), or whether, according to Dujardin, these 
so-called stomachs were only “ vesicles” or “ vacuoles” temporarily formed in the 
protoplasm, and completely disconnected from one another, Dr. Pouchet stepped 
in between them, and with as much gravity as he now manifests in the contro- 
versy on “spontaneous generation,” proceeded to decide the debate. The great 

VOL, I. 27 


606 Original Articles. [Oct., 


have interested themselves in the controversy, and that is, the paucity 
of information afforded on both sides of the debate, as to the exact 
nature of the forms discovered in the infusions ; for, generally speaking, 
we hear only of vibriones, monads, bacteriums, terms (if I may venture 
to say so) which have no accurate scientific meaning, and which 
represent only moving specks of the most obscure character. 

This circumstance is to be explained by the fact that the most 
striking experiments have been performed by persons almost entirely 
unacquainted with micro-zoology, or who hold exploded views on 
many matters connected with that branch of science. 


In entering upon a brief description of my personal experiences in 
connection with this subject, I fear that my labours will not have 
been lightened by the last criticism ; but however small may be the 
value of the evidence which will be adduced in aid of the solution of 
this problem, my readers may rest assured that there has been no 
want of care in the identification of the forms described. Again and 
again evidence has been rejected by me as insufficient, because the 
living forms under examination would not admit of accurate descrip- 
tion, and the few isolated data which follow have been selected from 
a mass of notes and sketches, many of which might have been added, 
were it not for the imperfection of their details. 

It is eight or nine years since my attention was first directed to 
the subject under consideration, and from that time to the present I 
have, year by year, conducted experiments with a view to test the 
validity of the doctrine of “ spontaneous generation.” 

The conflicting evidence which was from time to time published 
by trustworthy and eminent investigators, and the great difficulties 
that had to be encountered in the shape of adverse weather, the 
frequent necessity to leave my work unfinished, &c., prevented me 
until recently from stating what had been the results of my observa- 
tions ; and it has only been within the last few weeks that they have 
been of a sufliciently positive character to justify my coming to a 
definite conclusion on the subject of heterogenesis, in the present 
signification of the term. 


defect had been, according to his views, that the disputants had not observed 
with sufficient accuracy; and he proceeded to state, as the result of his careful 
investigations, that the polygastrica have many bond-fide stomachs; that the 
number and diameter of these stomachs is fixed in each fully-developed species ; 
that they never coalesce, for it is easily perceptible that they have distinct mem- 
branes (“des parois distinctes”’), and thatthe pretended rotation of these stomachs 
is an optical illusion! (Séance de Academie, 13 novembre, 1848: ‘ Comptes 
Rendus,’ xxvii. p. 516.) 

It is hardly necessary to state that nearly ali these observations have since 
proved incorrect; and as the learned French anatomist has never acknowledged 
his mistakes, one of two conclusions is therefore inevitable, viz. that he either still 
unconsciously holds antiquated and inaccurate views, or that when once he has 
made his declaration on a biological subject, there is no great probability of his 
afterwards bestowing upon it an unprejudiced consideration. 

As to the recent “commission” appointed by the Academy of Sciences to 
decide between Pouchet and Pasteur, and which ended in the premature (and it 
appears to me justifiable) withdrawal of Dr. Pouchet, the whole affair had too little 
of the air of seriousness about it to warrant its being considered in this place. 


1864. ] Samurtson on the Source of Living Organisms. 607 


My first definite evidence was obtained about three years since, when 
a series of investigations were undertaken by me in conjunction with 
Dr. Balbiani, of Paris, to whom I have already had occasion to refer 
as the author of a valuable little work on the sexual phenomena of the 
infusoria ; and it now affords me great pleasure to state that not only 
did he at that time render me very useful assistance, but he gave me 
one or two hints which led indirectly to my subsequent experiments. 
In July, 1862, I forwarded to Dr. Balbiani boluses of various organic 
substances of which I retained the counterparts, consisting of the 
green juice of cabbage (chlorophyll), and the juice of fresh and baked 
meat, variously prepared with gum-arabic, &c.; and although my 
zoological readers will find that it would be quite immaterial, in the 
form in which my experiments were conducted, whether or not the 
atmosphere was excluded from these substances, still I may mention, 
in passing, that such precautions were taken as to render it very im- 
probable that the air should reach them until they were exposed 
dissolved in distilled water. 

These infusions were examined by my colleague and myself, the 
results noted, and the contained forms delineated ; but Dr. Balbiani’s 
investigations were, in the first instance, more successful than mine, 
as he was favoured with a more elevated temperature. 

Since then I have from time to time exposed to the action of the 
atmosphere the purest distilled water that I could obtain, with a view 
to compare the living forms, if any should be present, with those 
deseribed and delineated by my coadjutor, and with any that I might 
observe in infusions that have been simultaneously exposed. 


Let us see what has been the result :— 

Amongst the illustrations first received from Dr. 
Balbiani was the accompanying, which represents 
what he called “ Cercomonas fusiformis,” found by 
him in great numbers in both the animal and 
vegetable infusions. 


Fig. 1.—Cercomonas fusiformis, 
(From Dr. Balbiani’s original drawing.) 


He designated these little forms after Dujardin, who ace 
thus figures one in his work on the Infusoria.* f= 

Dr. Balbiani might with equal propriety have called his 
animalcule, Cercomonas acuminata, also figured in Dujardin’s 
work, from which it differed but slightly, being, { think, 
the same type. 


Fic. 2.—C, fusiformis.—Duyj. 


a 


D’une infusion de mousse, grossi 500 fois.’’+ 


* ‘Histoire des Zoophytes infusoires. Paris, 1841. 

+ Let me draw the attention of my readers to the fact that, according to the 
theory of “ spontaneous generation,” this form must have been produced by the 
three totally different substances in which they were found by Balbiani and 
Dujardin. 

272 


608 Original Articles. | Oct., 


In September of the same year, I found this same form in some 
distilled water into which I had washed a little of the dust from my 
study window, and was induced in consequence to examine successively 
dust taken from the high road near my house, which I sprinkled upon 
distilled water, and pure boiled distilled water only, exposed in a clean 
white saucer to the atmosphere. At the furthest, within a week, I 
found (along with others) this little type, its presence in the saucer of 
pure distilled water being accompanied by a slight deposit of dust. 


I followed it in its development 
from the minutest monad, and was 
satisfied at length, from the rhyth- 
mical movements of its “ contractile 
vesicle,” that it was entitled to be 
called a living infusorium. Since 
that time I have repeatedly met with 
it both in pure distilled water and 
in infusions ; and as recently as last 
June, I found it in sufficient num- 
bers in pure distilled water to enable 

Fic. 3.—Different stages in the growth of Mme to include it in the illustration 
Cercomonas fusiformis, or acuminata, found from nature which accompanies this 
by the author in pure distilled water. (C. con- 


tractile vesicles.) paper (p. 613). 


Another form, Ameba Gleichenii, belonging 
(as the protozoa are now classed) to a still 
lower group, was observed by Dr. Balbiani in 
the same infusions with the above-named type, 
and the accompanying is also engraved from his 
original drawing of it. 


Fie, 4.—* Amebu (Gleichenii ?)’—(n. nucleus.) From Dr, Bal- 
biani’s infusions, 


I presume that my coadjutor gave it this 
designation, because the form having the 
| nearest resemblance to it is thus figured by 

™ Dujardin. 


Fie, 5.—Dujardin’s Amoeba Gleichenii. 


If it were fair to criticize the scientific appellations bestowed upon 
these minute particles of organized protoplasm, I should say Dr. 
Balbiani would have done better to give a new specific, title to this 
Ameeba, for it is widely dissimilar from Dujardin’s ; but, be this as it 
may, I have frequently met with similar types in infusions, and last 
June* the same (which I venture to call Balbiani’s) appeared in such 


* Tt is right to state that the cause of my success during that month was the 
high temperature, accompanied by a favourable wind for the conveyance of dust 
into my vessels of distilled water. 


1864. | Samunxson on the Source of Living Organisms. 609 


numbers in pure distilled water, that I had ample opportunities to 
verify and sketch it under the microscope. 


X 640 d78 x.900 qT 
Fic. 6.—Ameba Balbianii, found by me in pure distilled water, 


My figures are more highly magnified than Dr. Balbiani’s; but an 
inspection of the Plate, and a comparison with my colleague’s figures, 
will exhibit the identity. 

Lastly, Dr. Balbiani found in his infusions, both animal and 
vegetable, a little ciliated type, Cyclidium glaucoma, and wrote to me 
some time afterwards that he had found the same form in moistened 
dust wiped from his window. He sent me a drawing, which it is, 
however, unnecessary to append. Here, then, we have characteristic 
types representing three distinct groups of Protozoa which have been 
observed at the same time in infusions of various kinds, and then the 
identical types subsequently traced to the atmosphere itself, or to the 
dust which it holds in suspension. 

But the objection, refined as it may be, might not improbably be 
raised by the advocates of heterogenesis against these experiments, 
that perhaps the infusoria which I have thus traced in pure distilled 
water are spontaneously produced from the particles of organie sub- 
stances which find their way along with dust into the vessel containing 
the water. 

It is, therefore, advisable to meet this difficulty beforehand, and I 
can best do so by repeating here an account of one of my experiments, 
described last year before the members of the British Association.* 
I had exposed (July, 1863,) some pure distilled water in a glass vessel, 
placed in a box covered with a glass lid, which was left partially open, 
and after a few days could trace scarcely any appearance of life in the 
water, inasmuch as the glass cover had intercepted the dust to such a 
degree as to have become to some extent opaque through the deposit. 
I therefore removed the dust from the glass lid into the contained 
vessel, by washing it with a littlé distilled water, and then left it fully 
exposed to the atmosphere. 

The very next day I re-examined the vessel of distilled water. 
When exposed on the previous day, the dust had clouded it a little, 
but now it had settled at the bottom as a fine film or deposit. On 
pouring off the water carefully, and examining this deposit as it lay 
in the vessel with a low power (about 75 diameters), it appeared to 
consist of a number of minute siliceous fragments, interspersed with 


* Sub-Section D. “ Life in the Atmosphere.” 


610 Original Articles. [Oct., 


organic particles, both of which seemed to float in a gelatinous film 
somewhat resembling balsam. Several small cysts, coloured green, 
were also visible. On adjusting a higher power (200 diameters*), and 
covering a portion of the thin glass, this gelatinous film proved to 
consist “entirely of transparent colourless ‘“monads,” possessing no 
locomotion, but exhibiting a slight tremulous movement. 

I carefully poured back the water into the vessel, and left it until 
the day following, when, on examining the water, I found it to swarm 
with “‘monads.” Even those under the covering glass, which I had 
left undisturbed the day previous, were locomotive and very active. 
In their forms and movements they resembled various kinds of 
infusoria, some moving forward with a rapid rotatory motion; 
others swinging to and fro, progressing more slowly; and others 
again reminding the observer, by their movements, of the loricated 
infusoria. Some were globular; others, ovate ; and others again, flat- 
tened discs. Many were undergoing longitudinal subdivision, and 
the largest were about 1-700th of an inch in diameter. Transparent 
vegetable fibres were also present, and these were covered with sessile 
‘“‘monads ;” some cysts appeared to have discharged their contents, 
and were floating empty in the water. At this period, my investiga- 
tions and experiments, which had been long protracted, were brought 
to a close. 

Was it possible, I would ask, that these swarms of living organ- 
isms (to whatever groups they may have appertained) could have 
been spontancously produced in a single day from the particles of 
organic matter which, along with the mineral molecules, were 
imbedded, as it were, in their aggregated mass? Or is it not more 
likely that the deposit of dust contained, besides vegetable and mine- 
ral particles, a vast number of zoospores, requiring but warmth and 
moisture. to call them into active life? Which is the most rational 
and scientific method of accounting for their appearance, whether 
our judgment be based upon theory or experiment ? 

Let me now add a few of the general results of my prolonged 
investigations to the special cases already named. 

In the course of my experiments with distilled water, I have 
carefully and repeatedly examined,—Ilst, dust taken from window- 
panes, and from other common-place localities at home; in this I 
have found the following forms, of which I have retained more or 
less accurate sketches made at the time of observation :— 

* Cercomonas fusiformis ;’ various Amebe (some of them unde- 
scribed, as far as I can ascertain), one or two Vorticellae, Enchelis, 
Kerona (2), cysts, from which swarms of minute zoospores issued on 
their being broken by pressure, and in one case I found, in pure 
water containing nothing but the usual slight deposit occasioned by 
exposure to the air, what appeared to be “the larval form of one of 
the Entomostraca, of which I have no doubt an ovum had found its 
way into my distilled water. 

* T give the measurements in diameters in all cases, chiefly because ny instru- 


ment is by Schieck, of Berlin, and the English measurements by 1ths, ths, &e., 
are unknown to the foreign makers. 


1864. | Samuzison on the Source of Living Organisms. 611 


I have also seen plant-cells in great number and variety, and on 
one occasion the contents of my vessel were, after a few days, tinged 
green with Protococcus pluvialis, as much as if they had been taken 
from a rain-water cistern. 

“‘ Vibrio,’ “ Monas,” and the other types of the partisans of 
heterogenesis, were of daily occurrence. 

In all these cases, I have not the slightest doubt that the atmo- 
sphere was the medium through which the germs or spores were 
conveyed into the distilled water, and it was often a matter of surprise 
to me that such a number and variety of forms should have become 
even partially developed, where so little nourishment was afforded 
for their increase. Let me also add that, contrary to what has been 
stated by the advocates of heterogenesis, I have always found that 
the more freely the water was exposed to the air, and the warmer 
the temperature, the more abundant and diversified were the living 
types, and the more rapid was their development.* 

2nd. I have examined dust shaken from samples of various kinds 
of cotton rags which had been imported from the following localities :} 
Egypt, Japan, Tunis, Trieste, Melbourne, and Peru, and in all these 
different kinds I have found well-marked types of protozoa.t To a 
great degree these types differed from those which I had observed in 
dust at home, being more active, and highly organized. 

In one case I succeeded to some extent 
in tracing the growth of several of those 
obscure little forms known as “ vibrio” to } 
the annulated, ciliated type here delineated, 
and saw them cast off ring after ring, which 
then assumed an independent existence, 
and commenced to subdivide and extend 
in length. 


Fic. 7.—Various stages of a Vibrion found in the dust from 
blue Egyptian rags. a. An animalcule 1-150th of an inch 
inlength. 6. The animalcule casting off several ciliated 
rings. 


As, however, it may be objected, with some show of reason, that the 
living types from such sources as these afford no direct proof of their 
presence in the atmosphere (although it is well known that the dusty 
rags imported into this country are for the most part picked up in the 
streets abroad), I am content to let this evidence go for what it is 
worth in the eyes of my readers, and mention the matter chiefly as a 
hint to microscopists where to seek new types of protozoa; but if 
there be any who are disposed to doubt the presence in the atmosphere 
of the germs or zoospores of many of those common infusorial types 
which are supposed by the partisans of “spontaneous generation” to be 
abnormally produced from the infusions in which they are often met 


* T have been the most successful with a shallow white saucer. 

+ The dust was in all cases carefully sifted through muslin on to the surface 
of distilled water, and fell to the bottom of the vessel as a fine deposit. 

{ As described in short memoirs read before the Academy of Sciences, Paris, 
1863 ; and Sub-Section D, British Association, 1863. 


612 Original Articles. [Oct., 


with, I would recommend them to verify or controvert my statements 
by the following simple experiment :— 

Let them procure some distilled water from a source which is 
certain to be pure; and to make assurance doubly sure, let it be 
boiled, or (as Dr. Rolleston, of Oxford, has suggested*) passed 
slowly through a red-hot platinum tube. 

This water should be exposed in an open situation, in a good-sized 
saucer or soup-plate, and fresh distilled water added day by day, to 
supply the place of that which evaporates. 

The exposure should take place in warm weather, if possible with 
a light breeze, and not too soon after the air has been purified of its 
floating contents by a shower of rain. 

In a few days, if ordinary success attend the experiment, an 
inconsiderable sediment of dust will have settled at the bottom of 
the saucer, and drops of the water, along with a little of this 
sediment, should be submitted to careful microscopic investigation. 
If I am not greatly mistaken, judging from my own experiments, the 
most conspicuous types will be found to be those little fragments 
(more or less definitely shaped) of organized protoplasm known as 
amcebe, and the observer will probably notice many interesting 
phenomena in connection with their growth, permanent changes in 
form, mode of subdivision, &c., to which my limited space has 
allowed no reference. When the field is carefully viewed with a high 
power, there will also probably be found in considerable numbers the 
little fusiform monads (so frequently referred to in this paper), for in 
most of my investigations these have first appeared. 

With favourable weather and perseverance, other and probably 
higher forms will in time become apparent; and I trust that if no 
other good result from the publication of these imperfect observations, 
they may lead more careful investigators to favour the microscopical 
world with valuable contributions to ‘‘ atmospheric micrography ”— 
contributions of a different kind to the negative ones formerly 
published under that title by Dr. Pouchet, the zealous champion of 
heterogenesis. 

For the benefit of those, however, whose time or occupations prevent 
them from investigating for themselves, and who are willing to 
accredit me with accuracy of observation, I have appended a plate, 
which will give some idea of the appearance of the microscopical 
contents of distilled water, after a few days’ exposure to the atmosphere 
in fine weather; but I must state, to avoid misapprehension, that 
although all the forms and others besides may be contained in the 
same drop of water, they will probably not appear at one and the 
same time in the field of the microscope. 

The objects represented in Fig. 1 (commencing at the top) are, 
a fragment of organic matter upon which a swarm of minute 
zoospores and one or two young ciliated infusoria appear to be 
regaling themselves ; then, between the bright crimson hair (animal 
or vegetable) and a green plant fibre, probably one of the confervoid 


* Sub-Section D, British Association, 1863. 


Quarterly Journal of Science N? 4 


Hanhart 1tnjo 


t 


1864. | Samvurnson on the Source of Living Organisms. 613 


alow, are seen four amcebe, and two of the fusiform ciliated 
*“monads” (Cercomonas fusiformis); a group of free floating cells, 
some of which are subdividing, may be observed below ; zoospores, or 
the young of ciliated infusoria, and “ vibriones,” make up the living 
contents, whilst a couple of fragments of hard, transparent mineral, 
probably silex, held together by some softer mineral substance, 
complete the little group of objects, all of which are magnified 270 
diameters. 

In Fig. 2 we have one of the larger plant-cells, a little sharp 
fragment of silex, amcebze of various types (one very active kind 
undergoing subdivision), the fusiform “monad,” and two young 
ciliated infusoria, all represented as they appear under a lens 
magnifying 900 diameters. 


But it may be said by the partisans of “spontaneous generation,” 
that the presence of germs in the atmosphere is no absolute disproof 
of their theory, and they may still maintain that it is possible for 
inorganic elements or organic compounds so to combine “ spontane- 
ously,” as to form infinitely minute germs or cells, which are 
invisible under the highest powers of the microscope. 

For the possibility of such a combination, by artificial means, 
they might appeal to the opinion expressed by at least one high 
biological authority, Professor Huxley, who says (as it was already 
stated in the Introduction to this Journal), that he believes it possible, 
before half a century has elapsed, that man may be able to take 
inorganic substances, such as carbonic acid, ammonia, water, and 
salines, ‘and be able to build them up into protein matter,’ and that 
that protein matter should “ begin to live in an organic form ;”* and, 
for the reasons assigned at the commencement of this paper, it appears 
to me also that they have the indirect countenance of all thorough 
believers in progressive development through secondary causes. 

Nor would I for a moment venture to deny the possibility of such 
a phenomenon; for, however contrary it may be to analogy and 
experience, it is impossible to say whether or not the same natural 
laws operate in the creation of these still invisible forms as in that of 
the visible organized types. 

As Dr. Child has said, some of these forms are no more entitled 
to be considered independent organisms than white blood-corpuscles, 
&c.; and I think he might with safety have added, after the publica- 
tion of Dr. Beale’s researches on blood-corpuscles, that some of them 
are much less deserving of the rank of living organisms. It would 
be presumptuous, then, to deny that such lowly forms may not be 
created to-day, either artificially or spontaneously, 

But that is not the ground hitherto taken by the advocates of 
“spontaneous generation.” They deny the existence of the germs of 
infusoria in the atmosphere, and would have the scientific world 
accept their theory as sufficient to account for the presence of all the 


* «Lectures to Working Men.’ Professor Huxley is, however, a disbeliever in 
heterogenesis, and considers that through Pasteur’s experiments the doctrine has 
“received a final cowp de grace.” 


614 Original Articles. [ Oct., 


known forms of protozoa (if they do not go still further) which are 
found in infusions. And upon what biological evidence do they 
claim a scientific status for their doctrine ? 

Mainly on the ground, as already observed, that when they have 
sought to exclude the air from infusions (no doubt as conscientiously 
as possible), there have, after a certain time, appeared in them 
“monads,”’ “bacteriums,’ and “vibriones;” these objects being, 
generally speaking, and notwithstanding their high-sounding appel- 
lation, minute moving specks, or lines, even under highest micro- 
scopical powers, and concerning which the least scientific reader 
knows just as much as the most learned investigator. 

In this, the popular sense of the term ‘‘ spontaneous generation,” 
T am certainly no believer ; and I have little doubt that the time is 
not far distant when all those lowly types, now known as protozoa, 
will be traced in their earliest stages to the atmosphere, the dust of 
the road, of our parlour windows, and indeed in every place into 
which dust and air penetrate. 

It is the common-sense explanation of their presence; for what 
is more natural than that, along with the dust, which is dried mud, 
the wind should also waft about the light zoospores of those minute 
forms of which the stagnant pool is the habitat? And it is the solution 
strictly in accordance with scientific experience, for, without reference 
to the great homogenetic law traceable through the whole organic 
realm, we have the indubitable fact, that the more lowly the organisms, 
the more widely are their reproductive principles diffused in the 
elements. 


ON THE FORMATION OF CORAL (Corallium rubrum). 


By Professor H. Lacazn Dururers (Hcole Normale supérieure, 
Paris). 


Corau has been in request from the earliest times for the purpose of 
personal adornment, while its form and properties, which denote at 
one and the same time the plant and the stone, so masking its real 
origin, have excited the curiosity alike of the fashionable wearer and 
of the devotee of science. Its true nature has, however, only been 
recognized within the last hundred or hundred and fifty years. This 
has been, in a great measure, due to the absolute impossibility of 
arriving at any accurate conclusion on the subject without close 
observation of the animal while living, and to the great difficulty of 
meeting with it in this condition. As soon as it is removed from the 
water it dies, and even though preserved in fresh and constantly 
renewed water, with the most scrupulous care, it still too often 
speedily perishes. To obtain, therefore, the opportunity for close 
examination, one course only is open to the inquirer; he must be 
present at the capture of the animal, and proceed at once with his 


1864. | Dutuiers on the Formation of Coral. 615 


investigations ; and let it be observed that this mode is not always 
either easy or even possible, for most commonly the popieri, or boat 
masters, are but little disposed to receive on board strangers, whose 
only object they deem to be that of mastering their secrets and profit- 
ing by their skill in finding the localities most favourable for obtaining 
an abundant supply of coral. They cannot understand that anyone 
would expose himself to the discomforts of their mode of life, merely 
to satisfy a curiosity which they are not able to comprehend, by poring 
over a branch of living coral as it is withdrawn from the water. 

I had obtained, at Bonifacio, in Corsica, a promise of all that would 
be necessary for my purpose; the most gracious assent was given 
to my expressed desires, but when night came the expedition put to 
sea, and ] saw no more of those upon whose aid I had too confidently 
reckoned. The search for coral, moreover, is not managed on the 
same plan as other fisheries. The coral-seekers have to look for banks 
in very different, and often far distant, localities, according as the 
wind happens to be favourable or otherwise. They therefore carry 
provisions for some considerable time, and the period of their return 
to the port from whence they sailed is indefinite to a degree. I 
encountered one day, in the Gulf of Propriano, on the shores of 
Corsica, a little fleet of sixty coral boats; a week afterwards not one 
remained, nor did I again fall in with them. During my stay at 
Calle all the fishermen sailed in the month of June for the island of 
Galito and the waters of Bizerta; they did not return until the com- 
mencement of August. 

It will be no subject of surprise, then, if the naturalist hesitates 
before he undertakes a voyage which is so uncertain in the time it 
will occupy, and constantly attended with fatigue and discomfort. These 
difficulties, to which indeed many others might be added, serve to 
explain the slow advance of knowledge in this branch of inquiry, for 
the task of obtaining living coral, now sufficiently arduous, must have 
been still more so in former years. It should be observed, however, 
that if the materials can only be obtained with comparative ease by the 
dredge, the necessary inquiries may be made with far greater facility. 

Leaving unnoticed the fables and prejudices of the ancients, and 
without enterimg upon an unsuitable historical résumé, we may 
remark that Reaumur and Swammerdam classed coral among stones ; 
that Marsigli, having seen its flowers, regarded it as a plant; while 
ultimately the discovery of Peyssonnel assigned to it, in 1729, its 
legitimate position in the animal kingdom. MReaumur, a singu- 
larly truthful and clear-sighted observer, thoroughly recognized — 
the great importance of direct observations, and succeeded in 
obtaining orders from the Duke of Orleans that messengers should 
start on foot from Marseilles, to bring to him with all possible care 
the coral freshly taken on the coasts of Provence. Unfortunately the 
precious burden had far too feeble a hold of life, and the distance over 
which it had to pass was much too great. The coral arrived in Paris, 
it is true, but quite dead, and its examination elicited no new facts; 
its only result, indeed, being to confirm Reaumur in his erroneous 
impressions. It is worthy of special note that the most important 


616 Original Articles. ‘ [Oct., 


discoveries have been made by those observers who, regardless of 
trouble, fatigue, and dangers, have trusted themselves at sea, and have 
lived the mode of life of the coral fisher. 

No one would, indeed, dream of assigning a higher scientific value 
to the researches of Marsigli and Peyssonnel than to those of Swam- 
merdam and Reaumur; but on which side do we find truth and 
accuracy? The first-named naturalists elicited new facts, and saw 
things of which the latter remained ignorant, from this one cause— 
that they studied the animal still living, and in its normal conditions, 
and did not draw their conclusions from the dried-up specimens of 
natural-history cabinets. Have we not here a striking proof of the 
advantages to be derived from studying animal forms, not alone among 
the accumulations of museums, but also under those conditions of 
existence which are peculiar to them, meeting with them, as it were, 
in their own homes? In this line of inquiry lies, indeed, the future 
advancement of the natural sciences. 

The discovery of Peyssonnel seemed so incredible to Reaumur, 
that he would not even publish the name of its author. De Jussieu 
was not more open to conviction, and it was not until after the publi- 
cation of Tremblay’s memorable investigations in regard to the fresh- 
water hydra, that attention was directed to the dicta advanced by 
Peyssonnel. Then Reaumur wished to explain away his opposition, 
but it would seem that the ardent naturalist and traveller, confident of 
the accuracy of his researches, and mortified by the opposition of the 
French savans, had forwarded his memoirs to England, where they 
were examined and published, from 1756 to 1759, in the ‘ Philosophical 
Transactions.’ 

Peyssonnel had merited a widely different reception. An impetu- 
ous and courageous enthusiast, a true child of the South, he did not 
shrink before danger or fatigue during his stay on the coast of Africa, 
then so hostile to an explorer. On other grounds, too, he had well 
earned the esteem of his fellow-citizens. In 1720, during the terrible 
plague which desolated Marseilles, he shut himself up with his father 
in the hospital of the Holy Ghost, there to attend to the plague- 
stricken, abandoned by all others. 

His admiration for nature induced him to devote a part of his 
fortune to the founding of a prize to recompense studies in marine 
natural history. The Academy of Marseilles refused it. 

It is painful to see Peyssonnel, full of success in his first endea- 
vours, withdraw himself from the scientific arena when the savans 
rejected his discovery, which undoubtedly was one of the greatest of 
modern times. He no doubt resented the erroneous judgment upon 
his labours with the promptitude and warmth of feeling manifested by 
every man who, being a follower of truth and loving science for her- 
self, feels that he is crushed by the lofty position of those who judge 
him rather than by the force of the arguments which they have 
marshalled against him. 

He accepted the post of Royal Physician at Guadaloupe, and it 
would appear that in so doing he exiled himself at the same time 
from his country and from science. No further communication is 


1864. ] Dorurmrs on the Formation of Coral. 617 


extant from him to the Academy. It is probable, however, that after 
he had withdrawn himself from French scientific circles, he still con- 
tinued to direct his attention to another country, since he addressed 
his work to the Royal Society of London; then resigning himself to 
that loss of heart which injustice invariably induces, he ceased to labour, 
and never again returned to France. The date of his death even is 
not accurately known. 

Peyssonnel was unfortunate. His devotion to the welfare of his 
fellow-citizens during the fearful epidemic at Marseilles ; his generous 
and liberal offer for the endowment cf a prize; his great discoveries 
in the highest of the natural sciences, transferring to the animal 
realms a multitude of hitherto so-called plants; these should have 
secured for him in his own country such a position as would have kept 
him faithful to science. France would not then have been compelled 
to regret her indifference to an extended and prolific subject in science, 
nor to mourn over her neglect of a man who had done her honour ; 
permitting even the date of a valuable discovery, which belonged to 
her, to be inscribed in the archives of Great Britain. 

There being no doubt regarding the animal nature of coral, we have 
now to inquire into its reproduction and development. 

If the attempt to keep coral alive should prove successful, and 
observations be instituted in the fine season, that is, from May to 
September, at the time when reproduction is proceeding, we shall find 
that little white ovoid bodies (Fig. 1, c) escape from the centre of the 
graceful rosettes with which the surface of the animal is covered ; these 
in the first instance sink to the bottom of the water, but a short 
time afterwards acquire an elongated form, and are endowed with the 
power of movement. These little bodies are not, strictly speaking, 
ova, since they are already provided with organs of locomotion. They 
must be considered as embryos, or young polypes. 

They possess considerable activity, swim freely, avoid one another 
in their onward course, and ascend or descend in the glasses in which 
they are kept. Shortly after their first appearance, or when the water 
in which they are placed is renewed, their activity is much increased, 
_and they grow considerably in length. They are then completely 
vermiform (Fig. 1, b, d). 

These leading facts have not been observed without much labour. 
During the three months of June, July, and August, in spite of every 
care, and notwithstanding my choice of a very convenient locality, 
near to Calle, for the carrying out my experiments, the coral submitted 
to examination died in a most provoking manner. It was in vain that 
I searched for it myself, and with my own hands collected it with the 
greatest care from the nets; some hours after my return to the shore 
it was covered with a thick coating of mould. Judging by analogy 
with what I had seen among the Gorgonide and the true polypes, I 
took the precaution, towards the middle of August, of going on board 
one of the coral boats for several days, and then and there to open all 
the living coral which might be brought up. I hoped to succeed in pro- 
curing a premature development of the young polypes, and so to prevent 
their death ; a mode of experiment which had answered my expectations 


618 Original Articles. [ Oct., 


in the case of the Gorgonide, Aleyonide, and Asterids. I soon collected 
an enormous quantity of ova, but not one of them survived. I began 
to despair, attributing these protracted failures to the heat, when at 
length, in the month of September, after the temperature had some- 
what fallen, I obtained an abundance of lively young ones, and was 
able at once to follow their development. 


Wie. 1. 


a, Formation of the vermiform larva of coral. b, Larvae, or embryos of natural size. ce, d. The 
same, magnified. e. Disc resulting from the metamorphosis of the worms. jf. Young polype, with 
tentacles already provided with processes. 


The ova of coral, as we shall soon see, are at first spherical and 
naked ; as they become developed, they increase in length, and are 
furnished with a well-marked central cavity, communicating with the 
surrounding fluid by an opening which later on becomes the oral 
aperture. 

When they emerge from the cavity in which they have commenced 
their transformation, they have acquired a covering of vibratile cilia 
(Fig. 1, c, d), and they then completely resemble white worms. They 
swim with the mouth directed backward, while their larger extremity, 
or base, looks forward. They have also a tendency to aggregate in 
clusters, and subsequently incline to adhere to the walls of the glasses, 


1864. ] Dorturers on the Formation of Coral. 619 


or to objects with which they may como into contact ; this tendency is 
favoured, too, by their mode of progression. Thus, even their activity 
is a principal cause of their losing the freedom of movement, from its 
favouring the close adhesion of the posterior part of the body—that 
part which will ere long be the analogue of the base of the Actiniz and 
other adult Zoanthidee. This proneness to apply themselves to other 
objects appears specially manifested when the elongated or vermicular 
form is about to disappear; then the embryos sink down upon them- 
selves, and losing in height what they gain in breadth, change their 
form into that of small lens-shaped dises (Fig. 1, ¢), in the middle of 
which the more slender extremity, bearing the mouth, buries itself, 
and becomes surrounded by a circlet of little cushions. Upon these 
cushions, and consequently around the mouth, eight small nipple-shaped 
projections very soon show themselves; these are covered by delicate 
processes, which subsequently become by elongation the arms of the 
polype (Fig. 1, f). Whilst carefully examining with a lens the stones 
brought from the bottom of the sea by the nets of the coral fishers, I 
found little red objects, a quarter and even a half of a millimétre in 
diameter, which a microscopic investigation showed to be the young 
bases of coral. Smaller than those which had been formed and fixed 
in my aquaria, they only as yet enclosed one single animaleule. By 
further search I was able to follow out all the stages intermediate 
between the most simple individuals and the most complex branches. 
Afterwards retracing my steps, I could pursue my inquiries up to the 
point of the most complete development. 

Soon after the young polype has fixed itself, and when its ten- 
tacles have become well developed, its white colour disappears, giving 
place to the characteristic red of coral. (Fig. 1, f, represents a young 
polype of half a millimctre in diameter.) It is difficult to depict the 
delicacy and elegance of the animal at this stage of its growth. The 
base or body is of a beautiful rose-colour, while a white coronet formed 
by the arrangement of the tentacles occupies the upper part. It some- 
times presents the illusion of a charming white flower, with its graceful 
petals surmounting an urn. 

When the first animal, the development of which we have just 
traced, is complete, a new phase of growth is entered upon. There 
appear, one by one upon its sides, small nipple-shaped projections, 
true buds or gemma (Tig. 2, b, d), having their origin in the very 
tissues of the animal, and provided with a single orifice covered with 
tentacles; these at length become transformed into so many new 
polypes, fac-similes of the original animal. 

These outgrowths do not separate themselves from the original 
stock; and since they in their turn become centres from which bud- 
ding takes place, we may well understand how rapidly the whole 
number will increase. 

This peculiar faculty of increasing by budding is shared by the 
corallines with vegetables; and to it must be referred the formation 
of branches and twigs, and the increase in length of the parent stems. 
But a distinction must be drawn between the multiplication of the 
number of bases or branches of coral and the increase in number of 


620 Original Articles. | Oct., 


the polypes. The one is due to the development of ova, the other is 
accomplished by the repeated appearance of buds. 

Before proceeding further, it will be necessary to give some general 
idea of the plan of organization. 'T'wo very different parts may be 


Ihiely 


A young polype, a, commencing to throw out buds, b; a colony, c, which has two polypes anda 
bud, d. At the tissues are laid open, so as to exhibit the first traces of the polypidom in process of 
formation. eisone of the spicules, magnified 900 times, which exist in the crust of coral, and which 
by agglomeration produce the poly pidom. 


recognized in living coral by the most superficial observation. The 
one—situated externally and, when recent, perfectly soft ; when dried up, 
friable and easily powdered—constitutes the polyp-bearing or animal 
layer (Fig. 3, a). The incorrect though convenient term which is 
frequently applied to this part of the animal is “bark.” The other, 
centrally placed, solid and resistant, forms the axis, polyp-stem, or 
trunk (Fig. 3, p). This part only is available for purposes of ornament. 

The surface of the cortical portion, when it is well preserved, and 
especially when quite recent, appears to be covered with minute bosses 
or little elevations. These bosses are pierced at their apex by a fine 
perforation with radiating folds, and are hollowed in their interior to 
form a cavity, from whence the polypes, or “nettles,” as Peyssonnel 
called them, appear to emerge. 

Nothing can compare with the graceful arrangement of these little 
animated flowers; the eight fringed arms with which they are pro- 
vided are in continual movement; extend themselves in every direction, 
and then again coil themselves up to convey to the central mouth the 
prey they have seized. They are milk-white in colour, and stand out 
in admirable contrast with the lively red of the base. Michelet, there- 
fore, is in error when, in his book on the Sea, he calls them flowers of 
blood-red tinge. 

The tissue of the cortical portion is cellular, soft, and delicate. 
It is furrowed throughout by vessels, either irregular in pattern 
(Fig. 3, ¢), or lying side by side and parallel (Fig. 3, d), and which put 


1864. | Durumrs on the Formation of Coral. 621 


the polypes in direct communication with one another. It encloses 
also innumerable little calcareous corpuscles (Fig. 2, e), red in colour 
and microscopic in size; these characteristic objects enabling the ob- 
server to recognize coral even in its carliest stages. As to the polypes, 


Fia. 3. 


Part of a branch of coral, magnified and prepared so as to show the polyp-stem, p, channelled 
throughout; to each cliannel a vessel, d, corresponds; a, “ Bark,’ permeated by small vessels, c, 
putting the polypes in communication with one another; and a polype, b, drawn with ova suspended 
in the folds of the general cavity. : 


the walls of their bodies are represented by the bark itself, and their 
organs exist in the form of slender lamelle (Fig. 3, b), the edges of 
which, somewhat cushion-shaped and contorted, have a slight resem- 
blance to the convolutions of the intestinal canal. 

We have now once more to revert to the question of development, 
and to inquire how the axis or polyp-stem is formed ; the only part, as 
before said, which is available for personal decoration. The calcareous 
corpuscles of the cortex are formed soon after the young coral has 
become fixed or sessile, and on their presence depends the characteristic 
red colour. In the first instance they are equally disseminated through- 
out the tissues, but subsequently they multiply and accumulate as 
nuclei; then a red cement is deposited around them ; and these distinct 
centres, later on, not only unite with one another, but become closely 
cemented to the submarine bodies upon which the young polype has 
become fixed. This is the origin of the axis or polyp-stem. It is the 
same with young polypes as with adult branches; the latter main- 
taining at their terminal points a perpetual juvenescence, owing to 
their continued growth. And we find under their cortical covering 
a partially-formed axis bristlg@g throughout with microscopic asperities 
representing the corpuscles; these are still recognizable, imperfectly 

VOL. I. 20 


a“ 


622 Original Articles. | Oct., 


fixed in the cement. At the base of the adult branches the cement 
is constantly deposited in much greater quantity than towards the 
extremities, and to this fact the increase in bulk is in great part due. 
It would appear, too, that the imbedded corpuscles are less numerous 
at the lower part than at the apex, or in the more recently-formed 
tissues. 

Tn the interests of general zoology, or the philosophy of the science, 
the determination of the origin of the axis is of material value, and to 
this point especial attention should be directed. In some families of 
the coralline group the polyp-stem is flexible, transparent, and recalls 
in some measure the horny or epidermic structures among the higher 
animals. Such are the Gorgonidz, whose zoological affinities bring 
them into close relation with coral; and hence, indeed, some authors 
have been led to believe that the axis of the latter, in spite of its 
solidity, was constructed by the induration of the epidermis just as we 
find the polyp-stem to be formed in the Gorgonide. It is, however, 
difficult, after the preceding investigations, to adopt this explanation, 
since in the interior of the coral axis we find elements similar to 
those which are disseminated through the deeper parts of the body of 
the polypes. In this matter a direct application of embryogenic re- 
searches has been made available for the purposes of classification. 

In conclusion, a few words may be devoted to the phenomena 
which precede the birth of the embryos, and which have not as yet 
received notice. Fertilization is accomplished under varying condi- 
tions, these having reference to the arrangement of the generative 
glands, and to the distribution of the individuals of different sexes 
upon the branches. The polypes, sometimes male, at others female, 
and lastly, again, hermaphrodite, may be found in close proximity with 
each other on a single branch, or separate and attached to different 
branches, where they are clustered together (and this is the most 
frequent condition), the number of one of the sexes is in excess of 
the other, very rarely a branch is unisexual, and I have never met with 
one exclusively composed of hermaphrodite forms. These latter, indeed, 
are relatively less numerous, and are most commonly scattered irregu- 
larly among others, or completely isolated in their very midst. The 
distribution of the sexes is not, therefore, subject to any special rule. 
Fertilization, it would seem, then, is sometimes direct, and carried on 
in a single polype ; at other times indirect, and effected between two 
individuals on the same, or on distinct branches, always, however, 
taking place in the general cavity of the body, since it is in this place 
that the ovum remains and is developed. Further, too, it would seem 
that the fecundating fluid must be carried to the female polypes by 
currents of water, as is the case with the mollusks which are of separate 
sexes, and furnished with adherent shells. The generative glands 
have no special well-marked form, as in most other animals; their 
products originating, so to speak, separately, at the base of the intes- 
tine-like folds of the general cavity, are contained in capsules which 
become prominent in proportion to their development, and which are 
ultimately attached to long pedicles. The ova, after the rupture of 
the pedicle by which they are suspended, fall into the general cavity and 


1864. | Durturers on the Formation of Coral. 623 


remain there, undergoing transformation up to the moment of the birth 
ofthe embryo. The spermatozoa becoming free by the rupture of the 
capsule which enclosed them are ejected, and fertilize the ova of the 
females, either directly, if these be near at hand, or by comparative 
accident if they are not in immediate proximity to the male polype. 
The emission of the spermatic fluid of the male can be easily detected 
by direct observation, for it is only necessary to examine some of the 
living coral at the moment of reproduction, to see the polypes throw 
out jets of a white liquid, which forms a cloud in the water, and in 
which, also, the characteristic male elements or the spermatozoa will 
be discernible. 

The ovum, as we have just seen, after detaching itself from the 
intestiniform folds, falls into the general cavity, where it is fertilized 
and undergoes its first changes; but in this same cavity another im- 
portant junction is also accomplished, namely, that of digestion. The 
same organ therefore serves both as a stomach and a matrix, or more 
properly speaking as an ovisac, and in it two substances, under condi- 
tions which appear to be similar, can nevertheless undergo modifica- 
tions thoroughly opposed to each other; for the one is dissolved and 
liquified, while the other increases in bulk, and produces a new being. 
This physiological peculiarity cannot fail, from its strangeness, to 
attract attention; it shows what an immense difference exists between 
the higher and lower animals, and how difficult it is to judge @ prior? 
of the one by the other. 

As a summary, it may be said that coral follows the ordinary laws 
of reproduction, and does not present the variations which are met with 
among some of the inferior animals. For a very short period after its 
birth it enjoys the power of movement, but as soon as it begins to 
undergo its metamorphoses the ability to move is lost, and the animal 
fixes itself in one place, which it does not afterwards desert. Then, 
too, its early form is lost, and it is no longer possible to recognize in 
its branches, so elegant in form and so rich in colour, the little white © 
worm from which these were developed. All these facts have, without 
doubt, a special importance in the history of coral; but they show, 
also, how the study of the inferior organisms reveals each day some 
new and unexpected facts; how little the phenomena of life through- 
out the animal series are as yet understood; and they teach us that 
such investigations should be conducted with extreme care, and 
that due reserve and caution should be exercised in reasoning from 
analogy, and in the application of what we regard as universal laws. 


ho 
cq 
bo 


624 Original Articles. | Oct., 


ON THE CONSTRUCTION AND MECHANICAL PROPER- 
TIES OF SUBMARINE TELEGRAPH CABLES. 


By Witu1am Farrparen, C.E., LL.D., F.R.S. 


Twenty-Four years have now elapsed since Professor Wheatstone 
suggested to the Select Committee of the House of Commons on 
Railways, the construction of a submarine telegraph between Dover 
and Calais. Since that time 11,000 miles of cable have been laid, 
only a little more than one-fourth of which can be said to be in a 
working conditon; amongst the unsuccessful attempts being the 
Atlantic cable, measuring 2,200 miles; the Red Sea and India 
Telegraph, of 3,499 miles, and sundry shorter ones, measuring col- 
lectively about 2,300 miles. To account for these misfortunes is a 
work of some difficulty, owing to the many causes which may affect 
the integrity of the insulation, or the continuity of the conducting 
wires. The 8,000 miles of failure have not been, however, wholly 
lost. They have been the means of accumulating a vast amount of 
experience, and have suggested remedies for the inevitable difficulties 
which have to be encountered, now as before, both in the manufacture 
and in the paying-out of deep-sea cables. 

There are two descriptions of cables required for marine construc- 
tion: one for shallow water, where, owing to the lability of injury 
from ships’ anchors, or the abrasion against rocks or gravel, it is 
necessary for the insulated wire to be surrounded with an extra strong 
covering of wire and hemp saturated with pitch; and the other for 
deep-sea purposes, in which case, as the cable when once laid is sup- 
posed to lie perfectly quiescent at the bottom of the ocean, no more 
strength nor protection is needed than will shield the wire and its 
insulating coating from injury during the paying-out. Respecting the 
_ shallow-water cables, in which category we class the line between 
Dover and Cape Grinez, laid in 1851 ; the line from Dover to Ostend, 
laid in 1853; the one from England and Hanover, 280 miles long, 
laid in 1858; one between Folkestone and Boulogne, laid in 1859; 
and one between England and Denmark, 350 miles long, also laid in 
1859, all the above are the property of the Submarine Telegraph 
Company. In addition to these, there are: several others which may 
come into the same class, such as the lines between England and 
Holland, and the Channel Islands cable, laid between this country and 
Alderney, Guernsey, and Jersey, in August, 1858. 

Amongst the most important of the deep-sea cables is that of the 
Atlantic Telegraph Company. This company obtained an act of 
incorporation in 1854, which conferred, amongst other privileges, the 
exclusive right of landing cables on the coast of Newfoundland, or 
the adjacent islands, for a term of fifty years. The company also 
obtained a grant of 14,0007. per annum from the British Government, 
and a similar one from the American Government, so long as the line 
was in working order. 


Upon these guarantees and privileges the company was formed, and 


1864. | Farrsarrn on Submarine Telegraph Cables. 625 


the cable was manufactured, one half by Messrs. Glass and Elliott, of 
Greenwich, and the other half by Messrs. Newall and Co., of Newcastle- 
on-Tyne. As one article has already been devoted to the history of this 
ill-fated cable,* we will not further allude to it, than to say that the 
failure of this enterprise may be attributed to the want of care and 
proper supervision in the manufacture, and, to use the words of the 
commission, ‘‘ practical men ought to have known that the cable was 
defective, and to have been aware of the locality of the defects before 
it was laid.’ We might multiply instances of several other similar 
failures, such as the Red Sea and India, the Spezzia and Corsica, and 
the Bona and Cagliari cables, all of which are now useless. 

In deep-sea lines there are three points which require careful con- 
sideration, and which appear essential to success, namely—the tensile 
strength and conducting power of the cable, perfect insulation, and 
machinery calculated to pass the cable with safety from the ship into 
the sea. If this latter can be properly effected, we may venture to 
assert that a well-insulated cable, when once laid, may be retained for 
a series of years in satisfactory working order. 

In the forthcoming Atlantic telegraph, every possible precaution 
has been taken to have a sound and suitable cable in the first instance, 
and Messrs. Glass and Elliott have not only conformed to the recom- 
mendations of the scientific committee, but they have chartered the 
Great Eastern steamship for the exclusive purpose of laying the cable, 
commencing probably at Newfoundland, and continuing the process of 
paying-out, as we hope, without break or interruption, till it is safely 
landed at Valentia. As the construction of the cable is equally im- 
portant with the skill with which it is laid at the bottom of the 
Atlantic, it may be interesting to compare the present cable with those 
previously laid down, and to show with what precaution the directors 
of the company have undertaken this important and precarious task. 

In all the cables we have specified, the same general principles 
prevail, viz. :— 

1. The central conductor is a copper wire, or strand of wires. 

2. The insulating covering is gutta-percha. 

3. The external protection, when used, consists of hemp or other 
fibrous material, impregnated with pitch or some other resinous sub- 
stance, nearly in all cases covered with iron or steel, more in the form 
of an ordinary rope. 

4, The cables so prepared have been paid-out over the stern of 
ordinary vessels, with a pressure-break to regulate the delivery accord- 
ing to the speed of the vessel, which has averaged from four to six 
knots per hour. 

Tn all cases copper has been chosen for the conducting wire, its 
durability and its high conducting power rendering it peculiarly 
applicable for the purpose. In the first telegraphs, the conductor 
generally consisted of a No. 16 copper wire. Thissize gave abundant 
area, and the resistances, even when in lengths of several miles, were 


* <The Atlantic Cable and its Teachings,’ QuarreRLY JOURNAL OF SCIENCE, 
No. 1, p. 44. 


626 Original Articles. [ Oct., 


not found to interfere seriously with the working. The conducting 
power of copper wire was taken to be directly as the area ; there were, 
however, no precise data for determining a priori the size of wire 
requisite for any given length of circuit and speed of transmission. 
The wire was joined by being carefully lapped and soldered at the 
joint, and wrapped with smaller binding-wire, which was also soldered 
with silver solder. In spite of the utmost care in the construction of 
these joints, some were always imperfect, owing to their liability to 
fracture, and a break at any single joint destroyed the value of the 
whole cable. Moreover, the defects in the copper, owing to want of 
homogeneity, and the presence of foreign matter, frequently rendered 
the wire so weak that it ultimately parted after being covered, break- 
ing the circuit, or stretched out and reduced the diameter to an incon- 
venient extent. It was also found that, if the covered wire was 
excessively stretched, and then allowed to contract, the copper wire, 
being incapable of regaining its original dimensions, knuckled through 
the elastic coating. 

To remedy these defects, instead of a single copper wire bundles 
of smaller ones, of similar area, were adopted, the joints being so 
distributed that the fracture, or defect, of a single wire, does not 
destroy the whole cable. One serious objection to this form of con- 
ductor is that, if a single wire breaks, the sharp end is liable to 
penetrate through the gutta-percha, and establish a communication 
with the outer conductor. Such a defect is not easily detected, and it 
can only be guarded against by close examination of the strand itself, 
and by the constant testing of the coating during the manufacture. In 
the form of a strand the bulk of the conductor is also greater, and 
more gutta-percha will therefore be required to cover it. It will, 
moreover, not be perfectly solid, but will allow water, if it happen to 
penetrate to any part of the wire, to passalong as inatube. This latter 
objection the Gutta-percha Company propose to remove by coating the 
central wire of the strand with Chatterton’s Compound, and then 
bedding the six centre wires in it in the process of twisting. The 
compound squeezed out between the wires unites firmly with the 
insulating material, and the whole becomes so solid that a few inches 
of this cable will prevent the percolation of water at a pressure of 600 
pounds per square inch. Mr. Daft proposes to obtain the same object 
by bedding copper wires coated with brass in vulcanized india-rubber. 
Mr. Clark obtains solidity by making the conductor in the shape of a 
solid wire, divided into three or four sections longitudinally, fitting 
closely to each other. Mr. Newall unites the several wires of a strand 
with solder. 

Dr. Matthiesson, Professor Thompson, and other experimentalists, 
have shown that the quality of the copper exercises a material influence 
on the conducting power of the wire, and it is very important that 
copper, as pure as can be obtained in commerce, should be used. 

The following table, extracted from the commissioners’ report, 
shows the relative value, or conducting powers, of certain commercial 
coppers :— 


1864.) Farrparkn on Submarine Telegraph Cables. 627 


Tapun, showing the Conducting Power of certain Commercial Coppers. 


ul be 0 wit ° . . . oT . 
Conducting Tenney Cause of Diminution of Conducting 
Power. aoe Power. 
Centigrade, 


Quality of Copper. 


oO 


Pure copper . . . | 100: mean}| 15°5 
Specimen furnished 98°78 15°5 Traces of silver. No suboxide of 
by Mr. Tennant, copper. 


cut from a piece 
13 ton in weight 


American (Lake Su- 92°57 15: Traces of iron, silver (+03 per 
perior) cent.), and suboxide of copper. 
Australian (Burra 88°86 14° Traces of iron and suboxide of 
Burra) copper. 
Best selected. . . $1°35 14:2 Traces of iron, nickel, antimony, 
suboxide of copper, &e. 
Bright copper wire . 72°22 UBso"/ Traces of lead, iron, nickel, sub- 
oxide of copper, &e. 
Tough copper. . 71°03 a as) Traces of lead, iron, nickel, anti- 
mony, suboxide of copper, &e. 
Russian (Demidoff) 59°34 YAS Traces of iron, arsenic, nickel, 


suboxide of copper, &c. The 
arsenic present may be consi- 
dered the chief reason of the 
low conducting power. 

Spanish (Rio Tinto). 14°24 14:8 Two per cent. arsenic; traces of 
lead, iron, nickel, suboxide of 
copper, &e. The low conduct- 
ing power is to be attributed to 
the arsenic present. 

Gibraltar core :— 


Specimen, No. 112 90°7 15°5 ee of lead, suboxide of cop- 
SS al 89°5 1505} per, iron, and antimony. 
Traces of lead,arsenic (very small), 
2 7) . ) 
2 D ar Ln ae ; iron, nickel, antimony, and sub- 
4 ail a oxide of copper. 


From the above table, it would appear that the difference of con- 
ducting power in the different kinds of copper is caused by the impuri- 
ties contained in the specimens experimented upon. The Rio Tinto 
copper, in so far as regards its conducting power, being no better 
than iron. 

Tt has been found that there are no alloys of copper which have a 
better conducting power than the metal itself; but, as perfectly pure 
copper is not to be obtained, we have only to reiterate that copper, as 
pure as can be possibly procured, is the only metal which should be 
used for the conducting wire of a submarine cable. 


Insulation.—As copper seems to stand out prominently as the most 
fitting conductor, so does caoutchouc, or india-rubber, appear almost 
specially intended for the purpose of insulation. Its qualities, in this 
respect, are of the highest order. It is tough, highly elastic, of less 
Specific gravity than water, easily manipulated, extremely durable 
under water, nearly impervious to moisture, except superficially, and 
not excessively costly; and on its first introduction it appeared as if 
nothing further could be desired. One of the first and most important 


628 Original Articles. { Oct. 


requirements in any insulating substance is that it should offer facili- 
ties for making the numerous joints required, either in the first con- 
struction of the line or for its repair when laid down. For this 
purpose, also, india-rubber appeared well adapted : if after being cut 
the fresh surfaces are immediately brought into contact, almost perfect 
reunion takes place ; and if they are warmed and slightly moistened 
with naphtha (in which india-rubber is soluble), they are hermetically 
sealed. The covering was effected by first coating the copper wire 
with cotton and shellac varnish, and then winding a thin strip of 
masticated india-rubber spirally round the wire, each turn overlapping 
the last. Several coatings were thus put on, the union of the surfaces 
being secured by means of naphtha. An almost perfect insulation 
was the first result, the problem on which so much time and money 
had been expended seemed to be definitely solved, and the new material 
came into rapid use. A short time, however, showed the fallacy of 
these hopes. India-rubber, like all other gum-resins of a similar 
character, slowly burns or oxidizes in the air, even in darkness; but 
when exposed openly to the weather and to sunlight this oxidization 
goes on with alarming rapidity ; wires hung out of doors soon become 
useless; the india-rubber assumed a thick gummy or semi-fluid 
character, and soon fell away from the wire. The joint, even when 
made with naphtha, was found not to be durable, and after a short 
time, even in unexposed situations, the coating was found loose upon 
the wire. Attempts were made to preserve it by enclosing it in 
grooved boards, and thus protecting it from the air, but in dry situa- 
tions this was found to be of but little avail; and although in wet 
tunnels it was found to add to the durability, it was ultimately obliged 
to be abandoned there also. 

Gutta-percha was soon proposed asa remedy for these evils. When 
pure, and at moderate temperatures, it is a remarkably good insulator, 
and, moreover, is capable of being kneaded and drawn solidly on the 
wire through dies, thus avoiding the infinite number of joints required 
when india-rubber is used. From an analysis by Professor W. A. 
Miller, it appears that pure gutta-percha is a hydro-carbon, consist- 
ing of — 

Carbone fy.) poo u6 
Hydrogen . . . 11:04 


100-00 


In commerce, however, it is mixed with resin, vegetable fibre, 
moisture, &c.; the latter being mechanically diffused through the 
mass, influencing its pliability and toughness. Commercial gutta- 
percha will remain unchanged for months in the air, provided light be 
excluded, and the temperature be not very high; and it will remain 
unaltered for years in water, especially if coated with Stockholm tar, 
and kept in the dark. It is, however, rapidly destroyed by alternated 
exposure to a moist and dry atmosphere, especially if the sun’s rays have 
access to it. Professor Miller found that all the deteriorated portions 
had absorbed oxygen. 


1864. | Farreairn on Submarine Telegraph Cables. 629 


We have made numerous experiments upon the effect of tempera- 
ture and hydrostatic pressure on both gutta-percha and caoutchouc. 
They necessarily occupy a very considerable time, and are otherwise 
difficult to perform. ‘The general results appear to be that tempera- 
ture has a very marked effect upon gutta-percha, but that pressure 
appears to consolidate the material and improve the insulation, of both 
gutta-percha and india-rubber. 

The results may be briefly stated, as follows:—With the gutta- 
percha in ordinary use for submarine cables, the insulation at 72° Fahr. 
was not one half as good, and at 92° not one fourth as good, as it was 
at 52°, and at 52° it was not one third as good as at 52°. Perfectly 
pure gutta-percha was a far superior insulator, and suffered little loss of 
insulation, until it attained a temperature of between 72° and 92°. 
India-rubber and Wray’s compound, which are very far superior as in- 
sulators to the gutta-percha which has been ordinarily in use, exhibit 
very little loss of insulating power until they attain temperatures 
far above 92°. 

The experiments at a very high temperature showed that, whilst 
india-rubber withstood a heat of 200° Fahr., and Wray’s compound one 
of 152°, gutta-percha-covered wire was entirely spoiled at a tempera- 
ture a little over 122°. At 90°to 100° gutta-percha does not change 
its shape, but at a higher temperature a wire, when covered with this 
gum, easily becomes eccentric by the mere process of coiling. Gutta- 
percha-covered wire should in no case be exposed to heat the exact 
amount of which cannot be defined and regulated. The material is 
therefore not a desirable one for cables which have to be conveyed 
through, or laid in, the tropics, unless means be found for ensuring 
that the cable be maintained at a low temperature. 

When immersed in water gutta-percha, india-rubber, Wray’s 
compound, and Chatterton’s compound, absorb a portion. Professor 
Miller’s experiments, in which gutta-percha and india-rubber were 
subjected to pressure of three tons per square inch for a period of six 
weeks, show that the absorption of water by gutta-percha is almost nil 
in sea-water, and only trifling, though appreciable, in fresh-water. 
The absorption of water by caoutchouc is always sensible, the surface 
being rendered white and opaque. The absorption, however, only 
reaches to a small depth, and does not destroy, nor in any way impair, 
the insulating power of the subjacent portion. The white aspect dis- 
appears as the substance dries. The amount of absorption is dependent 
upon the extent of surface exposed to the action of the water. The insu- 
lation of specimens of gutta-percha and masticated india-rubber, experi- 
mented on by Professor Miller, was in no way impaired by immersion 
under pressure, but the results with virgin india-rubber were not 
equally satisfactory. ; 

The experiments conducted by the writer, at Manchester, on the 
permeability or absorption of water under pressure, and of different 
degrees of temperature, give variable results, as shown in the following 
pages. They were instituted to determine the value of the different 
kinds of insulators under severe pressure, and to ascertain not only the 
amount of absorption under a force equivalent to the known depths of 


630 Original Articles. [Oct., 


the Atlantic, but to prove experimentally the properties which peeu- 
liarly belong to the material now in use for the purposes of insulation 
under the varied conditions of pressure, temperature, &c. This being 
the case, and as these experiments were carried to a much greater 
extent as regards pressure, we deem it essential to give them in extenso. 

The following experiments were prosecuted at the request of the 
Commission, with a view to determine how far the different kinds of 
material proposed as insulating coverings for electric submarine cables 
were reliable when placed at the bottom of the ocean under the pressure 
of superincumbent water. It appears that all insulators which have 
been subjected to experiment absorb more or less water under pressure, 
even those that are closest in texture—such as vulcanized india-rubber 
and gutta-percha; and it seems that this absorption increases the 
longer the specimen is retained under water, the greater the pressure 
to which it is subjected, and the higher the temperature of the water 
in which it is immersed. The very limited time which has been 
available for these experiments has prevented my doing more than to 
indicate decisively these general facts, without determining the nume- 
rical relations of the quantities absorbed under different conditions of 
time, pressure, or temperature. But already the experiments point 
out a very important inquiry, some of the methods by which that in- 
quiry may be prosecuted, and some of the conditions which must be 
attended to in order to ensure reliable and corresponding results. 

Generally, in regard to insulating power, the various materials 
tried arrange themselves in the following order of permeability, the 
first absorbing least water, and the last absorbing most :— 


. Chatterton’s compound. 

. Gutta-percha. 

. Masticated india-rubber. 

. Vulcanized india-rubber. 

. Carbonized india-rubber. 

Wray’s compound. 

. Unmasticated bottle india-rubber. 


The experiments on the insulating power of various cores under 
pressure are less complete than those on absorption, and have been 
prosecuted under greater difficulties and with less variety of con- 
ditions. 

So far as the experiments go, however, Wray’s core exhibited very 
high insulating powers, retaining the charge longer than any other 
tried. Next in order to this may be placed a core of pure india-rubber 
coiled in two coats over a wire, but this very rapidly lost its insulating 
power under pressure. Then, a core of pure gutta-percha cured by 
the Mackintosh - process; and the experiments on this are perhaps the 
most satisfactory of the series. The pressure was retained upon the 
cable for 406 hours, in which period it exhibited considerable dimi- 
nution of insulation. A core of twenty alternate coats of gutta-percha 
and Chatterton’s compound also exhibited good insulation unimpaired 
after 170 hours’ immersion. The experiments on a core subjected to 
pressure in an insulating liquid before being placed in our hands gave 


1864. | Farrparrn on Submarine Telegraph Cables. 631 


anomalous results. The insulation increased, instead of diminishing, 
as the liquid dissolved out. ; 

The first experiments have for their object the determination of the 
increase of weight of various insulating materials, when subjected to 
enormous pressure under water. A series of insulators were selected, 
such as gutta-percha, india-rubber, Wray’s compound, Chatterton’s 
compound, vulcanized india-rubber, india-rubber compounded with 
carbon, and marine glue. Of these, suitable-sized pieces were pre- 
pared and placed in a strong steel cylinder, and subjected to pressure 
by means of a lever and plunger. Before their introduction into the 
cylinder, and whilst dry, they were carefully weighed in a delicate 
balance. Then, after being subjected to pressure for a shorter or 
longer period, as the case might be, they were again dried on the 
surface, and immediately weighed. The increase of weight due to the 
pressure under water is the measure of the quantity of water which 
had been absorbed, or rather forced, into the pores of the 
insulator. 

Fig. 1 represents the apparatus employed in these 
experiments. © is the large cylinder of steel in which 
the specimens were placed; p, its plunger, 2 inches 
diameter. Fig. 2 shows the general arrangement of 
the apparatus; Lu, the large lever; r, its fulcrum; 
and p, the plunger of the cylinder o, in which the 
weighed specimens were placed. The plunger is guided 
vertically by the box BB, forming part of the general 
case or stand in which the lever is placed. By means 
of weights suspended on the extremity of the lever, the 
requisite pressure could be applied to the water in the 
cylinder c. 


FIC.2 


The temperature in all these experiments was low, sometimes 
several degrees below the freezing-point. In the first experiment with 
Wray’s compound, the cylinder when opened was found to be filled 
with loose ice. 

In the following table the last column shows the gutta-percha to 
be least absorbent, and the india-rubber most so. Wray’s compound 
absorbed more than carbonized india-rubber, but less than pure india- 


632 Original Articles. [ Oct., 


Tas_e I.—First Series of Experiments on Absorption, under a Pressure of 20,000 lbs. 
per square inch, reduced to 100 hours’ exposure and 10 inches area. 


Reduced results. 


ca Ge Ca) oS o : 

3 cae et | toss So | tabs || ay S 
ot SH a a) = BH Ss mee 
ae INSULATORS. Bag seus 835 Sas nee 
5 Baie [Sa Sa | Se | Ss ool ene 
ok Boe |SSEs| gaa| fed) £26 
1 India-vubber - 2 2 = 120300082720) |) 1100) |) VON NOs 
2 India-rubber with carbon. | 20,000 | 8°720 | 100} 10 | 0-055 
3 Wray’s compound . . . | 20,000 | 8-720] 100} 10 | 0-072 
4 Gutta-percha. . . . . | 20,000 | 8-720 | 100] 10 | 0-044 


rubber. The pure india-rubber appears to combine superficially with 
water as the surface becomes white, either at parts, in the present expe- 
riment, or over the whole surface. The carbon appears to prevent the 
formation of this hydrate, and at the same time reduces the elasticity 
of the native rubber, and enables it to be worked more kindly. 

In the next series, the whole of the specimens were placed in the 
same cylinder, Fig. 1, and remained under pressure during the same 
period and under the same conditions. 


Taste Il.—Haperiments on Absorption, under a Pressure of 6,000 lbs. and at the 
Ordinary Temperature. 


Results reduced to 10 inches area. 


ve A lesa |Se.|ee8)) ae 
A ct iy 2 a ag sie ays 
s = INSULATORS, 5 a3 ¢ Es a g Bis ales ne 328 
oi Gem |aoSa| Seo | ehal sae 
Sa ESa SSE Es Se iS = & & 
| eae ae ae eee Mie cera AE aes aE eS ) = 

1 India-rubber, unmasticated | 5,900 | 2°575 450 10 | 3:075 

4 India-rubber, masticated . | 5,900 | 2°575 450 10 | 0-028 

8 _ 5 3 5,900 | 2°575 450 10 0°636,N 

9 * o . | 5,900 | 2°575 | 450] 10 | 0-700 tS 
10 5 55 ~ | 95 900))) 22575) |) 450) LO Olas 
11 India-rubber, vuleanized . | 5,900 | 2°575 | 450 10 0°146 

7 India-rubber, carbonized . | 5,900 | 2°575 450 10 0:980 

2 Gutta-percha . . .. . | 5,900 | 2°575 | 450) 10 | 0°378 iS 
13 45 5 EMR sae de iaee 5,900 | 2°575 450 10 0-178 
14 ss ay Soe er oe 9008 2507518 250M aelO Ms OnsoGuic 

5 Wray’scompound .. . | 5,900} 2°575 | 450] 10 | 0-750 \s 
13 i Bs . + . | 5,900 | 2-575 | 450] 10 | 0-700 2 

6 Chatterton’s compound . | 5,900 | 2°575 | 450 | 10 | 0°375 = 
12 i us 5,900 | 2°575 | 450 10 | 0°183 = 

| 


99 


1864. | Farrparrn on Submarine Telegraph Cables. 633 


These tables show that, of all the substances tried, native unmas- 
ticated india-rubber absorbs by far the most water. 'The whole surface 
of the specimen had lost its black colour, and become whitened during 
the experiment. Taking the mean of three experiments very closely 
agreeing, we find that native india-rubber, after manufacture, absorbs 
less water than in its native state, in the proportion 0°682 to 3:07, 
or 1:43. Vulcanized india-rubber appears to be the least absorbent 
substance tried, but when combined with carbon, it absorbs nearly one- 
third more water (according to the results in this table) than in its 
pure masticated state. Gutta-percha and Chatterton’s compound are 
nearly alike in their resistance to absorption, the latter beg superior. 
In these experiments they increased in weight only one-half as much 
as pure india-rubber (masticated), and twice as much as vulcanized 
india-rubber. Wray’s compound absorbed rather more than masticated 
india-rubber. Marine glue lost instead of increasing its weight. 

Comparing these experiments with the last, we find that these 
materials are far from following a law of simple proportion in the 
amount of water absorbed in different times. The present experiments 
were made under a pressure of 5,900 Ibs. per square inch, and lasted 
for a period of 450 hours. The last were made under a pressure of 
20,000 Ibs., and lasted less than 100 hours. In the present experi- 
ments, carbonized india-rubber absorbed seventeen times as much as in 
the former; Wray’s compound, ten times; gutta-percha, seven times ; 
and masticated india-rubber, only four times. Hence it appears that, 
other things being equal, masticated india-rubber would be most 
advantageous, and carbonized: india-rubber least so, as insulators ; 
because, so far as these experiments afford data for generalizing, 
masticated india-rubber follows a rate of absorption diminishing most 
with time, and carbonized india-rubber least so. This deduction, how- 
ever, is complicated by the fact of a difference of pressure, and possibly 
of temperature, in the two experiments. 

The order of merit in resisting absorption, as derived from this 
series of experiments, is— 


1. Vulcanized india-rubber. 

2. Chatterton’s compound. 

3. Gutta-percha. 

4, Masticated india-rubber. 

5. Wray’s compound. 

6. Carbonized india-rubber. 

7. India-rubber not masticated. 


The next series of experiments was made under greater pressure, 
- but in the same manner and for the same period of immersion. 


634 Original Articles. | Oct., 


Taste W1—Third Series of Experiments on Absorption, at Ordinary Temperatures. 


Reduction of results to 10 inches area. 


23 A . |ee8 |ee, z B | 
BS : ged |S e Ses |ooo less 
eS E INSULATORS, Bae |Se Sail 28 isk: 5S 
6 Raw india-rubber . . . 15,000 6.54 450 10 1:65 
7 Masticated india-rubber . | 15,000 | 6°54 | 450]! 10 | 0-22). 
8 5) « 1 15,000} 6°54), 4505 eto 0-293 
9 De 9 . | 155000) |) 6-54 | 450) | TO) Os3s0 
10 Carbonized india-rubber. | 15,000 | 6°54 | 450} 10 | 0°29 
5) Gutta-perchay . . . . | 15,000 |) G:d4 | 450 | 10 | 0-18 
1 Wray’s compound. . . | 15,000 | 6:54 | 450); 10 eae 
2 ; o 8) 6 15,000 6°54 450 10 0-58) S5 
3 Chatterton’s compound . | 15,000 | 6°54} 450] 10 0-054 [1S 
4 ” » . | 15,000] 6:54 | 450} 10 | 0-058/= 


The temperature during these experiments was generally lower 
than in the second series, being frequently at the freezing-point. There 
was loose ice in the cylinder when opened. 

The higher pressures in these experiments seem to bring out more 
decisively the differences in the amount of absorption ; but it is remark- 
able that, whilst the relative absorption does not widely differ, and the 
order of the insulators in their resistance to absorption 1s the same, 
the absolute quantity absorbed under greater pressure is less than in 
the previous series of experiments. The only discrepancy between 
the two series of experiments is the relatively low absorption of 
masticated india-rubber. 

The order of merit, or power of resisting absorption, is in these 
experiments— 


1. Chatterton’s compound. 
2. Gutta-percha. 

3. Masticated india-rubber. 
4. Carbonized india-rubber. 
5, Wray’s compound. 

6. Raw india-rubber. 


The last in this series absorbed twenty-seven times as much as the 
first; gutta-percha and Chatterton’s compound hold, as before, the 
highest place, but the superiority of the latter was more manifest ; it 
had become whitened at the surface, but apparently the water had 
penetrated the thinnest possible film. 

The next experiments were made with a view to determine 
the effect of temperature on the absorption of water by these in- 


1864. | Farrearrn on Submarine Telegraph Cables. 635 


sulators. Recourse was had to 

the small cylinder, ¢, Fig.3,which FIG .3 
was surrounded by the water- 
bath, b,b, maintained at a uniform 
temperature of 100° Fahr. by the 
gas-jet g. t,t, is the thermometer. 
The lever by which the pressure 
was applied to the plunger is 
shown at 1, L, attached to the 
firm cast-iron base, A, A. 

The different substances were 
tried separately, as in the first 
series, and the weighings were 
repeated at intervals. During 
the night it was necessary to 
remove the gas jet, as the uni- 
formity of temperature could not 
be depended upon; hence, for 
half the period of immersion the 
specimens were at a temperature 
of 50° only, and for the remain- 
der at a temperature of 100°. The 
loss of weight, after removal 
from the cylinder, in conse- 
quence of the evaporation of the 
water absorbed, was, in these 
experiments, noted, and it was 
found the specimens decreased 
in weight below their original 
weight when dry. 

In the whole of these experi- 
ments, the pressure was 20,000 
lbs. per square inch; area of 
specimens, 8 square inches; and 
thickness, about one-eighth of an 
inch. 


Tasie 1V.—Fourth Series of Experiments on Absorption, at Increased Temperatures. 


Results reduced to 100 hours and 10 inches area. 


3 Bie s| 

vies _ yael ol) deter! oa ts! = 

ag Sid gear] ac ae ee 

38 INSULATORS, 5 oe sme \3 ez Eg | ae 
3 | Gutta-percha . . . . | 20,000] 100] 75° | 10 | 0-27 | 3-61 
+ India-rubber .. . - | 20,000 100 | 75 10 | 0:45 | 0:87 
5 Wray’s compound , . . | 20,000} 100| 75 10 | 0°58 | 0°91 
6 Chatterton’s compound . | 20,000 | 100 | 75 10 | 0-20 | 0°60 
i Vulcanized rubber . . | 20,000] 100] 75 | 10 | 0°80 | 2:27 

| 


656 Original Articles. [ Oct., 


Comparing the numbers in this table with those in the first series, 
which were made under precisely similar conditions in all respects, 
except temperature, which then did not exceed an average of 40° or 
45° Fahr., it becomes evident that temperature has a considerable effect 
on the amount of water absorbed. Thus, gutta-percha at 45° absorbed 
0:044 grains; at 75°, 0°27 grains, or six times as much. In lke 
manner, india-rubber absorbed 0°17 erains at a lower temperature, 
and 0°45 at the higher, or two-and-a-half times as much. Wray’s 
compound, 0-072 at the lower temperature, and 0°58 at the higher, or 
seven times as much. 

Reasoning upon the foregoing experiments, a question arises as to 
the ratio or quantity of water absorbed in different times, and the con- 
dition of the specimens after a much more lengthened immersion. The 
present experiments, although showing the relative permeability of 
different insulators, do not afford data to determine the ultimate con- 
dition of the material intended to surround and insulate the conducting 
wires of the electric cable. To ascertain these facts, a much more 
enlarged series of experiments is required, extending over a much 
greater length of time. If, for example, gutta-percha absorbs -015 
grains of water in 100 hours, under a pressure of 20,000 lbs. on the 
square inch, we want to determine the corresponding quantity absorbed 
in 1,000 hours; and further, at what period will the continuous ab- 
sorption cease? These are questions of vital importance as regards 
the porosity of the specimens; and, when ascertained, we should still 
require to know to what extent the insulation of the electric current 
would be impaired in the cable saturated with moisture. 

Should our best insulators, such as Chatterton’s compound or 
gutta-percha, as given in the experiments, arrive at a point at which 
they will absorb no more water under a given pressure, it then becomes 
necessary that we should ascertain whether the water imbibed is suf- 
ficient to carry off the whole or a part of the voltaic current, and 
whether the passage of the current through the imsulator would acce- 
lerate, in turn, the oxidation and consequent destruction of the con- 
ductor. To solve these questions, we require, in my opinion, a long 
series of carefully-conducted experiments, which would tend to give a 
reliability to these important undertakings which at present they have 
not attained. 

The earlier experiments on the insulating power of various cores 
when placed under pressure were made with voltaic electricity ; but, 
owing to the shortness of the specimens, it was found impossible to 
destroy their insulation by the absorption of water so as to permit a 
current from a small battery to pass through the covering. 

Failing in this, recourse was had to frictional electricity, which, 
from its high intensity, passed with greater or less facility through 
the insulating coverings of the wire. Still the difficulty of deciding 
upon the period at which, after remaining under pressure, the imsu- 
lation began to grow less perfect, remained to a large extent unremoved. 
This difficulty was very much increased by the necessarily short period 
in which the experiments had to be completed. It was impossible in 
many cases to leave the cores long enough under pressure to ascertain 


1864. | Farrparrn on Submarine Telegraph Cables. 637 


clearly the entrance of water; and only in one or two instances was 
any defect in the cable detected, beyond question, by the gradual loss 
of insulating power in the specimen under trial. To inadequacy of 
time were added manipulative difficulties; such as the making of a 
packed joint which should hold tight against so enormous a pressure 
as 10,000 Ibs. per square inch, and also the variable hygrometric con- 
dition of the atmosphere. 

The earlier and preliminary experiments were made with a simple 
double pith ball electrometer suspended from one of the exposed ends 
of the cable. This method, however, did not allow of sufficient accu- 
racy in the measurement and regulation of the charge and the rate of 
loss, to afford satisfactory results. 

The following method was then adopted, The core was placed in 
a steel cylinder, £, & (Figs. 4 and 5), with the ends projecting. This 


Ml 
Hh 


7 


c 


= 
My 
il 


eal 


qi! 
( - 
| 
| 
al 
i 
| 
| 


| 

Tig) 
= = 
i] 


cylinder was bored out to seven-eighths of an inch diameter, and at 
either end a pair of strong brass glands, «, «, were fitted, so as to com- 
press round the core the vulcanized india-rubber packing, p, Pp, by the 

| aid of the bolts and nuts, 3,8. The compression thus applied indented 
_ the core to a greater or less degree (Fig. 6) at each of the points where 


FIG.6. 


VOL. I- BUS 


638 Original Articles. [Oct., 


the india-rubber packings were applied; and this indentation was 
greater or less according to the pliability of the insulator. Com- 
municating with the large cylinder, &, £, is a small cylinder, ¢, ¢, fitted 
with a solid plunger. The pressure was applied, through the medium 
of the plunger, by a lever, 1, u (Fig. 3), after the cylinders had been 
filled with water. Up to about 10,000 lbs, pressure per square inch, 
or a pressure equivalent to the weight of a column of water 4°36 miles 
high, the cylinder would stand without leakage; but beyond this 
pressure the water forced its way amongst the packings, and, either 
with or without external leakage, prevented the attainment of any 
higher pressure from the fall of the plunger on its bearings. 

One end of the core was hermetically sealed in all but the earliest 
experiments. The other end was covered with a rounded brass cap, 
and surrounded by a closed box, p, p (Fig. 7), containing dishes, d, of 


concentrated sulphuric acid, an electrometer, e, and a hygrometer, h. 
By means of the acid the atmosphere round the cable was kept in a 
tolerably uniform condition of dryness in a room otherwise damp, and 
the apparatus and surface of the cable maintained under similar con- 
ditions throughout the whole of the experiment. 

The electrometer employed is known as the Peltier’s electrometer. 
Tn this instrument the electricity being simultaneously communicated 
to a fixed bar and a metallic index, the latter is repelled. A directive 
force is given to the index by means of a small magnetic needle, in 
order to retain it at zero when no electric force acts upon it. 

The charge was given from an electrophorus, and was ordinarily of 
such intensity as to deflect the needle through an are of 70°. The fall 
of the needle, from loss of charge, was then watched at intervals as 
nearly uniform as was convenient, until the needle had sunk to 20°. 

Although interesting, it would be unnecessary to give the experi- 


cs | 


1864. } Farmparrn on Submarine Telegraph Cables. 639. 


ments on insulation in detail, and therefore, as in the former experiments 
on permeability, a summary of results will suffice. 


Summary or Resvuits, showing approximately the Time required in each for a Loss 
of Charge equivalent to a Fall of the Electrometer Needle of 50°. 


ye a, |#8a |3es] ,88 
RS Y aie a8 ea = Bie ens 
% 8 Description oF Core, Sag |S8su/3o65 ait 
ae Bf, | eS [oS ete a5 
Se Bae |SOPd| sas} fea 
i 10,000 | 4:363 | 282 136..20- 
’ 3 . E s > J * 908 “Ok . . 
3 acts ee ae | 10,000 | 4-363 | 328 | 100. 0 
4,5 Se 10,000 | 4°363 | 405 32.30 
Il. aa 
1°23 0 0 0 6.20 
4 | 10,000 | 4-363 | 24 11.40 
5, 6 4 ae, 10,000 | 4-363 | 48 27 35 
7 Gore aires pelea patil dite 10,000; (4°36) |-0 56 13. 0 
8,9 clearer ie Ne 13,000 | 4:363 | 77 62. 0 
10 10,000 | 4-363 | 120 97. 0 
11, 12, 13 10,000 | 4363 | 170 105. 0 
Til. en 
1,2 Wray’sicore . s . s 0 0 0 | 1,300. 0 
IV. yt 
2 \WOENTE COD. 5s oro. c 0 0 0 411. 0 
Vv. a . . i “l 
2 \ Core impreenated with in- ¢ | 10,000 | 4°363 4 68.30 
3, 4 sulating liquid { 10,000 | 4-363 | 104 44.15 
a 0 0 0 95°30. 
3) 
2, 3 Core of 20 alternate coats | | 19 009 | 4-363 | 121 42.45 
: of gutta-percha and lope RS 
5 SRS ESE cieseaaoeadl 10,000 | 4:363 | 150 118. 0 
6 comp 10.000 | 4°363 | 170 100.50 
Vil. Het 
1 Me 0 0 0 443. 0 
2 \ Core of pure india-rubber { 10,000 | 4-363 | 80 18. 0 
VU ‘ “ 
ne 0 0 0 4.30 
3 10,000 | 4-363 | 264 8:00 
4, 5,6 | cater core 10,000 | 4-363 | 480 me 
7,8 10,000 | 4:363 | 576 3.37 
ag 0 0 0 26. 0. 
2 \ India-rubber core { 3,977 | 1:72 | 390 0. 0 
x. 1 ut 
1 0 0 0 380. 0 
2 | Silver’s india-rubber core 0 0 0 387. 0 
3 0 0 0 382. 0 


640 Original Articles. | Oct., 


On a careful inspection of the above summary, it will be seen that 
a great difference exists in the retentive powers of the different imsu- 
lators under severe pressure: these anomalies almost defy attempts at 
comparison. If we take No. 1, the Gibraltar core, cured by Mackintosh, 
we have, after an immersion of 282 hours, at the enormous pressure of 
10,000 Ibs. per square inch, a power of retention of 136 minutes; at 
325 hours’ immersion, it is reduced to 100 minutes; and at 405 hours’, 
it is still further reduced to 32 minutes, showing that the insulation 
is very considerably affected when a sufficiently long period of time is 
allowed for the permeation of the cable. In the next series of experi- 
ments, on a core impregnated with an insulating liquid, we have 
totally different results, as there is a steady and progressive gain in 
the insulating powers of the core. At 24 hours of immersion, we have 
11 minutes 40 seconds; at 48 hours, 27 minutes 25 seconds; and so 
on till, at 170 hours, the charge is retained for a period of 105 minutes. 
Wray’s core was too small to be fixed in the cylinder ; but it retained 
a charge under atmospheric pressure for 1,300 minutes, and hence 
manifested a superiority to all the other cables tried. In another trial 
with a larger cable, this insulator also gave very satisfactory results. 
In No.5 core, of twenty alternate coats of gutta-percha and Chatterton’s 
compound, there are the variable results of an increase in the first five 
experiments from 43 minutes in 121 hours to 118 minutes in 150 
hours; whilst in the sixth experiment, the retention after 170 hours’ 
immersion again falls to 100 minutes. These discrepancies are diffi- 
cult to account for, and a more lengthened series of experiments is 
required for the attainment of accurate results. No. 6, a core of pure 
india-rubber, indicated very good insulation before the pressure was 
apphed; but after 80 hours’ immersion the insulation was almost 
entirely destroyed. 

The very important question of insulation in deeply-submerged 
cables is far from*having received, as yet, a complete solution. The 
foregoing experiments are satisfactory, in so far as they show approxi- 
mately the relative porosity of various materials; but they do not 
point out how we are to obtain an insulator impermeable to water, and 
at the same time a good non-conductor. This desideratum has yet to 
be attained. 

We might have extended our illustrations on the permeability, effects 
of temperature, and other conditions connected with the insulators now 
in use; but having already enlarged the article considerably beyond 
the usual limits, we must conclude with observing, that in the second 
attempt to ensure success, as regards both the manufacture and laying 
of the cable, a second serics of elaborate experiments had been insti- 
tuted, under the direction of a scientific committee appointed for that 
purpose. The results of the experiments are satisfactory and interest- 
ing, but we must reserve them for a future notice, at a time when the 
manufacture is further advanced, and when we may confidently hope 
that the efforts now making on the part of the directors of the Atlantic 
cable will be crowned with success. 

In the meantime, let us present our readers with drawings and 
particulars of the two cables, showing that which failed in 1858, and 


1864. FainBarrn on Submarine Telegraph Cables. 641 


that which is intended for submersion in 1865. From these will be 
seen the difference of weight and strength, and judging from the pre- 
cautions that are now taken to have the cable retained in water-tanks, 
and carefully tested before immersion, we may reasonably infer that, 
on or before this time next year, a successful and satisfactory tele- 
graphic communication will be permanently established between this 
country and the American continent. 


Fic. 8.—Cuble of 1858. 


Conductor—A copper strand, consisting of 7 wires (6 laid round 1), and 
weighing 107 lbs. per nautical mile. 

Insulator.—Gutta-percha, laid on in three coverings, and weighing 261 Ibs. 
per knot. 

External Protection—18 strands of charcoal iron wire, each strand composed 
of 7 wires (6 laid round 1), laid spirally round the core, which latter was pre- 
viously padded with a serving of hemp saturated with a tar mixture. The separate 
wires were each 22} gauge; the strand complete was No. 14 gauge. 

Weight in Air.—20 ewt. per nautical mile. 

Weight in Water—13°4 ewt. per nautical mile, or equal to 4:85 times its 
weight in water per knot; that is to say, it would bear its own weight in a little 
less than 5 miles depth of water. 

Breaking Strain —3 tons 5 ewt. 

aceuett Water to be Encountered.—2,400 fathoms, or less than 24 nautical miles 
in depth. 

The Contract Strain was equal to 4°85 times its weight per nautical mile in 
water. 

One Knot, being in fathoms = 1,014 x 4 = +9120 = 2-05 times the strength 
requisite for the deepest water. 


Fic. 9.—Cable of 1864-5. 


Conductor —Copper strand, consisting of 7 wires (6 laid round 1), and weigh- 
ing 300 Ibs. per nautical mile, embedded for solidity in Chatterton’s Compound. 
Gauge of single wire, -048 = ordinary 18 gauge. Gauge of strand, :144 = ordinary 
No. 10 gauge. 

Insulation —Guitta-percha, four layers of which are laid on alternately with 
four thin layers of Chatterton’s Compound. The weight of the entire insulation, 
400 Ibs. per nautical mile. Diameter of core, -464; circumference of core, 1-392. 

Bxternal Protection.—10 solid wires of the gauge -095 (No. 13 gauge) drawn 


642 Original Articles. [Oct., 


from Webster and Horsfall’s homogeneous iron, each wire surrounded separately 
with 5 strands of Manilla yarn, saturated with a preservative compound, and the 
whole laid spirally around the core, which latter is padded with ordinary hemp, 
saturated with preservative mixture. 

Weight in Air.—85 ewt. 3 qrs. per nautical mile. , ! 

Weight in Water.—14 ewt. per nautical mile, or equal to 11 times its weight 
in water per knot; that is to say, it will bear its own weight in 11 miles depth of 
water. 

Breaking Strain.—7 tons 15 ewt. ; 

Deepest Water to be Encountered.—2,400 fathoms, or less than 2} nautical miles 
im depth. 

The Contract Strain is equal to 11 times its weight per nautical mile in 
water, 

One Knot, being in fathoms = 1,014 x 11 = 1335* 4-64 times the strength 
requisite for the deepest water. 


ON THE PROPORTIONAL NUMBERS OF THE 
ELEMENTS. 


By Wriuuram Opuine, M.B., F.R.S. 


Upon arranging the atomic weights or proportional numbers of the 
sixty or so recognized elements in the order of their several magni- 
tudes, we observe a marked continuity in the resulting arithmetical 
series, the only exceptions to the very gradual increase in value of 
the consecutive terms being manifested between the numbers 40 and 
50, 65 and 75, 96 and 104, 138 and 184, 184 and 195, and 210 and 
231°5, thus :— 


H 1 Hydrogen. Fe 56 Iron. Cd 112 Cadmium. 
L 7 Lithium. Co 59 Cobalt. Sn 118 Tin. 

G 9 Glucinun. Ni 59 Nickel. U 120 Uranium. 
By Li Boron: Cu 63°5 Copper. Sb 122 Antimony. 
C 12 Carbon. Yt 64 Yttrium. I 127 Iodine. 

N 14 Nitrogen. Zn 65 Zine. Te 129 Tellurium. 
O 16 Oxygen. As 75 Arsenic. Cs 133 Cesium. 
F 19 Fluorine. Se 79-5 Selenium. Ba 137 Barium. 
Na 23 Sodium. Br 80 Bromine. V 137 ~~ ~=Vanadium, 
Mg 24 Magnesium. tb 85 =©Rubidium. Ta 138 Tantalum. 
Al 27:5 Aluminium, | Sr 87:5 Strontium. W 184 ‘Tungsten. 
Si 28 Silicon. Zr 89-5 Zirconium, Cb 195 Niobium. 
P 31 Phosphorus. | Ce 92 Cerium. Au 196-5 Gold. 

S 32 Sulphur. La 92 Lanthanum. Pt 197 Platinum. 
Cl 35:5 Chlorine. Dy 96 Dydymium. Tr 197 Tridium. 
K 39 Potassium. Mo 96 Molybdenum. | Os 199 Osmium. 
Ca 40 Calcium, Ro 104 Rhodium. Hg 200 Mercury. 
Ti 50 Titanium. Ru 104 Ruthenium. Tl 203 ‘Thallium, 
Cr 52:5 Chromium, Pd 106°5 Palladium. Pb 207 Lead. 

Mn 55 Manganese, | Ag 108 Silver. Bi 210 Bismuth. 


Th 231°5 Thorinum, 


1864.] Opute on the Proportional Numbers of the Elements. 643 


With what case this purely arithmetical seriation may be made to 
accord with a horizontal arrangement of the elements according to 
their usually received groupings, is shown in the following table, in 
the first three columns of which the numerical sequence is perfect, 
while in the other two the irregularities are but very few and 
trivial :— ; 


Ro 104 Pt 197 
Ru 104 Ir 197 
Pt 106+5 Os 199 
aes ad : Ag 108 Au 196°5 
‘ , Zn 65 Cd 112 Hg 200....... 
i Boe eT B : T1 203 
Gy 9 re . 4 Pb. 20Tiote. cs 
Beer |) %Al 27°5 : U 120 S 
Cc 12] Si 28 : Sar diene: ate. Seal se 5 
Nes | Pp St As 75 Sb 122 Bi 210 
Ow ie | 's¥ 32 Se 79-5 | Te 129...).... Mi 
ieee F 19 | Cl 35:5 | Br 80 Ey g7 z 
lr. Na 23 | K_ 39 Rb 85 Cs 133 i 
Mg 24 Ca 40 Sr 87°5 13, BIS coe sy ote eeealan seat 
Ti 50 Zr 89-5 | Ta 138 Th 231-5! 
D Ce 92 5 
Cr 52:5 | Mo 96 Va ISiic eee 
Mn 55 M 184 
Fe 56 
Co 59 
Ni 59 
Cu 63°5 


If we compare together certain pairs of more or less analogous 
elements, we find in a considerable number of instances, embracing 
one-half the entire number of elements, a difference in atomic 
weight ranging from 845 to 97, as shown in the following table :— 


644 Original Articles. : [Oct., 


I - Cl yy IE a BU) ee OMI) 
Au — Ag 296°5 — 108 = SIBOR 
Ag — Na 108 — 23 = ib 
Cs - K 133 — 389 = 94 
Te -—- § 129 — 82 = 97 
W — Mo 18st — 96 = 8&8 
V — Cr 137 — 52°5 = 84:5 
Hg — Cd 200 112 = 88 
Cd =) Me 112 =) oe =e 
Ba — Ca 137 — 40 = 97 
Bi — Sb 210 — 122 =. 88 
Sb  -—- P 122 ol = 91 
U —- Al 120 27°53 = 92-5 
Pb — Sn 207 — 118°5 = 88:5 
Sn — Si 118°5 — 28 = 90%5 
Ta - Ti 1388 — 50 = 88 
Pt — Ro 197 — 104 = 93 
Os — Pd 199 — 106°5 = 925 


In about one-half- of the above instances, the two elements 
associated with one another, are known to be the first and third terms 
respectively of certain triplet families; and the discovery of inter- 
mediate elements in the case of some or all of the other pairs, is not 
by any means improbable. Consequent upon the existence of these 
triplet groups, we have a considerable number of pairs of elements, 
also including more than one-half the entire number of elements, 
in which the average difference of atomic weight is about half as 
great as the average difference between the previously cited pairs, 
thus :— 


I - Br or 127 — 80 — ei or 48 
Br —- Cl 80 — 385°5 = 44-5 44 
Cs — Rb 133 — 85 = 48 48 
Rb - K oe) ce BY) =) 946 48? 
Te - Se 129 — 80 = ol 48 
Se - § 80 — 32 — es 48 
Wopocan" Vv 184 — 137 = 48 48 
Vv —- Mo 13 = 96 =. 4 40 
Mo —- Cr 965 = 75255 = 48:5 44 
Cd — Zn 2 — 65 = Ai 48 
Zn — Mg 65 — 24 = alll 40 
Ba — & 137 — 87:5 = 49°5 48 
Sr — Ca 87°5 — 40 a OS 48 
Sb —- As 122 — 75 = 47 48 
AS i (HS Bil = 44 44 
Ta = Zr 138 — 89:5 = 48°56 48 
Ti 89°5 — 50 = ods) 40 


At present there seems no reason to anticipate the existence of an 
intermediate term between any one of these pairs of elements. 

In ten instances we find that more or less analogous elements 
have a difference in atomic weight of 16, or something approximating 


1864.] Opting on the Proportional Numbers of the Elements. 645 


closely thereto; and in seven of these instances, the element of 
lowest atomic weight is the first member, and the element compared 
therewith the second member of the group to which they both 
belong, or may be considered to belong, as shown in the following 
table, which includes nearly one-third of the entire number of 
elements : 


Cl - #F or | 38o%5 — 19 = 16s0 
K — Na 39° — 23 LG 
Na - L 235 = i iG 
Mo — Se 96 — 80 = il 
Ss — ©) 32 — 16 = i¢ 
Ca —- Mg 40 — 24 = IG 
Mg - G 24 - 9 = 15 
12 —- N he oc ale = ly 
Als — B 275 — Iii == Kae 
si - C 23° v= 12 = US 


In looking over the above tables, we can scarcely help noticing 
that those elements whose resemblance to one another is most 
pronounced, have a difference of about 48 between their respective 
atomic weights, that is to say, the largest difference in atomic weight 
known to exist between what are conceived to be proximate elements, 
as shown in the following table, which also includes nearly one-third 
of the entire number of elements. For example, the resemblance of 
cadmium to zinc, where the difference in atomic weight is 47, is 
greater than the resemblance of zinc to magnesium, where the 
difference is 41; while the resemblance of antimony to arsenic, 
where the difference is again 47, is greater than the resemblance of 
arsenic to phosphorus, where the difference is 44. Moreover, the 
co-resemblances of cesium, rubidium, and potassium, and of barium, 
strontium, and calcium, with a common difference of about 48 between 
the proximate members, are far closer than the co-resemblances of 
potassium and sodium, and of calcium and magnesium respectively, 
with a difference of 16 in each instance :— 


by mn 65 + 47 Ca 112 - 
%; As 750 «47 Sb 122 i 
. Brassed ee eT Te 127 cs 
S 82 + 48 Sey 7s0) | 49 Te 129 <i 
K 39 + 46 Rb 8 + 48 Cs 133 é 
Ca 40 + 47°5 | Sr 87°5 + 49°5 | Ba 137 
is Jr 395 -+- 48-5 | Ta 138 a 


. . V 137 + 48 W 184 


646 Original Articles. [Oct., 


If we consider the analogous elements having a difference of 
about 48 in their respective atomic weights, to stand upon the same 
level, we may represent those with a difference of 44 or 40 as stand- 
ing one or two stages above or below the level, as shown in the next 
table :— 


FA Br 80 ik 17 
Dif. 4 
F 19 Cl 35°5 Ms a 
a ee ee ea ac a ed lis 
S [ 
5 % ; Ag 108 Au 196°5 
= Dif, 12 
L "yf Na 23 os - T1203 
Dif.16 
Ko S98) Rbes5) a) (Cs) 133 rs 
O 16 S 32 Se 80 Te 129 PA 
Dif. 8 
” Ps Vi A137 W 184 
Dif. 8 
3 Mo 96 5 
: Dif. 4 
re Cr 52°5 ” 39 39 
os} 
by ee __ —— 
A aa 
is Zn 65 Cd 112 Hg 200 
Dif. 8 
G 9 Mg 94 0 ” Pb 207 
Dif. 16 
Ca 40 | Sr 87-5) Ba 137 5 
Bs As 75 Sb 122 Bi -—so210 
Dif. 4 
N 14 12 Bil ” ” ° 
Tole | es ae Se 
& 
fe B “ U 120 
A Dif. 4 
1B) al! Al 27°5 ” ”» 
Dif. 16 
A Ce 92 > 
” ” Sn 118 ” 
A Dif. 8 
3 © 12 Si 28 5 > sf 
S Dif. 12 
"> 4 Zr 89:5} Ta 138 - a 
A Dif. 8 
Ti 50 op ” Cb 195* Th, 231°5 


By a slight modification of the above table, the occupants 
of similar positions in different groups, having nearly the same 


* The analysis of niobic chloride by H. Rose gives 195, while the deter- 
mination of its vapour density by Deville and Troost gives 173 for the atomic 
weight of niobium, the mean being 184. 


1864.] Optine on the Proportional Numbers of the Elements. 


647 


atomic weights, may be brought into association with one another, 


thus :— 


4h 
Cr 


x Ag 
Zn 65 Cd 
23 » 
24 ” ” 
ai Sn 
Zio U 
As 175 Sb 
28 35 Pr 
31 99 ” 
3 Se 79°5 Te 
Br 80 I 
35:5 5 FA 
39 Rb 85 Cs 
9 AY 
40 Sr 87:5 Ba 
Zr 89°5 Ta 
Ce 92 Pe 
Mo 96 * 
50 ” 9 
52°53 7 


108 | Au 196-5 

112 | He 200 
Tl 203 
Pb 207 

118 : 

120 ‘3 

122 | Bi 210 

129 s 

127 - 

133 . 

137 3 

13 e 

138 : 
Th 231°5 


» 


The parallelism between the monatomic and diatomic alkaline 
groups, 18 shown still more strikingly below :— 


Dif, 1. 


23 
24 


39 
40 


Dif. 2. 
DE 63 
Zn 65 
Rb 85 
Sr Sub 


Dif, 4. Dif. 4. 

g 108 Au 196°5 
Cd 112 | Hg 200 
» Tl 203 
» Pb 207 
Cs 133 rs 
Ba 137 


Seeing the large number of instances in which the atomic weights 
of proximate elements differ from one another by 48, or 44, or 40, or 
16, we cannot help looking wistfully at the number 4, as embodying 
somehow or other the unit of a common difference, especially when 
we find in addition that several pairs of strictly analogous elements 
differ in atomic weight by this same number, as shown below :— 


fl Te Ae] 


ed 


52°5 = Be 
dd = 4 
59 = 495 
92 = 4 


648 Original Articles. [Oct., 


But on the other hand it must be borne in mind that the 
differences between the several atomic weights compared with one 
another, are for the most part not exactly but only approximately 
multiples of 4; whilst in a few instances, at any rate, the approx- 
imate difference in atomic weight between closely allied elements, 
is not 4 or some multiple of 4, but 2 or some odd multiple of 2, and 
in other instances even 1 or 0. 

Since many of the elements occupying analogous positions in 
different groups haye closely approximating atomic weights, it is 
evident that the mere determination of the atomic weight of a newly- 
discovered element assists us but very little in deciding to what group 
it belongs, but only indicates its position in the group; since among 
the members of every well-defined group the sequence of properties 
and sequence of atomic weights are strictly parallel to one another. 

Doubtless some of the arithmetical relations exemplified in the 
foregoing tables and remarks are simply accidental; but taken alto- 
gether, they are too numerous and decided not to depend upon some 
hitherto unrecognized general law. 


ON THE BUTTERFLIES OF MADAGASCAR. 
By Ronanp Triwen (Cape Town), Memb. Ent. Soc. Lond. 


In the belief that a brief consideration of the Rhopalocera inhabiting 
Madagascar may in some degree aid in the investigation of the relations 
of the general fauna of the island to that of Africa, which has been so 
ably commenced by Dr. Sclater,* I have drawn up the following notes. 
I must at the outset express my regret that the materials at my disposal 
have been too scanty to admit of the preparation of a paper affording 
a complete view of the subject under discussion; but it is hoped that 
these few remarks may prove of service to those who have access to 
ample means of pursuing the inquiry. I would observe, however, that 
the data and observations here given are, for the greater part, the 
results of some years’ study of the butterflies of Southern Africa. My 
obligations to Dr. Boisduval’s admirable work, the ‘ Faune Entomolo- 
gique de Madagascar, Bourbon et Maurice, + are too manifest to 
require comment. 

The total number of butterflies known to me as inhabiting Mada- 
gascar (exclusive of the Mascarene Islands) is 73. These 73 species 
are comprised in 34 genera, and belong to the following 11 families, 
viz. :$—Papilionide, Pieride, Danaide, Acreide, Nymphalide, Saty- 
ride, Hurytelide, Libytheide, Erycinide, Lyceenide, and Hesperide. 


* «The Mammals of Madagascar,” in ‘Quarterly Journal of Science,’ No. 2, 
April, 1864. 

+ Paris, 1833. 

{ I follow the arrangement of Messrs. Doubleday and Westwood’s ‘ Genera of 
Diurnal Lepidoptera.’ 


1864. | Trimen on the Butterflies of Madagascar. 649 


All these families are represented in Africa. The four families which, 
it appears, are not represented in Madagascar are also wanting on the 
African continent, and are these, viz.:—The Ageronide, Heliconide, and 
Brassolide, which are confined to the New World ; and the Morphide, 
which, though chiefly American, are represented in Asia by several 
species. 

It will, perhaps, more clearly exhibit the close connection between 
the continental and insular Rhopalocera if, at the risk of wearying the 
reader with details, the genera and species of each Madagascarian 
family are briefly considered in regular order. 

The Parritonma, a family which, though poor in generic forms, is 
numerous in species and of world-wide distribution, are represented by 
six species of the genus Papilio, if we include the doubtfully distinct 
P. Epiphorbas, which Boisduval himself considers “ pourroit bien 
n’étre qu'une modification locale” of the Mauritian P. Phorbanta, Linn.,* 
and if P. Nireus, Linn., be truly a native. The last-named species, 
P. Merope, Cram., and P. Demoleus, Linn., range over the greater part 
of Africa, extending to Sierra Leone ; Lalandei, Godt., inhabits South 
Africa; and the splendid Antenor, Drury, taken by Mr. HE. L. Layard, 
on the north-west coast of Madagascar, is recorded by both Boisduvalt 
and Westwood} as a native of tropical Africa, a specimen in the 
Hopeian Collection having been received from Timbuctoo. 

The Prerip# include the four genera Pontia, Pieris, Anthocharis, 
and Terias, comprising in all nine species: Pontia syvicola, Bd. 
(= Narica, Fab. = Alcesta, Cram.), ranges to Senegal. Of the genus 
Pieris, one species, Helcida, Bd.,—if not a variety of the African 
Chloris, Fab.,—is endemic; Phileris, Bd., is found in Southern and 
Eastern Africa ; Orbona and Malatha, Bd. (= Saba, Fab.), in Eastern 
and Western Africa; while the abundant Mesentina extends from 
Damara Land to Bengal. Anthocharis Evanthe, Bd., is among the 
species taken in Madagascar by Mr. Layard; and a specimen in the 
British Museum purports to be from “South Africa,” but this habitat 
seems doubtful. The three species of Terias are all African; but 
while Floricola, Bd. (= Hecabe, Linn.), ranges to Java and Northern 
India, and Pulchella, Bd. (= Rahel, Fab.), is found at Sierra Leone, 
Desjardinsii, Bd., does not appear to spread farther than the Eastern 
and Southern coasts of Africa. 

But one of the recorded three genera and four species of the family 
Danaipm is found in Africa, and that one, Danais Chrysippus, Linn., 
is everywhere abundant, and is also common in Southern Asia. Hestia 
Lyncea, Drury, inhabits the Eastern Archipelago ; but Euplaa Phedone 
and Huphone, Fab., appear to be limited in range to Madagascar and 
Mauritius. 

The slow-flying, inert, but abundant butterflies forming the family 
Acra@ip# are pre-eminently African, though a few representatives of 


*<*Faune Ent. de Mad., &c.,’ p. 18. Epiphorbas and Phorbanta are almost 
certainly but insular varieties of the widely-ranging and abundant P. Nireus, 
which Boisduval (op. cit., p. 16) considers a doubtful native of Madagascar. 

t ‘Species Général des Lep.,’ p. 190. 

t ‘Arcana Entomologiea,’ vol. i, p. 146. 


650 Original Articles. [ Oct., 


the group are American, two species Asiatic, and one Australian. As 
many as ten species of Acraa (the only genus in the family) have been 
taken in Madagascar, and of these no less than six appear peculiar to 
the island. The four found in Africa are Sganzini, Bd. (= Lycia, 
Fab.), and Manjaca Bd. (= Serena, Fab.), extending to Sierra Leone, 
and the South African Rahira, Bd., and Punctatissima, Bd. 

Ten genera of the NympHatipm are represented, viz. :—Atella (1 
species), “Pyr ameis (1), Junonia (5), Myscelia (1), Cyrestis (1), Neptis 
(3), Diadema (2), Godartia (1), Aterica (1), Nymphalis (1). Atella 
Phalanta, Dru., inhabits a wide region, from Sierra Leone to Northern 
India and Java. The world-wide distribution of Py yrameis Cardut, 
Linn., is well known. Two species of Junonia seem endemic, viz.— 
Gondotii and Andremiaja, Bd.; J. Augustina, Bd., occurs in Mauritius 
and Bourbon; Rhadama is found in Mozambique ;* and EHpiclelia, 
Bd. (= var. Clelia, Cram.), is a widely-spread African. Myscelia 
Madagascariensis, Bd., is peculiar to the island. Cyrestis elegans, Bd., 
must also be classed among the endemic insects, unless the species 
stated by Chenuf to inhabit Sierra Leone should prove to be identical 
with it. Neptis Kikideli, Bd., does not appear to have been met with 
out of Madagascar, but N. Frobenia, Fab., extends to Mauritius; and 
Saclava, Bd., is found both in Mozambiquet and‘in the Cape Colony. 
Of the two Diademe, Bolina, Linn., has an extraordinary range, only 
second to that of P. Cardui; while Dubia, Palis. de Beauy.,$ is recorded 
from both Hastern and Western Africa. The genus Grodartia is repre- 
i . Madagascariensis, 
Lucas, does not seem to extend beyond the island. Aterica Rabena, 
Bd., is likewise an endemic species. NMymphalis Candiope, Godt., 
taken by Mr. Layard on the north-west coast of Madagascar, inhabits 
the country west of Lake Ngami, from whence a specimen was brought 
me by Mr. John A. Bell. 

The Saryripa would appear to be but poorly represented in the 
island, only four species, belonging to the genera Cyllo, Hrebia, and 
Mycalesis, being recorded in the ‘ Faune Entomologique, &c.  Cyllo 
Leda, Linn., almost rivals Diadema Bolina in its area of distribution ; 
but C. Betsimena, Bd. (if not, as I am inclined to think, identical with 
Gnophodis Parmeno, H. Doubl.), is confined to Madagascar. Hrebia 
Tamatave, Bd., is endemic. Mycalesis Narcissus, Fab., extends to the 
Mascarene Islands as well as to South-eastern Africa. 

Two butterflies of the small family Euryrrtips have been discovered 
in Madagascar, viz.:—EHurytela Dryope, Cram., and Hypanis Anvatara, 
Bd. (= var. Ilithyia, Dru.). Both of these are widely-spread Africans, 
and the latter species also ranges to Southern Asia. 

The curious LisyrHerp# are represented by the very distinct Liby- 
thea fulgurata, Bd., which seems more nearly related to the Javanese 


* See Hopffer in Peters’ ‘Reise nach Mossambique.—Ins.,’ p. 380. 

+ ‘Encye. d’ Hist. Nat.—Pap.,’ p. 125. 

{ Hopffer’s Neptis Marpessa is indubitably the same insect. 

§ Probably. the same as D. Anthedon, EK. Doubl. (‘ Gen, Diurn. Lep.’), which 
inhabits Western Africa and Natal. 

|| See Chenu, op. cit., p. 187; and Hpfr.—Peters’ ‘ Reise, &c.,’ p. 386. 


1864. } Trimen on the Butterflies of Madagascar. 651 


L. Narina, Godt., than to any other species. As the genus is found on 
the African continent,* it is not improbable that Pulgurata will be dis- 
covered there. 

One example of the Eryorntpm—a family abundantly developed in 
South America—has been found in the island, wiz.—Hmesis Tepahi, 
Bd. This insect seems more strictly referable to the genus Tazila, 
E. Doubl., which comprises several Oriental, and one, if not two, 
African species,—T. Tantalus, Bd., being a native of Ashanti,t and 
Baucis, Dru. (mentioned by Boisduval as congeneric with Tepahi) 
being recorded by Drury as inhabiting Sierra Leone. 

The eight species of Lycaninm known to occur belong to the 
genera Sithon (1), Lyccena (6), and ? (1). Sithon Batikeli, Ba. 
sp. (= Sithon Antalus, Hpffr.), is found in Eastern and Southern 
Africa.t Of the Lycene three—L. Rabe, Tsiphana, and Malathana, 
Bd.—seem endemic ; but the remaining three—Lysimon, Hiibn., Beetica, 
Linn., and Telicanus, Herbet—are remarkable for their extended range 
throughout Africa, and in Southern Europe and Asia. It is impossible 
to refer the species Tintinga, Bd., to any particular genus, the single 
specimen described by Boisduval having lost both head and body ; but, 
as its describer seems to consider that the insect has somewhat of the 
aspect of the curious Javanese Petavius, Godt. (= Petavia Sakuni, 
Horsf.), its affinities are probably Oriental rather than African, 

The Hesrerm#, as recorded by Boisduval, consist of 11 species, 
which I distribute generically thus, viz.:—Cyclopides (3), Pamphila (4), 
Nisoniades (1), Ismene (3), Cyclopides Bernieri and Rhadama, Bad., 
appear peculiar to Madagascar; but C. Malgacha, Bd., is found in 
Africa, as far south and west as Cape Town. Pamphila Havei and 
Pontiert, Bd., are recorded by Boisduval§ as natives of Natal, while P. 
Coroller and Andracne, Bd., are endemic. I have received Nisoniades 
Ophion, Dru., from Natal, and the species is figured and described by 
Drury as one from Western Africa. Ismene Florestan, Cram., has an 
African range, embracing Kaffraria, Querimba, Nubia, and Senegal ;}j 
I. Ratek, Bd., inhabits Natal; and I. Ramanatek, Bd., extends to 
Bourbon, if not to Mauritius. 

The above particulars of the distribution over the globe of the 
Madagascarian diurnal Lepidoptera yield the following result, when 
the families are tabulated (see p. 652) :— 

From this table it is apparent that 39, or rather more than 
half, of the butterflies of Madagascar are African; and of these 39 
species, 27 (nearly one-third of the Rhopalocerous Fauna) inhabit no 
other region besides Africa. Of the remaining 34 (no less than 28 of 
which are endemic), 1 (Hestia Lyncea) is an Asiatic form; 22 show 


* For this fact Iam indebted to Mr. Horace Waller, of the late Zambesi 
Mission, who has shown me a Libythea, closely allied to L. Myrrha, Godt., taken 
by him on the river Shire. 

+ E. Doubl., «List Lep. Ins., Coll. Brit. Mus.,’ pt. ii., p. 3. 

{ Batikeli will most probably be determined as a variety of Isocrates, Fab., a 
well-known Indian species. 

§ In Appendix to Delegorgue’s ‘ Voyage dans l'Afrique Australe, &c., p. 594. 

|| See Hpfr., op. cit., p. 414. 


652 Original Articles. [Oct., 


TABULAR Vimw OF THE GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE BUTTERFLIES 
OF MADAGASCAR. 


NUMBER OF SPECIES WHOSE RANGE EXTENDS TO 


: e b |e ba | hee 
aa 8 & a 22 |2¢ Sai) tae 
FAMILIES. | 25 | . |@ See) Sala SiH] € |oaS 
Se | i . = aie) I ele jaad) = 5A 
eA! a |e i Ya (t= (= Fe peels eS: 
a 2 Hs = Sac S mes re] a3, & laaz 
2 So Sore SE Ge MGT GE iSeea\ g jo4" 
= || Se eee ee es es ers a5| 3 (7 
< = 4 <q 4 < < ro) 
Papilionide .} 1 5 | — —{—f}—j— — | | 6 
Pieridee 2 5 {— |] —{— 1 a) —j{— 9 
Danaides —|— 2 1) =) = | 1 — jj, 4 
Acreide . 6 4y)—)o yr y-]—f]— — | 10 
Nymphalide.| 7 5 2|— = 1 | — 1 Wy Rey 
Satyridz . 2);— }]— }|— 1G ieee eae — |— + 
Eurytelidx — 1}/—/]-- | — 1);— | =— — |— 2 
Libytheidx L£y}—j;o—y—}yroyry-— ft — |— 1 
Erycinidz 0 a — |— 1 
Lycenide . + 1 —{|/—}— }] — 3 — |— 8 
Hesperidee 4 6 1;/—{]/—s}—-}]—]—- — |— {ll 
i 28 | 27 5 1 1 2 2 4 


decidedly African affinities; 4 (Neptis Kikideli and Frobenia, Libythea 
fulgurata, and ————? Tintinga) seem more nearly allied to Asiatic 
forms ; while 7 exhibit no marked indications of connection with either 
Asiatic or African types, but may be considered as being equally 
related to both faunas.* The respective numbers of species inhabiting 
other parts of the world are, relatively to the total number of Mada- 
gascarian natives and to each other, quite what we should expect to 
find on the assumption that Madagascar was originally part of the great 
continent to which it is now adjacent. Thus while, as above shown, 
no less than 39 inhabit Africa, the Mascarene Islands contain 15, Asia 
12, Europe 5, Australia 2, and America 2. 

Before concluding, it is necessary to take into consideration the 
Rhopalocera inhabiting Bourbon and Mauritius, amounting in all to 
but 23 species. As these islands are of small size, and have been well 
explored, we may assume with Boisduval that few butterflies remain in 
either undiscovered. The 23 species are thus distributed among the 


* The most remarkable examples of this double relation are the two Euple», 
EF. Euphone and Phxdone, which, common at Mauritius and also found in Mada- 
gascar, combine the structure and aspect of the African Eupleoid species of 
Danis with those of the true Huplee of Asia. An examination of these insects 
has led me to regard as highly probable the view suggested to me by Mr. Bates, 
that the Mascarene Islands may be remnants of the region where Danazs and 
EHuplxa first became differentiated; Hwplexa since attaining its large development 
in tropical Asia. It is singular that Huplea Gondotii, Bd., which inhabits both 
Natal and the Island of Bourbon, and seems the nearest of all the African Danaidx 
to the Asiatic Huplex, has not been taken either in Madagascar or Mauritius, 


1864. | Trimen on the Butlerflies of Madagascar. 653 


families, viz.:-—Papilionide, 2; Pieridw, 1; Danaide, 4; Ny mpha- 
lide, 7; Satyride, 2; Lycwnide, 3; Hesperidw, 4. In Mauritius 21 
occur, in Bourbon 18 ; 16 being found in both islands. All but 8 are 
known to inhabit Madagascar :* and of these 8 species 4 (Pyrameis Hip- 
pomene, Bd., Neptis Dumetorum, Bd., Nisoniades Sabadius, and Pam- 
plila Borbonica, Bd.) occur in both islands ; 2 (Papilio disparilis and 
Huplea Gondotii, Ba.) are confined to Bourbon ; while 2 (P. Phorbanta, 
Linn., and Pamphila Marchalii, Bd.) seem peculiar to Mauritius. 
Gondotii (of Bourbon) and Hippomene, Sabadius, and Borbonica (of 
both islands) are natives of Africa, and therefore in all probability 
inhabit the great intermediate country of Madagascar. This leaves us 
but 4 species truly endemic to the Mascarene Islands, or, omitting the 
2 doubtfully distinct Papiliones,t only 2, viz—Neptis Dumetorumt and 
Pamphila Marchalii, the latter being confined to Mauritius. Besides 
these 2, only 5 others (which are found in Madagascar) are wanting in 
Africa. 

Adding to the 73 butterflies of Madagascar the 8 Mascarene species 
not yet discovered in the great island, we arrive at a total for the 
group of 81 species of Diurnal Lepidoptera, of which 47 are known to 
be natives of Africa, while the great majority of the remaining species 
exhibit unmistakable affinity to African forms. 

The evidence here brought forward, incomplete as it is, and limited 
in its application to but part of a single order of insects, contrasts 
strangely indeed with that adduced by Dr. Sclater with regard to the 
Mammals of Madagascar. Every order of Mammalia in the island 
possessing more than a single representative (the bats only excepted), 
presents several endemic genera, some of which exhibit the most pro- 
found modification of structure. Among the Lepidopterous insecis, as 
far as the Rhopalocera are concerned,$ not one new genus has been 
discovered. While the relations between the Mammals of Madagascar 
and Africa are shown to be few and remote, and not one species is with 
certainty known to inhabit both regions, the very strongest afiinity 
exists between the butterflies, more than half of the insular species, 
and 31 of the 33 genera, being indigenous to Africa.|| This seems 
the more remarkable when one considers the much greater facilities 
for modification, during an equal lapse of time, which insects, numer- 
ous in individuals and rapid in succession of generations, would appear 
to present as contrasted with the comparatively scarce and slowly- 


* This supposes P. Phorbanta and disparilis to be distinct species from each 
other and from P. Nireus and Epiphorbas ; otherwise the number would be 6. 

+ The abnormal coloration of the 2 Disparilis is very remarkable, and looks 
very like a modification, now in progress, of the Papilio in imitation of Euplxa 
Gondotii, the only other large butterfly inhabiting Bourbon. 

{ Taken by Mr. Layard in Mauritius. 

§ Almost the same might be affirmed of the whole order, for of the 35 genera 
of Heterocera given in the ‘Faune de Mad., &c., only one, Borocera, Bd. (closely 
allied to the African Megasomz), appears endemic, unless Sindris, Bd. (given as a 
genus of Tineina), be peculiar to the island. 

| In connection with this it is an interesting fact that Acrxa, so typical and 
highly-developed an African group, presents more species in Madagascar than any 
other genus. 

VOL. 1. 2% 


654 Original Articles. [ Oct., 


breeding Mammals. It is true that butterflies might continue to find 
their way from Africa to the island across a space of sea which had 
long since proved an impassable barrier to any but aérial Mammalia, 
but the influence which might thus be at intervals brought to bear on 
the insular Rhopalocera would be very slight, for the idea of constant 
or long-continued migration from the mainland is forbidden by all 
recent observation. * 

In conclusion, I would earnestly request all zoologists to contribute 
the results of their researches towards the more complete knowledge 
of the fauna of Madagascar. Dr. Sclater’s interesting deductions from 
a consideration of the Mammalia, require abundant confirmation from 
investigation of other groups in the island fauna, before acceptance 
can be given to them. The subject is one of the deepest interest ; and 
it is only by a careful analysis of what is known of all the forms of 
Madagascarian life that we can attain to any conclusions as to the origi- 
nal derivation and existing relations of this most remarkable fauna. 


* It is remarkable how constant nearly all butterflies, including those of the 
highest powers of flight, are to localities of very limited extent; and much care 
and investigation must be exercised before naturalists can attribute the extraordi- 
nary gatherings, occasionally witnessed, of certain species of Pieride to any migra- 
tory instinct. 


1864. ] ( 655 ) 


CHRONICLES OF SCIENCE. 


1. AGRICULTURE. 


An unusually dry summer has brought into prominence several agri- 
cultural topics of importance, in which the uses and economy of water 
are concerned. Thus, it has entirely justified those who advocate 
drainage and deep tillage as really conservative of the water supply on 
which a growing plant depends. We have dug in well-drained land a 
hole five feet deep in a turnip-field, and from the bottom of it clods of 
earth have been brought up full of fibres of the turnip-root, easily 
recognizable by their taste. These fibres went far below the artificial 
drainage of the subsoil; but the vigorous vitality to which such deep 
growth was due was itself, no doubt, owing to the wholesome condition 
for the plants in which that drainage had placed the upper layer of soil. 
In this indirect way, as well as by the direct improvement and increased. 
capacity as a storerodém which drainage and deep tillage confer upon 
the upper soil, do these operations increase the ability of plants to 
withstand a drought. That of the past summer has in nothing shown 
itself more plainly than in the prominent appearance of the dark, 
fresh green of deep-rooted plants, as the thistle and the clover plant, 
amongst the brown parched, surface-feeding grasses, which have been 
soon dried up. And anything which gives to cultivated plants a 
deeper, larger, fuller store on which to draw for supplies, is in cases 
like the present season especially beneficial. 

No doubt it is owing to this better tillage of the country generally, 
that the drought has not proved more injurious to the seed crops of 
the past harvest. Notwithstanding that our grain crops had already 
pretty fully established themselves before the commencement of 
the dry weather, we might fairly have expected it to have been more 
injurious than it has proved. The produce of these crops, though 
nothing like that of 1863, has not been altogether unsatisfactory. 
Of 200 returns to the ‘ Agricultural Gazette,’ indeed, from different parts 
of the country, only 20, 47, and 12 respectively, of wheat, barley, and 
oats, declare the crop to be above an average one ; but one-half of the 
reports of wheat, and more than one-half of those of barley, state the 
yield to be an average. Oats, beans, and peas are undoubtedly much 
below an average yield this year. But this, and the inferior produce 
generally of the corn crop, may be attributed rather to the cold weather 
of June, than to the drought of May, June, and July. 

The subject of summer irrigation is another point to which the 
weather has given importance. The experience of our sewaged meadows 
during the past season has not been so favourable in this respect as 
might have been expected. It appears that the Italian ryegrass, the 

2¥2 


656 Chronicles of Science. [ Oct., 


plant by which sewage has hitherto been chiefly utilized, requires a 
moist, cold atmosphere, as well as a well-fed, cool, moist soil, to ensure 
a luxuriant succulence of growth. The Beddington meadows, which 
receive the waste of Croydon, and which in May presented such a 
wonderful coat of grass as the result of irrigation—30 inches high 
and as thick as it could stand, and weighing 12 or 14 tons per acre— 
have not yielded by any means so well at their second and third cuts 
this summer, notwithstanding the flood of filthy water which at intervals 
has been poured over them. The tendency of the plant to form its 
seed spike seems irresistible in hot, dry weather, however the growth 
of grass may be urged by irrigation of the soil; and a first cut, of 10 
to 14 tons per acre, is followed by one of 7 or 8, and that by one of 4 
or 5 tons in a hot July or August. This must be taken into their 
calculations by those who propose to utilize the sewage of London on 
the low-lying lands of Kent and Essex, two of the driest counties in 
the island. 

The drought has produced a protest from Mr. Bailey Denton, 
C.E., in the form of a memorial to Sir George Grey, on the water 
economy of the country, and on the better uses of our rainfall. 
Mr. Denton proposes that agricultural proceedings with reference to 
that matter should be made subject to some central control. Thirty 
inches of rain, or thereabouts, fall annually in this island. This wets 
its surface, which dries again and sends back”so much into the air. 
It finds its way, by various surface channels, runnels, brooks, rivulets, 
and rivers, to the sea. It sinks through its surface to various depths, 
taking always the path of least resistance to that downward passage 
which gravity imposes, until at length the passage of least resistance 
leads to the re-appearance of this portion of the rainfall in springs at 
various points below that where it sank into the ground. Now, of 
these two latter portions of the rainfall, various uses are made. They 
swell our rivers, which are thus along many miles of their course made 
available as carriers ; they fill our muill-streams, and their weight is 
thus turned to account as power ; they provide drink for our live-stock 
and our population, and they feed our plants. But the surface on 
which the rain-water falls is covered with plants. The cultivator of 
these plants is thus the first owner of this water, and he is more and 
more awakening to the immense value of this property, and to the 
greatly enhanced services which, if properly directed, it can render to 
him as a grower of these plants. Guided by the better knowledge of this 
subject which now prevails, every man, either the owner or the hirer of 
this surface, is dealing with the water which falls upon it for his own 
exclusive benefit. Hither each estate by itself, or it may be even each 
field by itself, is so drained that the rain passes through the soil and 
subsoil for use, instead of over its surface to waste; and after being 
made useful as a feeder of the plants grown in and on the soil, it is 
thereafter provided with as easy and as speedy an exit as possible. 
The field or the estate is drained, and thereafter the water, bemg done 
with, is dismissed. Now, even as regards an estate, and still more as 
regards a province or a district, there is room for the use of water 
after it has done its duty as feeder of the plants. It is applicable as 


1864. | Agriculture. 657 


water supply for animals; it is even available again in irrigating and 
so in feeding plants upon a lower level. But our outfalls are every 
day becoming more direct and rapid in their action. Rain which 
used to drag sluggishly downwards through meandering streams, runs 
straight out to the sea. Floods, rather the result of this arterial drainage 
than of parallel subsoil drains, follow excessive rainfalls more imme- 
diately than they used to do. And unexpected as it may be, the 
influence of agricultural drainage becomes apparent on our springs, our 
mill-streams, and our rivers. Mr. Bailey Denton therefore urges on the 
Home Secretary that inquiry should be made into this subject before 
this piecemeal drainage of the land shall have injured what he con- 
siders the imperial and general interests of the country, in an annual 
water supply. It is urged that the perennial water supply is, under 
existing management, gradually diminishing; that it is, moreover, 
becoming irregular—floods and droughts more rapidly alternating ; 
that properly conducted, on the other hand, under-drainage is capable 
of securing greater regularity and abundance of the water supply— 
certain districts subject to seasonal drought being capable of supply by 
the storage of the water discharged from drained land during winter 
and spring. And there are other considerations urged why an inquiry 
should at once be directed by the Government into the effect of under- 
drainage on our river systems, and generally into the larger question 
of the water economy of the country. 

We see that the ‘Agricultural Gazette’ calls attention to that 
curious illustration of the natural compensating powers of our climate 
in the case of drought, which it believes the dew-ponds of our chalk 
downs to present. We do not know if exact inquiry has been made by 
any scientific man into the phenomena of the Berkshire dew-pond, but 
the subject seems well worth investigation. Perched on the very 
summit of a chalk down, made an impervious cup, and filled artificially 
in the first instance, it seems to supply so large a quantity of water 
daily to the flock frequenting it, and is at the same time so ex- 
posed to loss by evaporation, that a great increment by a deposit 
of dew upon its surface (possible enough in cases where a moist 
southerly wind, for example, may be slowly passing over a hill top 
during a clear night, when the cooling process by radiation is excessive) 
seems the only possible explanation of the rarity of its entire exhaus- 
tion during the summer months. That, at all events, is the popular 
explanation of the phenomenon, and it is quoted by the ‘ Agricultural 
Gazette’ as an illustration of the compensating powers which, in a dry 
season, our climate must everywhere possess. 

Whatever the difficulties or injury inflicted by a prolonged summer 
drought, it does not appear that they at all weaken or diminish those 
evidences of agricultural energy and prosperity which the exhibitions 
of our great agricultural societies have evinced. The annual meetings 
of the English, Scottish, and Irish National Agricultural Societies 
have been unusually illustrative of our rapid progress in the field. In 
particular, at the Newcastle meeting of the English Society, the efforts 
of implement manufacturers and of stock farmers were well illus- 
trated. ‘“ Agriculture,’ as one reporter has it, “may be said to begin 


658 Chronicles of Science. | Oct., 


with the tillage of the soil, and end with the manufacture of meat; 
and Mr. Fowler’s steam-plough standing at one end of the manu- 
facture, and Mr. Cruickshank’s short-horn bull ‘Forth’ standing at the 
other end, may be thus considered to include between them its whole 
scope, extent, and range. very line upon the scale which separates 
these extremes has been well represented at this meeting, but the best 
and most numerous illustrations of the whole are those of tillage 
implements on the one hand, and short-horn stock upon the other. 
Never before has so good a collection or so thorough an examination 
of tillage implements been made, and never before have better classes 
of short-horn cattle been exhibited.” 

The principal novelty on the ground here was Mr. Fowler’s new 
plan of applying steam-power to the cultivation of the land, to which 
the judges awarded the Society’s head prize. He succeeds here in 
making two of the ordinary small threshing-engines which are every- 
where employed throughout the country,. stationed one at each end of 
the furrow where the steam-drawn plough is working, to combine their 
force upon it. The engine which the plough is leaving is pulling it 
as well as the engine which it is approaching. The wire rope is laid 
around the horizontal clip-drums underneath each engine, and its ends 
are fastened in the usual way upon the gearing of the plough in front 
of it and behind it on drums there, which, gearing into one another, 
are so arranged that any pull upon the plough by the rope in front 
resolves itself to some extent into a tightening of the rope behind it. 
This ensures that the rope is always taut around both the engine- 
drums; and the consequence is, that when both engines are at work, 
they are each pulling at the rope, and each is contributing its force to 
the line by which the plough or cultivator is being drawn. Very good 
work was made at Newcastle by Fowler’s apparatus thus employed, 
and this plan is evidently a step in advance upon the double-engine 
system which Fowler as well as Savory has hitherto adopted. 
Where two engines are employed, and only one is in use at a time, 
each must be of double power, and the waste by radiation is constant 
in the case of each, notwithstanding that each is only half its time at 
work. The fuel consumed must therefore, in such a case, be excessive. 
And there is this further advantage in the double-engine system when 
the two engines co-operate, that neighbours may combine their engines 
for work of any special difficulty, the engines being severally at the 
same time of just the right power both for threshing purposes and for 
ordinary light-land cultivation. 

We may mention, among the events of the past summer, the pub- 
lication of extremely suggestive lectures on Dairy Farming, which 
had been previously delivered before the Royal Agricultural College, 
by Mr. Harrison, C.E., of Frocester Court, Gloucestershire. In addition 
to the mere detail of good practice which these lectures describe, they 
enumerate a great many facts and develope very many ideas and sug- 
gestions well calculated to excite the attention and the thought of those 
to whom they were addressed. Among these we may mention that the 
author points out that the dairy districts are, for the most part, confined 
to those geological formations which were deposited during the existence 


ee Se ee 


1864. | Agriculture. 659 


of vertebrate animals upon the earth. Phosphates applied to the soil 
bring about the growth of clovers among the grasses, and they are also 
especially necessary on dairy farms, as evidenced by the quantity of 
them which exists in the milk or cheese sold off such farms; and it is 
a curious circumstance that the cheese-dairying especially should be 
confined to those geological districts where the formation contains not 
the mere stony remains of shell-fish and crustaceans, but the bone-dust 
of a higher order of animals. Among the other facts specified in these 
lectures is the existence and the uses of enormous quantities of earth- 
worms in the soil of grass lands. An experiment over a considerable 
surface of land led to the estimate of their quantity at 1,000 Ibs. weight 
per acre; and it is declared that so large a quantity must, by its effect 
on the texture of the land, and by its ultimate addition to the very 
substance of the land, be an important contribution to its fertility. 

Some discussion has arisen in connection with dairy-farming in 
Cheshire, from a paradoxical speech by Sir H. Mainwaring, Bart., at a 
recent agricultural meeting, when he set himself to arouse thought 
and excite controversy amongst the dairy-farmers of that county by 
the confident utterance of what appeared to them, as it does to us, in 
direct opposition to both local and general agricultural experience. 
His assertions were that drainage, bone-dust, and broad-breasted bulls 
had been the ruin of the Cheshire dairy-farmers. But the facts un- 
questionably are that the drainage of the pasture-lands of Cheshire, 
the application of bone-dust to them, and the short-horn cross upon 
their dairy-cows, have been of the greatest agricultural service in 
that county! Sir H. Mainwaring’s idea that over-drainage injures 
grass is, however, te some extent, countenanced by the first or second 
year’s experience of it; the wet-land grasses disappear before the 
better grasses suitable to the improved condition of the soil make 
their appearance ; but the ultimate influence of drainage upon grass- 
lands is rarely unsatisfactory. The use of bone-dust, again, tends in 
a very remarkable degree to the improvement of the pastures by the 
extraordinary development of the clover-plant, which immediately 
follows. And there cannot be a doubt that the Welsh or long-horned 
cattle, formerly common on the Cheshire farms, have been greatly 
improved and, in some instances, usefully displaced by the short-horn 
breed, which stands at the very head of the cheese-producing breeds 
of the country. 

We have only one more fact to add to our quarterly summary of 
agricultural intelligence. ‘The Royal Agricultural Society of England 
has offered 50/. for a prize on middle-class education, having especial 
reference to those who are dependent on the cultivation of the soil. 
They were informed by Mr. Morton, at the general meeting held last 
December, that although by their charter they had been incorporated 
for the very purpose of promoting the education of the farmer, yet that 
particular object specified in their charter had hitherto received from 
them no attention whatever. A committee was thereafter appointed 
to consider in what way the “seventh national object” specified by the 
charter could be promoted, and this is the result of the committee’s 
inquiries. It seems to us that the offer of a prize on middle-class 


660 Chronicles of Science. | Oct., 


education is entirely abandoning the subject to which they are com- 
mitted by their charter; and that they will properly discharge the 
duties which it imposes on them only by promoting the professional 
education of the agriculturist—this being done by giving encourage- 
ment and guidance to the existing means of agricultural education. 


II. ASTRONOMY. 
(Including the Proceedings of the Royal Astronomical Society.) 


We have but few important advances to chronicle in general astro- 
nomy, although a glance at the proceedings of the Astronomical 
Society for the last few months will show that slow but sure progress 
has been made by English observers. We may commence by re- 
minding our readers that a prize of 200 ducats (about 901.) has been 
offered by the Academy of Sciences at Vienna for the best research on 
the movements of the fixed stars. The last day for sending in the 
papers is fixed for December 31, 1865. We cannot help thinking 
that the time here allowed is far too short. The base line used by 
astronomers in investigating the movements of these distant bodies 
being the diameter of the earth’s orbit round the sun, it will take six 
months to accumulate merely one set of observations, and as the minute- 
ness of the observed movements renders it highly desirable to verify 
the first obtained data by numerous subsequent observations, it 1s 
scarcely likely that any new and striking measures of parallax can be 
included in the memoirs, unless, indeed, the principal observations 
have already been made by the competing astronomers. In such a 
case as this science would be more advanced by offering a larger sum 
as a prize, and allowing the time to extend to five or six years. 

Our readers are doubtless well aware that a new Astronomical 
Society was founded last year at Heidelberg. This society is essen- 
tially international in its character, and numbers amongst its members 
not only German, but also English, French, Italian, and Russian 
astronomers. Several of its most eminent members are dividing the 
work between them; some are investigating the disturbances which 
have taken place in the movements of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, 
Saturn, and Uranus, in some cases going back as far as 1770. Others 
have divided the asteroids amongst them, each member taking a planet 
under his care, and observing its motions periodically. A society of 
earnest workers acting in this manner is more likely to further the 
objects of their science than are any two of the so-called learned 
societies as at present constituted. 

The star 40,196 (Lalande) is noted for its singular variability, and 
M. Goldschmidt still continues his accurate investigations on its 
changes. The result of his observations is, that it accomplishes its 
cycle in a period of 197 days. It remains nearly invisible for 61 days, 


1864. | Astronomy. 661 


it then gradually increases in luminosity for 56 days, remains sta- 
tionary for a perceptible period, then diminishes for 78 days, and 
finally disappears. 

At the last meeting of the French Association for the advancement 
of astronomy and meteorology, founded by M. Leverrier, a new reflect- 
ing telescope was exhibited, having a speculum nearly a yard in dia- 
meter. It is of glass, silvered by chemical means, the process having 
been explained to the meeting. We understand that these reflectors, 
first employed by M. Foucault, are rapidly making way in this country, 
their cheapness, lightness, and the ease with which they can be resil- 
vered when tarnished, rendering them formidable rivals to both 
refractors and reflectors of the ordinary kind. 

The subject of meteorites is still being pursued by M. Heidinger, 
of Vienna, who has so thoroughly identified himself with the investiga- 
tion of these bodies. In a letter to M. A. Quételet, of Brussels, he 
gives some interesting particulars of the fall of a supposed aérolite at 
Inly, near Trebizond. It fell in an easterly direction in December 
last with a terrific explosion, resembling the discharge of hundreds of 
pieces of ordnance. Some pieces supposed to have formed part of it 
have been forwarded to Vienna, but from the examination already 
made of them, their origin seems to be rather terrestrial than cosmical. 
Professor Kenngott, director of the Mineralogical Museum of Zurich, 
has lately forwarded to M. Heidinger a specimen marked native iron 
from Styria, but which he suspected was meteoric. The director of 
the Imperial Museum at Vienna had it cut and polished. Subsequent 
treatment with acids left no doubt of its cosmical origin. It also con- 
tains crystals which appear to be olivine and pyrosene, and its general 
character seems to identify it with the meteorite which fell many years 
back at Steinbach, in Saxony. It would be interesting if the directors 
of museums would submit to similar tests any specimens of so-called 
native iron that they may have in their possession. 


Tue Royat ASTRONOMICAL Socrery. 


Further observations of the newly-discovered satellite of Sirius have 
been communicated to the Society during the last few months. M. Otto 
Struve has determined, from observations extending from March 16, 
1863, to March 28, 1864, that its annual change of distance is equal 
to +0":77, and its annual change of position —5°:7. He considers 
that on the first glance we are led to the conclusion that the hypothesis 
of accidental juxtaposition of the two stars is by far the most probable, 
a conclusion which is even strengthened by some of Mr. Bond’s obser- 
vations. Although a strong objection against their merely optical 
association must be derived from the circumstance that Herschel, at 
the end of the last century, when with this supposition the small star 
ought to have had a distance of about one minute from Sirius to the 
south-west, never noticed its existence, though it is well known that 
about that time he frequently observed Sirius as a test object for the 
quality of his mirrors. After giving several other arguments on each 


662 Chronicles of Science. [ Oct., 


side of the question, Professor Struve concludes that he must suspend 
judgment on the physical connection or merely optical juxtaposition 
of the small star until next year. In reference to this paper Mr. 
Dawes remarked that the star was visible in strong twilight, and he 
therefore conceived that it was not so very small in itself, but only 
appeared so in consequence of its proximity to the prodigiously bright 
star of which it was the companion. 

In an elaborate and important paper on the probable error of a 
meridional transit-observation by the “eye and ear,” and chrono- 
graphic methods, read by Mr. Dunkin at one of the recent meetings of 
the Society, he comes to the conclusion that the chronographic obser- 
vations of a transit are attended with much less probable error than 
an eye-and-ear observation; the personal discordances between the 
different observers are also comparatively small by the former method, 
and the general steadiness of observing by it is very remarkable. In 
the results for right ascension the probable error for chronographic 
transits is also much less. Some discussion followed the reading of 
this paper. 'The president, Dr. De la Rue, referred to an improve- 
ment upon a proposal made some time ago by Professor Wheatstone 
for increasing the accuracy of transit observations. This was that a 
system of wires should be arranged in the transit instrument, which, 
when the star was brought between them, should follow its movement ; 
and when the star passed the optical axis of the instrument or any 
number of known points from that axis, then the chronographic signal 
would be made by the wires making electrical contact, so that a number 
of records would be obtained independent of the will of the observer. 
Col. Strange mentioned that the Paris astronomers had expressed 
themselves decidedly against the chronographic method ; he did not, 
however, agree with this, and had therefore, with the sanction of the 
Government, ordered a complete chronographic apparatus for the use 
of the Indian survey. Col. Strange further remarked that Professor 
Wheatstone’s suggestion of having a telescope so constructed that the 
star should be automatically followed over the wires had already been 
carried out. When at the Paris Observatory, he had examined an 
apparatus of this description made by M. Redier ; the wire was carried 
so steadily across the field, so exactly with the same velocity as the 
passage of the star, that the intersection of that star with the wire was 
a matter of the most perfect ease and certainty ; in fact, there was 
ample time for the observer to call an assistant to verify the observa- 
tion before leaving the instrument. Mr. Dunkin in reply to the 
opinion that the chronographic system tended to produce bad eye-and- 
ear observers, remarked, that at the Royal Observatory, observers, who 
had practised the chronographic system for ten years, could still, when 
the apparatus was out of order, take eye-and-ear observations with as 
much accuracy as formerly. 

The appearances of the solar surface are still attracting great 
attention. The Rev. W. R. Dawes speaks very decidedly as to the 
total absence of any objects on the photosphere which could be com- 
pared to willow-leaves in their form. He has for many years been 
familiar with granulations or granules of forms and sizes so various as 


1864. | Astronomy. 663 


to defy every attempt to describe them by any one appellation. Upon 
more quiet and perfect view of these granulations, it appears that they 
are not individual and separate bodies of a peculiar nature, but only 
different conditions as to brightness or elevation of the larger masses 
forming the mottled surface. Between the granules the shaded por- 
tions are in many places pretty thickly covered with dark dots like 
stippling with a soft lead pencil, but he was struck with the extreme 
rarity of a long and narrow shape among the granules with which the 
surface of the sun is covered. They may perhaps be sometimes com- 
pressed into a longer form under the influence of the same forces 
which produce the longer threads or straws on the penumbra, but one 
of the most striking features is the entire absence of uniformity in the 
brighter portions with respect both to their size and shape. Mr. 
Dawes further said, that one of the most remarkable things connected 
with the matter, was that whereas these granules, or “rice grains,” 
were easily seen,—a small telescope with a power of 40 or 50 bringing 
them into view,—Mr. Nasmyth should have accepted them as his 
** willow-leaves,” which he says are so difficult to see with an 8-inch 
aperture. Mr. C. G. Talmage confirmed Mr. Dawes’s statement. 
Since 1861, he had most carefully scrutinized the surface of the sun 
both at Nice, at Paris, and in England, with 4-inch, 6-inch, and 8-inch 
object-glasses with powers up to 500, but had never seen the slightest 
trace of “ willow-leaves,” “rice grains,” or “thatch.” In the discus- 
sion which followed the reading of these papers, Dr. De la Rue re- 
marked, that it is to the sun himself and to other observers that the 
confirmation or non-confirmation of Mr. Nasmyth’s discovery must be 
left; he himself maintained, notwithstanding what had fallen from 
other astronomers, that it was a substantial discovery. 

At the end of last year the assistant-secretary of the Society, Mr. 
Williams, gave an abstract of the record of thirty-six eclipses in the 
Chinese historical work called ‘Chun Ten.’ Mr. Williams had con- 
verted the Chinese dates into dates according to the Julian calendar. 
The Astronomer-Royal has lately compared the ‘ Chun Tsen’ eclipses 
with those calculated in the French work entitled ‘ L’Art de Vérifier 
des Dates,’ and he finds that, of the thirty-six eclipses, thirty-two 
agree with the computations of modern theory, whilst in the remaining 
four it is very probable that there is an error in the Chinese record. 

Some very important notes on the binary star, « Centauri, are 
given by Mr. EH. B. Powell. He invites attention to the important 
portion of the orbit now about to be described, viz. the part in the 
immediate neighbourhood of the lesser maximum of distance. If this 
maximum be accurately determined, one most prominent feature in the 
path will be fixed; and then, as the companion will revolve with con- 
tinually increasing rapidity till its distance from the primary dimin- 
ishes to 1” or less, a really excellent orbit will be calculable in 1870 
or thereabouts. Now that so much discussion is going on respecting 
the changes which are supposed to have taken place in nebule, it may 
be of interest to record that Mr. Powell considers that decided changes 
have taken place in the nebula about 7 Argus. In 1860, the whole 
nebula had faded away very considerably, and it had altered its form, 


664 Chronicles of Science. [ Oct., 


the nebulous matter having receded so as to leave open the southern 
end of the lemniscate vacuity. Mr. Abbot first published the fact 
that 4 is no longer in the dense portion of the nebula where it was 
seen by Sir John Herschel. 

In 1857 the Astronomer-Royal made a communication to the As- 
tronomical Society on the means available for correcting the received 
measure of the sun’s distance from the earth. Among the different 
subjects of observation applicable within some years to this object, he 
particularly indicated the transit of Venus, December 6, 1882, treated 
by the method of comparison of duration of transits at different places, 
as one meriting most careful consideration. The Society has lately 
been favoured by the learned professor with a further communication 
on this transit, illustrated with orthographic projections of the illu- 
minated sides of the earth for ingress and egress. From these it is 
seen that on the seaboard of the Unitéd States of America, the dura- 
tion of transit would be shortest. The possible maximum of shortening 
being 2°U0,,that at the United States is represented by 1:78. The 
Southern States, as far as the Gulf of Mexico, would be almost as 
favourable, and would have the advantage of a higher sun at egress. 
Bermuda would be also a very good place, the whole shortening there 
being 1:8. The circumstances therefore are exceedingly favourable 
for the selection of observing stations at which the duration of transit 
will bemuch shortened. The choice of stations where the duration of 
transit will be longest is more limited, and the practical difficulties 
rather greater. The most favourable position that can be found is 
between Sabrina Land and Repulse Bay, where the lengthening of the 
transit would be represented by 1:61—a very large amount; the 
geometrical possible maximum being 2:00. This point near Sabrina 
Land being the only one very suitable for the observation, the Astro- 
nomer-Royal thinks it very desirable that a reconnaissance should be 
made of different points on the Antarctic continent, and that it should 
not be long deferred. The first locality to be examined is that in 7” E. 
longitude between Sabrina Land and Repulse Bay, the points to be 
ascertained being Ist, whether the coast is accessible on the 6th of 
December ; 2nd, whether a latitude of 65° can be reached; and 8rd, 
whether the sun can usually be seen well on December 6th at 2° and 8" 
Greenwich mean solar time. Should the answer to the first or third 
of these questions be negative, then it would be proper to examine 
other portions of the south continent, say in longitude not very different 
from 5" west, but with no particular restrictions except that of gaining 
the highest possible south latitude. And the only point for inquiry 
would be, how well the sun can usually be seen on December 6th at the 
hours above named. 

Referring to an adverse criticism which Messrs. Stone and Carpenter 
made upon Professor Bond’s drawing of the nebula of Orion, in which 
these gentlemen considered it was not so accurate as that of Sir John 
Herschel, Professor Bond has communicated to the Astronomical 
Society a detailed defence of his own drawing, and a notice of that of 
Sir J. Herschel. He appears to show very satisfactorily that Messrs. 
Stone and Carpenter have not been altogether warranted in their 


1864. ] Astronomy. 665 


unfavourable notice, as micrometric measurements prove that, in several 
instances, Herschel’s drawing is less accurate than Bond’s. It would 
be more satisfactory if some independent observer were to examine the 
matter minutely, for it is really important, in view of the questions 
which have been raised respecting the reality of changes in the 
aspect of the nebula. The reading of these remarks gave rise to a 
short discussion, in which Mr. Stone, Dr. Winnecke, and the Rev. C. 
Pritchard took part. It was generally agreed that, from the acknow- 
ledged ability of Mr. Bond, his drawing will probably become the 
standard of reference for the present epoch ; but it was most important 
that attention should be directed to all suspected deviations of that 
drawing from accuracy, in order that they might now be settled while 
there is an opportunity of doing so. 

Some very beautiful photographs of the sun, taken by the Ely 
Helioautograph, were exhibited at the same meeting by Professor 
Selwyn. Some of them were 63 inches in diameter, and contained spots 
and facule very clearly marked. He considered that his photographs 
did not support a result obtained by Mr. Stewart, who, from an 
examination of the sun pictures taken at Kew, considered that it was a 
nearly universal law that the facule belonging to a spot appear to the 
left of that spot. Professor Selwyn believes that the facule surround 
the spots in the same way as the edges of a crater surround the cavity 
of a crater, not favouring one side or the other, but lying fairly round 
them. A continuous series of solar photographs cannot fail to give the 
means of proving or disproving such statements. 

We have already mentioned the series of Chinese eclipses com- 
municated to the Society by Mr. John Williams. This gentleman, a 
profound Chinese and Japanese scholar, has more recently communi- 
cated another series, from B.c. 481 to the Christian era, which he has 
extracted from a Chinese historical work entitled ‘Tung Keen Kang 
Muh,’ in 101 volumes, first published during the Myng dynasty, about 
1473. The dates have been carefully verified by a comparison with 
a set of chronological tables published in Japan, which supply not 
only the Chinese cycles and their years, arranged according to their 
Kea Tsze system, but also the years in the European system, answering 
to their cyclical years. The work of exhuming these records of 
eclipses must be very laborious, and Mr. Williams deserves great 
praise for the service which his linguistic talents enable him to render 
to astronomical science. 

Respecting the bright band bordering the moon’s limb in photo- 
graphs of eclipses, Professor Airey described some experiments which _ 
he says leave no doubt on his mind that the phenomenon in question 
is a mere nervous lritation of the retina, produced by the view of the 
conterminous black and white portions of the photograph. 

An elaborate mathematical paper on shooting-stars in March, by 
A. 8. Herschel, Esq., cannot be given in abstract. 

R. Hodgson, Esq., has communicated to the Society a note on the 
achromatic object-glass, illustrated with several diagrams, in which he 
shows how wide and large have been the variations made by foreign 
opticians, whilst the form adopted by English opticians is the same as 


666 Chronicles of Science. | Oct., 


that used by the inventor, John Dolland, in 1758. A form adopted 
by Steinheil in 1860, computed from a paper by Gauss published in 
1817, is spoken of very highly as admitting of an increased aperture 
for a given focal length. With reference to the discovery of achro- 
matism, it is an interesting fact that in a curious old folio volume, 
entitled ‘Zahn’s Optics, printed at Nuremberg in 1702, amongst 
other diagrams one is given of a pair of lenses exactly similar to an 
achromatic object-glass of the form adopted by Dolland. Mr. Hodgson 
speaks in high terms of the regularity and great excellence of the 
optical glass now made by Messrs. Chance, of Birmingham. 

The Rev. W. R. Dawes has announced the curious fact, that the 
small star s. p. ~ Herculis, which in the year 1856 was discovered by 
Mr. Alvan Clark to be close double, is a binary system, the variation 
in position amounting to about 18° within the last five or six years. 

Mr. Pogson now considers that the identity of his last new planet 
with Freia is quite established, and the name Suppho is again at 
liberty for future use. He has now provided another candidate for the 
name, this time most certainly and evidently a new planet. Its 
magnitude is 10-4. 

Mr. De la Rue reports most favourably of the performance of a 
telescope of new construction, sent by Dr. Steinheil for exhibition at 
his reception held at Willis’s Rooms on June 11. The objective has 
an aperture of about 4:2 inches, and a focal length of about 40 inches. 
Dr. Steinheil is now engaged upon an object-glass composed of three 
lenses of 6 inches aperture, and only 30 inches focal length. 


Ill. BOTANY AND VEGETABLE PHYSIOLOGY. 


Dr. Asa Gray makes the following remarks in regard to Calluna 
vulgaris as en American plant :— 

The earliest published announcement that we have been able to 
find of Calluna vulgaris as an American plant is that by Sir William 
Hooker, in the Index to his ‘ Flora Boreali-Americana’ (ii. p. 280), 
issued in 1840. Here it is stated that—‘‘ This should have been in- 
serted at p. 389, as an inhabitant of Newfoundland, on the authority of 
De la Pylaie.” Accordingly in the seventh volume of De Candolle’s 
‘Prodromus,’ to the European habitat is added “ Httam in Islandia et 
in Terra Nova Americ Borealis.” But it does not appear that 
Mr. Bentham had ever seen an American specimen. He also over- 
looked the fact (to which Dr. Seemann has recently called attention) 
that Gisecke, in Brewster’s ‘ Encyclopedia,’ records it as a native of 
Greenland. No mention of it is made by Dr. Lang, in his enumeration 
of the known plants of Greenland, appended to Rink’s ‘ Geographical 
and Statistical Account of Greenland,’ published in 1857 ; from which 
we may infer that the plant is perhaps as rare and local in Greenland 
as in Newfoundland, or even in Massachusetts. In September, 1861, 
Dr. Gray announced the unexpected discovery, by Mr. Jackson Dawson, 


1864. | Botany and Vegetable Physiology. 667 


of a patch of Heath in Tewksbury, Massachusetts ; adding the remark, 
that “it may have been introduced, unlikely as it seems; or we may 
have to rank this Heath with Scolopendrium officinarum, Subularia 
aquatica, and Marsilea quadrifolia, as species of the Old World so 
sparingly represented in the New, that they are known only at single 
stations—perhaps late-lingerers rather than new-comers.” And when, 
in a subsequent volume of the ‘American Journal of Science and 
Arts,’ Mr. Rand, after exploring the locality, gave a detailed account 
of the case, and of the probabilities that the plant might be truly 
native, we added a note to say that the probability very much depended 
upon the confirmation of the Newfoundland habitat. As to that we 
had been verbally informed, in January, 1839, by the late David Don, 
that he possessed specimens of Calluna collected in Newfoundland by 
an explorer of that island. Our friend, Mr. C. J. Sprague, however, 
after having in vain endeavoured to find in any publication of Pylaie’s 
any mention of this Heath in Newfoundland, and having ascertained 
that no specimen was extant in Pylaie’s herbarium, or elsewhere that 
he could trace, naturally took a sceptical view, and in the ‘ Proceed- 
ings of the Boston Natural History Society’ for February and for 
May, 1862, he argued plausibly, from negative evidence, against the 
idea that any native Heath had ever been found in Newfoundland or 
on the American continent. It is with much interest, therefore, that 
we read the following announcement by Dr. Hewett C. Watson: 
*‘ Specimens of Calluna vulgaris from Newfoundland have very recently 
come into my hands, under circumstances which seem to warrant its 
reception henceforth as a true native of that island. At the late sale 
of the Linnean Society’s collections in London, in November, 1863, 
I bought a parcel of specimens, which was endorsed outside, ‘A 
Collection of Dried Plants from Newfoundland, collected by 
— McCormack, Esq., and presented to Mr. David Don.’ The spe- 
cimens were old, and greatly damaged by insects. Apparently they 
had been left in the rough, as originally received from the collector ; 
being in mingled layers between a scanty supply of paper, and almost 
all of them unlabelled. Among these specimens were two flowerless 
branches of the true Calluna vulgaris, about six inches long, quite 
identical with the common Heath of our British moors. Fortunately, 
a label did accompany these two specimens, which runs thus: ‘ Head 
of St. Mary’s Bay.—Trepassey Bay, also very abundant.—S.E. of 
Newfoundland, considerable tracks of it.’ The name ‘ Hrica vulgaris’ 
has been added on the label in a different handwriting. AIl the other 
species in the parcel (or nearly all) have been recorded from New- 
foundland, so that there appeared no cause for doubt respecting the 
Calluna itself. And, moreover, the collector had seemingly some idea 
that an especial interest would attach to the Calluna, since in this 
instance he gave its special locality, and also added two other localities 
on the label. But there is very likely some mistake in the name of 
the donor to Mr. Don. It is believed by Sir William Hooker that 
he was the same Mr. W. HE. Cormack whose name is frequently cited 
for Newfoundland plants in the ‘ Flora Boreali-Americana.’ This 
gentleman was a merchant in Newfoundland, to which he made several 


668 Chronicles of Science. [ Oct., 


voyages. We should recollect that the Calluna advances to the extreme 
western limits (or out-liers) of Europe, in Iceland, Ireland, and the 
Azores. The step thence to Newfoundland and Massachusetts, though 
wide, is not an incredible one.” 

Without doubt these are the very specimens referred to by Mr. 
Don, then curator of the Linnean Society ; and now that the stations 
where they were collected are made known, we may expect that 
the plant will soon be rediscovered, and its indigenous character 
ascertained. 


M. Cahours finds that fruits, such as apples, oranges, and lemons, 
after being pulled, absorb a portion of oxygen from the air, and give 
out carbonic acid. The quantity of the CO, given off is greatest in 
darkness and at a high temperature. Similar phenomena take place 
when the fruits are placed in oxygen gas. When the fruits begin to 
decay, then a large quantity of CO, is formed, so that the atmosphere 
around the fruits becomes loaded with it and very unwholesome. This 
occurrence depends on a chemical change in the juices of the fruits. 
Carbonic acid is given off by decaying fruits when placed in azote, 
proving that it 1s not produced by absorption of the oxygen of the air. 
The change in medlars, called by Lindley “ bletting,’ is similar, and 
is accompanied with fermentation, causing sugar to be converted imto 
alcohol, carbonic acid, and an ether which gives the peculiar aroma to 
the fruit. 


Dr. Seemann has made a list of 279 species in which double flowers 
occur. Of these, 234 are exogens and 45 endogens. Of the exogenous 
species, 166 are polypetalous, 66 gamopetalous, and 2 apetalous. The 
vast majority of plants producing double flowers occur in the Northern 
hemisphere. Notasingle species with double flowers has been noticed 
in Polynesia and Australasia. A few occur in South Africa and South 
America. 


Mr. Carey Lea, of Philadelphia, finds that ozone checks the growth 
of the roots of plants, and that it prevents the formation of mould. 
The ozone which he used was generated by the action of sulphuric 
acid upon chameleon mineral. 


Tt has been found that vegetable ivory in contact with concentrated 
sulphuric acid assumes a fine red colour, almost equal to magenta. At 
first it is pink, but gradually becomes deeper until it attains a purple 
when the acid has been allowed to act for twelve hours. 


Professor Braun, in the ‘ Proceedings of the Berlin Academy,’ 
gives a list of 387 species of Marsilea. Of these, 4 are found in Europe, 
Northern Africa, and Asia; 6 in Southern Asia; 12 in Central and 
Southern Africa and the islands adjacent; 9 in North and South 
America—one of which is common to both North America and Europe ; 
5 in Australia; and 4 in the South Sea Islands—only 2 of which, how- 
ever, are peculiar to them. 

Neotinea intacta of Reichenbach, an orchid allied to Aceras and 
not unlike Habenaria albida, has been recently added to the Irish 


1864. | Botany and Vegetable Physiology. 669 


Flora. It was found in the woods of Castle Taylor, in Galway, by 
Miss More. It has been previously known as a native of Greece, 
Malta, Algiers, south of Germany, and Portugal. 


Goodyera repens, the northern limit of which has been recorded 
as Perth and Forfar, has been found recently in large quantity by 
Mr. Claudio L. Serra in fir woods at Dalmeny Park, near Edinburgh. 
Corallorhiza innata has likewise been found in woods near Alloa by 
Dr. A. Dickson, and at Denholm Green, near Cavers. Draba rupestris 
and Sagina nivalis have been found by Professor Balfour on Stobinnain, 
a mountain upwards of 3,800 feet above the level of the sea, at the 
head of Balquidder and close to Ben More. 


In the north-western provinces of India, the following plants are 
used for poisoning food with the view of robbery, according to Dr. 
James Irving :— Datura fastuosa and alba, Aconitum ferox, Cannabis 
indica, Nerium Oleander. 


Mr. Edward Tuckermann has published observations on North 
American and other Lichens. The Lichens are chiefly those collected 
by Mr. Wright in the Island of Cuba. These specimens afford a view 
of a tropical Lichen flora as extensive and elegant as has perhaps ever 
been given. 


M. J. Duval-Jouve has published an account of the Natural History 
of the Equisetums of France, illustrated by 10 plates. In reporting 
upon it, Messrs. Decaisne, Tulasne, and Brongniart make the following 
remarks :——The genus Equisetum constitutes by itself one of the most 
remarkable families of Vascular Cryptogams. The peculiar external 
forms of these plants, the nature and disposition of their organs of 
vegetation, and the characters of their reproductive organs, isolate 
them apparently from the families near which they are placed, on 
account of resemblances in certain essential points of character. These 
plants have been long special objects of study, and of late years 
important discoveries have been made in regard to their mode of re- 
production. The researches of Thuret, Hofmeister, and Milde, from 
1848 to 1852, have shown the similarity existing between Equiseta 
and Ferns in their mode of fecundation. M. Duval-Jouve has 
extended their observations, and has issued a very complete work on 
the family. He has followed the development of the various species 
of Equisetum from the state of spore up to the fully-formed fructi- 
fication. He describes the structure of the stems, the branches, and 
the adult roots in the different species, and points out the relations 
which exist among the various tissues of which they are composed. 
He also follows the mode of development of the tissues ; the formation 
and multiplication of the cells, which, at the summit of the bud, deter- 
mine the first evolutions of the stem; the first appearance of the 
sheaths, which in these plants take the place of the leaves; and the 
formation of the stomata and the vessels. The sheaths, which at 
intervals surround the stems and branches in the plants, have generally 
been looked upon as verticils of imperfect leaves; but M. Duyal- 
Jouve shows that they are first formed as a continuous ring, the free 

VOL. I. 2 Z 


670 Chronicles of Science. [ Oct., 


border of which at a later period forms the teeth of the sheaths, and 
that, on this account, their resemblance to the foliar organs is rendered 
doubtful. The siliceous covering is considered as a secretion of the 
part of the epidermal cells which is in contact with the air. It is an 
inorganic secretion outside the cells, and resembling in some respects 
the waxy matter deposited on the surface of the leaves and fruits, Full 
details are given of the structure of the stomata; their position being 
limited to the parts of the epidermis which cover a parenchyma filled 
with chlorophyll. The vascular system of Equisetums consists of a 
cylinder of distinct and very regular bundles of annular or spiral vessels. 
Regular lacune also occur in the inside of these bundles, formed by 
the absorption of the more internal of the vessels. The development 
of spores resembles that of the pollen-grains, and the spiral filaments 
surrounding the spores are formed from the outer membrane of the 
spore itself. These spores when germinating produce, as in ferns, a 
small green irregularly-lobed frond or prothallus, called by M. Duval- 
Jouve Sporophyme. On the prothallus are produced Antheridia filled 
with spermatozoids or antherozoids, and Archegonia containing each 
a germ-cell or embryonary-cell, destined after fecundation to produce 
the fructiferous frond. The prothalli are usually unisexual. The 
expulsion of the antherozoids and their application to the Archegonia 
are favoured by humidity. The following species are described : 
1. Hquisetum maximum, Lam. 2. EH. sylvaticum, L. 3. EH. pratense, 
Ehrh. 4. FE. arvense, L. 5. H. littorale, Kuhl. 6. H. limosum, L. 
7. E. palustre, L. 8. EH. ramosissimum, Dest. 9. EH. variegatum, Schl. 
10. EH. trachyodon, Al. Bra. 11. E. hyemale, L. 


IV. CHEMISTRY. 
(Including the Proceedings of the Chemical Society.) 


Tux short space we can devote to the Chronicles of Science in this 
number, obliges us to condense into the smallest bulk the little we 
have to record of the progress of Chemistry. 

Following our ordinary arrangement we may first draw attention 
to some experiments with oxygen, which, although made some time ago, 
have but recently become known to English chemists. Dr. Meissner,* 
of Gottingen, has devoted himself to a thorough investigation of the 
ozone and antozone question; and in the course of his experiments 
has obtained some curious results. The most singular, perhaps, is 
the discovery that antozone possesses a remarkable attraction for 
water, which it takes up in the shape of vapour forming a mist or 
cloud. This the author supposes to explain many meteorological 
phenomena. In the course of the experiments he also satisfied him- 
self that ozone and antozone are produced from ordinary oxygen in 


* «Untersuchungen tiber den Sauerstoff.’ Hanover, 1863. 


1864. | Chemistry. 671 


equivalent proportions, and that one cannot be formed without the 
other, thus satisfactorily demonstrating the triple nature of oxygen. 
Meissner’s results and opinions, however, do not pass unchallenged, 
and Von Babo* throws great doubt on the existence of the so-called 
antozone. 

Some experiments by Weyl on the combinations of ammonium 
deserve a passing notice. By placing potassium in contact with 
ammonia in a closed tube the author obtained an unstable compound 
in which he supposes one of the hydrogen atoms of the ammonia to 
be replaced by potassium. He proposes to ascertain if it be possible 
to obtain oxides and salts of this compound, and in this way to arrive 
at some conclusion respecting the metallic nature of ammonium. 

Tungsten, a metal which presents some anomalous characteristics, 
has been made the subject of some investigations by the MM. Persoz.t 
They have not yet published their results in detail, and now only 
announce the discovery in the metal of several distinct radicals which 
give rise to various oxygen compounds, acids, and bases. 

The colouring matter of the emerald has been a subject of dis- 
cussion. By some the colour was supposed to be due to organic 
matter only; but Wohler and Rose§ have recently determined the 
presence of a very minute proportion of oxide of chromium to which 
they attribute the colour, admitting the possibility of some organic 
matter being present. A stone, however, which they kept for an hour 
at the temperature of melted copper showed no sign of alteration. 

It may be worth mentioning that M. Aupin has determined the 
presence of silver in the water of the Dead Sea, a ton of the saline 
residue of which contains seven grains of the precious metal. 

In organic chemistry we may announce the discovery of yet 
another hydrocarbon in that highly complex mixture, coal tar.|| The 
discovery seems to have been made about the same time by MM. 
Bechamp and Naquet. The new body boils at about 140° C., and 
M. Naquet announces its composition to be C; H,,. Beilstein, how- 
ever, asserts it to be identical with Xylene C; Hy. 

Some recent cases of poisoning have caused a considerable exten- 
sion of our knowledge of vegetable poisons. Digitaline has been 
made the subject of investigation by several French chemists, and 
especially by MM. Grandeau§ and Lefort.** The experiments of 
the former were principally directed towards obtaining a ready and 
decisive means of detecting the poison in organic mixtures, in which 
he has to some extent succeeded. He has found that digitaline passes 
with tolerable facility through a dialyser, and may be extracted from 
the evaporated diffusate by means of alcohol. The most characteristic — 
reaction he has found to be that produced when digitaline is moistened 


* «Annal. der Chem. und Pharmacie,’ Dec. 1863, p. 265. 
+ ‘Poggendorff’s Annalen,’ No. iv., 1864, p. 601. 

t «Comptes Rendus,’ June 27, 1864. 

§ Ibid. 

|| «Comptes Rendus,’ July 6, 25, and Aug. 4. 

{ ‘Comptes Rendus,’ vol. lviii. p. 1048. 

** «Chemical News,’ vol. x. p. 99. 


672 Chronicles of Science. [ Oct., 


with sulphuric acid and exposed to the vapour of bromine. It then 
instantaneously assumes an intense violet colour, varying in shade 
according to the amount of the substance present, but sufficiently 
distinct with 0°0005 of a gramme. M. Lefort’s investigation was 
confined to the different properties of the various digitalines found in 
commerce ; and we may say in a few words that the differences re- 
marked were so great as to show that digitaline at the best is an 
extremely variable substance, the use of which as a medicine should 
at once be prohibited. 

A lamentable occurrence at Liverpool has been the occasion of 
some experiments on the chemical properties of the Calabar bean by 
Dr. Edwards,* which will be found of great interest to toxicologists. 

While on the subject of the detection of vegetable poisons we 
must mention that Dr. Helwig t has found that by a very carefully 
regulated temperature morphia, brucia, strychnia, veratria, aconitia, 
and atropia may be sublimed, and the microscopic appearance of the 
sublimate become the means of identification. 

Cahours, whose experiments on the respiration of leaves and 
fruits we noticed in our last, has proceeded with an examination of 
the respiration of flowers.t The green parts of plants, it will be 
remembered, under the influence of light assimilate carbon and give 
off oxygen ; the coloured parts, on the contrary, absorb oxygen and 
evolve carbonic acid. 

In analytical chemistry we have but little to report. Professor 
Williamson and Dr. Russell detailed to the Chemical Society a new 
method of gas analysis, no description of which would be intelligible 
unless accompanied by a drawing of the apparatus employed. We 
must therefore refer the reader to the ‘Journal of the Chemical 
Society’ for the description. 

M. Schlosing has quite recently $ published a method of esti- 
mating phosphoric acid in earthy phosphates by reducing the acid in 
‘a current of carbonic oxide, and subsequently passing the volatilized 
phosphorus into a solution of nitrate of silver. The phosphide of 
silver which is formed is then converted into phosphate and weighed. 
This process is not likely to meet with general adoption. The deter- 
mination of phosphoric acid is, however, a very important matter, 
especially to the agricultural chemist, and we therefore call attention 
to a valuable paper on the analysis of mineral phosphates by Mr. 
R. Warrington, jun.,|| which contains a detailed description of the 
best methods hitherto pursued. 

In the technical applications of chemistry one or two important 
discoveries have been made. The first we may notice is that of 
M. Pelouze,{ who has found that the alkaline polysulphides saponify 
fats as easily as caustic alkalies. This discovery may considerably 


* «Chemical News,’ vol. x. p. 108. 

+ ‘Zeitschrift fiir Analytische Chemie,’ H. 1, 1864, ° 
{+ ‘Comptes Rendus,’ June 27, 1864. 

§ ‘Comptes Rendus,’ Aug. 22, 1864. 

|| ‘Chemical News,’ vol. x. p. 1. 

4 ‘Comptes Rendus,’ July 6, 1864. 


1864. | Geology and Paleontology. 673 


lessen the cost of producing soaps, if some effectual means of removing 
the sulphur compounds should be devised. 

Another discovery bearing on the same subject has been made by 
M. Mege-Mouries,* who notices that fats in the globular state, which 
is induced by agitating a melted fat with warm water containing a 
little yolk of eggs or even soap, are saponified by a much smaller 
amount of alkali and in a much shorter space of time than when in 
the ordinary liquid state. 

The colouring matters of madder have been the subjects of some 
investigations by M. E. Kopp,t who has found that yellow alizarine 
may be separated from the common commercial green substance by 
agitating the latter with mineral oil, in which the yellow is soluble 
but not the green. Caustic soda in weak solution will now separate 
the madder colour from the oil, and the addition of sulphuric acid to 
saturate the alkali now precipitates pure yellow alizarine. 

These are a few of the more generally interesting subjects which 
have engaged the attention of chemists within the last three months. 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE CHEMICAL SOCIETY. 


The papers which have been read at the Chemical Society since 
our last publication include that by Professor Williamson and Dr. 
Russell, On a New Method of Gas Analysis; Professor Wanklyn, 
On Isomeric Hydrocarbons; Professor Williamson, On the Classifi- 
cation of the Elements according to their Atomic Weights ; Professor 
Stokes, On the Detection and Discrimination of Organic Bodies by 
means of their Optical Properties ; Mr. Schorlemmer, On the Identity 
of Methyl and Hydride of Ethyl; Mr. R. Dale, On the Action of 
Baryta on Suberic Acid; and A Description of Vacuum Experiments 
by Dr. H. Sprengel. The session was concluded by the reading of a 
discourse On the Philosophy of British Agriculture, written by Pro- 
fessor Way. 


V. GEOLOGY AND PALAONTOLOGY. 


(Including the Progress of the Geological Survey of the United 
Kingdom.) 


Tue most important event of the past quarter affecting Geology, is 
doubtless the appearance of the new ‘ Geological Magazine,’ with 
which is incorporated its predecessor, ‘The Geologist.’ The last- 
named periodical, though well supported when it began, had latterly 
become of a very inferior character, so much so that we have not had 
occasion to notice it in these Chronicles, and therefore its replacement 


* «Comptes Rendus,’ vol. Iviii. p. 864. 
+ ‘Comptes Rendus, Aug. 17, 1864. 


674 Chronicles of Science. [ Oct., 


by a new and ably-conducted journal is at once a welcome change to 
the geologist, and an important advance in the science. 

The first number of the new journal opens with a brief review of 
“The Past and Present Aspects of Geology,” which contains more 
“ideal” philosophy than is usually exhibited in the writings of 
geologists, and sets before the reader, clearly and concisely, a state- 
ment of the different phases or “ aspects ” of the science at the several 
periods in its history, pointing out and contrasting at the same time 
“the ideas that during each of those epochs guided the course of 
geological investigations, forming fer the time, so to speak, the rudder 
of geological thought.” 

The original articles are all valuable contributions to geological 
literature. Mr. Salter’s paper on “The Pebble-bed at Budleigh 
Salterton” is an appendix to his description of the fossils from that 
deposit, which was published in the last number of the ‘ Quarterly 
Journal of the Geological Society ;’ the author comes to the conclusion 
that these fossils, found in a pebble-bed of the new red sandstone 
period, belong to the Norman lower Silurian fauna, and are perfectly 
distinct from English fossils of that age; they therefore indicate the 
existence of a land barrier between the seas of England and Normandy 
during the lower Silurian period, a conclusion at which Mr. Godwin- 
Austen arrived, on independent grounds, some years ago. Mr. 
Davidson’s paper on “'Thecidium” is a very exhaustive examination 
into the value of the recent and tertiary species of the genus, and a 
description of their anatomy; in the course of which the author 
shows that many of the so-called species are mere varieties of the 
recent Thecidium Mediterraneum. 

The second number quite keeps up the character of the new maga- 
zine, and contains two important papers—one by Mr. 8. P. Woodward 
and the other by Mr. Day—hbesides several others of less general 
interest. In Mr. 8. P. Woodward’s paper on “The Bridlington 
Crag,” there is a very complete and useful list of all the species of 
shells hitherto found in that deposit ; and the comparison of this fauna 
with those of other accumulations, hitherto supposed to be synchronous 
with it, has led the author to the somewhat unexpected result that the 
Bridlington deposit can no longer be considered the exact equivalent 
of the Norwich Crag in age or in climatal conditions, and that the 
shells “ are almost equally distinct from those of the last pre-glacial 
and those of the first post-glacial deposits, and is (sic) much more 
Arctic than either, as if formed during the climax of the last great age 
of cold in Britain.” Mr. Day’s paper on “ Acrodus Anningie, Agass.,” 
treats of the structure of a very remarkable shark, as exemplified by a 
complete lower jaw found by the author in the lias of Lyme Regis, 
which apparently contains teeth hitherto referred to two different 
genera, until now regarded by many eminent paleontologists as belong- 
ing to distinct families. Geologists have more frequently to deal 
with fragments than with perfect specimens, and they therefore often 
find, as in this case, that structures considered by them, through im- 
perfect knowledge, to be characteristic of distinct genera, or even 
families, belong in reality to the same individual. Thus the philoso- 


1864. | Geology and Paleontology. 675 


phical paleontologist becomes impressed with the consciousness of the 
imperfection of the geological record ; while the man of mere fact—the 
Gradgrind and Bounderby of paleontology—still clings to his own 
feeble interpretation of imperfect specimens, and mistaking fancy for 
fact, adopts as finally true those erroneous notions which the “dreamer” 
only tolerates provisionally as a plausible hypothesis. 

The other articles in these numbers are also interesting ; besides 
which there are several abstracts of foreign memoirs, reviews of recent 
publications, reports of proceedings of field-clubs, and other matter of 
interest to the geologist.* 

Professor von Ettingshausen has lately published a pamphlet, 
entitled ‘ Ueber die Entdeckung des Neuholliindischen Charakters der 
Hocenflora Europa’s, und tiber die Anwendung des Naturselbstdruckes 
aur Férderung der Botanik und Paleontologie,’ and although its 
immediate object is merely to show that the author was the first to point 
out the Australian character of the Hocene flora of Europe, and that 
nature-printing can be used advantageously for the illustration and 
comparison of recent and fossil plants, yet it advances our knowledge 
of the subjects treated, by bringing prominently forward the facts 
essential to his argument ; and we freely admit that, after reading his 
pamphlet, few besides his antagonist, Professor Unger, would be likely 
to dispute with him either of the points at issue. The advantages 
attending the employment of the process of nature-printing for pur- 
poses of comparison appear so obvious, that Professor Unger’s opinion 
to the contrary is not a little remarkable; and as regards the Austra- 
lian character of the Hocene plants, Professor Unger’s “ Dissolving 
Views ” have long made familiar to us his opinion respecting their 
“insular” character, as distinguished from the inference of Professor 
von Httingshausen that they belonged to a “Continental” and New 
Holland flora. 

Dr. Dawson’s memoir on ‘ Air-breathers of the Coal-period, con- 
tains descriptions of all the remains of supposed air-breathers that 
have been found in the carboniferous strata of Nova Scotia; many of 
them have been described before by Professor Owen, the author, and 
others, so that this publication may be considered a synopsis and 
résumé of the whole subject. The vertebrate remains belong to five 
genera—Hylonomus, Baphetes, Dendrerpeton, Hylerpeton, and Hosaurus ; 
but the invertebrata are represented only by a Myriapod and a Pupa, 
with possibly some insect-remains. The vertebrate fossils were dis- 
covered, in the first instance, in the interior of trunks of trees, by Sir 
Charles Lyell and the author; but the remains of Hosaurus (two _ 
vertebrae only) have been since discovered by Mr. O. C. Marsh. 

Respecting the affinities of the vertebrata—the most important 
subject treated —it may be briefly stated that Dr. Dawson refers 
Baphetes and Dendrerpeton to the Labyrinthodonts, Hylerpeton doubt- 
fully to the Archegosaurians, and Hylonomus to a new order (Micro- 
sauria), which he does not define ; while to Hosaurus he does not assign 
a place. 


* Our limited space compels us to postpone the consideration of the succeeding 
numbers of * The Geological Magazine.’ 


676 Chronicles of Science. | Oct., 


The uncertainty as to the zoological position of the last-named 
animal has reference only to the order, for it certainly belongs, as do 
the orders Labyrinthodontia and Archegosauria, to the class AMPHIBIA 
(included with the Repritia by Dr. Dawson); and as regards the new 
order Microsauria, Dr. Dawson states that it “may be regarded as 
allied, on the one hand, to certain of the humbler lizards, as the gecko 
or agama, and on the other, to the tailed batrachians.” If this be so, 
Hylonomus must have a special interest for the naturalist, as forming 
a connecting link between two classes of the vertebrata. But the 
author also states that the genus Hylerpeton, though referred by him, 
with some doubt, to the order Archegosauria, “ may possibly be a link 
of connection between the Microsauria and the Archegosauria.” 

As these fossils were discovered in association with a mollusk 
belonging to a genus (Pupa) which exists at the present day, and to an 
order (Pulmonata) not otherwise known to occur in beds below the 
Purbeck, and in the same strata as a myriapod, whose next oldest 
known representative was found in Jurassic strata, their examination 
and description naturally led Dr. Dawson to discuss their bearing upon 
Mr. Darwin’s hypothesis of the origin of species. Accordingly the 
author devotes a chapter to this subject, with which, of course, he has 
no great sympathy ; and we imagine that he refers to this part of his 
memoir when, in his introduction, he threatens to indulge in gossip 
without scruple, for we have certainly failed to detect the promised 
“gossip ” anywhere else, 

The first part of Professor Owen’s “Memoir on the Cavern of 
Bruniquel and its Organic Contents” was read. before the Royal Society 
on June 9th; it contained descriptions of the human remains found in 
the cave, and an account of the circumstances under which they were 
discovered ; the contemporaneity of the human remains with those of 
the extinct and other animals, and the bone and flint implements with 
which they are associated, being inferred from the similarity of their 
position and. relations in the surrounding breccia, and from the chemi- 
cal constitution of the human bones corresponding with that of the 
other animal remains. 

Several small portions of human crania were noticed by the author, 
and more particularly the hinder portion of a cranium, with several 
other parts of the same skeleton, which were so situated as to indicate 
that the body had been interred in a crouching posture ; also, an 
almost entire calvarium was described, and then compared with 
different types of skull, being found to correspond best with the 
Celtic type. Certain jaws and teeth of individuals were next noticed, 
especially the lower jaw and teeth of an adult, and upper and lower 
jaws of children, the latter showing the characters of certain deciduous 
teeth. 

The geological value of this large and unique collection of fossil 
human remains depends entirely upon its age, and as that can be 
determined only after a careful examination of the bones associated 
with them, we must be content to wait patiently for the reading of the 
second part of this memoir before arriving at a conclusion. 


1864. | Geology and Paleontology. 677 


. The most complete work that has yet appeared on the geology of 
Madeira has just been published at Leipzig; itis entitled ‘Geologische 
Beschreibung der Inseln Madcira und Porto Santo,’ von G. Hartung ; 
and it contains also descriptions of the fossils by Dr. Karl Mayer. 
It is the result of several years’ investigation of the geology of the 
island, begun in 1853 in company with Sir Charles Lyell, and since 
continued by the advice of that distinguished geologist. 

Dr. Hartung first describes the different stratified and volcanic 
rocks composing the islands of Madeira and Porto Santo, the forms of 
the hills, and the results of marine and sub-aérial erosion, or denuda- 
tion; but the greater part of the work is taken up with a detailed 
description of the various peaks, cones, and craters, this part of the 
subject being well illustrated by lithographed views of the localities, 
coast-sections of the volcanic cones, and maps of the islands, though 
the latter are unfortunately not coloured geologically. 

Dr. Karl Mayer gives, in the concluding chapter, a full account of 
the results of his examination of the tertiary fossils of Madeira, and 
his comparison of them with those from the Azores, and from Euro- 
pean localities the strata of which have a well-defined horizon. He 
differs in some respects from most other paleontologists, and we think 
he has assigned to the Madeira strata too remote an age in considering 
them to be of the horizon of Swiss Miocene, for out of 208 species 
determined by him 72 are recent; and although 91 species (only 9 of 
which are characteristic) are found in the “ Helvetian ” formation, yet 
80 are found in the ‘‘ Mayencien”’ below, and 83 in the “ Tortonien ” 
above, the numbers being so nearly alike that the difference may be 
due to accident, and the percentage of recent forms (85) being far too 
great for the “ Helvetian ” strata. 

About two years ago geologists were not a little surprised at an 
announcement made by Dr. H. B. Geinitz, of Dresden, an eminent 
paleontologist, that he had discovered a Trilobite in the collection of 
Madame Kablik, from the Rothliegende of Nieder-Stepanitz, near 
Hohenelbe, which he had therefore named Dalmanites Kablike ; with 
it was associated another crustacean, to which he gave the name 
Kablikia dyadica. Both fossils occurred in a black micaceous clay- 
slate, not distinguishable from a similar rock occurring at Nieder- 
Stepanitz, and therefore Dr. Geinitz felt certain that Madame Kablik 
was neither deceived nor deceiving when she assured him that it came 
from that locality. The word of a lady, aided perhaps by her looks, 
was sufficient to upset Dr. Geinitz’s faith in paleontology, its laws 
and its facts; but other paleontologists, far removed from tbe personal 
influence of the fair collector, were sufficiently prosaic to put the veto 
of their calmer judgments on the validity of the asserted fact. Dr. 
Geinitz, stimulated by the discovery of a more perfect specimen in the 
lady’s cabinet, set about confounding his compeers; but “ facts are 
stubborn things,” and he therefore gradually became convinced that 
his Dalmanites /<ablike was none other than the Placoparia Zippet, 
Bock, sp.—a species which occurs in the old Silurian slates of 
Dobrotiva, near Beraun! Dr. Geinitz lingers lovingly over his 


678 Chronicles of Science. [ Oct., 


‘Dalmanites Kablike before consigning it to its grave, and then laments 
that Kablikia dyadica must be “degraded” to Kablikia silurica ! 
This result of the “unangenehme Tauschung ” is stolidly described in 
the recently published ‘Sitzungsberichte der natur-wissenschaftliche 
Gesellschaft Isis zu Dresden’ for 1868 (p. 50). We give the page 
because, like the works of Mr. Carlyle’s ‘ Dryasdust,’ the “ Isis” has no 
index. 

All geologists feel themselves participators in some degree in the 
honour which has just been conferred by Her Majesty upon Sir Charles 
Lyell, who has recently been created a baronet of the United Kingdom, 
under the title of Sir Charles Lyell, Baronet, of Kinnordy, in the 
county of Forfar; and we feel certain that the general public is 
equally pleased that this mark of distinction should have been bestowed 
by the Queen upon a savant who has so often and so ably assisted them 
to a clear and philosophical comprehension of geological phenomena 
and their causes. 


Progress oF THE GEOLOGICAL SuRBVEY oF THE Unitrep KIneGpom. 


Ty our last number we gave an outline of the progress of the Ordnance 
Survey of these islands, and we now propose to supplement that sketch 
with an account of the origin and progress of that survey, the object 
of which is to portray on the Ordnance maps the mineral composition 
of the surface. It will be evident, therefore, that a correct topogra- 
phical survey must prevede, and form the basis of, a correct geological 
survey. Now it so happened that a few years after the detailed map- 
ping of the Ordnance surveyors had been commenced in the south of 
England, the value of geological surveys began to be recognized by the 
Government of this country, as well as by those of several Huropean 
states. It was felt that if the area occupied by each geological forma- 
tion, representing, as is generally the case, some special group of 
minerals, could be accurately depicted, by colouring on maps of sufii- 
cient size, we should be able to arrive at an approximate knowledge of 
the mineral resources of the country. In the case of the coal-fields, 
such knowledge would be specially valuable, as forming the basis for 
correct estimates of our coal-resources. But there are other minerals 
and rocks only second in value to coal, such as the iron-formation of 
the Oolitic period, the limestones of the carboniferous, and the slates 
of the Silurian, and it was wisely determined from the commencement 
that in the national survey all formations alike should receive equal 
care and attention, and that the maps should be equally reliable as 
guides for the miner, the agriculturist, or the man of science. 

The Geological Survey of Great Britain had its origin in the 
indomitable perseverance of its first director-general, Sir H. 'T. De la 
Beche. This accomplished naturalist, originally brought up for the 
army, early turned his attention to science, his mind having been pro- 
bably attracted to geology by his residence at Lyme Regis, where the 


1864. | Geology and Paleontology. 679 


cliffs of lias afford to the collector such rich treasures of past living 
forms. His love of geology increased with his years, and seems to 
have been especially marked by an appreciation of its practical bearings. 
Having left the army and arranged his private affairs, he commenced 
with the whole force of his character to elaborate those plans for a 
national survey, which he lived to see crowned with success. Being 
firmly convinced of the importance of a geological survey, on the basis 
of the Ordnance maps, he determined on a plan which involved no 
little cost of labour and money to himself, in order to bring the sub- 
ject forcibly before the leading statesmen of the day. He consequently 
commenced to trace on the Ordnance maps of Cornwall the boundaries 
of the geological formations, as well as to insert the mineral veins, 
dykes, and other phenomena; and haying drawn up illustrative 
sections, “he thus took a first step,” to quote the words of his successor, 
Sir R. I. Murchison, ‘in leading public men to see the good which 
must result from the extensive application of sucha scheme.” Having 
by this means succeeded in inducing the Government of the day to 
grant a sum for the support of a limited number of assistants, the 
Geological Survey was established as a branch of the Ordnance. The 
grant once made has been gradually augmented, so as to allow the 
employment of a larger staff of surveyors than was at first contem- 
plated, and the whole undertaking, after having been dissociated from 
the Ordnance, has at length been placed under the Science and Art 
department of the Committee of Council on Education. 

While pursuing his investigations in the mining districts of Corn- 
wall, Sir H. De la Beche became “forcibly impressed” with the 
conviction that the survey presented an opportunity not likely to recur 
of illustrating the useful application of geology, and he in consequence 
represented to Mr. Spring Rice (afterwards Lord Monteagle), then 
Chancellor of the Exchequer, that a collection should be formed and 
placed under the office of the Board of Works, comprising specimens 
of various mineral substances used in the construction of roads, build- 
ings, and public works, as well as minerals, and models of machinery 
used in mining, the whole to be tabulated and arranged for easy 
reference, and thus to illustrate at a glance the mineral resources and 
mining enterprise of the United Kingdom. Government having 
acquiesced, the Museum in Craig’s Court was appropriated for the 
purpose. Specimens rapidly flowed in, and the small building was 
speedily filled. A larger structure was urgently needed, and the 
director having succeeded in convincing Sir Robert Peel that the 
dignity and interests of the country required that an adequate and 
appropriate structure should be erected for the exhibition of the 
mineral treasures with which it abounds, the present Museum of 
Practical Geology was founded. ‘Then arose,” to use again the 
language of the present director-general, “and very much after the 
design of Sir H. De la Beche himself, that well-adapted edifice in 
Jermyn Street, which, to the imperishable credit of its founders, stands 
forth as the first palace ever raised from the ground in Britain which 
is entirely devoted to the advancement of science.” Indeed, when we 
recollect that the value of the minerals raised in the United Kingdom 


680 Chronicles of Science. . | [@ek; 


amounted for the year 1851 to 24,000,0001., it will be admitted that 
the time had arrived for the erection of a building in some degree 
proportionate to the position occupied by this country in mining 
enterprise. 

_ ‘The next step was the establishment of a school of mines. Although 
in 1851 the mineral produce of this country was calculated at four- 
ninths of that derived from all Europe, no school having for its object 
the instruction of persons engaged in mining operations had been 
ostablished up to that year in the United Kingdom. In this respect 
other countries had been in advance of ours. France, Russia, Prussia, 
Saxony, Austria, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, and others even less con- 
nected with mining industry, were furnished with schools of mining 
by their respective governments. The consequence was, that in the 
theoretical branches of mining we were often far behind. In many 
quarters there existed a prejudice against the application of science to 
mining, as though theory and practice were necessarily opposed to 
each other; and young men who wished to acquire the former as well 
as the latter, were obliged to go to the schools at Freiburg and else- 
where, in order to be instructed in the rudiments of their profession. 
A committee of the House of Lords at length reported (1849) in favour 
of the establishment of a Government school of mines, and the Museum 
of Practical Geology was fixed upon as the proper centre for its opera- 
tions. The inauguration took place in 1851, and along with the 
Geological Survey, the school was placed under the direction of Sir 
H. De la Beche. The edifice was thus complete in all its details, 
but he who was the master-builder did not long survive to see the 
fruits of his labours. A premature decay of his physical powers set 
in, and he died in 1858, regretted alike by the scientific world and by 
his own immediate friends, and leaving the department over which he 
presided to the care of its present director-general, Sir R. I. Mur- 
chison. 

The progress of the Geological Survey has been, on the whole, 
from the south and west of England towards the north and east, or 
from the older to the newer formations. The first maps completed 
were those of Cornwall and Devon; these in all probability will 
require a fresh survey, owing to the advance of the science of geology 
within the last quarter of a century, and the greater attention to minutiz 
which has been introduced into the works of the survey, as evinced 
by the tracing of several subdivisions in the New Red Sandstone and 
Millstone grit formations of the central counties. In South Wales the 
Survey had the advantage of the labours of Sir William Logan, now 
director of the Geological Survey of Canada, who had, previous to the 
year 1840, collected a vast amount of information relating to the 
South Wales coal-field, which, together with the maps and sections 
he had constructed, he placed at the disposal of the director-general. 
This vast tract of Carboniferous rocks, embracing portions of several 
counties, rising into lofty table-lands, and penetrated by valleys of 
unusual depth, is one of the marvels of our country. Having an area 
of 900 square miles, and with seams of coal descending to depths of 
several thousand fect, there can be no doubt regarding the almost 


1864. | Geology and Palcontology. 681 


unbounded resources of its minerals, which well deserve all the labour 
that may be required for their elucidation. Professor Ramsay, in his 
inaugural address at the School of Mines in 1857, states that after the 
publication of the maps of that country, landowners, colliery pro- 
prietors, coal viewers, and mining engineers all acknowledged their 
importance, and that a gentleman well versed in mining and scientific 
geology observed to him, “that the publication of the Government 
maps had placed them” (the colliery proprietors of South Wales) 
“thirty years in advance of what they were before.” 

The disentanglement of the geological intricacies of North Wales 
was a work requiring a more than ordinary amount of skill and perse- 
verance. In many places the slaty rocks and grits are repeatedly broken 
by faults, traversed by dykes of igneous rocks, or metamorphosed by 
enormous protrusions of trap, or old sub-marine lava-flows. To trace 
out on the small one-inch maps of the Ordnance Survey each particular 
dyke, band of slate, or bed of limestone, amongst wild tracts of moor- 
land or precipitous ranges of mountains, with few objects to guide the 
surveyor in determining his position, and often obliged to carry on 
his work amidst seething mists or pitiless storms, at other times 
puzzled to determine the very nature of a rock in regions where the 
characters and aspects of the formations are as changeable as the 
colour of the sky overhead, and when the whole structure of the beds 
is suddenly disarranged and thrown into disorder by the occurrence of 
a fault or dyke,—out of all this chaos to evoke order and system, 
and in spite of all obstacles to produce the geological maps which are 
now in the hands of the public,—was a work which we venture to think 
has never yet been fully appreciated except by the very few field- 
geologists who have made attempts at similar undertakings. It cannot, 
however, be otherwise than gratifying to those gentlemen who have 
been engaged in the survey of this and other parts of the kingdom, to 
find one of the most influential newspapers in the North of England 
recognizing the merits of the survey in a leading article, in such 
language as the following :—‘“ The manner in which this geological 

‘picture of the kingdom has been executed, commands the admiration 
of all competent judges. At the Paris Exhibition of 1855, the map, 
as far as it was then completed, was admitted by the geologists and 
miners from all parts of Europe who flocked thither, to be the finest 
work of the kind yet achieved, and elicited general praise for its de- 
tailed truth and precision in the delineation of those dislocations of 
the crust of the earth, the tracing out of which is so laborious, and 
can be accomplished only by men.of profound science.”* 

The survey of the Midland and Western counties of England has 
been completed, embracing several of the most important coal-fields, 
and those tracts of the newer formations under which the coal is con- 
sidered to be hid, and which may be regarded as reserves of mineral 
fuel kept in store for the use of future generations. It is hoped that 
the labours of the survey will throw light on the question of the posi- 
tion and depth of the beds of coal under the Triassic and Permian 


* “Manchester Guardian,’ 27th July, 1864. 


682 Chronicles of Science. [ Oct., 


formations over considerable areas. Of the most important coal-fields, 
those already completed are the following :—North and South Wales, 
Bristol and Somersetshire, Forest of Dean, Forest of Wyre, Coalbrook 
Dale, North and South Staffordshire, South Lancashire (on the 1-inch 
and 6-inch scales), Warwickshire, Leicestershire, Derbyshire, and part 
of Yorkshire. In Scotland the coal-fields of the Lothians and Fifeshire 
have been published on the two scales above mentioned; and in 
Treland several of the coal tracts, economically of small importance, 
have also been examined. 

The importance of completing the survey of the country surround- 
ing the metropolis has for the last few years been steadily kept m 
view, so that the “London basin” has been completely enclosed, 
together with the rich district of the Weald of Kent to the south of it. 
As the Chalk and Greensand formations may be regarded as reservoirs 
of water, which are even now very largely drawn upon by the Artesian 
wells of the city, the accurate delineation of the extent of these water- 
bearing formations possesses more than a mere scientific interest. 

Having completed that part of England which may be described 
as lying to the west of the line of the Great Northern Railway, and 
south of the valley of the Thames, the course of the survey would, 
under ordinary circumstances, have extended into the purest agricul- 
tural district of the Eastern counties. Here the geological maps 
could have possessed little or no economic value. ‘This being so, it 
has been represented very forcibly to the director-general (as we learn 
from the report for 1863) that there would be greater practical utility 
in employing the staff of surveyors on the remaining Northern counties, 
so rich in their stores of coal, iron, and other minerals of the Palzo- 
zoic age, while the Eastern counties, formed of drift-covered strata of 
the Secondary and Tertiary periods, might be allowed to wait till after 
the completion of the former. Sir Roderick Murchison states that he 
has recognized the force of these representations, so that we may expect 
the six Northern counties, with their important coal-fields, will in the 
course of a few years be geologically portrayed on the Ordnance maps. 

An important branch of the Geological Survey is the preparation 
of vertical and horizontal sections; the former for the purpose of 
showing in columns, on a scale of 40 feet to an inch, the vertical 
succession of the strata; the latter to illustrate the geological structure 
of a particular line of country, down to a natural scale of 6 inches to 
a mile, and with a datum of the sea-level, or a thousand feet below. The 
horizontal sections are all actually levelled, and represent in outline 
the natural features of the country ; not the distorted undulations of 
a railway section. In these sections the outcrops of the coal-seams, 
the boundaries of the formations, and the faults are shown in their 
true places as far as can be determined, and thus we obtain a repre- 
sentation of the interior of the earth as it would appear if laid open 
along this line down to the level of the sea, or lower. In Wales and 
other districts, the sections have been carried across the highest 
mountains, and give a faithful outline of the surface along definite 
tracts of country or across precipitous descents, where the most acdven- 
turous climber seldom dares to tread. 


1864. ] Microscopy. 683 


The immediate direction of the field-work of the British survey is 
in the hands of Professor Ramsay, F'.R.S., to whose close attention to 
accuracy of detail, combined with a profound acquaintance with 
physical geology, the trustworthy character of the maps and sections is 
greatly due. The Irish survey, under the able management of Mr. 
Jukes, F.R.S., is also making rapid progress. During the past year 
1,453 square miles were surveyed in Great Britain, and 818 square 
miles in Ireland, portions of these being re-surveys of the superficial 
drift accumulations. 

Complaints have sometimes been made, and with some show of 
justice, of the slow progress of the British surveys. This has been 
mainly owing to two causes. In the first place, for several years after 
the survey had been set on foot, under Sir H. De la Beche, a very 
small number of surveyors, not exceeding half-a-dozen, was allowed 
by the Government to be employed at one time. In the course of 
time the staff was gradually increased, and this source of delay may 
now be said to have been surmounted. The second cause is still in 
existence, namely, the low scale of remuneration granted by Govern- 
ment to the surveyors. We have no hesitation in saying this is short- 
sighted policy, and will eventually result in a larger outlay of the 
public funds. The result, as proved in many cases, is that the young 
surveyor, as soon as he has passed through a couple of years or so of 
training in the field, which is in every case necessary, and is ready to 
commence operations on his own resources, is tempted to accept the 
first offer of a surveyorship in the colonies, or any other opening that 
presents the prospects of a competency. ‘Thus the public lose the 
benefit of his services soon after he has become capable of rendering 
them. Under the present scale of remuneration this branch of the 
public service (in common with another connected with the same 
department of the state, namely, the “Science Teacher”) can only be 
regarded as a stepping-stone to some more substantial source of liveli- 
hood, as it is scarcely possible the Surveyor can save out of his income, 
or that his physical strength will withstand the wear and tear to which 
he is exposed till the age at which he is entitled to retire on a pension. 


VI. MICROSCOPY. 


Tue history of embryological science dates from the invention of the 
microscope, and has advanced pari passu with the improvements of 
that instrument and the facilities afforded to microscopical observers. 
Dr. C. Robin has lately directed his attention to the development of 
the spinal column from its earliest stages with some important results. 
He has succeeded in showing that the atlas and axis vertebre offer this 
peculiarity, that the first constitutes a vertebral ring without a body, 
whilst the second has two vertebral bodies united in one. The odon- 
toid apophysis, in fact, is nothing more nor less than the body of the 
atlas, which during the processes of development becomes thus sepa- 


684 Chronicles of Science. | Oct., 


rated from its proper connection, and gives rise to that wonderful piece 
of mechanism met with in the cervical region of the mammalian class. 
When the mammalian embryo is from four to six millimetres in length, 
the observations are commenced. The guinea-pig, rabbit, rat, dog, 
sheep, pig, cow, and human feetus have all been submitted to exa- 
mination by the author. At the early period when the embryo has 
this size, the cartilages of the first three or four thoracic vertebree may 
be observed situated near the middle of the notochord. They increase 
rapidly in number, both in the anterior and posterior directions, until 
the number of twenty-four is attained ; the sacral and coecygean bodies 
appear later. The vertebral bodies are separated from one another by 
regular spaces or intervals, traversed by the notochord. This, after a 
time, dilates in these interposed spaces and becomes fusiform, after- 
wards becoming flaccid and surrounded by a viscid fluid, thus giving 
rise to the intervertebral tissue. Although the vertebral cartilages are 
the first to appear in the body, yet the cartilage of the axis does not 
appear in the guinea-pig until it has attained a length of eleven milli- 
metres. This cartilage criginates in two distinct pieces, the anterior 
of which evidently belongs to the atlas. They unite to form the single 
body of the axis vertebra before ossification has commenced and whilst 
yet in a purely-cartilaginous condition. In the human feetus the unison 
takes place when the length is about fourteen millimetres. The ossi- 
fication of the two vertebree and the anomalies observed in various 
species of Mammalia are treated of at some length by M. Robin. His 
decision as to the nature of odontoid process is beyond contro- 
versy, and has established a fact for many years denied by some 
physiologists. 

M. Pouchet has lately published some observations connected with 
spontaneous fission in Infusoria. He considers this a much rarer 
phenomenon than is usually affirmed; and with regard to the Vorii- 
celle, states that during twenty years’ cbservation he has failed to 
detect a single instance of fissiparity in these animalcules. A mon- 
strosity with two bells on a single stalk has been often mistaken for 
the commencement of fission; whilst it frequently occurs that a free 
vorticellid attaches itself to the bell-shaped body of a fixed individual, 
and is another source of error. 

M. Elias Mecznikow has described, in Du Bois-Raymond’s ‘ Archiv.,’ 
a new form of the genus Spherophrya, the connection of this acineti- 
form animalcule with the Paramecia being illustrated by a series of 
very beautiful drawings. 

Professor Gulliver continues his interesting researches on Raphides. 
Should he be enabled to extend his researches sufficiently, a very im- 
portant test would be afforded to the analytical microscopist, as regards 
the adulteration of vegetable articles of commerce, 

M. N. Lieberkuhn has published some interesting observations on 
the changes occurring in Sponges after death. It appears that in, the 
species he observed, the whole sponge does not die, but parts fall away 
and decay; other portions emit prolongations, which become detached 
and remain at the bottom of the vessel in which they are kept. When 
observed under the microscope, they are seen to be provided with 


1864. Microscopy. 685 


vibratile cilia, and contain siliceous spicules; some portions emit pro- 
cesses similar to those of Actinophrys, others become encysted. From 
the cysts from four to five monads emerge, provided with a single 
whip, and capable of swimming or performing amcebiform movements. 
Similar monads have been observed in the eggs of other low forms of 
invertebrates. 

Researches conducted with the aid of the microscope will doubt- 
less explain many strange phenomena, and place many facts within our 
comprehension which, before, were veiled in mystery. The discovery 
of fatty degeneration of the heart and liver has accounted for sudden 
deaths, which are of frequent occurrence, and where no diseased 
condition of body is perceptible to the unassisted eye. It appears, 
however, from the researches of M. Tigri, recently published in the 
‘Comptes Rendus, that this disease extends to the blood itself. A 
fatty substance has been found to accumulate in the red bloocd-cor- 
puscles which materially influences the circulation, and in the opinion 
of the author frequently produces death. 

Dr. T. F. Weisse, of St. Petersburg, gives a detailed account of 
the development of the eggs of Floscularia ornata, in the last. number 
of Kélliker’s ‘ Zeitschrift.’ Whilst the author was engaged in investi- 
gating the eggs of the Rotifera, he discovered a beautiful example of 
Floscularia ornata in his aquarium, which had already deposited four 
ova; a fifth was afterwards expelled from the animal under obser- 
vation by forcible contraction of the body. The germinal vesicle was 
still observable in this last ovum. No remarkable change took place 
in the ova for two days, until in one a bright red spot was observed, 
and on the following day two distinct eyes, which moved with the 
already-visible embryo ; other changes were observed in the course of 
the day ; ciliary motion appeared near one end of the embryo, and the 
pharynx exhibited movements at times. At the end of five days, the 
ovum was ruptured and the little animal issued from its shell, using a 
worm-like movement and showing clearly the circle of cilia at its 
anterior extremity. <A figure is given of the embryo at this period, 
when it bears not the least resemblance to the parent, and would easily 
be considered as a distinct species of animal. The development appears 
to take a considerably longer period than was generally supposed to 
obtain among the Rotifera. M. Weisse believes seven days to be the 
period passed by this species in the ovum after emission from the 
parent’s body. 

The application of photography to the delineaticn of objects be- 
neath the microscope does not advance in that rapid manner, or receive 
the amount of attention, which is to be desired. There can be no 
surer method of settling many disputed points of structural anatomy 
than the circulation of well-executed photographs of the objects under 
discussion. M. Duchenne, of Boulogne, has succeeded in obtaining 
some very accurate photographs of the microscopic appearances of the 
spinal chord of the human subject. The magnifying power used in 
obtaining these photographs was from 200 to 1,000 diameters. 

Dr. Clark, of Harvard University, has described the eggs ef Tubu- 
laria, in ‘ Silliman’s Journal,’ vol. xxxvii. His observations have led 


9 


VOL. I. oA 


686 Chronicles of Science. [ Oct., 
to some very interesting results. The eggs of Tubularia have hitherto 
escaped the attention of naturalists. Dr. Clark accounts for this by 
the extreme minuteness of the ova, which he was unable to detect with 
a power less than the 4-inch. 


VII. MINING, MINERALOGY, AND METALLURGY. 


MiInine. 


For some years past there have issued from the ‘ Mining Record Office,’ 
one of the Departments connected with the Museum of Practical 
Geology, very complete returns of the value of our mineral produc- 
tions. From these “mineral statistics’ we learn the total value of 
our mineral produce in 1863 to have been 29,151,976/., which, when 
brought into the metallic state, at the actual cost of manufacture, was 
increased to 36,364,3271.* The more important minerals were the 
following :— 


Value at 
Tons. place of production, 
Coal 6 3 . 86,292,215 £20,572,945 
Iron ore . 9,101,552 3,240,890 
Tin . . 5 A 15,157 963,985 
Copper 210,947 1,100,554 
Lead A é qi 91,283 1,193,530 


The quantities and values of the metals obtained from these 
being :— 


Tons. Value, 
Tron, Pig 4,510,040 £11,275,100 
Tin ; ; ; 10,006 1,170,702 
Copper 14,247 1,409,608 
Lead : : , 68,220 1,418,985 
Silver obtained from 
the lead ounces 634,004 174,351 


In addition to the above, returns are given of zinc, sulphur ores, 
wolfram, arsenic, and other minerals, showing in detail, the actual 
value of every mining district in the United Kingdom. 

By the issue of these annual statistics, and by preserving records 
of all our subterranean operations, the Mrnine Recorp OFricr is 
rendering important service to all our miners and manufacturers. 

The production of gold from the quartz lodes of the Cambrian 
mountains shows a considerable falling off during 1863, the total pro- 
duce for the year being 552 oz. 12 dwts. and 19 gr. only. The pros- 
pects, this year, are however much more promising. The following 
is a return made on the 15th August: — At Castell Carn Dochan 
5 oz. and 12 dwts. of gold were obtained from 20 ewt. of quartz from 
the lode and alluvial matter; this makes a total of about 50 ounces 
obtained from that mine during this year. At the Welsh gold mine it 


* «Mineral Statistics of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland ’* for 
the year 1863, with an Appendix. By Robert Hunt, F.R.S. Published by order 
of the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty’s Treasury. 


1864. | Mining, Mineralogy, and Metallurgy. 687 


is said that 66 ounces of gold were obtained from 44 ewt. of quartz ; 
and about two cubic yards gave 7 Ibs. of gold. At the Prince of 
Wales a new discovery is stated to have been made; and at the old 
Clogau copper mine. the quartz yiclds about 1 oz. of gold to the ton.* 

The reports of the Government Inspectors of Collicries for 1863 
have been published. They are satisfactory as compared with the 
previous year, which was unusually disastrous, and also as compared 
with 1861. The following tabulated summary of the deaths of colliers 
will place the number and character of the accidents at once before 
the reader i 


1862 1363. 
Explosions of fire-damp — . : - 190 163 
Falls of roof and coal, &e. . ; . 422 407 
In shafts. ; : : P Senlon 147 
Miscellancous accidents under-ground 

and at surface : : : . 384 190 


This last return—for 1862—includes the number sacrificed by the 
Hartley casualty, by which 204 men were lost. The total deaths in 
collieries in 1862 was 1,133, the deaths in 1863 being 907, or 226 less. 

It is admitted, on all sides, that the only method promising to 
improve permanently the condition of our mining population, and by 
improving the miner to lessen the number of accidents in working 
our mines and collieries, is to be sought in an improved education. 
Miners at present, for the most part, are entirely uninstructed in any 
of the principles involved in their labours. They are expected to use 
the precautions which science tells us should be employed, and yet we 
make no effort to teach them what those precautions are, or on what 
principles they depend. <A safety lamp is placed in the hands of a 
collier without his knowing one of the conditions which makes it a 
safety lamp. Yet the moment an ignorant man tampers with the wire 
gauze he is punished. Surely this is not consistent with reason or 
justice. Itis to be regretted that one of the most promising experiments 
towards educating the working miner is abandoned. The Glasgow 
School of Mines is shut up, subscriptions from the coal and iron 
masters of that wealthy district having entirely failed. We fear the 
British Mining School cannot be long continued; and the Miners’ 
Association of Cornwall and Devonshire does not appear to be in a 
healthful state. Surely, in a country producing minerals to the value 
of nearly thirty millions sterling, there should be found establishments 
in which so much of science as can be directly applied by the miner 
with advantage to his labours, might be obtained at small cost, and 
with but little sacrifice of time. The Royal School of Mines, as a 
central establishment, is all that can be desired ; but local schools in 
connection with it should be at once established. 

The application of machines to the cutting of coal appears to be 
becoming general. Several new patents have been obtained. One by 
Mr. Harrison, of Tudhoe Iron Works, is well spoken of, but we have 


* «Mining Journal,’ August 15, 1864. 


688 Chronicles of Science. | Oct., 


not yet been made acquainted with any practical results which will 
admit of our comparing it with those which we have already described. 

Much attention has recently been given to mining-powder, with 
a view to increase its disruptive power, and produce it at a cheaper rate. 
M. Nobel states that by damping mining powder with nitroglycerine its 
explosive power is trebled, and the noise of the explosion much less 
than when ordinary powder is used. One firm is making blasting- 
powder with nitrate of soda instead of nitrate of potash, by which the 
cost is reduced one-third, but this powder has the objection of a ten- 
dency to deliquescence unless it is very. caretully kept. in another 
powder, the spent tan of the tanners’ yards is substituted for charcoal, 
and an increased activity given to the composition by the addition of 
a little chlorate of potassium. This explosive powder is said to have 
a considerable amount of disruptive power; in price it stands about 
equal to that manufactured with nitrate of soda. 

A composition for mining purposes is now being subjected to 
experimental trial in some of the mines near Tavistock, in Devonshire. 
The peculiarity of this is, that the materials which constitute it are 
kept apart, or at least in two parcels, neither of which are in them- 
selves explosive. They become so, however, on being mixed in certain 
defined proportions, which is not done until the moment of its being 
placed in the holes. The actual composition of this explosive agent is 
not stated, but it must of necessity consist of carbonaceous matter in 
one parcel, and of some agent which rapidly developes oxygen—as 
nitre or chlorate of potassium — in the other. At the request of 
Lord Kinnaird, the chairman of the Mines Commission, a series of 
experiments has been made in Dolcoath and some other mines with 
gun-cotton, as manufactured by the Austridn process. The results 
were satisfactory as regarded its explosive power and the absence of 
visible smoke. Dr. Angus Smith and Dr. Bernays are engaged in the 
analysis of the air collected in the mines before and after the explo- 
sions. The report of the Commission will contain these analyses, and 
much special information on the use of gun-cotton in mines. Mr. John 
Scott Russell’s paper on “ Gun-cotton,” in the last number of ‘ The 
Journal of Science,’ contains all the most recent information on this 
explosive compound. 


MINERALOGY. 


W. C. Bischoff* has shown that the basic silicates of alumina are 
more refractory than the acid silicates. Alumina artificially obtained 
and chemically pure, is less refractory than chemically pure silica ; 
but natural alumina is more refractory than natural silica as found in 
quartz rock-crystal and amethyst. Herr Bischoff has also discovered 
that the mineral pyrolusite may probably be found to be a new source 
of the rare metal thallium, a specimen in his collection giving 1 per 
cent. of this new element. 

H. Haidinger has communicatedt to the Académie Impériale des 


* «Journal d’Erdmann et Werther.’ ‘ Annales de Chimie.’ 
t+ ‘Ann. der Chem. und Pharm,’ vol. exxix. p. 375. 


1864. ] Mining, Mineralogy, and Metallurgy. 689 


Sciences de Vienne his continued researches on “ Metallic Irons which 
are probably non-Meteoric.” This examination is of the utmost 
importance, as tending to the settlement of a vexed question. We 
have no doubt but many of the masses of ‘‘ meteoric iron” so called, 
to which attention has been directed, will be found to be of terrestrial 
origin. We reserve, until the inquiry is yet further advanced, any 
extended notice of these investigations. It is sufficient to state, at 
present, that MM. Haidinger and Hornes consider that they have 
proofs that many of the specimens in the Imperial Museum of Vienna 
are not of meteoric origin. There can be no doubt but that many of 
the masses of iron reputed to be meteoric are so in reality; indeed, 
we appear to possess good evidence of the actual observation of their 
fall. It is, however, a question deserving serious inquiry, whether 
every mass of native iron containing manganese, cobalt, and nickel is 
of atmospheric origin. 

M. Cloéz and M. Pisani Lowe both instituted a very careful 
analysis of the aérolithe of Orgueil. In many respects this meteoric 
stone is found to resemble the mineral Serpentine, analysis giving the 
following constitution :—Silica 26°08, magnesia 17:00, protoxide of 
iron 21°60, lime 1°85, soda 2°26, potash 0°19, oxide of manganese 0°36, 
alumina 0°90, chromate of iron 0-49, oxide of nickel (with cobalt) 2°26, 
sulphuric acid 1:54, hyposulphuric acid 0°53, chlorine 0-08, sulphur 
5°75.* 

In connection with the inquiry on meteoric stones, M. Haidinger 
and others have investigated all the conditions under which graphite 
occurs in nature. 

A.report has been published,} from which we make a few extracts :— 


“One word on the formation, still so little known, of graphite (plum- 
bago, pencil lead). The presence of graphite in granite, gneiss, and 
diorite has renewed the disputes between the Neptunists and Plutonists. 
Graphite is well known to be nearly pure carbon, for it leaves in burning 
but a very small quantity of ash. Now, if these primitive crystalline 
rocks are of igneous formation, it is impossible to explain how graphite 
could co-exist with silicates of protoxide of iron without having reduced 
these salts. Judging merely by what takes place in blast furnaces, carbon 
reduces all oxides of iron at a high temperature. It must then be admitted 
that granite, gneiss, and diorite did not contain graphite when the mineral 
elements of these rocks, such as mica, hornblende, and other ferrous sili- 
cates, were in a state of fusion. Graphite then must have been subse- 
quently introduced into these rocks, but when, and how? Questions such 
as these are very difficult to answer satisfactorily. The most plausible 
hypothesis is that graphite has been introduced by the wet way into the 
crystalline rocks and substituted for one of the mineral components. Thus 
in the gneiss of Nassau (Bavaria) it takes the place of mica. 

“ Graphite is frequently to be met with in granulated limestone, a fact 
particularly interesting to geologists. Is limestone a product of eruption, 
or is it a sediment transformed by the action of heat? The presence of 
graphite is explicable by neither hypothesis. For at a certain tempera- 
ture, which need not be very high, carbon decomposes carbonate of lime. 


* «L'Institut, August 10, 1864. 
+ See ‘Cosmos,’ pp. 720, 725, 1864, and-* The Chemical News,’ August 6, 1864. 


690 Chronicles of Science, | Oct., 


This salt may, no doubt, under strong pressure be heated to the melting 
point without losing its carbonic acid; this is a laboratory experiment 
often cited by the Plutonists; but it is quite a different thing with a mix- 
ture of carbon and carbonate of lime at a high temperature. If we reject 
the Neptunian origin of granulated limestone, we must then, as with crys- 
talline rocks, suppose that graphite has been introduced by the wet way 
at a more recent period. The same remark applies to magnetic pyrites 
(sulphide of iron) often very rich in plumbago kerns. Does graphite, like 
all carbon, belong to the organic kingdom? It is certain that anthracite, 
lignite, coal, are the result of the slow decomposition of an enormous 
quantity of vegetables. The impressions found on them often indicate 
the kind of vegetables, most of them extinct, which have contributed to 
these carbonaceous formations. Graphite, if not formed in precisely the 
same way as coal and anthracite, nevertheless bears signs of an organic 
origin. The formation of nuclei and veins of graphite in crystalline rocks 
is sufficiently explained by the decomposition of carbonized hydrogen gas 
at a high temperature; this gas, disengaged from organic matters, and 
penetrating the fissures of the burning rock, would undergo decomposition 
into hydrogen and carbon. 

“It is this deposited carbon which forms graphite. If in our labora- 
tories we do not obtain exactly the same product, it must be remembered 
that nature has means at her command which escape our researches. We 
find it impossible to make coal from wood. The wood may be carbonized 
by the dry or by the wet way. In the first case the carbonization is very 
rapid; in the latter it is extremely slow, as is shown by the blackened 
points of piling sunk in water. Finally, graphite has been found in me- 
teorites or aérolites. Attempts have been made to explain its presence 
here by the continuance of these stones in soil more or less rich in ¢ar- 
bonized principles. But with regard to newly-fallen stones, this explana- 
tion is inadmissible. If it be maintained that graphite is an organic 
product, it must be admitted that in the case of newly-fallen meteorites 
it can proceed only from organic matters belonging to another world 
than our own.” 


A very interesting account of the mode of occurrence of the 
emeralds of Salsburg has been lately communicated to the Imperial 
Institute of Geology at Vienna, by M. Lipold. These emeralds are 
found in the valley of Habach, in the district of Haut-Pinzgau. The 
locality in which they are discovered is 2.212 metres (of rather more 
than 39 inches) above the level of the Adriatic. These emeralds are 
cemented in a mica schist which is regularly bedded in the great system 
of the crystalline schists of the central Alps, passing on one side into 
a talcose schist, and on the other to a very fine grained gneiss, rich in 
mica. In each of those the emeralds are found inclosed. The bed of 
emeralds has been opened upon for the length of 227 metres, with a 
thickness of from 2 to 4 metres. These emeralds have usually the form 
of prisms with six faces, and are cither of a deep dark-green, or of an 
apple-green colour. Stones of a fine green colour and free from flaws 
are rare. The largest which have yet been found have been about 13 
centimetres (the English inch is about 24 centimetres) in thickness 
and 52 centimetres in length. 

M. Henri Ste. Claire Deville communicated to the Académie des 
Sciences a ncte from M. Weehler, in which he relates some experiments 
which appear to show that M. Lewy was not quite correct in stating 


1864. | Mining, Mineralogy, and Metallurgy. 691 


that the colour of the emerald was due to organic matter. M. Lewy 
was led to believe that this was the case, as the gem appeared to lose 
colour on the application of heat. M. Weehler does not find this to 
be the case; and he imparts a similar colour to glass by the use of 
chromic oxide, from which he concludes that this is the colouring 
agent, though he does not deny the presence of some organic matter.* 

Mr. H. C. Sorby, F.R.S., who has associated his name with the 
microscopic examination of rocks, has communicated to the Royal 
Society a continuation of his inquiry as directed to the structure of 
meteorites.| Mr. Sorby says :— 


“Tn the first place it is important to remark, that the olivine of me- 
teorites contains most excellent ‘ glass-cavities,’ similar to those in the oli- 
vine of lavas, thus proving that the material was at one time in a state of 
igneous fusion. The olivine also contains ‘ gas-cavities’ like those so common 
in volcanic minerals, thus indicating the presence of some gas or vapour.” 
- .. “Some isolated portions of meteorite have also a structure very 
similar to that of stony lavas, where the shape and mutual relations of the 
crystals to each other prove that they were formed in sitw on solidifica- 
tion.” . . . “In others the constituent fragments have all the characters 
of broken fragments. This sometimes gives rise to a structure remarkably 
like that of consolidated volcanic ashes, so much, indeed, that I have 
specimens which, at first sight, might readily be mistaken for sections of 
meteorites. It would therefore appear that, after the materials of the 
meteorites are melted, a considerable portion was broken up into small 
fragments, subsequently collected together, and more or less consolidated 
by mechanical and chemical actions, amongst which must be classed a 
segregation of iron, either in the metallic state or in combination with 
other substances. Apparently this breaking up occurred in some cases 
when the melted matter had become crystalline, but in others the forms 
of the particles lead me to conclude that it was broken up into detached 
globules while still melted. This seems to have been the origin of some 
of the round grains met with in meteorites; for they occasionally still 
contain a considerable amount of glass, and the crystals which have been 
formed in it are arranged in groups radiating from one or more points on 
the external surface, in such a manner as to indicate that they were de- 
veloped after the fragments had acquired their present spheroidal shape.” 
. .. “There are thus certain peculiarities in physical structure which 
connect meteorites with voleanic rocks, and at the same time others in 
which they differ most characteristically.” 


Mr. Sorby promises a continuation of this interesting subject. 

A correspondent of ‘Les Mondes,’t from Palermo, reports the dis- 
covery, near Nicosia, in the province of Catania, of a quicksilver 
mine. The mineral is said to exist in great abundance. 

Ata recent meeting of the Académie des Sciences de Paris, M. 
Ste. Claire Deville presented an analysis made by M. Damour of a 
new and very rare mineral, to which they have given the name of 
Parysite. This mineral contains 3 equivalents of carbonic acid, 2 
equivalents of oxide of cerium, 2 equivalents of oxide of lanthanium 


* «Comptes Rendus,’ June 27, 1864. 
+ ‘Philosophical Magazine,” August, L864, p. 157. 
t ‘Les Mondes,’ June, 1864. 


692 Chronicles of Science. | Oct., 


and of didymium mixed with chloride of calcium. Its density is 4°358, 
and its hardness intermediate between apatite and fluor-spar. 

The same industrious and intelligent chemist, whose studies in 
mineral chemistry are of the highest character, has communicated to the 
Academy some remarks on the isomorphism of arsenic and antimony. 
This note by Ste. Claire Deville has been elicited by the remarks 
made at the sittings of the Academy of Sciences in June and July. 
We must refer all who are interested in these mysterious actions of 
crystallogenic force to the papers themselves, which will be found in 
the ‘ Annalen der Chemie ’ and in ‘ L’ Institut.’ 

Mr. T. Sterry Hunt continues his “Contributions to Lithology.” 
He examines, first, some eruptive rocks, such as quartziferous porphy- 
ries, trachytes, &c. ; he then proceeds to describe the conditions under 
which orthoclase porphyry and syenite occur. In these papers we 
have a very complete geological investigation of the subject, and a 
careful physical examination.* 

The new metal Indium, so called on account of the indigo-blue 
line which it shows under spectroscopic examination, has been found 
by Reich in the black blende ore of Himmelfahrt mine, near Freiberg. 
Two hundred pounds of this blende (the black jack of our miners) 
yielded a few grammes of the new element.t 

We noticed in our last a new Cornish mineral, which Professor N. 
S. Maskelyne had described. He has since that period exhibited this 
mineral at a recent meeting of the Geological Society. He proposes to 
call the mineral Langite, in honour of Professor Victor von Lang, of 
the University of Gratz, and formerly of the department of Mineralogy 
in the British Museum. 

Quicksilver has been discovered in New Zealand. A correspondent 
of ‘ The Argus’ (colonial paper) states that over an extensive tract on 
the slope of a hill, at the depth of about 5 feet, this metal is found 
mixed with the “wash-dirt,” which is about 9 feet in depth. The 
gold which has been discovered in the same locality is all in the state 
of amalgam. 


METALLURGY. 


The high price of bismuth, and the scarcity of the ores of that 
metal, have led M. Balard to make experiments on worn-out type 
metal with a view to its recovery. This French chemist has been to 
some extent successful. By solution in nitric acid, nitrates of lead and 
bismuth are obtained. After rendering the solution as neutral as 
possible, plates of lead are placed in it, when bismuth is precipitated 
in a metallic state. The tin is recovered by reduction on charcoal ; 
and the lead, as a carbonate, by precipitation with carbonate of soda. 

The extraordinary price attained by this metal was due to a cir- 
cumstance which would scarcely be suspected in the present day. A 
company was formed in London, under the direction of a foreigner, 


* <The American Journal of Science and Arts,’ conducted by Professors Silli- 
mans and Dana, July, 1864. 
} ‘ Berg. u. Hiittenminnische Zeitung,’ vol. xxiil,, 1842. 


1864. | Mining, Mineralogy, and Metallurgy. 698 


for the purpose of making gold. Very large premises were taken, and 
much apparatus placed in position to carry out the most recent attempt 
at transmutation, Bismuth was to have entered largely into the pro- 
cess, and all that could be obtained was purchased by the company 
regardless of price. Of course, no gold has been made, and to save, out 
of the wreck, as much as possible, the deluded shareholders are 
cautiously selling their stock of bismuth, so as to obtain as high a 
price as possible, and thus by a legitimate process convert it into gold. 
Few things can show more strikingly than this does the deficiency of 
knowledge amongst a large and respectable class of people. It was 
not long since that the writer of this notice was positively told by some 
gentlemen, that they were about to extract aluminium from quartz, and 
if embarking a large sum of money in so wild a scheme may be 
regarded as a proof of their conviction that this was possible, that 
proof certainly existed. Still more recently a man supposed to be an 
experienced miner has returned from abroad, bringing with him what he 
regarded as very fine specimens of tin, whereas they are only crystals 
of wolfram (tungstate of iron), and consequently valueless. Such 
instances surely show the necessity of making some of the sciences 
part of our ordinary educational system. 

It has always been a complaint that there is a considerable loss of 
silver in the reduction of that precious metal from the rich ores of the 
Mexican mines. M. Poumaréde has turned his attention to this, and 
in a communication to the Paris Academy of Sciences he states his 
belief that this is due to an imperfect chloridization of the silver, and 
consequently irregularity of action. He states that if finely-powdered 
quartz be mixed with about 1 per cent. of silver powder and 2 or 3 per 
cent. of salt, and heated for half-an-hour to redness in a covered cruci- 
ble, all the silver will be found to have passed into the form of chloride, 
soluble in ammonia. If the silver is in the form of sulphide, or any 
other compound, the same result is obtained. When, instead of quartz, 
we use felspar,—either with or without earthy carbonates, oxide of 
iron, or other constituents of the veinstone,—the same conversion into 
chloride takes places in an equally complete manner. The applica- 
tion of this in the processes of reducing silver ores is obvious. 

Attention is again being directed to the combination of tungsten 
with steel. Some years since Mr. R. Oxland patented a process for 
separating wolfram (tungstate of iron) from tin, and it was proposed 
to employ the tungstate of soda obtained in the process as a mordant, 
and the metallic tungsten as an alloy with iron. M. Jacob subse- 
quently made steel, with tungsten in its composition, and carried out . 
some large and apparently satisfactory experiments at Sheffield and in 
Austria. The results were so promising that M. Jacob gained posses- 
sion of nearly all the sources of wolfram in this country. For several 
years, however, nothing has been heard of this alloy. 

Now M. Le Guen has solicited attention to what he calls wolframed 
pig-iron. Experiments have been made at Brest, and the pig tested 
was found to offer a greatly-increased resistance when less than 2 per 
cent. of wolfram had been added to the iron. Another description of 
pig-iron, formed of one-third of best old English pig and two-thirds of 


694 Chronicles of Science. [ Oct., 


the fragments of old cannon with German wolfram mixed in the same 
proportion, show an augmentation of resistance equal to about sixty-eight 
kilogrammes per square centimetre.* Numerous other experiments 
of a similar character were made, the results appearing to be, in all 
cases favourable to the wolframed pig-iron. There is much difference 
in the character of the tungstate of iron. The French wolfram, con- 
taining a little arsenic and sulphur, is not equal even after roasting to 
the German mineral, which is very pure. 

We noticed in our last Journal Mr. Griffiths’s mechanical puddler. 
Another patent has been obtained by Mr. Thomas Harrison, of the 
Tudhoe Iron Works, Ferry Hill, Durham, for “improvements in 
machinery for puddling iron and steel.” We are not yet aware of any 
works at which this new arrangement has been adopted. The moment 
we learn the result of any trials we will communicate the same to our 
readers. 


VIII. PHYSICS. 


Licnt.—It might be imagined that such an obvious question as that 
of the relative brilliancy of various portions of the solar disc would 
have been definitely settled by this time; yet we find physicists still 
adhering to the opinion that both the centre and the circumference are . 
equally luminous; whilst others, by far the larger majority, adduce 
experiments and reasonings to prove that the centre is considerably 
more luminous than the marginal portions of the disc. Respecting 
the actual light which comes from the sun, we are not aware that any 
accurate photometric experiments have yet been made, although 
observers have long noticed a difference in luminosity between the 
centre and the edge; but we find that the variations of chemical and 
thermic, follow so completely those of luminous intensity, that it will 
be admitted that what is proved of the two former holds equally good 
in the case of the latter. Secchit has shown that the calorific radiation 
of the centre of the sun’s disc is nearly double that from its borders, 
and that the equatorial regions are somewhat hotter than the polar. 
More recently, Roscoe,t in some carefully-conducted experiments, 
showed that the intensity of the chemically-active rays at the centre 
was from three to five times as great as that at the edge of the disc, 
and that the chemical brightness of the south polar regions was con- 
siderably greater than that of the north polar regions, whilst about 
the equator the brightness was between that of the poles. Professor 
Roscoe’s results were obtained by exposing a prepared paper in a 
camera to the action of the sun’s image, and comparing the shade of 
tint produced thereby at the centre and at the circumference with a 


* A kilogramme is the fiftieth part of an English ewt., and a centimetre 
about four-tenths of an English inch. g 

+ ‘Astron. Nachr.’ Nos. 806, 835. 

t ‘Proceedings of the Royal Society, 1863. 


1864. | Physics. 695 


certain standard. Dr. Woods* now suggests a plan which he adopted 
in 1854+ to show the identity of the sun’s action on a photographic 
surface with that of flame, the centre rays of the latter being also more 
intense in chemical action than those at the circumference. ‘his 
method consists in exposing the prepared paper to the sun’s picture in 
the camera for a period so short that the centre or most active rays 
only have time to act upon it; then, for the next impression, to leave 
the paper exposed for a somewhat longer time, so that a somewhat 
larger picture is obtained ; and so on until the entire picture is given. 
The size of the impression produced would be in proportion to the 
time of exposure, and it would appear that the intensity of the chemical 
rays from any part of the dise would be more accurately fixed by get- 
ting the time required for their action than by the use of standard 
tints. 

An important contribution to our knowledge of the light from 
certain of the fixed stars has been presented to the Royal Society by 
Mr. Huggins and Dr. Miller. These gentlemen use in their spectro- 
scope two dense flint-glass prisms, and the spectrum is viewed through 
a small achromatic telescope, with a magnifying power of between five 
and six diameters. A plano-cylindrical lens of 14-inches focus is 
employed to convert the image of the star into a narrow line of light, 
which is made to fall upon a very fine slit, behind which is placed an 
achromatic collimating lens. The spectroscope so constructed is 
attached to the eye-end of a refracting telescope of 10-feet focal length 
with an 8-inch achromatic object-glass, and the whole is mounted 
equatorially and carried by a clock-movement. By this instrument 
between forty and fifty of the fixed stars have been more or less com- 
pletely examined, and tables of the measures of about 90 lines in 
Aldebaran, nearly 80 in a Orionis, and 15 in 6 Pegasi are given. In 
the spectrum of Aldebaran, coincidence with nine of the elementary 
bodies has been observed, viz. sodium, magnesium, hydrogen, calcium, 
iron, bismuth, tellurium, antimony, and mercury. In the spectrum of 
« Orionis, five cases of coincidence were found, viz. sodium, magnesium, 
calcium, iron, and bismuth. £$ Pegasi furnished a spectrum closely 
resembling that of a Orionis in appearance, but much weaker. It was 
particularly noticed that the lines C and F, corresponding to hydrogen, 
which are present in nearly all the stars, are wanting in these two 
stars. In the concluding portion of their paper, the authors apply the 
facts observed to an explanation of the colours of the stars. They 
consider that the difference of colour is to be sought in the difference 
of the constitution of the investing stellar atmospheres, which act by: 
absorbing particular portions of the light emitted by the incandescent 
solid or liquid photosphere, the light of which in each case they sup- 
pose to be of the same quality originally, as it seems to be independent 
of the chemical nature of its constituents. 

The subject of stellar and planetary spectra has been likewise 
continued by Father Secchi. Taking advantage of the moon being in 
the neighbourhood of Jupiter and Saturn, he has compared the spectra 
of the three, and has satisfactorily made out*the presence of atmo- 


* «Phil. Mag.’ August, 1864. 7 ‘Phil. Mag’ July, 1854. 


* 


696 Chronicles of Science. [ Oct., 


spheric lines in the spectra of the planets, and the absence of them in 
that of the moon. This observation appears to show that the so-called 
atmospheric lines are not, after all, due to the absorbing action of. the 
earth’s atmosphere, or they would be present in the lunar spectrum. 

It is well known to all who have devoted attention to photographie 
chemistry that iodide of silver occurs in two modifications, one being 
sensitive, whilst the other is insensitive to the action of light. 
M. Kaiser, of Leipzig, has discovered that the insensitive modification 
may be transformed into the sensitive iodide by being submitted to 
the vapour of benzol. He says that the benzol vapour acts by deve- 
loping ozone in the air, and he has found that an atmosphere ozonized 
by electricity has precisely the same action. M. Kaiser’s experiments 
with benzol vapour seem to confirm a suspicion entertained by many 
photographers, that the wet collodion-plate is more sensitive than any 
other from its containing a small quantity of ozonized ether on its 
surface, and not because its pores are more open in the wet state than 
when dry. 

Speaking of photography, we transfer the following extract from a 
note just received from Dr, H. Draper, of New York. He says, “I 
have succeeded in taking a photograph of the Moon 50 inches in 
diameter, a size hitherto unapproached, and, in fact, as large as present 
processes will permit. It required six weeks of steady work, but fully 
repays me in the imposing effect gained.” 

The subject of light in relation to chemistry will probably attract 
much more attention in future than it has hitherte done. Chemists 
have, however, somewhat neglected the absorption spectra given by 
metallic and organic solutions in their hunt after fixed lines. At 
one of the recent meetings of the Chemical Society,* Professor 
G. G. Stokes, Sec. R.S., favoured the members with a discourse on the 
detection and discrimination of organic bodies by means of their 
optical properties. The properties most available for the chemist 
were colour-production by absorption, fluorescence, and reflection, 
and in a limited number of instances the phenomena of circular 
polarization. The professor exhibited a very simple arrangement of 
apparatus for the purpose of observing the effects of absorption. It 
consists of a small glass prism, having a refracting angle of 60° mounted 
vertically at one end of a long wooden tube, the other end of which is 
closed, with the exception of a narrow slit regulated by a screw; and 
against the outside of this aperture, and in front of the lamp, a test- 
tube containing the solution to be examined can be supported by 
means of elastic bands. When a dilute solution of permanganate of 
potash is viewed through the prism, the spectrum appears furrowed 
out with five dark bands of absorption at regular intervals between the 
fixed lines D and F, and many other coloured liquids, organic and 
inorganic, exhibit characteristic absorption-bands, by means of which 
they are capable of identification. In proof of the value of this test 
to the detection of organic colouring-matters, Professor Stokes stated. 
that Dr. Stenhouse had supplied him with a mixed colouring-matter, 
in which three of the ntadder principles were contained—viz. alizarin, 

* «Chemical News, vol. x. p. 288. 


1864. | Physics. 697 


purpurin, and rubiacin; and in a piece of the dry material no larger 
than a pin’s head all three substances were distinctly recognized. 

The poisonous nature of the green colouring-matters in general use 
has led to numberless attempts to substitute for them pigments of less 
danger. At the recent meeting of the Société Stanislas at Nancy, a 
proposition was made to employ the beautiful green manganate of 
barium as a pigment. Although very beautiful and comparatively 
inexpensive, this pigment would still labour under the disadvantage 
of being poisonous, whilst at the same time it is likely to be deficient 
in permanence. 


Hzat.—One of the most important investigations in this branch 
of science has recently been communicated by Dr. Kopp to the Royal 
Society. He has been engaged in the determination of the specific 
heat of an immense number of solid and liquid bodies, and has devised 
a very simple method of performing the experiment, thus bringing the 
determination of specific heat out of the restricted sphere of the 
physical cabinet, with its complicated apparatus, within reach of the 
ordinary appliances of the chemical laboratory. Dr. Kopp has arrived 
at the result that each element in the solid state, and at an adequate 
distance from its melting-point, has one specific or atomic heat; and 
that for each element it is to be assumed that it has essentially the 
same specific or atomic heat in the free state and in compounds. The 
author discusses the applicability of Dulong and Petit’s law, and shows 
that it is not universally applicable. He concludes his memoir 
with some considerations on the nature of the chemical elements, and 
shows that chlorine, bromine, and iodine (which are even now regarded 
by some as peroxides of unknown elements), if compound at all, are 
not more so than the other elements to which Dulong and Petit’s law 
is considered to apply. If this law were universally valid, it might 
be concluded that the so-called elements, if they are really compounds 
of unknown simpler substances, are compounds of the same order, and 
have the same degree of composition; but with the proof that this 
law is not universally true, the conclusion to which this result leads 
loses some of its authority. In a very great number of compounds, the 
atomic heat gives however, more or less accurately, a measure for the 
complication of the composition, and the conclusion appears legitimate 
that for the so-called elements the directly or indirectly determined 
atomic heats are a measure for the complication of their composition. 
Carbon and hydrogen, for example, “if not themselves actually simple 
bodies, are yet simpler compounds of unknown elements than are 
silicium or oxygen,” and still more complex are the large number of. 
elements which may be considered as following Dulong and Petit’s 
law. With reference to the nature of the so-called elements, the 
author states that it must not be forgotten that his conclusions only 
give some sort of clue as to which of the present undecomposed bodies 
are of more complicated and which of simpler composition, but they 
tell nothing as to what the simpler substances are which are used in 
the construction of the compound atoms. But even if these conclusions 
are not free from uncertainty and imperfection, they are well worthy 


698 Chronicles of Science. [Oct., 


of attention when they bear upon a subject so shrouded in darkness 
as the nature of the undecomposed bodies. 

The passage of hydrogen gas through homogeneous bodies at a 
high temperature has lately attracted considerable attention on the 
Continent. Some time ago M. L. Cailletet communicated a note to 
the French Academy, in which he showed that hydrogen gas would 
pass through plates of wrought-iron several millimetres thick at a red 
heat. The author now shows that when the iron is cold, or at a 
temperature of only 210°C., hydrogen will not traverse a plate of only 
z;th millimetre in thickness. M. H. Ste. Claire Deville has lke- 
wise been continuing his experiments on the same subject. His 
method of observing the phenomenon is to fill a wrought-iron tube 
with nitrogen, and place it in a porcelain tube, through which a current 
of hydrogen is passed. Upon heating the whole in a furnace, and 
observing the pressure on the inside and on the outside of the iron 
tube, it is found that that of the interior may become almost double 
that of the exterior, in consequence of the hydrogen permeating the 
walls of iron and adding its pressure to that of the nitrogen. Unless 
the temperature is very high, no nitrogen passes out; but at very 
exalted temperatures, the author remarked that the internal and exter- 
nal pressures became equalized, in consequence of the intra-molecular 
spaces becoming so much dilated as to allow the nitrogen to pass 
freely. M. Deville conceives that if we knew the law of the dilatation 
of these inter-molecular spaces, we might determine the relative sizes 
of the molecules of hydrogen and nitrogen. 

The same indefatigable experimentalist has been also engaged 
with M. Troost in perfecting the means of determining high tem- 
peratures, and they describe a porcelain apparatus by which they 
measure a temperature reaching as high as 1530° C. The description 
is too long to be given here, but the account leaves no doubt that we 
have now a pyrometer capable of giving very exact indications, and 
likely to receive important applications. The authors record that, at 
the temperature above given, copper and silver seemed to be vaporized, 
and feldspar was fused to a perfectly clear glass. An iron nail, how- 
ever, showed no signs of fusion. 

It has often been observed that a diminution of density occurs 
when certain minerals are exposed to heat, and, in particular, it was 
announced by Magnus some years ago, that specimens of idocrase 
after fusion had diminished considerably in density without under- 
going any change of composition. Dr. Phipson has recently repeated 
this experiment of Magnus, and finds that it is true both for the whole 
family of garnets as well as for the minerals of the idocrase group. 
He finds that it is not necessary to melt the minerals, the change of 
density occurs upon their merely being heated to redness without fusion ; 
and Dr. Phipson has obtained the curious result, that the diminished 
density thus produced by the action of a red heat is not permanent, 
but that the specimens in the course of a month or less resume their 
original specific gravities. Thus three specimens of lime-garnet 
mellitite from Vesuvius, having an original density respectively of 
3°345, 3°350, and 3:°349, after being heated to redness for a quarter 


1864. | Physics. 699 


of an hour and allowed to cool, were found to have their specific 
gravities diminished respectively to 2°978, 2°980, and 2-977. In 
one month’s time the specific gravities, upon being again determined, 
were found to have risen to 3-844, 3°350, and 3°345. The author 
considers it probable that this property will be found to belong more 
or less to all substances without exception. 

It has become an important desideratum for physicists engaged 
in the investigation of the spectrum lines to be in possession of an 
instrument which will readily reveal the presence of fixed lines in the 
heat-spectrum. The ordinary form of thermo-electric battery is in- 
applicable for this purpose on account of its shape, besides being 
scarcely delicate enough for rays of feeble intensity. Mr. Crookes 
has proposed a method of forming a thermo-spectrometer, which will 
enable physicists to examine and map out the thermal lines of the 
spectrum as accurately as this can be done with the visible and photo- 
eraphie portion. Instead of using antimony and bismuth bars, it is 
proposed to use the far more powerful combination of antimony and 
tellurium. A single row of these bars are soldered together at their 
alternate ends, and, after being cemented to a temporary but rigid 
flat surface, the series is ground perfectly flat. This flat side is then 
cemented to a permanent support of glass, porcelain, ebonite, or other 
suitable non-conducting material, and the other side (after removal of 
the temporary supporting-surface) is likewise ground down until the 
series of bars is no thicker than a card. This side is now cemented to 
the same kind of supporting material as was used for the other side, and 
the whole is firmly and securely sealed up, so as to leave only the ends 
exposed. The end of the pile now appears in the form of a very 
narrow, slightly-disconnected line, half-an-inch or so in length, and 
consisting of the extremities of ten or a dozen couples of antimony 
and tellurium bars, each not larger than a pin. By connecting the 
extremities of this pile with a sensitive galvanometer, and carrying it 
along the ultra-red end of the spectrum, keeping the line of extremities 
parallel with the fixed spectrum lines, it will instantly reveal when a 
ray of heat shines upon it by a deflection of the needle; and the 
comparative intensities of the thermic rays can be at the same time 


ascertained by recording the angular distance to which the needle is 
deflected. 


Execrriciry.—Although not able to record any striking discovery 
in electrical science which has taken place during the last quarter, we 
have noted several ingenious applications of this force, as well as 
improvements in instruments connected with it. A suggestion of - 
M. Dufour for preventing the explosion of steam-boilers is especially 
worthy of notice for its ingenuity, as well as for the important results 
which would attend its successful adoption. Mr. Grove has shown 
that when water is deprived of the air naturally dissolved in it, and 
is then heated, it does not boil steadily at any fixed temperature; the 
temperature rises many degrees above the normal boiling-point, and the 
liquid then suddenly bursts into tumultuous ebullition ; it now remains 
quiet for a short time whilst the temperature is again accumulating, 
and the same phenomena are again repeated, increasing in violence 


700 Chronicles of Science. | Oct., 


until the water is projected into the air with an explosion, the vessel 
being frequently broken. It is to occurrences of this kind that boiler- 
explosions are supposed to be most frequently due, and it is the general 
opinion that if the water could be kept supplied with air, ebullition 
would take place with perfect regularity. The difficulty has been 
how to effect this necessary aération, and M. Dufour now proposes to 
accomplish it by carrying an insulated platinum-wire into the water, 
and connecting the wire and the boiler with the opposite poles of a 
battery. It is imagined that the decomposition of the water will keep 
it well supplied with gaseous material, and will prevent the ebullition 
from becoming explosive. 

An ingenious modification of the ordinary electrophorus has been 
devised by Messrs. Cornelius and Baker, of the Franklin Institute, for 
lighting gas. It consists of a spherical cup of brass lined with sheep- 
skin and silk, into which drops a corresponding hemisphere of hard 
india-rubber. The brass cup communicates with a wire near the jet. 
To light the gas, the hard-rubber hemisphere is raised by means of a 
little handle, and the spark passes, lighting the gas in its passage. They 
have also devised a portable electrophorus of tubular construction ; it 
consists of two brass tubes, united together by a ring of hard india- 
rubber, closed at each end, and covered internally with a silk padding. 
Inside the tubes is a cylinder of hard rubber, which passes freely down 
the tubes when they are reversed. The apparatus is grasped by the 
non-conducting ring and held upright, the hard-rubber cylinder being 
at the lower end. Upon reversal it passes to the other end, charging 
the brass tube in its passage. 

Father Secchi advises the use of fine sand or of powdered sulphur 
in the porous cell of the Daniel’s battery, in order to increase its 
constancy. He accounts for its action by supposing that when the 
ordinary liquid alone is used, there is greater liability to local action 
taking place upon the zine. In a battery, the circuit of which is closed 
for two minutes every quarter of an hour, the learned father has used 
an ordinary piece of commercial sheet-zine half-a-millimetre in thick- 
ness, which has continued in action for more than six months without 
showing the least sign of local corrosion. 

Our enterprising French neighbours, always before us in luxurious 
applications of science, are rapidly applying the electric light to the 
illumination of private and public assemblies. It has for some time 
past been introduced at the Tuileries on the nights of the grand balls, 
and the Abbé Moigno has lately made use of it during his lectures on 
the progress of science in the hall of the Société d’ Encouragement. 
Instead of being illuminated by the innumerable jets of gas with which 
the hall is provided, a single electric light placed in a central position 
lit the room in the most perfect manner. The consequence was that, 
although the lecture was delivered during the height of the hot season 
in Paris, the room was kept comparatively cool. 

The celebrated electrical instrument maker, Rhumkorff, has de- 
servedly been presented with the Napoleon III. prize of 50,000 franes 
for the induction apparatus that bears his name. The King of Hanover 
has also sent him a large gold medal. 


1864. | Zoology and Animal Physiology, 701 


IX. ZOOLOGY AND ANIMAL PHYSIOLOGY. 


Ir is stated that researches have been recently carried on in Borneo, 
on the most extensive scale, with a view to solve the oft-disputed 
question of the plurality of species amongst the orang-outangs of that 
island, and that Dr. KH. P. Houghton is about to submit a very large 
collection of skulls of the different varieties or species to English 
zoologists. 

The Aye-aye (Cheiromys Madagascariensis), an anomalous crea- 
ture, which has lately attracted more attention from the fact of a 
living specimen being successfully brought to the Zoological Gardens, 
has formed the subject of a memo by Dr. Peters, before the Berlin 
Academy. It had been shown by Professor Owen to be allied to the 
Lemurs, while the structure of the incisors shows an important relation 
to the Rodents. Dr. Peters concludes that, if we are not prepared to 
make a separate order for this genus, to be placed intermediate between 
the quadrumana and the rodents, as Brandt has proposed, it would, on 
the whole, be the most natural to regard it as an aberrant division of 
the Lemurs, and to unite it with them to form the representatives of a 
particular family. With the exception of the disposition of the hands 
and the opposable thumb of the hinder extremity, the principal 
character to be considered is the formation of the skull and brain. 
As regards the dentition, it would be of much interest to investigate 
whether at any period of the foetal life of the glires there exist teeth 
corresponding to the milk-teeth of the aye-aye, the formula of which 
exhibits a close relation to that of the insectivora. 

The sudden occurrence of Pallas’ sand grouse (Syrrhaptes para- 
doxus) over the greater part of Europe has attracted the attention of 
ornithologists, and Mr. Alfred Newton has collected information which 
shows that this remarkable bird, hitherto almost unknown to the 
European fauna, has been met with during the year 1863 in no less 
than. 148 localities in Europe and Great Britain, tracing the invading 
host through 33° of longitude from Galicia to Donegal. He regards 
the proximate cause of this wonderful movement to the natural over- 
flow of the population of Syrrhapies, resulting from its ordinary 
increase, being a bird which has comparatively few enemies, while its 
time of incubation is short in comparison with what it is in most 
ground-breeding birds. Mr. Newton inclines, from the remarkable 
form of the primaries of the wing, the filiform tail feathers, and 
syndactylous feet, to believe that the sand grouse is not improbably 
“the conquering hero of a long struggle for existence,” and striving to 
extend its range in all directions; and he predicts that unless some 
physical change occurs in the Tartar steppes which may have the effect 
of relieving the internal pressure, another outpouring may be safely 
predicted. 

Mr. Allis exhibited to the Linnean Society bones and photographs 
of a Dinornis, of which the skeleton is nearly perfect. Out of nine 
left ribs seven are still in situ, and the sternum is perfect and as fresh 
to appearance as though the bird had been alive last year. The inner 

VOL. I. 3B 


702 Chronicles of Science. | Oct., 


left toe has the whole of the outer sole still adhering to it, as well as 
part of the sole of the foot. On the lower part of the back is still a 
considerable portion of the outer skin studded with the quill part of 
the feathers, and in one or two rare instances portions of the web of 
the feather. The bones of the neck still show greater or less marks of 
having been within reach of the destructive effects of the atmosphere, 
while the head at one extremity, and the first dorsal vertebra at the 
other, are each as perfect as though they had been taken from a fresh 
killed bird by the most skilful anatomist. Mr. Gibson, a resident in 
New Zealand, sent it to his brother, Dr. Gibson, of York, with a state- 
ment that it was discovered in a sand-hill, sitting on its eggs, by some 
diggers, about 100 miles up the country from Dunedin, to which place it 
was sent for sale. When the boxes were opened they were thought to 
contain only the bones of one adult bird, but an examination showed 
a number of small bones belonging to very young birds, its brood, 
consisting of five individuals. Dr. Hooker suggested that the perfect 
condition and high preservation of the bones might be due to ice; but 
Professor Huxley and others took a different view of the subject, and 
thought that the bird in question had probably been living within ten 
years. When we remember that in the Great Sahara the ostrich is 
only to be discovered at an immense distance, although there are no 
intervening objects behind which he could shelter, the moa, if possessed. 
of half the subtlety of the ostrich, might escape for years the notice of 
the few Europeans who have ventured to intrude on his haunts, and it 
is by no means impossible that this gigantic bird may exist to this day 
undiscovered. Explorations of the middle island are being made by 
Dr. Haast which promise soon to settle this interesting question. 

The great interest attending the discovery of remains of animals 
recently extinct, or concerning whose present existence zoologists are 
in great doubt, has led Mr. Alfred Newton to follow up the researches 
of the late Mr. John Wolley upon the great Auk, or Gare fow! (Alca 
impennis), which he has done so successfully as to have secured from 
Funk or Penguin Island, 170 miles north of St. John’s, Newfoundland, 
a natural mummy of that curious bird, which vies with the dodo in 
ornithological interest. Although numerous skins of the bird exist in 
various museums of Europe, the osteology was very imperfectly known, 
and the present mummy is, with one exception, the only approach to 
a complete skeleton existing in Kurope. Mr. Newton has placed it in 
the hands of Professor Owen, from whom no doubt we shall receive an 
elaborate monograph upon the subject. 

Mr. William Bennett gives an account of his attempts at breeding 
Emeus (Dromius) in Surrey, which throw some light upon the 
economy of struthious birds. In 1863 the female continued laying 
until she had deposited twenty-eight eggs, weighing about forty pounds. 
The male bird was set upon fourteen of these, and the remainder placed 
in anincubator. For amonth all went on well, but in the fifth week the 
birds were so greatly excited by the appearance of a boat, that the eggs 
were left. Those in the incubator all failed also, although the chicks 
had nearly reached maturity. A new lot of eggs began to be deposited 


on December 28rd, and on February 14th (of the present year) the 


1864. | Zoology and Animal Physiology. 703 


male commenced sitting on ten eges. After eight weeks, signs of life 
appeared in the eggs, and on April 13th the first was hatched, and 
ultimately ten young emeus repaid Mr. Bennett’s care and labour, 
The normal period of incubation thus appears to be about sixty days, 
but although the number of eggs laid is large, few appear to be hatched 
in the wild state, as the eggs are laid in various sheltered places, and 
are afterwards collected by the male, that is, as many as he may happen 
to find. The female takes no part in incubation. 

A series of experiments has been made by M. Barthélemy on 
monstrosities, both artificial and natural, among lepidopterous insects, 
He performed his experiments chiefly on the chrysalis, and endeavoured 
to cause modifications similar to those obtained by covering the eggs 
of birds with varnish. On covering the chrysalis with oil it was found 
that it died before completing the metamorphosis; but on covering 
either the thoracic or abnormal portion with wax, a retardation of 
development was perceived, which was much greater in the case of the 
thoracic parts. The cephalic part of the nervous system was much 
retarded in development, but the other parts of the ganglionic chain 
appeared to be developed as usual. He succeeded also in suppressing 
the development of the generative organs. 

Mr. Bates has added another remarkable example of mimetic resem- 
blance, in a spider, of the genus Salticus, to a flower of Senecio pubi- 
gerus (Linn.), a common roadside weed in dry ground about Cape 
Town. It was noticed by Mr. Roland Trimen, of Cape Town, who 
says — 

“Leptoneura Clytus, a handsome butterfly of the Satyrus family, is 
very abundant just now. Flowers are rather scarce at this season, aud a 
tall straggling plant with yellow composite flowers attracts these butter- 
flies with many other insects. As I approached a plant upon which were 
several Leptoneure, I observed that two specimens did not. fly off with 
the others, and found that each was in the clutches of a bright yellow 
spider. I removed one of these butterflies, and as the spider shrunk up 
its limbs on the flower, which equals it in size, it was scarcely distinguish- 
able, so exactly similar was it in colour. Recovering from its alarm, it 
slowly moved to the side of the flower, and holding on to the stalk by its ' 
two hindmost pairs of legs, it extended the two front pairs upwards and 
laterally. In this position it was scarcely possible to believe that it was 
not a flower seen in profile, the rounded abdomen representing the central 
mass of florets, and the extended legs the florets of the ray ; while to com- 
plete the illusion, the front femora appressed to the thorax have each a 
longitudinal red stripe, representing the ferruginous stripe on the sepals 
of the flower. As the other spider also assumed the same attitude when 
robbed of his butterfly, and as both retained it for a considerable time, I 
conclude it is their ordinary mode of waiting for their prey.” 


M. Matteucci brought before the French Academy a remarkable 
case, in which a number of eggs, after having been allowed to remain 
under the hen for different periods, were left to putrify. In no case 
did he find the slightest trace of either animal or vegetable life upon 
breaking the shell of the putrified eggs. He considered that as long 
as the shell remained intact no germs could by any means obtain 
admission, and therefore the circumstances of this case were peculiarly 

» 3) 
3B 2 


704 Chronicles of Science. | Oct., 


favourable for experiment as to the possibility of spontaneous gene- 
ration. M. Milne-Edwards, however, stated that M. Panceri had shown 
that the shell is not always impervious to the passage of organized 
bodies. 

The subject of spontaneous generation is still occupying consider- 
able attention both in France and England. Messrs. Pouchet, Joly, 
and Musset are endeavouring to prove by their experiments that the 
air does not normally contain the incalculable number of ova and 
spores ascribed to it by M. Pasteur. That shown, they engage to 
prove that with a boiled fermentable substance to be left to their 
choice, organized productions shall be constantly and universally ob- 
tained in vessels hermetically sealed, and containing a cubic decimeter 
of atmospheric air. The statement of M. Pasteur, on the other hand, 
is, that it is possible to obtain in a given place a sufficient but limited 
quantity of atmospheric air, having undergone no kind of physical or 
chemical alteration, capable, nevertheless, of causing an alteration in 
an eminently putrescible liquid. 

Dr. Child, of Oxford, has laid some experiments before the Royal 
Society, made during the summer of 18638, in which milk or fragments 
of meat and water were placed in bulbs of glass 24 inches in diameter 
—some of the bulbs being filled with air previously passed through a 
porcelain tube containing fragments of pumice-stone, and heated to 
vivid redness in a furnace; while others were filled respectively with 
carbonic acid, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen gases. Some of the 
substances were boiled from five to twenty minutes, in all cases in the 
bulb, and with the stream of gas or air still passing through. ‘The 
microscopic examination of the contents took place at various times 
from three to four months after their enclosure. When the substances 
had not been boiled, in every case but one, low organisms were found ; 
and when the substances were boiled the results were :—in the car- 
bonic acid and hydrogen experiments, no sign of life; in the heated 
air and oxygen experiments, organisms were found; and also in the 
nitrogen experiments where meat was used, but none where milk was 
used. It is worthy of remark that in these experiments organisms 
were found under the precise circumstances in which M. Pasteur states 
that they cannot and do not exist. 

M. Coste has laid before the French Academy some important 
observations on the development of ciliated Infusoria, which in many 
points oppose the doctrines of M. Pouchet. Infusoria, he affirms, 
make their appearance in an infusion long before the pellicle, falsely 
called stroma, a name which attributes a function to it that it does not 
possess. They are introduced either as eggs or cysts with the hay, 
moss, or leaves of which the infusion is made. Although the stroma 
is produced in infusions made with substances which are not exposed 
to the air, such as the pulp of the apple, infusoria are never found in 
such infusions if the vessel be covered with a piece of glass. Never- 
theless, if, after ten or twenty days, no infusorium be visible, and two 
or three Kolpods, or Chilodons, or Glaucomas be introduced, these 
species will soon show themselves in prodigious numbers, in conse- 
quence of their mode of immediate multiplication by division. Some, 


1864. | Science in the Provinces. 705 


as the Glaucomas, Chilodons, and Paramecia, divide themselves with- 
out encysting; others, like the Kolpods, encyst themselves before 
division. After multiplying by division in the interior of their cyst, 
the Kolpods encyst themselves again, and remain in that state until 
the infusion is completely dried up, and they return to life only after 
a fresh moistening. Filters, however, allow small infusoria, such as 
Kolpods, Chilodons, &c., their cysts and eggs, to pass through them, 


X. SCIENCE IN THE PROVINCES. 


Tur numerous provincial Societies, not behindhand in advancing the 
cause of scientific progress to which they have allied themselves, 
exhibit an amount of activity worthy of the cause, and which shows 
itself from time to time in the publication of Proceedings which are 
often of great interest and value. Many of these have forwarded to 
us an account of their labours, and it affords us great pleasure to lay 
before our readers a brief summary, as evinced by these published 
results. Those who disparage everything provincial, cannot fail to 
observe that the Metropolis stands foremost solely because there is 
concentrated, as in a focus, the chief talent of the country; and that, 
therefore, there can be no reason to despise the lucubrations of Societies 
which include the names of Joshua Alder, Rev. A. M. Norman, Albany 
Hancock, Rey. L. Jenyns, W. Pengelly, C. Spence Bate, and many 
others. 

Among such provincial Societies, the ‘ Tyneside Naturalists’ Field 
Club’ occupies a prominent position, and periodically publishes 
Transactions which are full of interest. The latest number is a 
worthy successor to many others. Among the chief objects of this 
Society is the publication of catalogues of the natural productions of 
Northumberland and Durham, and from time to time the Coleoptera 
by Messrs. Hardy and Bold, the Mollusca by Mr. Alder, the Zoophytes 
by the same, the Permian Fossils by R. Howse, the Lepidoptera by G. 
Wailes, and Marine Alegz by G. 8. Brady, have appeared ; while the 
freshwater Aleve, Foraminifera, Echinodermata, Annelida, Crustacea, 
Hymenoptera, Hemiptera, Birds, and fogsil Fish are in progress. The 
present number contains a most interesting “ catalogue” of the Mam- 
malia, by Messrs. Mennell and Perkins, occupying about sixty-five 
pages, and abounding in information both technical and popular. It 
is a model of what such Fauna lists should be, and we wish that every 
county of our island had so excellent a chance of being thoroughly 
examined and elucidated as have those of Northumberland and Dur- 
ham. Fifty out of the sixty-seven wild British species are claimed 
for those two counties. 

Mr. G. 8. Brady, whose attention is directed to the Entomostraca, 
has added several of these organisms to the British lists, by the dis- 
covery of three species of Cypris and two of Candona in the above 
counties, which are here described and figured. One of these, Cypris 
affinis, was known as an inhabitant of the Continent, but has recently 


706 Chronicles of Science. | Oct., 


been taken in both the northern counties ; and another species found 
there is of great interest, inasmuch as it was first described as a 
tertiary specimen by Rupert Jones, but has since been discovered in 
brackish water at Gravesend, and at Warkworth. 

The British Association, at its Cambridge meeting, renewed a 
grant for dredging the Dogger Bank, and the coasts of Northumber- 
land and Durham. These explorations have resulted in several 
interesting and new forms, including a beautiful nudibranchiate 
mollusk (Hero formosa, Lovén), which occurs on the coasts of Norway 
and Sweden. The Durham coast, however, is described as generally 
poor in Mollusca, which have a boreal type, approaching more nearly 
to the Scandinavian than to the South of England fauna. Mr. Alder 
gives a report upon these, while Rev, A. M. Norman reports upon the 
Crustacea, which includes specimens of Sacculina and Peltogaster, 
rare forms which are found parasitic upon the abdomen of various 
stalk-eyed Crustacea. The Echinodermata yielded a rich return, 
including a new species (Ophiura squamosa, Liitken), and Mr. Alder 
describes among the collection of Zoophytes a new Scrupocellaria 
(Delilii), and other remarkable forms. 

In further proof of what we have observed concerning the working 
of this provincial Society, we must also refer to Mr. Hodge’s list of 
the British Pycnogons (Araneoid crustacea), in which thirty-two 
species are included, ten of which are new. These are described and 
figured by the author. 

‘The Woolhope Naturalists’ Field Club’ principally employs 
itself with the Natural History of Herefordshire ; and the fifth num- 
ber of its Transactions is chiefly occupied with an elaborate and 
exhaustive treatise on the ‘Mistletoe in Herefordshire,’ by Dr. Bull. 
This paper contains a great amount of information concerning this 
interesting parasite—the mode of its propagation and growth—the 
trees it lives upon in this country—the recorded history of its growth 
on the oak in England—and the romance of its history as developed 
in times past and present. Thirty trees are mentioned as bearing 
mistletoe, including apple, seven species of poplar, hawthorn, crab, 
lime, maple, acacia, flowering-ash, willow, hazel, alder, sycamore, elm, 
horse-chestnut, &c.; but the favourite site of the mistletoe is certainly 
the apple-tree. The actual numbers were 784 trees with mistletoe, and 
1,218 without it—or from other sources, a general average of 34 per 
cent. Mistletoe is never seen to grow spontaneously upon the beech, 
birch, bird cherry, wild cherry, sloe, hornbeam, elder, holly, dog- 
wood, box, Lombardy poplar, sweet-chestnut, walnut, laurel, nor on any 
other of the many introduced varieties of trees and evergreens. Only 
six well-authenticated instances are recorded of its growing upon the 
oak, throughout England, although others have been noticed which 
were either erroneous or have now ceased to exist. 

‘The Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, 
Literature, and Art,’ held its third Annual Meeting in July at 
Torquay, under the presidency of Mr. Vivian, and after an inaugural 
address, several papers of considerable interest were read, among 
which were : 


1864. | Science in the Provinces. T07 


Mr. Hearder, of Plymouth, ‘On the Preservation of the Iron- 
plating of Wooden Ships from the Corrosive Action of Sea-water.’ 
It having been found that large holes had been made in a new 5-inch 
plating, he proposed to place gutta-percha or india-rubber between 
the iron and the copper-sheathing, and, if necessary, a band of zine 
also on the inside of the plating, to prevent even the possibility of 
communication with the copper. 

Mr. Spence Bate described a kitchen-midden recently found in the 
north-east of Cornwall, an ancient Cornish barrow, and a Romano- 
British burying-ground. The midden was accidentally discovered in 
Constantine Bay, and consisted of limpet, mussel, and whelk shells, 
bits of greenstone probably used as hammers, and flint, bones of the 
red-deer, ox, sheep, and lamb, pieces of pottery, &c. The midden, he 
believed, indicated the site of a very extensive village of pre-historic 
man. Near the midden was found a barrow, or circular mound, 100 feet 
in diameter. Within it, in a cavity covered by a stone, had been found 
an earthenware vase containing human bones partly burnt. The 
burial-ground was discovered in making the excavations from Fort 
Stamford, near Plymouth. Underneath blocks of limestone had been 
found bones, pottery, bronze armlets, fibula, mirrors, a small dagger, 
and pieces of partly-decomposed iron, finger-rings, scissors, &e. 

Visits to Brixham Caves and Berry Head gave Mr. Pengelly an 
opportunity of calling attention to extraordinary geological phenomena. 
The Devonian limestone is traversed by two systems of joints, one 
north and south, and the other east and west. Some of these are 
occupied by dykes of fine triassic sandstone. A careful study of 
these rocks proves that an almost incalculable period must have 
elapsed since the joints first opened, for there is—Ilst. The filling in 
of the east and west open joints with red sand, at a period not earlier 
than, if so early as, the commencement of the Torbay trias. 2nd. 
The induration of the sand with coherent and durable dykes capable 
of being fissured and faulted without their sides falling in. 38rd. The 
formation of longitudinal fissures in dykes. 4th. The gradual filling 
of these fissures, not with sand, but by the precipitation of carbonate 
of lime. 5th. The formation of transverse joints passing in a north 
and south direction alike through the triassic dykes and veins, and the 
pre-triassic rocks. 6th. The faulting of the entire mass—rocks, 
dykes, and veins—by inequalities of movement in an approximately 
horizontal direction; and 7th. The filling in of the north and south 
open joints with red sand as in the first instance, so as to form dykes, 
passing through those previously existing, the two systems being dis- 
tinguished by well-defined walls, and a marked difference in colours. 
The triassic rocks, it should be remembered, in making calculations 
of time, are a mere sub-division—and that the lowest—of the 
mesozoic group. These facts appear to Mr. Pengelly to show con- 
clusively that the rocks in which they occur, are the exponents of a 
lapse of ages great beyond human conception. This interesting paper 
has been separately published by Mr. Pengelly with illustrative 
figures. 

The ‘ Torquay Natural History Society,’ of which Mr. Pengelly 


708 Chronicles of Science. | Oct., 


is president, has also had the advantage of an admirable address from 
that gentleman ; in which he ably reviewed the events of the past year, 
naturally dwelling upon those geological discoveries which have caused 
so much discussion in relation to the disputed antiquity of man, and 
gave a well-digested summary of the evidence afforded by the discovery 
of the shell-mounds of Denmark, the lake dwellings of Switzerland, the 
elephant remains at Saint Prest, near Chartres, and the quaternary 
gravels of the Somme. Nor did the questions of Anthropology meet 
with less than their share of criticism; and the opinions of Waitz, 
Huxley, and others, received considerable attention. Professor Max 
Miiller’s view of the original unity of all existing languages, and Mr. 
Crawfurd’s counter-view, were also set forth, with a strongly expressed 
opinion against the former. The whole address forms an excellent 
and philosophic summary of these leading scientific topics of the day 
from the pen of one well able to deal, with them, and to express an 
independent opinion. 

‘The Plymouth Institution and Devon and Cornwall Natural His- 
tory Society,’ is another active body in the West of England, one of 
whose objects is, like the ‘Tyneside Club,’ the cataloguing of the 
natural productions of those counties. The last published number of 
their Transactions contains lists of the mammals, birds, reptiles, am- 
phibia and lepidopterous insects of Devon, which cannot fail to be 
of service in elucidating the general natural history and distribution 
of animals in these islands. It is also enriched with a paper by 
Mr. Pengelly, on the Red Sandstone, Conglomerates, and Marls of 
Devonshire. 

Other Western Societies which are keeping up the lamp of science 
with assiduity, are the ‘ Bristol Naturalists’ Society,’ whose monthly 
Proceedings find a place in the ‘ British Daily Post’; and the ‘ Bath 
Natural History and Antiquarian Field Club,’ whose president is the 
Rev. Leonard Jenyns. An admirable address from this venerable 
naturalist to the club now lies before us, but our space will only allow 
us to thus briefly refer to it. 

In the Eastern district ‘and near London, the ‘ West Kent Natural 
History, Microscopical, and Photographic Society,’ which has absorbed 
the ‘Greenwich Field Naturalists’ Club, and is supported by many 
leading scientific men of London, whose residence outside the metro- 
polis enables them thus to meet periodically on Blackheath, for the 
prosecution of their favourite pursuits. Of this club the excellent 
Linnean Secretary, Mr. Currey, is president, and a most interesting 
address from him, on the progress of science, has been circulated. 

Among naturalists’ field clubs, however, none have met with so 
surprising success as that at Liverpool. This club was established at 
Liverpool in 1860, the year following the foundation of a similar club 
at Manchester; but the former has outstepped the latter, and its 
steadily increasing number of members has now reached about 700. 
There can be no question that this club has done much to disseminate 
a taste for and knowledge of natural history, more especially of botany, 
in Liverpool. During the winter months periodical meetings are held, 
at which lectures are delivered and specimens exhibited, mm which the 


1864. | Science in the Provinces. 709 


aid of the microscope is largely used; and in summer, excursions to 
a greater or lesser distance into the country are taken, at average 
intervals of three weeks, on which occasion prizes are offered, which 
are calculated to stimulate the taste for botanical pursuits. ‘These 
prizes consist of books of the value of half-a-guinea, of which several 
are offered at each excursion, viz. for the collection, naming, and 
arrangement in natural orders of the largest number of species in 
flower ; for the largest illustration of some given natural order; and. 
for the simple collection of the largest number of species in flower. 
Tn addition to these, numerous prizes are offered for collections to be 
made during the year, which have met with the most encouraging 
success. Nor should it be omitted to be mentioned, that twice has 
this club held high festival in the magnificent St. George’s Hall, on 
which occasions extraordinary exhibitions of the most varied and most 
valuable natural objects have been made, and certainly forming the 
most remarkable natural history festivals which it has ever been our 
lot to witness. 

The ‘Cambridge University Natural Science Society, which has 
sprung from a University Club, is a new Society, and if we may 
judge from the earnest spirit of the address of its President, Mr. C. 
W. Villiers Bradford, it is one which is destined to do considerable 
service. The subject of the position of Natural Science in the 
University curriculum, and the encouragement given to its prosecu- 
tion, is brought forward in a prominent manner. The Natural 
Science Tripos standard was raised in 1861, so that a first class in 
that Tripos was equivalent to the position of a Wrangler. The numbers 
availing themselves of the Tripos, however, have been very small, 
owing to the little encouragement offered by the University and 
Colleges. Out of twenty-two University prizes, not one is devoted to 
any department of Natural Science; and out of the seventeen colleges 
which compose this commonwealth of learning, only three offer any 
pecuniary inducement to scientific study, viz. Caius, Sidney Sussex, and 
Downing Colleges ; while no college has ever yet given a fellowship 
for Natural Science alone. At Oxford this, however, is the case, and 
members of both Universities are allowed to compete. So long, there- 
fere, as the colleges of Cambridge refuse to extend to science that 
stimulus to energetic work which every other branch of study possesses, 
we may predicate for the Natural Science school but a struggle for 
existence there. Few men who go to a University can afford to spend 
their school and college days in competing for an empty honour, 
while the same time and labour differently bestowed may ensure a 
provision for the early years of a profession; but when Fellowships 
are given equally for science, mathematics, and classics, possibly even 
a greater competition may be expected in the former case than in the 
two latter, and perhaps the Fellows of colleges foresee this. The 
University prizes are restricted in their object; the Scholarships 
also are but partially free from similar trammels, but the Fellowships 
are entirely in the hands of the Masters and Fellows of colleges. 
But, although the colleges show so little favour to science, there are 
six Professors of high reputation, and also well-stocked geological, 


710 Chronicles of Science. [ Oct., 


mineralogical, and anatomical museums, numerous laboratories, a 
magnificent collection of scientific books in the University Library, 
and an excellent botanic garden ; but the Professors require assistants, 
and the collections require curators. We sympathize with the Cam- 
bridge University Natural Science Society in its attempts to arouse 
the University to a sense of its shortcomings, which place it m the 
rear of other similar noble educational establishments ; and we hope 
that, ere long, the attention which is thus called to these wants may 
fulfil the object which they have in view, and that their laudable 
endeavours may be crowned with complete success. 


XI. SCIENCE IN ASIA. 


Gruat were the advantages conferred on science by the foundation of 
the Asiatic Society of Bengal. It has given a start to much scientific 
investigation, and seems to promise much in the future. It is on the 
point of conferring an immense benefit on society at large in Calcutta by 
placing its extensive Museum in the hands of the Government, while 
it gives valuable assistance to individual collectors by forming a means 
of communication between zoologists in all parts of India. This last 
object it is intended to carry out according to a plan proposed by Mr. 
C. Horne, by means of lists of all naturalists, numismatists, and others 
who wish to enrol themselves as desirous of exchanging their duplicate 
specimens. It is not intended to confine these lists to members of the 
Society, but to admit all who are willing to joi. Other scientific 
bodies are coming into existence, amongst which we may mention the 
Dalhousie Institute, which has had a site afforded it by the Govern- 
ment, on which a suitable building is to be erected as soon as an 
opportunity is offered for the Governor-General to lay the foundation 
stone. At Allahabad, moreover, a museum and a library are on the 
point of being established. A circular has been issued by Dr. Cun- 
ningham, the curator and secretary of the future institution, to all the 
Government officials to collect materials under the six following 
classes :— 


. Specimens illustrative of antiquity, such as old coins, MSS., 
arms, &c. ; 

. Raw materials. 

. Agricultural produce. (Is this not included under the pre- 
ceding head ?) 

. Manufactured goods. 

. Specimens illustrative of natural history. 

. Models of machinery. 


Hay OW Pp 


To the library the curator hopes to attract the legacies of officers-and 
Government servants departing for Europe, expectations that probably 
may be realized if we consider the enormous expense of carriage which 
would be incurred in bringing home books. A site has not as yet been 


1864, | Science in Asia. 711 


assigned, but it is probable that the Government will shortly provide 
one. 

Hindi ignorance is an obstacle to many investigations. We cannot 
but rejoice to see so many native contributors to the proceedings of 
the Asiatic Society, and hope that much enlightenment may gradually 
spread amid all classes. Old religious prejudices are breaking down ; 
the Suttee has disappeared. It appears that Juggernaut does not so 
readily procure victims as formerly, and it is actually proposed to 
check the possibility of this sacrifice of human life. But further than 
this, female education is gradually engaging the serious and earnest 
attention of the liberal-minded and influential circles of the Hindi 
community of Bengal. A Hindi gentleman, Baboo Gunja Gopal 
Chatterjee, has opened an entirely free school for girls on the western 
bank of the Hooghly. About forty attend, many of Brahminical 
caste. In the Madras presidency a more extensive movement has 
taken place—nothing short of a complete reformation—including the 
endeavour to promote female education, to discourage polygamy, and 
to encourage the re-marriage of widows. The religious views of the 
promoters of this movement are monotheistic, and all sectarian tenden- 
cies are discarded. But as a set-off against these advances in the 
way of education, we must record an instance of extreme bigotry on 
the part of some Mahometans in this same presidency. Two officers 
who attempted to visit the famous tombs of Golconda were vigorously 
abused and then pelted. From this attack of three or four hundred 
men they effectually defended themselves with whips, but when their 
assailants had been reinforced by some hundreds of villagers they 
seriously maltreated the officers, who escaped violence indeed, but who 
had to return without visiting the tombs. 

The ‘Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal’ for the present 
year opens with a paper on “The History of the Burmah Race,” by 
the Chief Commissioner of British Burmah, Lieutenant-Colonel A. P. 
Phayre, C.B. This gentleman has collected his information from a 
copy of the chronicles of the Kings of Burmah, entitled ‘Maha Radza 
Weng,’ presented to him by the reigning monarch, a man of some 
learning, who has caused a new edition of these annals to be compiled 
under his own immediate direction. 

The conclusions arrived at by Lieutenant-Colonel Phayre from 
these accounts are in the main in agreement with the theory of 
Prichard, displayed in his ‘Natural History of Man,’ viz. that the 
Burmese race, in common with the peoples to the north and west of 
them, have descended from the high land of central Asia by the 
courses of the great rivers, and have thus overspread the low lands. 
Three tribes, the Burmese, the Karens, and the Mon, seem to have 
found their way southward along the courses of the Salween and 
Meenam; the first and last of these reached at an early period the 
upper part of the valley of the Irrawaddy ; the Karens remained till 
of late in the mountains, but have now penetrated into the same valley, 
and have pushed onwards along the mountains of the sea coast. The 
traditions of migrations from India are supposed to have been invented 
after their conversion to Budhism by missionaries from Gangetic India, 


712 Chronicles of Science. | Oct., 


for the purpose of connecting their own royal family with those of the 
reigning Budhist families in India. This conversion seems to have 
taken place whilst the capital was at Tagoung, since a Budhist image 
was discovered there inscribed with a well-known religious text in Deva- 
nagri characters, which bear a close resemblance to similar inscriptions 
at Allahabad. Now the Burmese and Tapaing writing of the present 
day is undoubtedly derived from the Deva-nagri character, but it also 
bears upon the surface of it a distinct impress of the ‘l'amulic letters. 
We may well argue, therefore, that these few inscriptions were the work 
of the earlier Budhists that came from India, and who seem to have 
settled at Tagoung but a short time before it was overrun by the 
Tatar or Chinese race, whom the Burmese call Ta-ret or Ta-rook. 
The real origin of the race, then, was in the interior of the continent, 
but their traditions, founded on religious prejudices, point to an Indian 
birthplace. 

In these days, when pisciculture is becoming attractive both to the 
man of science and even to the economist, the remarks of Mr. EH. 
O'Reilly, the Deputy-Commissioner of Bassein, on the immense profits 
made from the fishing in the Lake of Clear Water in the district of 
Bassein, in Burmah, will be read with great interest. The lake to 
which these remarks refer is of a peculiar character, having but one 
stream which flows into it when the Irrawaddy, and in consequence the 
Bassein and its dependant, the Dugga, are swollen, and out of it when 
these rivers shrink again to their accustomed channels. The lake 
thus forms a natural preserve, and from its ring-shape it affords pecu- 
liar facilities for dragging. When the lake is at its lowest a fixed weir 
is built on one side of the outlet, and a drag-net, made of reeds, grass, 
and jungle-creepers, about 1,800 cubits long, is made on the other. 
This latter is moved gradually forward at the rate of about forty-five 
fathoms a-day for three months, until it is brought nearly opposite to 
the village on the shore of the lake, at a distance from its mouth. A 
bamboo weir is then erected to prevent the return of the fish, and the 
drag-net is taken to pieces and reconstructed by the first-mentioned 
weir, and then again dragged back in a contrary direction until it 
approaches the village on the other side. The fish are thus left cooped 
up until the first showers of the monsoon have cooled the water and 
the atmosphere, and then at the full moon in June the merchants 
assemble from Prome, Ava,and the other large towns on the Irrawaddy 
to attend the actual haul. Upwards of forty tons of fish are annually 
disposed of to these visitors, some in the form of dried fish, but also a 
large quantity is bought by the dealers from the lower parts of the 
river alive, and this is by them transported in bamboo cages kept under 
water. In the whole province of Pegu it is calculated that upwards of 
1,800 tons of fresh-water fish are used by the natives, affording a very 
large source of revenue to the Government. 

The condition of the dependency of Bustar, according to the 
report of Captain C. Glasfurd, Deputy-Commissioner of the Upper 
Godavery District, does not hold out any great enticement to the arche- 
ologist. The present, as well as the late dynasties of rajahs, seem to 
have had but little taste or liking for architecture ; but about five 


1864.| Science in Asia. 713 


hundred years ago there reigned in Barsoor a family of rulers who 
have left several monuments of their power, though the neglect of later 
times has suffered these to fall into almost total decay. These ruins 
are enclosed by a wall forming a square of about a mile. Within this 
are the remains of four or five temples—massive, handsome, and richly 
sculptured. They are built of huge blocks of gneiss, put together 
without mortar. They owe their destruction principally to the insinu- 
ation of the roots of the Ficus Indica. A slab of stone was found 
inscribed with Sanskrit and Teloogoo characters, the latter so anti- 
quated that they have not as yet been deciphered. A large tank in 
good repair was found near at hand, and about 150 tanks have been 
reckoned within a circuit of fifteen miles. A similar enclosure with 
temples was found at Duntewara, on the western bank of the Dunkunee ; 
but at Madhota, one of the ancient capitals of the district, no ruins 
beyond mud walls were to be found. 

The hot springs of India, not including petroleum wells, have been 
enumerated by Robert de Schlagintweit, Esq. They amount to ninety- 
nine in number. The hottest (202° Fahr.) is at Manikarn, in Kulu, 
amongst the Himalayan provinces, and is 5,587 feet above the sea- 
level. The highest is at Momai, in Sikkim, in the same locality, and 
is about 16,000 feet high ; the heat is 110° Fahr. 

The original papers end with a memorandum on some ancient tiles 
found at Pugan, which have Budhist figures and inscriptions on them. 

Amongst the proceedings of the Society it is interesting to observe 
how much mutual assistance is evinced between the promoters of 
Oriental literature im Europe and those in Asia. Dr. Weber writes an 
account of the progress of such work.in Europe, especially in Germany, 
noticing the appearance of the second volume of Pictet’s ‘Origines 
Indo-Huropéennes,’ and regretting the scholastic employments of 
Kuhn did not allow him to devote his whole time and attention to 
comparative mythology. A discussion on the Andaman Islanders 
arose at one of the meetings, after a paper read by the Rey. Wm. 
Corbyn. We are very glad to perceive that the indolent and un- 
scicntific argument that when a civilized and powerful race comes 
in contact with an ignorant and degraded people, the extermination of 
the latter must follow asa natural consequence, was met and combated 
by Mr. Cowell (whose return to England in consequence of ill health 
will be a great loss to this Society, to the college of which he is such 
a distinguished professor, and to Indian literature generally) and also 
by the president. The latter adduced as an instance in point the case 
of the Laps in conjunction with the Russians. That nation has 
neither decreased in numbers nor deteriorated in condition since the 
commencement of the last century ; but then they have neither been sub- 
ject to the example of the most degraded specimens of vicious civiliza- 
tion, harassed by petty injustice, nor enticed into such courses as must 
lead to their destruction. Great praise is due to Mr. Corbyn for what 
he has done and is doing for this almost hopeless race of human 
beings. 

The journal concludes with an elaborate abstract of the meteoro- 
logical observations taken at the Surveyor-General’s office at Calcutta, 


a4 Chronicles of Science. [Oct., 


from’ August, 1863, to the end of the year. The following results 
may be noticed : — 


Inches. 
The maximum height of the barometer was on 
December 19th, at 10 a.m... - 980°158 
The minimum height on the 17th August, at 
5 am. 29°35 
The mean daily range of the barometer dur- 
ing August . 7 : a 02109 
s i PE September : “124 
ki = y October ‘ °124 
55 a : November * °125 
December : °134 


The ‘greatest ‘ange of the barometer in one 
month was in October, of an inch 


October . A We 
November 5 Gils 
December ; Hoe 
The total amount a rain that fell in August 


48 

The maximum temperature in August . : 90°6 
Ph September : 90°6 

5 - October . : 90°4 

5 2 November ‘ 86°3 

*: December A U1 

The minimum temperature in August . : 75°4 
‘ FA September < Mes 

2 

6 

4 


(24 days) . 14:1 
99 x 5s September (23 days) 10°38 
99 1 », October (9 days) 3°48 


», November (3 days) 1°26 
December nil, 


1864. | (i BAS 


REVIEWS. 


THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE.* 


Tuer Science of Language is in one point of view the youngest of the 
sciences. ‘Though we can scarcely imagine a period at which this 
subject was not studied in an empirical manner, still, as a science 
resting on induction and logic, it has existed but a few years. Thus it 
is scarcely possible to state a period at which the history of Philology 
should begin, but it is only of late years that anything like scientific 
arrangements or definite laws have been discovered. 

As before geology was studied scientifically, many a collector pos- 
sessed a museum containing curiosities from his own neighbourhood, 
illustrating a particular class of rocks, so before philology (or Lin- 
euistics, as Mr. Marsh would call it) had arrived at well-ascertained 
laws or systematic classification, many a student of one or two lan- 
euages had collected specimens of “fossil history and fossil poetry ” 
dug from the mines of dusty books, even preserved from the rubbish- 
heaps lying at his doors, all which material will one day be arranged 
and labelled and inserted in catalogues, causing their language to 
become to the learned “a dictionary of faded metaphors.” 

The man who seems to have been the first to recognize the neces- 
sity of extensive induction before general laws could be discovered 
was Leibnitz, the contemporary of Newton. In order to place this 
study on a really philosophical basis, he entreated all those who had 
any chance of assisting him—such as missionaries, travellers, &c.—to 
collect the elements of whatever strange dialects it might be their 
fortune to meet with. Leibnitz possessed the advantage, not common 
to great thinkers, of being intimate with some of the leading political 
characters of his day, and amongst others with the Czar, Peter the 
Great. To the Emperor of all the Russias this philosopher pointed 
out the immense advantage that might be derived at small cost to the 
Russian Government, if he would cause the numerous dialects of the 
various races under his rule to be committed to writing. No imme- 
diate fruit resulted from this advice, but nearly a hundred years later 
the Empress Catharine took up the idea, and devoted a considerable 
amount of time to the work of compiling a Comparative Dictionary. 
For this purpose she procured lists of words, not only from her own 
enormous dominions, but by means of ambassadors from various parts 


* «Lectures on the Science of Language’ delivered at the Royal Institution of 
Great Britain in February, March, April, and May, 1863. Second Series. By 
Max Miller, Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford ; Correspondant de l'Institut 
de France. London: Longmans, 1864. 

* Philological Papers.’ By J. A. Picton, F.S.A., President of the Literary and 
Philosophical Society of Liverpool, 1864. Printed for private circulation only. 


716 Reviews. [ Oct., 


of the known world, even from the Indians of North America, specimens 
of whose languages were procured for her by Washington. In this 
dictionary 283 words were translated into 51 Kuropean and 149 Asiatic 
languages. The suggestions of Leibnitz gave rise during the last 
century to other works of a similar character, ‘The Catalogue of Lan- 
guages’ by Hervas, and the ‘Mithridates’ of J.C. Adelung. But 
that which gave the greatest impetus to the study of Philology was 
the commencement of the knowledge of Sanskrit in Europe. The 
first Europeans who acquired any knowledge of this tongue were 
certain Jesuit missionaries: missionaries have frequently been the 
first to become acquainted with the speech of uncivilized tribes. 
Robert de Nobili, in 1606, was the first to acquire a knowledge of this 
tongue, by adopting the habits, costume, and to a certain extent the 
religion of the Brahmins. The French missionaries sent by Louis XIV. 
under Father Pons, in 1697, followed, and their works excited the first 
curiosity felt in Europe on the subject of the language. The first 
grammar was published in Rome, in 1790, by Johann Philip Wesclin, 
better known as Paulinus a Santo Bartolemeo. The early members 
of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, the great Sir William Jones, Carey, 
Wilkins, Foster, Colebrooke, and others, studied assiduously the lite- 
rature of the Brahmins, and published the results of their labours for 
the benefit of other Kuropeans. 

Frederick Schlegel happened to be in England at the time when 
Sanskrit first became a subject of general discussion among the learned. 
With the prophetic insight of the poet, he saw at a glance the wide- 
spread connection of the languages of the peoples reaching from the 
Ganges to Iceland, and chronicled his idea in the scarcely yet super- 
seded word—Indo-European. Since then, step by step, the science 
has gained footing among the learned men of Germany, of England, 
of France, and of India. 

There are several reasons why philology should be studied in 
England. In the first place there is the mixed nature of our own 
language; on a groundwork of Saxon phraseology and of Saxon 
grammar we have grafted what in many cases differs but little from it, 
a good deal of Norse, much more Norman-French, and in the more 
scientific subjects Latin and Greek terms in abundance. Again, be- 
longing thus to the Low-German family of tongues, the language from 
which most of us gain our knowledge of grammar and our first acquaint- 
ance with a mode of speech not our own, is the Latin, one of the family 
of classical tongues. And lastly, our extensive dominions in the Hast 
demand on the part of many of our most independent thinkers an 
acquaintance with the eldest sister of the classical family, viz. Sanskrit, 
an acquirement which, on their return to Europe unconnected with 
the politics, the science, or the fashion of the day, gives employment 
to a learned leisure more consonant with its ‘previous employments. 
Thus philology in England has employed the horas subsectvas of many 
of our quiet thinkers, whilst the increasing demand for genuine 
classical education, combined with a knowledge of modern languages 
of the Romance, or High German type, serves to introduce the youth 
of our time to the principal branches of the Aryan family. The 


1864. | The Science of Language. 717 


thorough mastery of grammar, moreover, demanded by the Universities 
paves the way for, and almost demands, some attention for Com- 
parative Grammar. Thus in England lectures on the Science of 
Language both at Oxford and in London are attended by a large and 
varied audience; and we have no doubt that Mr. Picton, at Liverpool, 
received the same attention from the learned societies for his interest- 
ing and instructive papers as Professor Max Miiller obtained for his 
deeper and, therefore to the multitude, less interesting communi- 
cations, written in such English as few Englishmen can hope to attain, 
and delivered with an accent so slightly foreign as to cause in the 
hearer envy of such facility in acquiring a strange tongue. The style 
of the author throughout is so fascinating, so clear, and so well calcu- 
lated to lead one to admire the subject on which he dilates, that it is 
with difficulty we refrain from quoting long passages from this work 
on a subject which most people are wont to think dry and uninterest- 
ing. We are sure the extracts we do give will bear out this remark. 
We can only regret that we must spoil much by abridgment, and we 
hope we may induce our readers to imbibe more copiously from this 
*‘ pure well of English undefiled.” 

The sources whence the science of language expects to receive 
additions are manifold. The languages of remote and barbarous 
peoples—for instance, Southern Africa and Polynesia—contribute 
their share of enlightenment to the missionaries who study them ; but 
nearer home, in the dialects of our own villagers and of our ancestors, 
the more stay-at-home people may find not only amusement but in- 
struction, and may deduce from what they there find, generalizations 
that will throw much light on investigations of subjects less well 
known. Thus the expressions, “ He is a-going, I am a-coming,” &c., 
afford the Professor an opportunity for a dissertation of some pages, 
and a comparison with not only Anglo-Saxon, Gothic, and Old and 
Modern High German, but also with the distinct dialects of French, 
Bengali, and Bask. From these comparisons we may find principles 
that will hold good in the ancient tongues; thus all alike assist in the 
research ; modern forms throw light upon antiquity; agglutinative 
explains inflectional formation; whilst the radical stage of Chinese 
and its neighbours explains the earliest condition of the Aryan and 
Semitic families. The rapid change in the languages of nomadic 
tribes is seldom sufficiently reckoned. Whilst the antiquity of Man 
upon this earth is being supported by every possible argument, the 
yet unbridged gulf between the Aryan and the Semitic families 
affords a specious argument for an enormous lapse of time between 
the separation of these peoples and the subdivision of the families 
themselves. But if this rapid variation of the dialects of nomadic 
tribes be considered, this period should be greatly shortened if we can 
trace any analogy whatever between the tongues. In this matter much 
still remains to be done, yet there are many points of contact that 
cannot be ignored, and when these are more clearly developed, we 
think the enormous ages must be somewhat shortened. Professor 
Miiller does not bring forward this argument, but he gives several 
instances of the peculiar causes which lead to change in unsettled and 

VOL. I. 3c 


718 Reviews. | [ Oct., 


° ° . . 
unwritten tongues, causes which would never occur to our minds were 
not instances brought under our notice. A remarkable case is as 
follows :— 


“The Tahitians, besides their metaphorical expressions, have another 
and more singular mode of displaying their reverence towards their king, by 
a custom which they call 7e pi. They cease to employ in their common 
language those words which form a part or the whole of the sovereign’s name, 
or that of one of his near relatives, and invent new terms to supply their 
place. As all names in Polynesian are significant, and as a chief usually has 
several, it will be seen that this custom must produce a considerable change 
in the language. It is true that this change is only temporary, as at the 
death of king or chief, the new word is dropped and the original term re- 
sumed. Butitis hardly to be supposed that after one or two generations the 
old word should still be remembered and reinstated. Anyhow it is a fact 
that the missionaries, by employing many of the new terms, give them a 
permanency which will defy the ceremonial loyalty of the natives. 
Vancouver observes that at the accession of Otu, which took place 
between the visit of Cook and his own, no less than forty or fifty of the 
most common words which occur in conversation had been entirely 
changed. Itis not necessary that all the simple words which go to make 
up a compound name should be changed. The alteration of one is 
esteemed sufficient: thus in Po-mare, signifying “the night (Po) of 
coughing (mare),” only the first word Po has been dropped, mi being used 
in its place. So in Az-mata (eye eater), the name of the present queen, 
the Az (eat) has been altered to amu, and the mata (eye) retained. In 
Te-arti-na-vaha-roa (the chief with a large mouth), roa alone has been 
changed to maoro, It is the same as if with the accession of Queen 
Victoria either the word victory had been tabooed altogether, or only part 
of it, for instance, tori, so as to make it high treason to speak during her 
reign of Tories, this word being always supplied by another such, for 
instance as Liberal Conservative. The object was clearly to guard against 
the name of the sovereign being ever used, even by accident, in ordinary 
conversation, and this object is attained by tabooing even one portion of 
his name.” * 


Another cause of variation is found more especially among the 
Kafirs. The women never pronounce any word which contains a 
sound similar to the names of their male relatives. In many lan- 
guages the influence of women has given a peculiar turn to the speech 
of the whole nation. Thus Dante ascribed to the ladies of Italy, who 
did not understand Latin, the first patronage of literature in the vulgar 
tongue. Our author goes on to divide many languages into two 
dialects; “one showing a more manly, the other a more feminine, 
character.” He instances “ Greek in its dialects, the Aiolic and the 
Tonic, with their subdivisions the Doric and Ionic;’ High and Low 
German; in Celtic, the Gadhelic and Cymric; in India, the Sanskrit 
and Prakrit ; and, following the suggestion of Grimm, he believes— 


“The stern and strict dialects, the Sanskrit, the Molic, the Gadhelic, to 
represent the idiom of the fathers and brothers, used in public assemblies ; 
while the soft and simpler dialects, the Prakrit, the Ionic, and the Cymric, 
sprang originally from the domestic idiom of mothers, sisters, and servants 
at home.” 


* P. 34. 


1864. ] The Science of Language. 719 


To this we must demur that whilst the Afolic and Tonic, the High 
and Low German, the Gadhelic and Cymric were contemporaneous 
and concurrent, the Prakrit was a corruption and successor of the 
Sanskrit; that supposing the Ionian might be considered more po- 
lished and more effeminate than the Alolian, the Englishman, the 
Dutchman, and the Dane have never shown themselves inferior in 
courage (though they may have been in numbers) to the Prussian or 
the Austrian. With all respect for Grimm and for Professor Max 
Miller, we must dissent from a doctrine which is methodical enough 
to have issued from a French bureau, 

With one of the author’s conclusions, on which he lays much 
emphasis, we cannot bring ourselves to agree. He says: “ Without 
speech no reason, without reason no speech.” * And again: “ We can- 
not realize general conceptions, or, as they are called by philosophers, 
nominal essences, such as awimal, tree, man, without names; we cannot 
reason therefore without names or without language.” ¢ It may be 
that in our present condition as civilized beings, having a language 
on which to rely, we usually do not reason without language. It may 
be that children before they can speak do not reason, and it may be 
that the whole logical syllogism cannot be developed without the use 
of language. But are we in a condition to judge of those who had no 
language? Did not reason exist in the mind previously to the utter- 
ance of language? Do we not even see the glimmerings of reason 
existing in animals in whom we find no language? Professor Huxley 
declares that language is the only differentia of man perceptible by the 
senses ; but are we to deny to the whole brute creation that reason 
which has of late years been able to trace its own image reflected in 
that darkened glass which indifference and laziness have termed in- 
stinct? We might as well say, as many a so-called logician would 
say, that reasoning could not exist without a syllogism. This is per- 
fectly true in a certain sense. We cannot arrive at certain ends with- 
out a certain amount of machinery as a rule, but still we do not know 
whether we cannot arrive at those ends without the machinery if we 
have not the ordinary means at hand. AII reasoning must be capable 
of being put into the form of a syllogism, and therefore must be 
capable of being put into words, but we cannot put ourselves entirely 
into the position of those who have no words to use, and therefore we 
cannot tell whether they could not reason without words in such a 
form as we should be able afterwards to put into words. In one case 
the author gives an instance against himself. He says— 


“The history of religion is in one sense a history of language. Many 
of the ideas embodied in the language of the Gospel would have been in- 
comprehensible and inexpressible alike, if we imagine that by some 
miraculous agency they had been communicated to the primitive inhabit- 
ants of the earth. Even at the present moment, missionaries find that 
they have first to educate their savage pupils, that is to say, to rajse them 
to that level of language and thought which had been reached by Greeks, 
Romans, and Jews, at the beginning of our era, before the words and 
ideas of Christianity assume any reality to their minds, and before their 


* P65. + P. 435. 
a) (0) 


720 Reviews. [Oct., 


own native language becomes strong enough for the purposes of translation. 
Words and thoughts here as elsewhere go together ; and in one point of 
view the true history of religion would, as I said, be neither more nor les$ 
than an account of the various attempts at expressing the inexpressible.” 


Here, at least, it is quite clear that the words are entirely wanting 
because the ideas are unknown, but the idea must first be formed, and 
the word follows as a matter of course. To take the old metaphor, 
the shadow follows the substance ; it is quite true we cannot separate 
the one from the other; the Peter Schlemihl process is inhuman and 
monstrous, but the substance is antecedent to the shadow according to 
all logic. ‘The word dyary existed before St. Paul’s time undoubt- 
edly; here the coming event cast its shadow before; but Christian 
charity existed in the thoughts and in the life of the Apostle before 
the Epistle to the Corinthians was penned. Again, many a mathe- 
matician sees clearly the whole reasoning of the proposition without 
going through a word of it; but to put this reasoning into words is a 
long and laborious process afterwards. A glance at a diagram places 
the whole train of thought instantaneously before his mind, which it 
may require hours to reduce to words. The truth of the matter is, 
Professor Miller has for once been led away by words. Clearly as he 
is able to see the tendency that words have to cloud the brightest 
intellect, he has allowed the Greek Logos to confuse his own mind. 
The collection of instances, the conception and birth of the idea, and 
the naming, that it may be known by others, are distinct processes. 
And again, Professor Max Miller instances* a statement of Herodotus, 
“that the Pelasgians for a long time offered prayer and sacrifice to the 
gods without having names for them,” though he says this “rests on 
theory rather than fact, yet even as a theory the tradition is curious.” 
Thus a Greek, in spite of his own language (and we know how much 
the language of Greece and the fanciful derivations of its philosophers 
influenced their theories), separated the logos spoken from the logos 
unspoken. Herodotus, who, truthful and honest as he was, was not 
more clear-headed than Plato and Aristotle, yet could allow a dis- 
tinction that our great philologist, who usually knows so well the 
value of words,t mere words, does not see and will not allow. 


The second lecture enters into an elaborate account of Bishop 
Wilkins’ proposal for a universal language. The artificial is here 
plainly distinct from the natural. The next step is to go back as far 
as investigation will allow towards the origin of language. Here roots, 
not letters, seem at present to be the “ultimate residuum of complete 
analysis” of a class of languages. These roots give us all the words 
with which we are acquainted, but how these roots originated does not 
at present appear, at least so says the professor. The theory of 
onomatopoeia has been so obstructive to real philological progress, that 
we cannot be surprised that it is not allowed standing-room in the 
new science. The bow-wow theory, as Max Miiller calls it, receives 
hard treatment both in these and in the former lectures. Roots must 


* P. 435. + P. 560. “ They rule the mind, instead of being ruled by it.” 


1864. } The Science of Language. 721 


have originated in some way; either the sound of the object or the 
expression of the subject must have been the earliest utterance. It is 
quite possible that the actual name for a horse, or any other natural 
object as we at present describe it by its name, may have originated in 
some particular quality which has been considered striking; but how 
has that quality received its name? The Lithuanian aszva (mare), 
Latin equus, Greek inros (= txxos), and the old Saxon ehu, may all 
have originated in the root ag; but whence this root with its significa- 
tion of swiftness and sharpness? Must it not have arisen from an 
imitation of the sound of rapid motion; a swift cutting of the air 
in sunder; a hiss? We do not wish, and we are not able if we 
wished it, to “undo all the work that has been done by Bopp, Hum- 
boldt, Grimm, and others (including not least Max Miller himself), for 
fifty years,” but we think that no one who enters so thoroughly into the 
subject of tracing language to its origin can with regard to the ono- 
matopceic or imsonic source of roots “remain entirely neutral.” 

We next proceed to a discussion of the alphabet. After our own | 
language we usually suppose that the alphabet is the thing we know 
best of all our acquirements. How much there is still to learn even 
on this subject is best seen from the work under review. We cannot 
pretend to give an abstract of the author’s remarks on this subject, inas- 
much as it would require the plates with which he illustrates his text 
to make the matter plain to our readers. Suffice it to say that he 
relates the divisions and accounts of letters given by writers of various 
nations and periods, explains the formation of different sounds as 
revealed by the laryngoscope (a small looking-glass which enables the 
experimenter to look down the throat of the patient whilst he speaks), 
depicts the physiology of pronunciation, and shows how easily one 
class of sounds may be merged into another. On the exceeding intri- 
cacy of this subject he has a passage which we must quote as a speci- 
men of the style and diversity of acquirements of the learned author :— 

“ After thus taking to pieces the instrument, the tubes and reeds of 
the human voice, let us now see how that instrument is played by us in 
speaking or in singing. Familiar and simple as singing or music in general 
seems to be, it is, if we analyze it, one of the most wonderful phenomena. 
What we hear when listening to a chorus or a symphony is a commotion 
of elastic air, of which the wildest sea would give a very inadequate image. 
The lowest tone which the ear perceives is due to about 30 vibrations 
in one second, the highest to about 4,000. Consider then what happens 
in a Presto, when thousands of voices and of instruments are simultaneous] 
producing waves of air, each wave crossing the other, not only like the 
surface waves of the water, but like spherical bodies, and, as it would 
seem, without any perceptible disturbance. Consider that each tone is 
accompanied by secondary tones, each instrument has its peculiar timbre, 
due to secondary vibrations ; and lastly, let us remember that all this cross- 
fire of waves, all this whirlpool of sound, is moderated by laws which 
determine what we call harmony, and by certain traditions or habits 
which determine what we call melody, both these elements being absent 
in the songs of birds ; that all this must be reflected like a microscopic 
photograph on the two small organs of hearing, and these excite not only 
perception, but perception followed by a new feeling even more mysterious, 
which we call either pleasure or pain, and it will be clear that we are sur- 


722, Reviews. [ Oct., 


rounded on all sides by miracles transcending all we are accustomed to 
call miraculous, and yet disclosing to the genius of an Euler ora Newton 
laws which admit of the most minute mathematical determination.” 


Having investigated all the possible letters in an alphabet, we may 
next examine what portions of the ideal alphabet are possessed by 
individual languages. Here we find that English and Hindustani, 
tongues made up of the admixture of several elements, retain and blend 
the peculiarities of each of their component parts. Thus, while we 
possess the Gothic w, we also have equivalents coming back again 
through the Norman-French in gu, as wise and disguise, wily and guile, 
&c. Again, ch and j are Romance or Norman, nevertheless these sounds 
are introduced into Saxon words, as choose (cedsan), chew (ceowan), 
child (cild), cheap (ceap), birch, finch, speech, much, &c. 

The Mohawks, the so-called Six Nations, and other natives of North 
America, have no labials. The Society Islanders have no gutturals, in 
which the Semitic languages are so strong. Rather unfortunately the 
- first Englishman with whom they became acquainted was one whom 
they could only call Captain Tute (Cook), a pronunciation that we 
might match in our nurseries. Dentals exist in every known tongue, 
though Chinese, Mexicans, Peruvians, Hurons, and several other 
dialects of both South and North America never pronounce the d. 


“So perfect a language as Sanskrit has no f, no soft sibilants, no short 
eando; Greek has no y, no w, no f, no soft sibilants ; Latin likewise has 
no soft sibilants, no §, ¢, :v. English is deficient in guttural breathing, 
like the German ach and ich,” &c. &c. 


Hindustani (admitting Sanskrit, Persian, Arabic, and Turkish 
words) has 48 consonants; Sanskrit, 87; Turkish, 32; Persian, 31; 
Arabic, 28; Zulu Kafir, 26, besides clicks; Hebrew, 23; English, 20 ; 
Greek, 17, of which 3 are compound; Latin, 17, of which 1 is com- 
pound ; Mongolian, 17 or 18; Finnish, 11; Polynesian, 10 (no dia- 
lect has more—some less); some Australian have 8, with three varia- 
tions; the Melanesian dialects have 12, 13, 14, and more consonants. 
Even when the same consonant does occur in two languages, slight 
shades of difference of pronunciation make it almost impossible to 
write down the sounds of an unknown tongue. An amusing instance 
is given of an American gentleman who resided for a long time at 
Constantinople, but who was sure of the pronunciation of no word in 
the Turkish language but what he wrote bactshtasch, meaning bakhshish. 
L,r are frequently mistaken, and in Hawaian it is almost impossible to 
distinguish between k and ¢; thus their late king’s name is written 
indifferently Tamehama or Kamehama. Occasionally certain pro- 
nunciations are slurred over by certain individuals. Without Pro- 
fessor Max Miiller’s diagrams most of us know some one who would 
call three, free, and have heard nothing called nuffen. 

Many of the changes which have been reduced to rule may be attri- 
buted to phonetic decay, a most agreeable euphuism for laziness. Lazi- 
ness leads us to drop some letters, and to slur over the pronunciation 
of others, combining two into some third sound. Thus, pére and mere 
are easier to pronounce than pater and mater; the English night is 


1864. | The Science of Language. 723 


easier than the German nacht. The following are specimens of this 
kind of change :— 


A.S. hafoe becomes hawk. A.S, nawiht becomes nought. 
» deg mL edayn », hlaford syn OROR 
», feger em fair », hlcefdige oy Lady. 
» secgan 1) “aly. 5, soelig 5 vi Sllly, 
»» Sprecan 3 speak. », buton sf but; 

» folgian » follow. » heafod » head. 
», morgen » morrow. 5, nose-thyrel » nostril. 
» cyning ee) aking: 5 Wif-man » woman. 
» weorold ,, world. | ,, Hofer-wic spit 4 OTK 
Again, 
Lat, scutarius. Fr. escuier. Eng. squire. 

», historia. », histoire. », Story. 

,, Aigyptianus. » Hgyptian. 5 IDSy. 

»  extraneus. » estrangier. 5, Stranger. 

5, lydropsis. »  dropsy. 

5, capitulum. 5, chapitre. », chapter. 

» dominicella. » demoiselle. » damsel. 

»» paralysis. 5» paralysie. »» palsy. 

5, sacristanus. », Sacristain. » sexton. 


From laziness a letter may even be added; thus it is easier to 


pronounce— 
Eng. thunder than A.S. thunor, 


Greek ayvdpes be GVELES. 
PS du.Beoota a aupoola. 
5  wETNUBoIa ,, peon(€) ola. 
Eng. gender » fr. genre. 
ss slumber » A.S. slumeriar. 
» embers ie » ‘wemyr ie. 
» cinders » Lat. cineres. 
» humble a » humilis. 


We now come to the great principle of change called Grimm's law. 
The author introduces this merely for the sake of explaining what he 
considers to have been the origin of this diversity. He gives the law, 
indeed, in all minuteness, and explains the change of every letter, 
giving an example or two; but we think it a pity that in the present 
state of ignorance on these matters amongst the majority of students, 
there should be no work in the English language to which we could 
turn for so many examples as would satisfy the seeker after the most 
perfect induction.- We do not say this simply to pick holes, for we 
are thankful enough for what the author has given, a great deal of 
which is much newer, and to deep students much more valuable, 
than the explanation of a known law ; but day after day we find men 
who profess to be philologists, who have read many works on these 
subjects, publishing derivations implying most reckless violation of 


this fundamental change. 
And here we must take leave of this interesting and learned work. 


724 Reviews. [Oct., 


There is still much in it on which we have not touched, feeling that 
it was better to go through carefully the etymological portion, and to 
leave the mythology possibly for some future opportunity. In this 
latter subject the author has done much service to a study of the 
classics, by pointing out that the ancients possessed a religion apart 
from their mythology ; that it was not left entirely for philosophers 
to speculate on the existence of the gods ; but that there was something 
beyond the sky in which the herdsman and the slave could trust and 
rely; that this was (Acts xvii. 22, &c.) “the Lord of heaven and earth ;” 
that “they might feel after him and might find him; ” and that all 
men, and not only Jove-born kings and rulers, “are also his offspring.” 
How the layer of superstition was spread thickly over all this deeper 
feeling is traceable in words—empty words, which men think are their 
servants, but which are frequently their masters, and which, like all 
created things, are hard taskmasters when they get the dominion. 
This mastery of words over men is not confined to the days of heathen- 
dom ; the legends of the saints, the fairy tales of our-youth, the stories 
of physical wonders in the middle ages, have in many cases their 
origin in a confusion of thought arising from the similarity of sound 
between two words entirely distinct and unconnected. This part of 
the subject we must leave alone, regretting that we cannot follow 
further through the author’s lucid and thoughtful pages, and regretting 
too that in many cases we have been obliged to put in our own abbre- 
eee form what he has dilated upon with such elegance and fluency 
of style. 

We have left ourselves but little space to speak of the work of Mr. 
Picton. It is highly creditable to a provincial society that it should 
be able to elicit such excellent papers from its members. The subject. 
of the Gothic language, important as it is to us if we would understand 
the roots of our own tongue, is seldom so carefully studied as it 
evidently has been by our author. A good knowledge of Anglo-Saxon, 
Gothic, and Norse is becoming every day more important to everyone 
who would wish to master thoroughly his native English. At the 
same time it is well to see that the general affinities of the language 
are studied in its relationship to Sanskrit. We are therefore thankful 
for the paper on ‘Sanskrit Roots.’ Of course in this paper we do not 
discover anything very new. The development of Grimm’s law, and 
the exceptions to it, need to be brought clearly before the general body 
of English readers. The deeper scholars seem to be too much 
engaged with their researches to find time to explain and exemplify 
thoroughly this important principle of philology. We are therefore 
glad to welcome the exposition of it, and the examples given by Mr. 
Picton, as likely to be read by many who would be afraid of so large 
and learned a work as that of Professor Max Miiller. In his last paper 
on ‘ Architectural Terms’ Mr. Picton has done good service to philo- 
logy, in seeking in the history of his own art for an explanation of the 
terms used therein. If men of science would thus chronicle what they 
discover in’ their researches in their own department, we should not 
have so many crude guesses or such wild metaphors put forth in the 
name of veritable etymology. 


1864. ] The Spiders of Great Britain and Ireland. 725 


SPIDERS OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.* 


Iv is always a satisfactory consummation when the labour of a lifetime 
appears before the world, prepared and revised under the immediate 
supervision of its author; and it is no less a matter of congratula- 
tion to see a man who, in the decline of years, has accomplished his 
work, and lives to enjoy the satisfaction arising from the completion 
of a laborious task. We therefore congratulate the Natural-History 
public upon the appearance of the second and concluding portion of 
this important work, and we congratulate Mr. Blackwall upon the 
production of the beautifully-illustrated monograph which forms the 
subject of this notice—a monograph which, for completeness of detail, 
for care and labour of research, for richness and beauty of illustration, 
and for zoological interest, may well claim comparison with any with 
which we are acquainted. 

To people in general there is something peculiarly repulsive in 
the notion of spiders, and their rapacity and ferocity, added to their 
cunning, and a certain indistinctness of information upon the subject 
of their poisonous properties, place them under a general ban, such as 
is shared by the toad and suchlike “ugly and venomous” creatures. 
And this has probably been the reason why spiders have met with so 
little attention ; so that an investigation of the natural history of the 
spiders of these islands has opened a field hitherto to all intents and 
purposes unworked. Indeed, all the Zoologists who have devoted 
themselves to these really interesting creatures of late years have been 
Continental observers, particularly those of France, Sweden, and 
Germany, although one of the earliest Arachnologists was our distin- 
guished countryman, Dr. Martin Lister. Of his treatise, published in 
1678, Mr. Blackwall observes, that “in his admirable Tractatus de 
Araneis he has given us a classification of the species he has so ably 
described, founded on their external organization and economy, which 
has formed the basis of every subsequent attempt, deserving notice, to 
effect a systematic arrangement of this interesting order of animals.” 

The points of interest in the economy and habits of Spiders are 
numerous, and are likely to receive especial attention from new ob- 
servers, who will receive an impulse to their studies from the appear- 
ance of Mr. Blackwall’s admirable monograph. The eyes are taken 
as a simple and easy basis of classification. On this principle three 
tribes have been founded, which include all the species hitherto dis- 
covered, viz. Octonoculina (eyes 8), Senoculina (eyes 6), and Binoculina 
(eyes 2). Of these the first tribe is by far the most extensive; the 
second contains ten or eleven genera; while the third has been con- 
stituted for the reception of a single genus (Nops), containing two 
species of extra-European spiders. The head and chest (forming 
together the cephalo-thorax) are continuous, but the head is easily 
distinguishable by the presence of the pairs of smooth, simple eyes, 


* «A History of the Spiders of Great Britain and Ireland.’ By John Black- 
wall, F.L.S. Two Parts, 4to. 1861-4. (Ray Society.) 


726 Reviews. [ Oct., 


by the falces, usually but improperly termed mandibles, which are 
terminated by a pointed fang, having a ginglymoid movement, and by 
the oral apparatus. Hight legs of seven joints each, having two or 
more claws at their extremity, are articulated round the cephalo- 
thorax, to which the abdomen, covered with a leathery or horny plate, 
is united by a short cartilaginous pedicle. Of course the spinning 
organs claim especial attention, consisting of four, six, or eight mam- 
mule, situated immediately below the anus, and each composed of one 
or more joints, from the terminal joint of which five movable papille 
arise, whence issues the viscous secretion of which the silken lines 
produced by spiders are formed. These are connected with special 
organs for the formation of this secretion, consisting of intestiniform 
vessels, having at their base some small supplementary canals. The 
viscous substance hardens immediately on exposure to the air, forming 
delicate filaments, which unite to form a common thread. 

The falces are used for seizing, killing, and retaining the prey ; 
but a remarkable function is claimed for the palpi. In male spiders, 
the digital joint of these organs, which are situated on the maxille, 
is commonly short, oval, and dilated, and have the sexual organs 
(which are thus double) attached within and partially concealed by a 
cavity on its under side. This view of the nature of the palpi was 
adopted by Lister, and recent researches, conducted with the utmost 
caution, have clearly established the accuracy of the opinion. In the 
females, the palpi are for the most part terminated by a curved pecti- 
nated claw. 

Spiders change their skins several times before they reach 
maturity, after each process remaining for a short period in a state of 
great exhaustion. So also, like Crustacea, they have the power of 
reproducing detached or mutilated limbs, palpi, or spinners, but only 
at the period of moulting. Such a mutilated leg may be renewed four 
or even six times consecutively during the period of immaturity. 

The ingeniously-constructed nets or webs which are so familiarly 
known to all are of several kinds, characterizing different groups of 
spiders; some of these have not much pretension to elegance of 
design, but nevertheless well fulfil the purpose of a snare, for which 
they are intended. The circular geometric nets of the Hpéire, how- 
ever, are really wonders of art. An elastic spiral line thickly studded 
with minute globules of viscid gum, whose circumvolutions are crossed 
by radii converging to a common centre, and apparently formed of a 
different material, being unadhesive and very much less elastic. So 
also the central convolutions are free from the adhesive material, and 
these form a look-out station from which the spider may keep watch. 
With regard to the viscidity of the spiral web, light has been thrown 
upon its nature even since the publication of Mr. Blackwall’s work, 
the first part of which appeared in 1861. He there calculates that the 
minute globules which stud the lines and give rise to the viscidity are 
so closely ranged as to give an average of twenty globules upon one- 
tenth of an inch; and basing upon this calculation, he finds that a 
large net of Hpéira apoclisa, 14 or 16 inches in diameter, contains 
upwards of 120,000 viscid globules, and yet the spider will complete 


1864. | The Spiders of Great Britain and Ireland, 127 


its snare in about forty minutes, if it meet with no interruption. 
Mr. Richard Beck, in a paper read before the Microscopical Society 
in 1862, stated that, by examination with a lens of a spider in the act 
of spmning a geometric web, he had convinced himself that when the 
thread left the spinnaret no dots were apparent, but that the change 
was one which took place afterwards and gradually. At first, slightly 
thicker than ungummed threads, the viscid secretion soon began to 
form undulations, and eventually separated, forming globules, by mcle- 
cular attraction, at very regular and very minute intervals, It thus 
appears that a physical law produces the marvellous results formerly 
attributed to the direct agency of the spider. 

It will hardly surprise us to learn that these regular webs are 
constructed in absolute darkness, without the slightest irregularity of 
plan or defect of structure; nor that young spiders display in their 
first attempts the most consummate skill as the most experienced indi- 
viduals. Nor should the aérial flights of the aéronautic spiders be 
passed over in silence—excursions which appear to have a migratory 
instinct as their impulse. These flights are undertaken by the agency 
of long buoyant threads, which are not darted from the spinnarets, and 
thus propelled to a distance, as was long imagined, but simply ejected 
gradually, and carried upwards at the same time that they are solidified 
by the ascending current of air. 

To those who are acquainted with the garden-spider, the house- 
spider, and the money-spinner, and whose knowledge of Arachnology, 
perhaps, then meets with a termination, it will be matter of profound 
astonishment to hear that the laborious and indefatigable researches 
‘of Mr. Blackwali have resulted in the description of upwards of three 
hundred species of spiders as occurring in Great Britain and Ireland. 
These are distributed through only thirty-four genera, allowing there- 
fore an unusual number of species to a genus. Indeed, the genus 
Linyphia has thirty-three species; the genus Hpéira, thirty-one species ; 
Walcknaera, thirty-two species; and Neriéne, forty-eight. This is a 
muck larger proportion than usually falls to the lot of a well-consti- 
tuted genus, and probably it will hereafter be found desirable further 
to subdivide such comprehensive genera; although we do not for a 
moment call in question Mr. Blackwall’s judgment as to this present 
arrangement. There is another circumstance also which indicates 
that the practical study of the Arachnology of these islands is in its 
infancy, and that is the fact that the observers who have co-operated 
with Mr. Blackwall are so few in number, the chief being two or three 
gentlemen well known for their attachment to this branch of Zoology, 
viz. Mr. R. H. Meade, Rev. O. Pickard-Cambridge, Rev. Hamlet 
Clark, and Mr. J. Hardy ; while the cabinet of Mr. F. Walker, of the 
British Museum, has yielded many rare and interesting species; and 
Mr. R. Templeton has done much for Ireland. As a matter of course, 
the researches of these gentlemen could be conducted only over a 
limited extent of country, and the frequent repetitions of the same 
locality show at once the extreme and praiseworthy industry of these 
gentlemen, and the great need there is of energetic search in other 
parts of the country. Of course the vale of Llanrwst has been well 


728 Reviews. [Oct., 


scoured by Mr. Blackwall himself, and has yielded a wonderful 
harvest. Crumpsall, near Manchester, Southport, near Liverpool, and 
Oakland are localities constantly recurring, from the accidental cir- 
cumstance that one or other of the above active observers have- been 
located at these spots. The frequent record, too, of a species as having 
only once been met with proves that more workers only are necessary, 
not only to elucidate the distribution of spiders over the British islands, 
but also greatly to increase the list which Mr. Blackwall has already 
swelled to so large a size. 

In concluding this brief notice of a work of great value and im- 
portance, we cannot but pay a just tribute to the Ray Society, under 
whose auspices the work has been produced—a beautifully-printed 
quarto work of 400 pages. It is magnificently illustrated with twenty- 
nine plates, containing many hundred figures, for the most part coloured, 
including a coloured representation of every species, and often two 
such figures of a species, and numerous interesting details. Such a 
work could hardly have been undertaken by a private publisher, but 
by such a subscription society it has been produced in two parts, at 
one guinea each part to subscribers. There could be no stronger 
proof of the value of such a combination, and although the second 
part has been somewhat delayed on account of the plates, we trust that 
the Ray Society will meet with additional support on account of this 
transaction. It has passed through some difficulties, but we hope it 
has seen the end of them, and that under the direction of its present 
energetic secretary, a long career of usefulness may be before it. Our 
thanks are due to Mr. Blackwall for his splendid contribution to 
the Zoology of these islands, and we may congratulate him on their 
having been so admirably laid before the public, with, as we are told, 
considerable pecuniary outlay on the part of the author. 


POPULAR WORKS ON BOTANY.* 


Tux study of Botany has of late years been much extended, both as 
regards the curricula of universities and the course of lessons given to 
the young. Popular works have multiplied,—most of them illustrated 
by woodcuts, plates, or coloured drawings, which add much to their 
interest and usefulness. ‘Rambles in Search of Wild Flowers,’ by 
Miss Margaret Plues, is a work of this nature. In the introductory 
portion a description is given, in familiar language, of the various 
organs of plants ; the principles of the natural system of classification 
are explained; and the classes and sub-classes are defined. The 
natural orders are then described, and some of the common plants in 
each are noticed in an instructive manner, illustrated by coloured 


* «Rambles in Search of Wild Flowers, and How to Distinguish them.’ By 
Margaret Plues. London, 1863. 
ieee Rambles in Search of Flowerless Plants.’ By the same Authoress. London, 


1864. ] Pamphlets. 729 


drawings, which upon the wholo are well executed. In the course of 
the descriptions occasion is taken to notice the various forms of root, 
stem, leaves, flowers, and fruit; and the youthful readers are led in a 
very pleasing and attractive way to notice the wild flowers which are 
strewn around them. Lessons are also given in regard to the plants 
of Scripture as occasion offers, and the thoughts are directed to the 
contemplation of the wisdom and goodness of the Creator. In one of 
the volumes Miss Plues confines her attention to flowering plants, 
beginning at the Ranunculuses and ending with Grasses. In the other 
volume she considers the flowerless plants, as Ferns, Mosses, Lichens, 
Seaweeds, and Fungi. These works cannot fail to be useful to those 
who wish to enter on the study of native plants, and they are pleasing 
companions in country rambles. 


PAMPHLETS. 
On Viratrty. By the Rev. H. H. Higgins, M.A.* 


Or the various questions which the physiologist is called upon to con- 
sider in the course of his researches into the phenomena exhibited by 
organized beings, none perhaps possesses greater interest than the one 
discussed in this short but able pamphlet by Mr. Higgins. Is there, 
or is there not, a force resident in those bodies which, from their 
special manifestations, we term organisms or living beings, over and 
above those chemico-physical forces the nature and mode of action of 
which we recognize and especially study in inorganic bodies? This 
force has had various terms applied to it by those who affirm its exist- 
ence, e. g. vital force, germ force, vital principle, or vitality, as in the 
pamphlet before us. 

The older physiologists, we may say, universally believed in such 
a specific organic force, and sought in it an explanation of most of the 
phenomena to the investigation of which they applied themselves. But 
the more refined methods of inquiry adopted in recent years have 
proved that there is no need to presuppose the existence of a specific 
vital force acting in many of these processes, for they are perfectly 
explicable by the operation of well-known chemico-physical laws. For 
it must ever be kept in mind that an organism is a material body, and 
as such is subjected to the action of those forces which operate in and 
on matter, though these are undoubtedly modified and often rendered 
more complicated and difficult to recognize than in inorganic matter. 
Hence has arisen a physiological school, whose leading members are 
some of the most brilliant and distinguished of living German physio- 
logists, who, from the results which they have obtained by applying to 
the investigation of organic processes the methods of chemico-physical 


* Read before the Liverpool Literary and Philosophical Society, January 11th, 
64. 


730 Reviews. [Oct., 


research, have been led to deny altogether the existence of any specific 
vital force. But whilst readily conceding that the advocates for a 
special vital force have claimed too great a dominion for their favourite 
potentate, and that many of its supposed subjects are really under the 
governance of other powers, yet we are by no means inclined entirely 
to dethrone it. We agree with our author in believing that there is 
a series of phenomena manifested in organized bodies which cannot be 
explained by chemico-physical laws, and which is not capable of being 
recognized even by chemico-physical methods of research. 

The broad line of demarcation which separates things animate from 
things inanimate: the manifestation in the former of those processes 
which the physiologist distinguishes by the terms development, growth, 
and maintenance—processes which are exhibited by the simplest vege- 
table or animal cell as clearly as by the highest and most complicated 
organism, and which consist not in mere superficial accretions of new 
matter as in the formation of crystals, the highest of all inorganic 
forms and processes, but in minute interval molecular changes—points 
at once to the existence in the former of a specific determining power, 
no indication of which is met with in the latter. 


‘“* And if life were made up of forces similar to those which act in vari- 
ous ways both on organic and on inorganic matter, we might expect to find 
the transition from things inanimate to things animate the same in 
character with all other transactions in nature; the border-land would be 
occupied with semi-animate materials, and semi-mineral vegetables or 
animals, with instances of equivocal life and products of doubtful organiza- 
tion. Whereas from the highest to the very lowest organism, the pheno- 
mena of life are distinct and unquestionable.” 


There is a class of scientific observers—pseudo-scientific, we had 
almost written—who believe that, by passing electrical currents through 
solutions of albumen or other nitrogenized substances, they can produce 
in them nuclei, cells, or other well-defined organic forms ; and that thus, 
by the operation of a well-known physical force on certain forms of 
matter, structures, for whose production the vitalist contends that a 
special force is necessary, may be generated. But it has never yet 
been shown that these oval or spherical cell-like forms produced in 
such solutions are capable of going through those processes of develop- 
ment, growth, and maintenance which are the characteristic phenomena 
of all living beings. ‘Their morphological similarity has too hastily 
been assumed to be a proof of their teleological identity. As well 
might it be said that the arborescent appearance seen on the glass in 
our window-frames on a frosty winter’s morning was the same thing 
as the trees and other plants whose form and method of branching it 
simulates. 

We have not space to follow Mr. Higgins through the remainder 
of his carefully reasoned argument that the vital principle is a thing 
sui generis, but in order to give our readers some idea of its nature we 
reproduce in this place his general summary :— 


“1st. The unparalleled hiatus which exists between things animate and 
things inanimate. 


1864. | Pamphlets. 731 


“2nd. The great dissimilarity between the properties of the imponder- 
ables and those of vitality. 

“3rd. The difficulty arising from the hypothesis that the embryo of a 
living thing is developed only by agencies analogous with known forces, 

“The permanence of form and structure observable during many gene- 
rations of the same species. 

“5th. The absence of any indications as to what becomes of the vital 
principle of death. 

“6th, The periodicity of life.” 


Natura History mn JENA.* 


We have received the second part of the first volume of a new medical 
and philosophical journal, edited by the Medico-Natural Philosophical 
Society of Jena. The professors in the small Thuringian University 
are evidently determined not to be outdone by their brethren in Wiirz- 
burg, Munich, and other German seats of learning. From the character 
of the Society under whose auspices the journal appears, the articles 
have a more many-sided aspect than is possessed by the papers in the 
well-known ‘ Zoological Zeitschrift’ of Siebold and Kolliker ; by the 
‘Pathological, Physiological, and Practical Medical Archive’ of 
Virchow, or the ‘ Anatomical and Physiological Archiv’ of Miller, 
now edited by Reichert and Du Bois-Reymond. Accordingly we find 
in it articles, On Organic Chemistry, by Alsberg, Geuther, Reichardt, 
and E. Schultze; On Physiology, by Von Bezold; On Anatomy, by 
Gegenbaur ; and on various topics bearing on Practical Medicine and 
Surgery by Gerhardt, B. 8. Schultze, F. Ried, and Schillbach. From 
the established scientific and practical reputation of several of the 
above writers we may feel assured that, if the journal is continued in 
the same spirit with which it has been commenced, it will form a 
desirable accession to German periodical literature. ‘This blending of 
the scientific with the practical in the pages of the same publication 
is not without its advantages, not only to the practitioners of medicine 
and surgery, but to all men who in the pursuit of their daily bread 
have to follow out the details of their art without perhaps making 
much reference to the scientific principles on which it is based. It 
serves constantly to keep before them the important fact that the two 
ought never to be dissociated. . 

We would especially recommend to the notice of our readers the 
article, On the Influence of the Spinal Cord on the Circulation in the 
Mammalia, by Von Bezold, the Professor of Physiology in Jena, 
known as one of the most able of Du Bois-Reymond’s pupils, and author 
of a Memoir on Innervation of the Heart; the paper, On the Epis- 
ternal Arrangements of the Skeleton in Man and Mammalia, by Gegen- 
baur; the article, On Acetal, by Alsberg; and the Account of a Case 
of Resection of the entire Upper Jaw, by Ried. 


* «Jenaische Zeitschrift fiir Medicin und Naturwissenchaft.’ Leipzig. W. 
Engelmann, 1864. 


732 Reviews. [Oct., 


Tur Fiora oF THE CarBoniFeRous Epocn or Nova Scortia.* 


Tus author states that he is more and more convinced that no satis- 
factory progress can be made in fossil botany without studying the 
plants as they occur in the beds in which they are found, or in large 
numbers of specimens collected from these beds, so as to ascertain the 
relation of their parts to each other. A catalogue is given of the 
plants, with descriptions of some new species. The author comes to 
the following conclusions :— 

1. Of 192 nominal species in the list, probably 44 may be rejected 
as founded merely on parts of plants, leaving about 148 true species. 

2. Of these, on comparison with the list of Unger, Morris, and 
Lesquereux, 92 seem to be common to Nova Scotia and to Europe, 
and 59 to Nova Scotia and the United States. Most of these last are 
common to Europe and the United States. There are 50 species 
peculiar, in so far as known, to Nova Scotia, though there can be little 
doubt that several of these will be found elsewhere. It would thus 
appear that the coal flora of Nova Scotia is more closely allied to that 
of Europe than to that of the United States. A curious circumstance 
as connected with a similar relationship of the marine fauna of the 
period. 

3. The greater part of the species have their head-quarters in the 
middle coal formation ; and scarcely any species appear in the upper 
coal formation that are not also found in the former. The lower coal 
formation, on the other hand, seems to have a few peculiar species not 
found at higher levels. 

4. The characteristic species of the lower coal formation are 

Lepidodendron corrugatum and Cyclopteris Acadica, both of which seem 
to be widely distributed at or near this horizon in Eastern America, 
while neither has yet been recognized in the true or middle coal 
measures. In the upper coal formation Calamites Suckowu, Annilaria 
galioides, Sphenophyllum emarginatiim, Cordaites simplex, Alethopteris 
nervosa, A. muricata, Pecopteris arborescens, P. abbreviata, P. rigida, 
Neuropteris cordata, Dadoxylon materiarum, Lepidophlois parvus, Sigil- 
laria scutellata are characteristic plants, though not confined to this 
group. 
5. In the middle coal formation, and in the central part of it, near 
the greater coal seams, occur the large majority of the species of 
Sigillaria, Calamiies, Lepidodendron, and Ferns, some of the species 
ranging from the millstone-grit into the upper coal formation, while 
others seem to be more narrowly limited. 


* By J. W. Dawson, LL.D., F.R.S., Principal of McGill College, Montreal. 


864. | ( 733 ) 


THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT 
OF SCIENCE. 


MEETING AT BATH, Srprempzr, 1864. 


Tue British Association established itself at Bath under circum- 
stances which at once announced to the observer of signs that it was to 
prove a success. The great influx of members and subscribers, even 
before the proceedings fairly commenced, enabled the Assistant- 
Secretary to state to the first general meeting that the numbers were 
rapidly approaching a maximum, inasmuch as no less than 2,309 had 
enrolled themselves, thus adding to the exchequer a sum of 2,458]. 
According to the official return, however, the attendance eventually 
proved less numerous than in 1868 at Newcastle, which may be ac- 
counted for by the comparatively lower population of Bath and the 
neighbourhood. Among the visitors were not a few distinguished in 
the various walks of science, and although some habitués of the 
Association might have been missed from their places, it would be 
more easy to say who was not there than to enumerate the savans who 
might be seen assisting at the various Sections. Such a numerous 
meeting fully proves how popular the Association continues to be, and 
how eager are the residents of our large towns to avail themselves of 
the opportunities afforded by the gathering of representative scientific 
men amongst them, and is a circumstance which may be regarded with 
satisfaction, as exhibiting a growing appreciation of scientific pursuits. 
But then great numbers have at the same time their disadvantages, 
Such a city as Bath, although well provided with edifices adapted for 
moderate numbers, seldom possesses under one roof space for such a 
monster assemblage as necessarily assembles at the general meetings of 
the Association, and the resources of its two most capacious build- 
ings have been severely tried on these occasions. The address of the 
President, at which all who have arrived endeavour to be present, was 
delivered in the handsome theatre, which presented a brilliant spec- 
tacle, every available spot beimg crowded from pit to gallery, while 
upon the stage was assembled around the distinguished speaker the 
élite of the intellectual society of the British Isles. Sir Charles Lyell’s 
enunciation, though low at first, soon gained a distinctness which 
caused him to be heard in every part of the edifice; his address, 
to which we devote a separate article, was listened to with marked 
attention, and when he arrived at that portion of it in which he 
declared how “fettered we have been by old traditional beliefs,” 
the pent-up interest of the great assembly asserted itself by continued 
applause. : 
On the occasions of the soirées, the Assembly-reoms have been 
brought into requisition—apartments well adapted for such a purpose, 
VOL. I. 3D 


734 Meeting of the British Association. [Oct., 


and connected by historical associations with the palmy days of Bath. 
This suite of rooms, consisting of ball-room, octagon, and concert- 
room, was densely crowded by a brilliant company on the second 
evening of the meeting. The Sections also were extremely well lodged, 
although it unfortunately happened that they could not all be placed 
under a single roof. ‘The distance, however, between them was but 
small, and as soon as the visitor could make himself familiar with their 
relative position, it was found that they could be reached from one 
another without much expenditure of time. The Mineral Water 
Hospital afforded two excellent rooms, in which Section D (Zoology) 
and Section E (Geography) were located. The latter, much the largest 
of the two, was however not too large for the numbers which congre- 
gated in that popular Section, and was always well filled. Downstairs 
in the same building, the Sub-section of Physiology, less generally 
attractive, occupied a modest apartment, where much work, devoid of 
show, was transacted during the meeting. The Corridor-rooms housed 
the Chemists (Section B), who could not complain of their location, 
nor of their audience; though a considerable offshoot of the workers 
of this Section formed themselves into an unofficial section, under the 
name of the Pharmaceutical Conference, at which papers bearing on 
Pharmaceutical Chemistry were read and discussed. The Geologists 
(Section C) occupied the handsome and gpacious Guildhall; the 
Mathematicians (Section A) found ample space in the Blue-coat 
School board-room in Sawelose; while the Grammar School in Broad 
Street housed the essentially-practical philosophers of Section G 
(Mechanical Science). Perhaps the Statisticians (Section F) were the 
only division which had any cause for dissatisfaction, the Milsom- 
street Rooms being inadequate for their requirements; but this was 
amply remedied after the first day by their removal to the spacious 
concert-room before mentioned. 

The great influx of visitors into Bath has given rise to fabulous 
tales respecting the exorbitant demands made for their necessary 
accommodation, but these stories are, we believe, without any founda- 
tion in fact. The arrangements made with great care and trouble by 
the local secretaries would, indeed, suffice to render any attempts at 
imposition useless, and application to these gentlemen was all that 
was required to protect the visitor, and to ensure comfortable and 
reasonable accommodation. A considerable amount of private hospi- 
tality was also exercised, nor were the official representatives of the 
city wanting in recognition of the guests. The Lord-Lieutenant (Harl 
of Cork) entertained the excursionists to Frome on the Saturday, while 
the Countess of Waldegrave did the same for those who visited Rad- 
stock on the same day. The Mayor of Bath gave a banquet in the 
Guildhall on Saturday evening to a select assembly, and Mr. Tite, 
M.P., repeated the entertainment on the following Thursday. The 
citizens of Bristol also extended their hospitality to that Section of the 
Association which visited Clifton for the purpose of viewing the beau- 
tiful suspension bridge just completed ; and many public buildings in 
Bath have been freely opened to the members of the Association during 
their stay in the city. 


1864. | The President's Address. 735 


But while the mecting at the beautiful city of Bath will long be 
remembered as a successful and agreeable one, an unhappy reminis- 
cence must inevitably be associated with it in the melancholy death of 
Captain Speke, the celebrated African traveller, who met with a fatal 
accident when shooting in the neighbourhood on the second day of the 
meeting. As one who had attended the Geographical Section on that 
very day, and who was to be the hero of a stirring discussion on the 
following morning, the fatal event caused a sensation in the assembled 
meeting more easily conceived than described, and necessarily threw a 
gloom over what in every other respect was a successful and agreeable 
gathering. 

The announcement that the next meeting of the Association, in 
1865, will be held at Birmingham, and that Professor Phillips, who, 
as Sir R. Murchison stated, has been the labouring oar of the Associa- 
tion, is to be its President, will be hailed by the scientific world with 
satisfaction. 


In the following short articles we have endeavoured to place before 
our readers a few of the leading novelties in science which were brought 
before the various Sections, and our apology for the imperfection of 
the record must be the brief space of time at our disposal, little more 
than a week having intervened between the close of the Association 
meetings and the issue of this Journal. One of the most important 
papers, however, recounting the experiments of Mr. William Fairbairn 
upon the physical properties of submarine cables, will be found amongst 
our Original Articles, contributed by the author in all its details, and 
we shall endeavour in our next to atone for our shortcomings in the 
present number. 


Tue Presipent’s ADDRESS. 


Wira the modesty which characterizes all truly great men, and which 
distinguishes, par excellence, the President of the British Association, 
that gentleman confined himself in his Inaugural Address entirely to 
the branch of science in which he is one of the leading authorities, 
and in so far he has placed at a manifest disadvantage those of his 
predecessors (perhaps we are correct in saying all) who ventured to 
lay before the Association a survey of the progress made in every field 
of science during the year preceding their installation. 

But however gratifying and interesting this new feature may have 
been to geologists, it is questionable whether it has met with universal 
approval, and whether it will not by some be regarded with satisfaction 
rather as an agreeable deviation from an acknowledged custom, than 
as a precedent to be followed by future presidents. 

T'o many of his hearers, and more especially to his readers, it must 
have been a source of disappointment not to be favoured with the 
general survey, which is looked for by the scientific and semi-scientific 
public. To the Zoologist, for example, it must have been tantalizing 
to be conducted to the outer courts of his amphitheatre, and instead of 
being permitted to enter, to be left standing on the eee whilst 

3D 


736 Meeting of the British Association. — [Oct., 


his guide started off upon some special, and to him, more urgent 
business. 

It was very unkind of Sir Charles, after having tried the patience 
of the long-suffering Darwinian (who of all men looks forward to these 
meetings for an opportunity to improve his experience), whilst he dis- 
coursed ably upon the origin and character of the Bath waters, to cut 
him off with a few sentences concerning the paleontological series, 
which he said, in confirmation of Mr. Darwin’s view, it had never been 
“part of the plan of nature ” to leave perfect “for the enlightenment 
of rational beings, who might study them in after-ages.” 

And we must be permitted here to say, by way of parenthesis, with 
all deference to Mr. Darwin and his illustrious disciple, Sir Charles 
Lyell, that the conviction has been daily becoming more firmly esta- 
blished in our mind, that it did form part of the plan of that Power which 
moulded nature to leave a sufliciently complete record to enable us 
rational beings, or rather our posterity, to grasp and comprehend the 
whole of its operations from the commencement ; but we, too, must 
plead the present imperfection of that record as our reason for not 
discussing the subject. 

The Astronomer and the Chemist will equally regret that the 
President did not favour them with a résumé of the progress of their 
respective branches of science. Spectrum Analysis, the great discovery 
of the day, was referred to, it is true, but only to inform the world 
that medicinal hot springs contain Copper, Strontium, and Lithium. 
What this method of analysis has done during the past twelve months 
to reveal the composition of the heavenly bodies, or how far it has 
contributed towards the progress of Chemical Science, are items of 
information which must be sought elsewhere. 

And thus the case stands with the Mechanician, the Ethnologist, 
the Physicist. All these votaries of science must this year be content 
to seek a record of novelties in their respective branches elsewhere 
than in the President’s Address. That, restricted as it may have been 
in its scope, was one of the most valuable contributions to our scientific 
literature, and it will undoubtedly mark an era in the history of 
Geological Science. 

Nominally it treated of the origin and nature of the mineral waters 
of Bath; but virtually it dealt with the relation of the phenomena 
concerned in the production of all hot springs to changes in the level 
of the land and sea; with glacial action; with the hydro-thermal 
theory of the formation of crystalline rocks ; with volcanic phenomena, 
&c. It also touched, though very briefly, upon the antiquity of man ; 
upon the inquiry “ whether clear evidence can be obtained of a period 
antecedent to the creation of organic beings upon earth ;” and whether 
the changes which have taken place in the constitution of the earth’s 
crust have been of a comparatively speaking rapid and violent, or of a 
slow and gradual nature. 

Indeed we may repeat that, as a contribution to Geological Science, 
and a clear exposition of the views of the author and his school, the 
foremost rank of savans, the Address is perhaps without its equal in 
this branch of our scientific literature. 


1864. | The President’s Address. 737 


The following are a few of its salient features, but they in no way 
convey an adequate idea of the Address, which has been printed in full 
in most of the leading journals :— 

Referring to the past history of Bath, the author touches briefly on 
the ruins of the ancient city, the Aque Solis of the Romans, and 
speaks of its antiquities and of its relatively lower level as compared 
with modern Bath. 

Its mineral waters next command his attention, and he refers to the 
fact that there has been no material diminution in their temperature 
(as is also the case in the waters of Aix, Baden, &c.) since the time of 
the Romans; and, speculating upon the date of their origin, he 
expresses the belief that “they are only of high antiquity when con- 
trasted with the brief space of human annals;” for, “though their 
foundations were tens of thousands of years old, they were laid at an 
era when the Mediterranean was already inhabited by the same species 
of marine shells as those with which it is now peopled.” 

The probable cause of hot springs is, according to Sir Charles, a 
mighty one; their effect equally potent. From their proportionately 
greater number and higher temperature as we approach the localities 
in which there are active or extinct volcanoes, he infers that there is a 
link between the hot spring and the volcano. And after speaking of 
the large amount of mineral matter conveyed to the surface by such 
springs (enough, as Professor Ramsay has estimated in the case of 
those of Bath, to form a solid square column 9 feet in diameter and 
140 feet high), and of the immense quantity of nitrogen gas evolved 
(according to Dr. Daubeny 250 cubic feet per day), he considers the 
probable effect of such springs to be that of increasing the bulk of the 
rocks through which they pass, thus giving rise to a mechanical force 
of expansion capable of uplifting the incumbent crust of the earth ; in 
fact, he constitutes them one of the causes of change in the relative 
level of land and water. 

The Bath springs, Sir Charles Lyell believes, “like most other 
thermal waters, mark the site of some great convulsion and fracture 
which took place in the crust of the earth at some former period.” 
“The uppermost part of the rent through which the hot water rises is 
situated in horizontal strata of Lias and Trias 800 feet thick,” the 
lower passing “through the inclined and broken strata of the Coal 
measures.” 

After describing how the water may have passed downward from 
the surface, dissolving and retaining mineral matter in its course 
“until it encounters some mass of heated matter,” by which it is con- 
verted into steam and driven upwards through a fissure, the author 
touches upon the analysis of the various mineral waters at home 
and abroad, attributing some of their virtues to the presence in them 
of what we may call the spectroscopic metals ; namely, those traced by 
means of the spectroscope—of Lithium, Strontium, Rubidium, &e. ; and 
he speaks of a hot spring discovered near Redruth, in Cornwall, in 1839, 
at a great depth in a copper-mine, in which Professor W. A. Miller has 
found besides the usual mineral constituents, not only Cesium, but 
Lithium, to the extraordinary amount of 1-26th part of its whole solid 


738 Meeting of the British Association. [Oct., 


contents. Sir Charles believes that the efficacy of the new metals for 
medicinal purposes will probably soon become manifest, and that they 
will be produced in large quantities and employed in the cure of 
diseases “which have hitherto baffled human skill.” 

After noticing some of the phenomena connected with the gradual 
decrease of temperature in the water as it rises in hot springs and the 
minerals with which it is charged, he expresses the belief that there 
is some relationship ‘“‘ between the action of thermal waters and the 
filling of rents with metallic ores,” suggesting that the component 
elements of the ores may first be held in a state of solution or sub- 
limation in the intensely hot water below, and as this cools be deposited 
in the fissures. 

Another geological phenomenon in which he believes hot springs 
to play a prominent part is metamorphism, the conversion of deposited 
strata, many of which once were full of organic remains, into crystalline 
rocks. Recent experiments and observations have taught geologists that 
such changes have been the result, not of heat alone, but of heat and 
water combined, of “ hydrothermal” action ; that such rocks have been 
converted, not in the “dry way,” which would necessitate an enormous 
amount of heat, but in the “ wet way,” “a process requiring a far less 
intense degree of heat.” 

Adducing as evidence the experiments of Senarmont, Dobree, 
Sorby, Sterry Hunt, and other reliable observers, as well as that 
afforded by the action of thermal springs during the historic period, 
Sir Charles believes that in the course of ages whole mountain masses 
may have become thus converted, by means of water permeating 
through them charged with carbonic and hydrofluoric acids. Whilst, 
however, he is disposed to substitute for intense heat a longer period’ 
of time for the formation of crystalline rocks, Sir Charles still holds 
that the temperature of the mass below, with which the water is mixed 
up must be extremely high, and referring to the experiments of Bunsen 
on the Great Geyser of Iceland, he mentions that at a depth of only 
74 feet water in a state of rest possesses a temperature of 248° Fahr. ; 
the temperature then at a depth of a couple of thousand feet is probably 
intense, as the erupted glowing lava of volcanoes testifies. 

To account for this increasing heat as we descend into the earth is 
at present impossible, or, as Sir Charles observes, “the exact nature 
of the chemical changes which hydrothermal action may effect in the 
earth’s interior will long remain obscure to us, because the regions 
where they take place are inaccessible to man; but the manner in 
which volcanoes have shifted their position throughout a vast series of 
geological epochs—becoming extinct in one region and breaking out 
in another—may perhaps explain the increase of heat as we descend 
towards the interior, without the necessity of our appealing to an 
original central heat or the igneous fluidity of the earth’s nucleus.” 

Quitting then the subject of hot springs, the President adverts to 
the changes which, in past ages, have taken place in the land-level of 
England, and refers to the time when “the Cotswold Hills, at the foot 
of which this city” (Bath) “is built, formed one of the numerous 
islands in an archipelago into which England, Ireland, and Scotland 


1864. | The President's Address. 739 


were then divided ;” and when the sea flowed over Moel Tryfaen, a 
hill near the Menai Straits, where fossil marine shells have been found 
at a height of 1,860 feet above the present sea-level. 

Passing then to the question of the changes in temperature which 
must have taken place in England, in common with the whole of 
central Europe (and speaking chiefly in relation to the Glacial period), 
he attributes these changes in part to a general alteration in the height 
of the seas, continents, and mountain ranges; and shows that at one 
time the Sahara, or great Desert of Africa, must have been under 
water; the high lands of Barbary, &c., separated from the rest of 
Africa by a sea; and that there has probably been a connection be- 
tween Barbary and Southern Europe. The gradual melting away 
of the Swiss glaciers, Sir Charles attributes to some extent to 
the Sirocco, or, as the peasants call it, “the Fohn,” which hot wind 
crosses over from Africa; and showing that a cessation of this warm 
blast, for a brief period only, causes the ice to accumulate perceptibly 
even in our day, he asks, ““ What mighty effects we may not imagine 
the submergence of the Sahara to have produced in adding to the size 
of Alpine glaciers?” or as Escher* argues, “If the Sahara was a sea 
in post-tertiary times, we may understand why the Alpine glaciers 
formerly attained such gigantic dimensions, and why they have left 
moraines of such magnitude on the plains of Northern Italy and the 
lower country of Switzerland.” 

“The more,” says Sir Charles, “we study and comprehend the 
geographical changes of the Glacial period, and the migrations of 
animals and plants to which it gave rise, the higher our conceptions 
are raised of the duration of that subdivision of time, which, though 
vast when measured by the succession of events comprised in it, was 
brief if estimated by the ordinary rules of geological classification.” 

It is unnecessary to follow the President through the review which 
followed, of the story of man’s antiquity as it is at present related by 
Archzologists and Paleontologists; suffice it to say that he traced 
him through the “ Age of Bronze” to the Stone period, when “ flint 
implements” were almost his only weapons, and when his bones lay 
side by side with the extinct quadrupeds of Europe—the ‘ Elephant, 
Rhinoceros, Bear, Tiger, and Hyena.” 

After referring humorously to the reluctance with which some 
students of Geology bring themselves to consider the long ages that 
modern science is disposed to attribute to the Glacial and Post-glacial 
periods, Sir Charles concludes his Address with a few observations 
upon two questions at present agitating the scientific world: “ First, 
as to whether there has been a continuous succession of events in the’ 
organic and inorganic worlds, uninterrupted by violent and general 
catastrophes ; and secondly, whether clear evidence can be obtained 
of a period antecedent to the creation of organic beings on earth.” 

In regard to the first point, Sir Charles here speaks with great 
caution, but we think it may be gathered from his remarks that he 
considers the “convulsionist” theory to be dying out and giving place 


* Escher yon der Linth, 


740 Meeting of the British Association. [ Oct., 


to a doctrine in Geology analogous to that of Mr. Darwin in Natural 
History; with reference to the second, he notices the observations of 
Dr. Dawson, of Montreal, upon the fossils found in the Laurentian 
rocks of, Canada,* which rocks “are of as old a date as any of the 
formations named azoic in Europe, if not older, so that they preceded in 
date rocks once supposed to have been formed before any organic beings 
had been created ;” and Sir Charles expresses the opinion that these 
observations of Dr. Dawson have demonstrated the theories founded 
‘“‘in Europe on mere negative evidence” to be “altogether delusive.” 
Throughout the whole of this admirable Address Sir Charles seems to 
have taken especial care, as we think wisely, net to commit himself 
definitely to any of the numerous theories which at present agitate the 
Geological world. 

In seconding a vote of thanks to the President, Sir Roderick 
Murchison, who differs from Sir Charles Lyell on some material ques- 
tions in Geology, nevertheless made a statement which it may be as 
well to transfer to these pages, as there may perhaps be here and there 
a few persons who entertain the belief that scientific men are never 
agreed on any subject which interferes with thei preconceived views. 
Such persons will find that, on certain geological doctrines which they 
bring their minds to consider with great reluctance as being opposed 
to those of tradition, there is now no difference of opinion whatever. 
‘Let me assure this assembly,’ said Sir Rederick, “that in all the 
grand leading data on which the history of geology is based we are 
completely united, and whether it be in recording the regular succes- 
sion of formations from the oldest to the youngest, the progression 
from lower to higher types of life, the enormously long periods which 
must have elapsed in the formation of deposits and their frequent 
change into crystalline conditions by that metamorphism which he has 
so skilfully expounded ; and lastly, in the evidences he has brought 
together to show that man must have coexisted with some of the great 
fossil mammalia. On all these subjects I hold the same opinions as 
himself; and I have ventured to make this explanation, because it 
seems to me essential that the public should not run away with the 
idea that because geologists occasionally disagree on points of theory, 
that there exists among them any divergence of opinion as to the 
great foundation stones on which their science has been reared.” 


PuysicaL Science. (Section A.) 


Phillips on the Physical Aspect of the Sun.—Miuller and Huggins on the 
Spectra of the Heavenly Bodies.—Claudet on Photosculpture. 


Amonest the large number of papers brought before this Section only 
a few are of general interest. ‘The greater number are mathematical, 
and of the physical papers not many will bear the condensation 
necessary for a report in our pages. We shall therefore omit all 
reference to such as cannot well be given in abstract. 


* «Quarterly Journal of Science,’ vol. i. p. 476. 


1864. | Physical Science. 741 


Some valuable remarks were made by Professor Phillips on the 
“ Physical Aspect of the Sun.” In this examination he had been much 
aided by Cook’s Solar Eyepiece, by means of which he was enabled to 
observe highly luminous bodies. He wished to draw attention to two 
phenomena—the facule and the porosity; he had observed the former 
as distinctly as the clouds in our own sky. ‘These luminous places 
were shaded as clouds are with us, and as the Alps appeared at some 
50 miles distance. Some of these facule were ranges of 40,000 miles 
long and 40 miles high. With regard to the question of porosity, all that 
he had observed was an irregular mottled surface between the luminous 
bands which he had called facule, but these markings might be com- 


pared to anything, assuming accidental shapes, and formed no definite 
figure. 


On Monday, Dr. Miller, on behalf of himself and Mr. Huggins, 
read a most interesting paper, “On the Spectra of some of the Heavenly 
Bodies.” The paper directed attention to three leading points, viz. 
facts relating to the planetary spectra, others relative to the spectra of 
double stars, and some data concerning the spectra of nebule. The 
presence of metals, as evidenced in the case of the light of the planets 
and some of the heavenly bodies, proved them to be composed of ter- 
restrial substances, whilst the nebule were as evidently bodies of 
gaseous vapour, the character of their light showing that there was 
no solid matter in them. In the discussion which followed the read- 
ing of this paper, Mr. Balfour Stewart said that the remarks on the 
planetary nebula were most important, in showing quite a different 
constitution of these nebule than had been hitherto accepted. 


Mr. A. Claudet read a long and valuable paper, “On Photc- 
_ sculpture,” the invention of M. Willeme, a French sculptor. This 
gentleman saw that if he had photographs of many profiles of his 
sitter taken at the same moment by a number of cameras placed 
around, he might alternately and consecutively correct his model by 
comparing the profile outline of each photograph with the correspond- 
ing outline of the model. But it soon naturally occurred to him that, 
instead of correcting his model when nearly completed, he had better 
work with the pantagraph upon the rough block of clay, and cut it out 
gradually all round by following one after the other the outline of each 
of the photographs. Now, supposing he had twenty-four photographs 
representing the sitter in as many points of view all taken at once, he 
had but to turn the block of clay after every operation 1-24th round, 
and to cut out the next profile, and repeat this until the block had com- 
pleted its entire revolution, and the clay would be transformed into a _ 
perfectly solid figure of the twenty-four photographs,—the statue or the 
bust was made, and only required the finishing touches to be given to it 
by the artist, who would perform the last operation and would exercise 
his skill in communicating to the model all the refinement with which, 
as a sculptor merely, he could have endowed it. Mr. Claudet said, in 
conclusion, that he thought he could not better illustrate the process 
of photosculpture than by executing the bust of the President, Sir 
Charles Lyell. The photographs were taken on the 16th of August ; 


742 Meeting of the British Association. | Oct., 


the machine had done the work; the sculptor had given the finishing 
touches to the model; and the bust complete, a most striking likeness, 
was then exhibited to the meeting. 


Cuemistry. (Section B.) 


President’s Address.—Daubeny on the Bath Thermal Waters.—Report 
of the Gun-cotton Commitiee—Miller on Wheal Clifford Hot Spring. 
—King on the Frescoes inthe House of Commons.—Calvert on the 
Extraction of Gold from Auriferous Rocks.—Field on Tin Ore, &e.— 
Spence on Copper Smelting. — Papers by Herapath, Catton, Paul, 
Phipson, and Machattie. 


Tue proceedings of the Chemical Section were opened by the Pre- 
sident, Dr. Odling, F.R.S., who, in a short but eloquent address, placed 
before his audience a comprehensive view of the reformation which, 
within the last dozen years or so, has been effected in the opinions 
concerning the combining proportions of the elementary bodies and 
the molecular weights of their most important compounds. The 
development of the matured views of chemical philosophy which now 
prevail must, the President said, be traced to Gerhardt’s division of 
volatile bodies into a majority whose recognized molecules corresponded 
with four volumes of vapour, and a minority whose recognized mole- 
cules corresponded respectively with but two volumes of vapour; and 
from Gerhardt and Laurent’s proposal to double the molecular weights 
of these last, so as to make the molecules of all volatile bodies corre- 
spond each with four volumes of vapour. Prior to the time of 
Gerhardt, the selection of molecular weights for different bodies, ele- . 
mentary and compound, had been almost a matter of hazard. Relying 
conjointly upon physical and chemical phenomena, he first established 
definite principles of selection by pointing out the considerations upon 
which the determination of atomic weights must logically depend. He 
thus established his classification of the non-metallic elements into— 
mon-hydrides, represented by chlorine; di-hydrides, represented by 
oxygen ; ter-hydrides, represented by nitrogen; &c.: and relying upon 
the same principles, later chemists have given to his method a develop- 
ment and unity which have secured for the new system the impregnable 
and acknowledged position which it at present occupies. Dr. Odling 
then made a passing allusion to the researches of Professor Kopp on 
specific heat, and expressed the obligations chemists were under to 
him for the great additions he had made to this subject; and then 
proceeded to the oft-debated question of chemical notation. This is 
at present in anything but a satisfactory state. The sign of addition, 
so frequently used to express the fine idea of chemical combination, is 
about the last one would deliberately select for such a purpose. The 
placing of symbols in contiguity with or without the introduction of a 
point between them is far preferable ; but here, as pointed out by Sir 
John Herschel, we violate the ordinary algebraic understanding, which 
assigns very different numerical values to the expressions ay and 


1864. | Chemistry. 743 


«x + y respectively. The speaker said that, for some years past, Sir 
Benjamin Brodie had been engaged in working out a new and strictly 
philosophical system of chemical notation by means of actual formule, 
instead of mere symbols; and Dr. Odling felt that he only expressed 
the general wish of the Section when he asked Sir Benjamin Brodie 
not to postpone the publication of his views for a longer time than was 
absolutely necessary. It becomes every day more and more important 
to render the present system of symbolic notation more precise in its 
meaning and consistent in its application, Many of its incongruities 
belong to the very lowest order of convention; such, for example, as 
the custom of distinguishing between the so-called mineral and organic 
compounds ; one particular sequence of symbols being used habitually 
in representing compounds of carbon, and an entirely different sequence 
of symbols in representing the more or less analogous compounds of 
all other elements. It is high time that such relics of the ancient 
superstition, that organic and mineral chemistry are essentially dif- 
ferent from one another, should be done away with. After a brief 
glance at synthetic chemistry, and isomerism, which was designated 
the chemical problem of the day, the President concluded by referring 
to the healthier state of mind in which now perhaps more than ever 
the first principles of chemical philosophy are explored. Speculation, 
indeed, is not less rife and scarcely less esteemed than formerly, but 
it is now seldom or never mistaken for ascertained truth. Scepticism, 
indeed, still prevails, but it is no longer the barren scepticism of 
contentment, but the fertile scepticism which aspires to greater and 
greater certainty of knowledge. 


Dr. Daubeny read a most exhaustive paper, “On the Bath Thermal 
Waters.” Under the impression that some of the benefit derived from 
the use of these waters might be due to the presence of some hitherto 
undiscovered principle latent in the waters, the lecturer had lately 
concentrated by evaporation considerable quantities of the water, and 
tested the residuum, with the view of ascertaining whether, besides the 
ingredients determined by previous analysts to exist in it, certain 
other principles might not also be present at least in infinitesimal 
quantities. He could, however, discover no traces of Fluorine, of 
Baryta, of Strontia, or of Lithia, although the very delicate method 
of spectrum analysis was employed to detect their presence. Phosphoric 
acid and bromine were, however, found to be present. The quantity 
of gas disengaged from the King’s Bath averaged 222 cubic feet in 
twenty-four hours, and the same phenomenon was observed at least a 
century and a half ago, showing that the disengagement of gas was by 
no means a recent occurrence, or one depending on merely adventitious 
causes. The gas on analysis was found to consist chiefly of nitrogen. 
If, therefore, the gas emitted were derived from atmospheric air, the 
latter must have parted with four-fifths of its oxygen before it reached 
the surface of the earth. This phenomenon is so much the more 
important, inasmuch as it is common to all natural hot-springs. The 
lecturer passed in review the different explanations which had been 
given to account for the origin of this gas, and gave it as his opinion 


744 Meeting of the British Association. [Oct., 


that there was ample reason to infer that the evolution of nitrogen gas 
when in great excess of the oxygen was essentially connected with that 
igneous action which is going on in the interior of the earth, and that 
it was met with in thermal waters only because the latter derived their 
heat from the same chemical operations which give rise to the phe- 
nomena of volcanoes. We are thus compelled to assume that some 
process of oxidation is going on in the locality, such as should bring 
about the absorption of the oxygen present in the air which penetrates 
to these depths. The author then entered into a most interesting 
discussion as to the cause of thermal springs and volcanoes; the latter 
phenomena especially resembling those which would oceur if water 
and air were brought into contact with metallic bases possessing a 
strong affinity for oxygen; and concluded by suggesting that the 
surplus heat from the springs, which was at present allowed to be 
wasted in the river, should be utilized by allowing the water to pass 
through coils of pipes let into the ground a few feet below the surface, 
so as to communicate its heat to the soil within a given area. With 
no further expense than this, such an arrangement would secure to the 
plot of ground placed under the influence of this adventitious tem- 
perature a bottom heat sufficient for the growth of early vegetables 
and for the cultivation of tender exotics; whilst if the waters were in 
the first instance emptied into a small pond, and afterwards transmitted 
from thence by means of a coil of pipes gradually embracing a larger 
circle as they extended, nothing but the protection of an external 
covering of glass would be required for the cultivation of the gigantic 
Victoria Regia and other tropical water-lilies; whilst the borders of the 
pond would at least secure to the inhabitants of Bath the enjoyment of 
many of the trees and shrubs of warmer countries in the open ground 
of the garden, and a participation in a genial atmosphere during their 
most rigorous seasons. 


The Gun-cotton Committee laid their second report before the 
members of this Section. This was merely a formal document relating 
the circumstances which have taken the matter out of their hands. | 
The Government have appointed a committee to investigate the subject 
in all its bearings, and have placed on it several members of the British 
Association Committee. At the close of the report, Professor Abel 
said that his researches, made on behalf of the Government, were of a 
satisfactory character, gun-cotton possessing a great superiority over 
gunpowder both in the simplicity and safety of its manufacture. 


Dr. Miller then read a paper, “On the Wheal Clifford Hot Spring, 
near Redruth, Cornwall,” in which he had detected so large a quantity 
of Lithium that it could not fail to become an economical and abundant 
source of that rare alkaline metal. 


Mr. A. Poole King read a paper, “On the Premature Decay of the 
Frescoes in the Houses of Parliament,” in which he predicted the 
rapid destruction of these frescoes if the apartment were allowed to 
remain cold and damp. The moisture would condense in drops on its 
surface, and be absorbed. These drops would dissolve whatever trace 


1864. | Chemistry. 745 


of sulphate of soda existed in the plaster or in the mortar of the wall. 
The salt would aggregate together, then form ice-like crystals; would 
leave the plaster, and show itself in a bloom on the surface of the fr eScO, 
to be re-dissolved by the first moisture which came oyer it, and then 
be re-absorbed again, tiil at last it would aggregate into blotches, and 
the destruction would be complete. To preserve the fresco, the author 
recommended that the robing-room should always be kept dry and 
warm. 


Dr. C. Calvert’s paper, “On a New Method of Extracting Gold 
from Auriferous Rocks,’ described a method which presented the 
advantages of not only dispensing with the costly use of mercury, but 
also of extracting the silver and copper which the ore might contain. 
The agent employed was nascent chlorine, evolved from a mixture of 
salt and binoxide of manganese ground up with the auriferous quartz 
in the proportion of two or three per cent. When sulphuric acid was 
added the liberated chlorine would attack the gold, and upon allowing 
water to percolate through the mass it would dissolve out all the gold 
(as well as the copper and silver), which could then be easily precipi- 
tated in the metallic state. This process was said to yield good 
results, even when working upon a very poor quartz. 


Mr. F. Field then described a new ore of tin, and appended to it 
a few remarks on the state of mineralogy in this country. Referring 
to the high price and scarcityof bismuth, he said that if search were 
made in Cornwall there would be no difficulty in getting it; but some 
persons seemed to have gone fossil mad, and neglected the really valu- 
able minerals, which could be found in almost every county. 


These remarks were entirely corroborated by Mr. Salmon and 
Professor Tenant ; and the latter speaker instanced a case in Australia, 
where a black substance which was at first thrown away in the rush 
after gold was afterwards found to be tin ore, and was sold for 40/. 
a ton. 


An important paper was then read by Mr. Spence, “On Copper 
Smelting and the Means of Economizing the Sulphur evclved in the 
Operation.” He said he had for many years directed his attention to 
the subject of economizing the sulphur in copper ores. He had 
erected furnaces in which small ores could be calcined with little 
expenditure of fuel and labour, and this enabled him to send all the 
sulphur so eliminated into the vitriol chambers as sulphurous acid gas. 
The amount of sulphur wasted in copper-smelting, and which could be 
economized by the use of such calcining furnaces as he had erected 
was something enormous. It had been estimated at 70,000 tons per 
annum, which at the present price of sulphur would be worth 455,000. 


A paper by Dr. M. B. Herapath, “ On a New Method of Detecting 
Arsenic, Antimony, Sulphur, and Phosphorus by their Hydrogen Com- 
pounds when in Mixed Gases,” entering into special analytical 
details, is of too limited an interest to be transferred to our report, and 
from the nature of the subject it cannot be given in abstract. The 
same may be said of Mr. Catton’s papers “ On the Direct Conversion of 


746 Meeting of the British Association. [Oct., 


Acetie Acid into Butyric and Caproic Acids,” and “On the Molecular 
Constitution of Carbon Compounds.” 


These were followed by one by Dr. Paul, “On Paraffin Oil,” in 
which he said that whilst oils lighter than water were quite different 
from those in gas-tar, the oils heavier than water were very similar, if 
not identical, with those in gas-tar ; and one by Dr. Roscoe, in which 
he announced that by means of the spectroscope he had detected 
strontium and lithium in the Bath hot springs in addition to the other 
well-known constituents. 


Dr. Phipson next described some black stones which fell from the 
atmosphere at Birmingham, in 1858. Analysis showed that they were 
not aérolites, but small fragments of basaltic rock, similar to that which 
existed a few leagues from Birmingham. He believed that the stones 
had been carried to Birmingham by a waterspout. The same author 
also had a paper, “On the Medicinal Muds of the Island of Ischia.” 
It was in this island and elsewhere customary to plunge the body into 
muds of this kind as a means of restoring health. They were com- 
posed of a volcanic sand, rendered muddy by water and a certain 
quantity of vegetable débris. He had no doubt that the water in its 
natural state was strongly impregnated with sulphuretted hydrogen, 
and it was to this agent principally that the medicinal properties were 
to be ascribed. 


A paper by Dr. A. T. Machattie, “On the Detection of Poisons by 
Dialysis,” was next read. This constituted an important contribution 
to toxicological chemistry, but would be too long to be given at full 
length in our pages, whilst an abstract would be unintelligible. 


One or two other papers of interest will be referred to in the 
Chemical Chronicle of our next number. 


Grotoey. (Section C.) 


Phillips on a Cranium of the Stone Period.—Sanders on Bristol Coal 
Fields—Sorby on Metallic Meteorites—Browne on Ice Caves.— 
Moore on the Paleontology of Frome.—Stoddart on Geology of 
Clifton.— Randell on Geology of Bath.—Tristram on Geology of 
Palestine. 


Amone the early communications in this Section was one by the 
President, Professor Phillips, who produced a fragment of a human 
cranium, taken out by himself from the lower strata of one of those 
singular heaps of accumulated débris known on the shores of the Lake 
of Geneva, laid bare by a railway cutting some time ago, and then 
described by M. Morlot. In certain parts of this kind of delta, pro- 
duced on dry land and with great regularity from the annual accession 
of fresh material, objects were found marking pretty clearly a positive 
date. Thus, the Roman occupation of Switzerland, which occupied 
on the whole about 700 years, yielded a few fragments by which it is 


1864. | Geology. 747 


identified. The bronze period was represented by another group ; 
the period of occupation since the Romans by another ; and there is 
also a stone period earlier than the bronze. This latter is probably 
contemporaneous with the period of the lake villages, estimated from 
this source of independent evidence at about 6,500 years old. The 
fossil was found in this part. There is an element of doubt involved 
in the absence of certainty as to the limits of the deposit during 
the Roman occupation of the country. 

When this matter was debated, there were several communications 
bearing on the same subject, and an interesting discussion arose on 
the antiquity of the human race. The most remarkable feature was 
the unanimity of the speakers, and the perfect and manifest sympathy 
exhibited by a very large audience, who kept together in the Section 
room without flinching from 11 till 4 o’clock. The absence of Dr. 
Falconer and Mr. Busk, who have just started for Gibraltar, rendered 
any allusion to the newly-discovered human remains from that quarter 
undesirable. 


Another important communication was the account given by 
Mr. Sanders of a most admirable and detailed map of the Bristol 
coal-fields, prepared from parish maps, on a scale of four inches to a 
mile, independently of the Government survey. In the course of 
fifteen minutes Mr. Sanders gave an outline of the intelligent and 
indefatigable labour of a quarter of a century. The manner was 
worthy of the matter. 


Mr. Sorby directed attention to the fact that in metallic meteorites, 
iron (s. g. 7°8) and olivine (s. g. 3°4) appeared to have been in 
fusion together, the olivine being left diffused through the iron after 
cooling. He pointed out that this was impossible on or near the earth’s 
surface, owing to the difference of the specific gravities ; and suggested, 
as an explanation, that the fusion and cooling might either have taken 
place in the metallic centre of small independent bodies, where the 
specific gravity was nil, the meteorites being fragments of such bodies 
entering subsequently within the earth’s attraction, or that each 
meteorite had been itself a separate small body cooled in space. 


A new and original communication was that of the Rey. G. F. 
Browne, being an account of several ice-caves or glaciéres, some of 
them newly discovered, but others already known and described, in 
Dauphiné, Savoy, and parts of Switzerland. The enormous accumu- 
lations of ice, exhibiting in some caves a thickness of 180 feet, the 
rate of increase of the ice deposit from year to year, the condition 
and temperature of the ice in summer and winter, and the fact that 
while some caves at very moderate elevations are full of ice, others 
apparently under similar conditions and at much greater elevations 
are free, seem to exclude by turns all the theories that have been 
suggested. The texture of the cave-ice which occurs in groups of 
crystals, forming prisms in some parts of the mass, was the subject of 
a separate communication to the Chemical Section, but complicated 
the geological problem. It will be necessary to pay greater attention 
to this curious subject. 


748 Meeting of the British Association. [Oct., 


Very interesting local communications were made by Mr. Charles 
Moore and Mr. W. Stoddart. The former alluded to the extraordinary 
abundance of fossils in the clay near Frome, where more than a million 
organisms, including 29 mammalian types and many reptilia, were 
obtained by him from a single cart-load of the material. From the 
Rhetic beds also Mr. Moore obtained 70,000 teeth of one kind of 
fossil alone. Mr. Stoddart endeavoured to prove that the dividing 
line between the Carboniferous and Devonian rocks lies below and 
not above certain highly-fossiliferous beds at Clifton, which in Ireland 
have been regarded as Devonian, but are there less rich in fossils. 
The Marwood sandstone, Coomhola grits, and some other beds, are 
the Irish representatives, and are largely developed in the south-west 
of that country. At Clifton, a thin limestone among marls is loaded 
with incredible numbers of minute organisms, easily separated from 
the matrix, as the fossils are insoluble in dilute acid, which removes 
the limestone completely and rapidly. From one pound weight were 
obtained 1,600,000 perfect fossils, besides fragments and débris. 


A valuable local memoir was read by Mr. J. Randell on the 
important beds of building-stone quarried near Bath. The export of 
these stones from the quarries around Bath exceeds 100,000 tons per 
annum, and they are conveyed to great distances. Mr. Randell 
described very accurately their geological position, which he stated to 
be perfectly definite in the oolitic series. He remarked that the beds 
occasionally thin out as if lenticular, but they are always under a 
capping of harder, rougher, and less valuable stone. They die away 
to the east and south-east. The dip is small, varying generally from 
one in forty to one in sixty. The thickness of the best stone is from 
12 ft. to 25 ft. Above it are 25 to 50 feet of Upper Rag not worked 
to send away, tough, shelly, and brownish in colour. Below are from 
150 to 200 feet of Lower Rag, not always coarse, but apt to decompose 
on exposure. Mr. Randell then described the method of working in 
the best quarries. After the first block has been obtained from under 
the rag, the stone is all sawn, avoiding waste from blasting and 
wedging. The stone is generally got in the same manner as coal in 
stalls whose width depends on the goodness of the roof. There is 
no waste. 


A discussion arose on this paper. Professor Phillips alluded to 
the stone selected by the Romans as having stood better than that 
now got. Professor Ansted pointed out that the stone, like others, 
* stood much better in a building when it had been first thoroughly 
dried and hardened in the air. Mr. Ethridge spoke to the accuracy 
of Mr. Randell’s sections. 


Mr. Tristram read several interesting communications on the 
Geology of Palestine and the adjacent parts of Asia Minor. He 
exhibited fragments of a bone breccia with flint flakes, which Mr. 
Evans was prepared to assert must certainly have been of human 
manufacture, and brought from a distance. The age of the breccia 
was not however clear. Mr. Tristram also exhibited a series of very 
curious fossils from a limestone of the cretaceous period. Among 


1864. | Zoology and Botany. 749 


them were some Ammonites resembling Ceratites, bivalve shells 
resembling liassic and triassic species of Pholadomya, and others 
having similar peculiarities. Some of these have lately been found 
in Africa. 


Zootoay AND Botany. (Section D.) 


President's Address.—Galton on Domestication of Animals.—Gibb on 
the Larynx of the Negro.—Crisp on the Anatomy of the Quadrumana. 
—Tristram on the Ornithology of Palestine.-—Cobbold on Entozoa.— 
Davy on Salmonide.—Buckland on the Oyster.—Lankester on the 
Karthworm. 


In his address, the President, Dr. J. E. Gray, F.R.S., entered in the 
first place into an inquiry as to the best plan to be pursued to make 
museums of natural history most useful both to the general public and 
the scientific student. For the former he considered that a collection 
of the more interesting objects was required, so as to afford the greatest 
possible amount of information in a moderate space, and, instead of 
crowding together a number of specimens of a given genus on the 
shelves, characteristic specimens should be selected and distinctly 
labelled, and the purpose for which it was prepared and exhibited 
should be specified; the economic uses to which it is applied should 
also be given. For the scientific student he considered that instead 
of stuffing and mounting the specimens, they could be much more 
efficiently examined by properly arranging them in drawers and boxes, 
which would at the same time ensure economy of space. 

He then entered into the question of the acclimatization of animals. 
This term has been employed to express the domestication of wild 
animals, the introduction of the domestic animals of one country into 
another, and the cultivation of fishes by the restocking of rivers, ponds, 
&e., already exhausted. He did not think that any of the wild ani- 
mals which it was proposed to domesticate could compete in feeding 
and fattening qualities with our present races of domestic cattle. And 
though Asiatics have been able to draw largely upon the wild animals 
around them, yet these are but little suited for our northern climate. 
He pointed out that it would be advisable to try, in attempting to in- 
troduce new domestic animals into our Colonies, if some of the 
domestic races of Asia or Africa might not be better adapted to their 
climates than many European breeds. He did not regard very hope- 
fully the attempt to introduce salmon into the Australian rivers, for 
during a considerable part of each year they are reduced to stagnant 
pools. The deep rapid rivers of Tasmania he looked on as much 
more promising. The Acclimatization Society of Australia ought 
rather to strive for the introduction of the gouramy, or some other 
edible fish of the countries nearer to and more resembling their own. 


A paper of considerable interest was read by Mr. Francis Galton, 
_F.RS., entitled “ First Steps towards the Domestication of Animals.” 
VOL, I. 3E 


750 Meeting of the British Association. | Oct., 


In it the author contended that the following conditions were required 
for wild animals to become domesticated. 1st. They should be hardy. 
2nd. They should have an inborn liking for man. 38rd. They should 
be comfort loving. 4th. They should be found useful to the savages. 
5th. They should breed freely. 6th. They should be gregarious. The 
first domestication of animals was due to a vast number of half-uncon- 
scious attempts made through the course of ages, and at length, after 
slow degrees and many relapses, and continued selection, the several 
domestic breeds now existing became firmly established. 


Dr. Gibb read a paper, “ On the Larynx of the Negro,” in which he 
stated that the essential point of difference between this organ in the 
white man and the Negro consisted in the invariable presence of the 
cartilages of Wrisberg, in the oblique or shelving position of the true 
vocal cords, and the pendent position of the ventricles of Morgagni in 
the latter. His observations were based on the examination of the 
larynx in 500 whites and 58 blacks. 


A paper was contributed by Dr. Crisp, “On the Anatomy of the 
Quadrumana, with a Comparative Estimate of the Intelligence of the 
Apes and Monkeys.” The author in the first place described a method 
of displaying the comparative anatomy of an animal by means of 
plaster and wax casts of the most important parts, and showing these 
alongside of the skeleton and stuffed skin. He then adduced many 
facts in the anatomy of the Quadrumana, and came to the following 
conclusions :—Ist. That the anthropoid apes, both anatomically and 
in reference to their amount of intelligence, are not entitled to the 
elevated position in which they have been placed by some anatomists. 
Qnd. That the line of demarcation between man and these brutes is so 
wide and clearly defined as to entitle the human family, as maintained 
by Blumenbach, Cuvier, and others, to a separate and exclusive division 
in the animal scale. 


The Rev. H. B. Tristram then read a paper, “ On the Ornithology 
of Palestine and the Peculiarities of the Jordan Valley.” The author, 
during a residence there last year, obtained fourteen different kinds of 
chats, and some birds like the golden plover and the blackwing. 
Various new species, or new to that locality, were described ; amongst 
these were specimens of the following new and hitherto undescribed 
species :—The Ceylonese eagle-owl, only hitherto known in South 
Jndia and China; Gurney’s sparrow-hawk, peculiar to Palestine; the 
Peregrine falcon, on the coast; the Lanner falcon, on the highlands ; 
and the Saker falcon, the largest of all, in the interior ; a new species 
of night-jar, confined exclusively to the Dead Sea; the Galilean swift, 
confined to the Jordan Valley ; the great Alpine swift, and many other 
species which our limited space will not allow us to name. 


Dr. Cobbold, F.R.S., read a paper, ‘On the Development and Mi- 
grations of the Entozoa,” in which he related a number of experiments 
made on the mode of propagation of flukes, tapeworms, round-worms, 
or their larve. He pointed out that the larve of the smallest tape- 


9 


1864. | Physiology. 751 


worm yet known were the sole cause of the fatal echinococcus disease 
of Iceland. 

Dr. John Davy read a paper, “ On the Salmonida, chiefly relating 
to their Generative Functions.” His observations were in part made 
on the parr of the sea-trout (Salmo trutta), and the object of his in- 
quiry was to ascertain if it, like the parr of the salmon, exercises the 
generative functions. He concluded that the probabilities were in 
favour of this view. In the young of the brown trout he has never 
found the testes more than rudimentary. He does not believe that the 
sea-trout breeds on its return from the sea into the rivers, as is the case 
with the salmon, for the ovaries he has examined at this period of the 
growth of the fish are in little more than a rudimentary state. He 
thought that with regard to the salmon, sea-trout, common trout, and 
charr, the evidence was rather in favour of them breeding only in 
alternate years, or at least not in successive years. 


Mr. Frank Buckland, “On the Natural History of the Oyster,” in 
which he related the attémpts that had recently been made to promote 
the artificial cultivation of oysters. He pointed out that this year 
there had been a failure in the oyster spat, and submitted that the 
investigation into the cause of this failure was a proper subject of 
inquiry for scientific men. 


Mr. E. R. Lankester read a paper, “On Certain Points in the 
Anatomy of the Earthworm.” The parts to which he directed atten- 
tion were, firstly, three undescribed pairs of glands connected with the 
cesophagus ; and secondly, the reproductive system. The glands are 
situated in the twelfth and thirteenth segments of the body. The 
most anterior pair lie in the twelfth segment; they contain a dense 
crystalline mass. The two posterior pairs lie in the thirteenth seg- 
ment; they contain a milky fluid. The author calls them esophageal 
glands from their relation to that tube. His observations on the repro- 
ductive system coincided almost entirely with those of Dr. Hering, and, 
in all essential details, with M. d’Udekem. 


Puysiotocy. (Sub-section D.) 


President's Address.—Turner on Nutrient Arteries for the Lungs. 
Foster on Muscular Irritability.—Herapath on Indigo in Pus.—Davy 
on the Temperature of the Seaes.—Gibb on Action of Bromides of 
Lithium, Zinc, and Lead.—Hayden on Fat and Sugar as Respira- 
tory Food.—Smith on the Nutritive Principles of Food. 


Tue introductory address by the President, Dr. Edward Smith, F.R.S., 
consisted of an elaborate and highly interesting report, “ On the Pre- 
sent State of the Dietary Question.” He reviewed the dietaries of 
the various prisons, which he considered to stand at present in a very 
unsatisfactory state; the dietaries of hospitals, schools, and other edu- 
cational establishments. Referring to “ Bantingism,” he pointed out 


that the system of reduction was in numerous cases quite inapplicable. 
3E2 


752 Meeting of the British Association. [Oct., 


He then showed that the coarse foods, once so largely employed by 
the labouring classes, had gone out of use because the labourer had 
now better wages, the taste was not so agreeable as the finer foods, and 
they could only be used intermittingly. The nature of the diet em- 
ployed in various districts of the country was discussed, and the 
question of the digestibility of food was considered under the various 
heads of kind, quantity, and conditions under which it acts. An 
interesting discussion followed, in which Professors Acland and Rol- 
leston, Sir John Richardson, the Bishop of Bath and Wells, and other 
gentlemen took a part. 


“On a Supplementary System of Nutrient Arteries for the Lungs.” 
By Wm. Turner, M.B., F.R.S.E. An arterial plexus was described on 
the side of the pericardium beneath the mediastinal pleura. It was 
formed by the junction of the pericardiac, mediastinal, and phrenic 
branches of the internal mammary artery with each other and with 
numerous fine branches from the trunks of the intercostal arteries. 
From it a number of slender thread-like arteries passed to the lung, 
some in front of its root, others behind, and others between the layers 
of the ligamentum latum pulmonis. Some of these arteries were dis- 
tributed in the substance of the lung; others, on its surface beneath 
the pulmonic pleura. Through the agency of this plexus, an arterial 
communication is established between the blood vessels of the lung 
and the arteries which supply the wall of the chest with blood. 


Report by Dr. Foster, “On Muscular Irritability.” The conclu- 
sions drawn from the statements made by numerous experimenters 
were as follow :—That the urari experiments are inconclusive, because 
it is not proved that the ultimate nerve branches are affected like the 
penultimate. That Eckhard’s anelectronic experiment is inconclusive, 
because irritability is by it only lowered, not entirely suspended. That 
the series of chemical stimuli experiments by Wittich, Kihne, &e., are 
inconclusive, for the same reason as the urari series; but that the fact 
that chemical stimulation will take place during the anelectronic effect 
of the constant current shows, either the contractile tissue is of itself 
irritable, or that no confidence can be placed in Eckhard’s arguments, 
and that one experiment of Kuhne’s on that point is almost an experi- 
mentum crucis. That, on the whole, the evidence of the above series 
is decidedly in favour of the existence of muscular irritability. That 
the experiments and observations of Kihne, Auerbach, and Aeby show 
that the idio-muscular contractions of Schiff are in reality ordinary 
contractions in an abortive state and not a special form of contraction ; 
and that the same observations offer connecting links between the 
oscillatory contractions witnessed by Mr. Bowman, and shown by him 
to be clearly not due to nervous action, and so afford proof that in a 
muscular contraction there are two things to be considered — the 
putting certain molecules in movement, and the communication of that 
movement from those molecules with greater or less rapidity to all the 
rest of the fibre; and that since the first movement may commence 
anywhere, the whole fibre must be called irritable. 


“On the Presence of Indigo in Purulent Discharges.” Dr. Hera- 


1864. | Physiology. 753 


path examined pus presenting a greenish-blue colour. He found that 
the fluid lost its colour on being corked up in a close bottle, but re- 
assumed the blue colour on exposure to air. He supposed that this 
was due to the presence of a colourless material analogous to Indigo 
and the action of oxygen on it. He obtained crystals from the pus in 
six-sided plates, and aciculi of a deep-blue colour when sublimed. 
Other tests were employed which furnished evidence of the presence of 
Indigo Blue in the pus. 


Dr. John Davy, “On the Temperature of the Sexes.” Dr. Davy, 
from observations made in the Tropics and in England, supported the 
view that the temperature of the male is greater than that of the 
female. 


Dr. G. D. Gibb read a note, “On the Action of the Bromides of 
Lithium, Zine, and Lead.” The first of these was prepared with the 
view of treating gout and rheumatism ; in small doses it acts as a tonic, 
gentle stimulant, and sometimes as a diuretic. The Bromide of Zine 
relieved impaired nervous power, whilst the Salt of Lead acted as a 
soothing and cool local agent in some inflamed states of the mucous 
membrane. 


Dr. Hayden read a paper, “ On the Relative and Special Applica- 
tions of Fat and Sugar as Respiratory Food.” He believed that fat 
and sugar possessed different values as food; that they underwent 
different transformations, during which they subserved distinct pur- 
poses of the economy; that the period of their retention in the body 
is the same; that they are not mutually convertible; but that ulti- 
mately they pass out of the body under the common form of carbonic 
acid and water, and are jointly concerned in the production of animal 
heat. He considered that fat, being an assimilable substance, can 
under no circumstances be applied to the maintenance of animal heat 
before undergoing the twofold process of constructive and destructive 
assimilation, but that amylo-saccharine substances are immediately 
and directly passed off from the blood, and are never assimilated in 
the proper sense of the term. The general conclusions he had arrived 
at from his experiments were as follows :—The amount of fat deposited 
in the body is regulated by the absolute and relative quantity of olea- 
ginous and saccharine matter in the food taken ; both substances taken 
ina large quantity, cause excessive deposits of fat. If the fat taken be 
in defect, even though the sugar be in excess, no increase in the deposit 
of fat takes place, but rather a decrease, obviously in consequence of 
ordinary molecular absorption, to which the adipose, in common with 
other tissues, is subject, not being counterbalanced by assimilation. If 
the fat taken be in excess, whilst the sugar is insuflicient to meet the 
immediate wants of the respiratory function, still the deposit of fat 
may not undergo increase, but the contrary, apparently because a por- 
tion of that already deposited must undergo reabsorption into the blood 
forthe purpose of supplying heat. Fat is, therefore, as a heat-producing 
substance, only supplemental of sugar, which is the ordinary pabulum 
of respiration. Saliva, like gastric juice, is secreted in quantity strictly 
proportioned to the immediate wants of the system, and quite irrespec- 


754 Meeting of the British Association. | Oct., 


tively of the absolute quantity of food taken; a certain proportion of 
the starch of the food, varying according to the quantity taken and the 
necessity of respiration, escapes the converting action of the saliva, 
and is stored up in the liver. This liver-starch is being taken con- 
stantly back into the blood to supplement the respiratory elements of 
the food, and in the blood is converted into sugar, probably next into 
lactic, and finally into carbonic acid. Hence the presence of sugar, 
normally, in small proportion in the blood of the right side of the 
heart, hence, likewise, its presence in the right side of the heart of 
animals fed exclusively upon meat, in whose portal blood not a trace 
of sugar is discoverable. 


In three papers Dr. Edward Smith entered into a very elaborate 
inquiry into the nutritive principles of food; the proportions in which 
they entered into the different kinds of food; and the most useful 
combinations of different articles of diet. He showed that there were 
four methods in use for estimating the nutritive value of food. Ist. 
The weight of the food. 2nd. The nitrogenous and carboniferous 
elements in it. 38rd. The nitrogenous food, carbon and hydrogen 
(reckoned as carbon) in food. 4th. The nitrogen and carbon in food. 
The mode of determining these he entered into at considerable length. 
He advocated the desirability of an inquiry into the amount of food 
which is necessary for the support of the system. 


GEOGRAPHY AND Erunonocy. (Section EH.) 


Burton on Dahomey—Spruce on the Purus—Bates on the Amazons— 
Dr. Livingstone’s Communications. 


Carratn Burton made a very interesting and valuable contribution 
on the subject of the kingdom of Dahomey. His account is totally 
different from those hitherto given, but it is distinct and positive. He 
states the population of the country at less than 150,000, of whom not 
more than one-fifth are men. The accounts of the profusion of human 
blood shed on festival days he declares to be a wild exaggeration of a 
peculiar custom—a mark of filial affection—requiring that all events 
should be communicated to a dead parent by a human being specially 
sent to the other world. ‘Thus every extraordinary occurrence demands 
a murder, in order that the king’s father may be duly informed. On 
stated occasions in the year are larger sacrifices. The whole number 
of victims, however, even on the occasion of these annual festivals, 
he estimates at from 35 to 40—a number wonderfully smaller than 
others have told us, but still horrible enough. All these victims are 
prisoners and guilty of severe crimes, or are prisoners of war. They 
are stupefied before being put to death, and the execution is performed 
in the presence of the king and by his chief ministers. * 


* Whilst we give Captain Burton’s version of the state of affairs in Dahomey, 
it is right that we should remind our readers of that of Jules Gérard, who visited 
the king during a “Grand Custom.” His account was communicated to ‘ The 
Times,’ and to these pages (No. I., p. 209), and he appears to think that when 


1864. | Geography and Ethnology. 755 


Capt. Burton states that there is a dual king in Dahomey, one for 
the town and another for the country ; and two courts, one male and 
the other female. The female element is strong in everything. Not 
only are there Amazonian troops, but to each important person, even 
including the English strangers, two women are appointed as guards, 
under the designation of “mother.” The women are unusually strong 
and muscular, and are organized after a very imperfect fashion into 
troops. Of these there are four corps, distinguished as grenadiers, 
elephant hunters, razor bearers, archeresses ; and there are also troops 
of the line, who however do not seem so much given to fighting as to 
dancing, in which all are great proficients. The total strength of this 
female army does not exceed 2,500, and the fighting members are not 
1,700; of whom 1,000 form the king’s body-guard. Strangers—Capt. 
Burton himself included—are appointed to honorary commands in this 
singular female army. 

In conclusion, and after giving many curious accounts of these 
people, Capt. Burton expressed his firm conviction that the kingdom 
of Dahomey, once comparatively strong, is now weakening rapidly, 
and stated that on the occasion of an attack recently made by them 
on a neighbouring and somewhat more civilized tribe, they were 
thoroughly defeated and driven back with little difficulty. 


Two papers on the Amazons were read—one by Mr. R. Spruce, 
on the river Purus; the other by Mr. Bates, on the Delta of the 
Amazons. The Purus connects with the Amazons near the sea, the 
water occasionally running from the Purus into the Amazons, and at 
other times from the Amazons into the Purus. The latter is an im- 
portant navigable river, running through a country almost a dead 
level. It has numerous lakes. It comes in from the south, and 
appears to have deep water, so that it may afford a valuable means of 
communication with the Andes. 

The Delta of the Amazons is exceptional. It is neither a mud 
swamp nor unhealthy, the soil being sandy, with a rocky substratum 
of calcareous beds, containing fossil marine shells. The climate is 
pleasant. In the wet season (January to June), the rainfall in 1848 
was 61 inches ; and in the dry season (the rest of the year), 9} inches. 
There are two low islands within the main mouth of the river, and 
these also are not muddy. Advancing, however, up the river by the 
Para branch, all signs of ancient land disappear, and the true Delta 
may be said to commence. Innumerable labyrinthine channels extend 
for a distance of 80 miles in length and breadth, and the land consists 
entirely of recent river detritus. Lofty and luxuriant tropical forest 
covers every part, and overhangs the narrow channels of water which | 
are often not more than 80 yards wide. The climate here is much 
more humid than below. It results that (owing no doubt to changes 


Englishmen are present the black king tries to make things as pleasant as possible, 
in order that the scenes enacted may be painted, as they have evidently been, 
couleur de rose. Gérard was driven out of Dahomey for his candour, so if the 
wretched king of this unfortunate people continues his horrible “ customs,” it is 
not for want of knowing those of civilized nations, for they evidently take in 


‘The Times’ at Abomey !—The Editors. 


756 Meeting of the British Association. | Oct., 


of level), a great alteration has taken place in comparatively recent 
times. Mr. Bates concludes that the mouth of the Amazons was not 
formerly a wide gulf, filled up since by fluvial deposit, but that it was 
bridged over by a chain of islands, separated by narrower channels 
than at present. This is illustrated by the fauna and flora. 


An interesting memoir was communicated by Mr. James Fox Wilson, 
on the desiccation of the interior of Southern Africa, by the gradual 
drying up of large tracts of country in the Bechuana country. In this 
district the natives are cutting down all the trees, and burning the 
dried trailing plants, allowing the fires to extend to the mountains. 
In other parts, the settlers burn the herbage in winter, to have fresh 
pasture in spring. The effect of this laying bare the surface, is to in- 
crease the drought, and the country will become seriously injured by 
consequent change of climate. It was generally agreed in a dis- 
cussion which followed the reading of the paper, that in all civilized 
countries the supply of rain has long been diminishing, and that this 
is mainly due to agricultural operations. 


Dr. Livingstone’s and other communications must be deferred ; we 
cannot do them justice here. 


Mecuanroau Science. (Section G.) 


Sorby on Photographing the Structure of Metals.— Selwyn and 
Fairbairn on Submarine Telegraphy. 


Mr. Sorsy exhibited photographs taken by Mr. Hoole, of Sheffield, 
under his superintendence, illustrating the condition of iron and steel. 
The photographs were taken direct from the microscope. The 
objects are largely magnified, and the results extremely satisfactory. 
The metal was prepared by Mr. Sorby by acting on a polished surface 
with weak acid in a way already known, but the result now obtained 
is quite new and highly instructive. Among other conditions of iron 
we have: (1) Meteoric Iron, exhibiting its crystalline nature in the 
most perfect manner. (2) Grey Pig. Here crystals of graphitic carbon 
are seen shooting through the mottled surface of the metal. (38) Re- 
fined Cast-iron. Long lines of hard parts of the metal (probably 
spiegel-cisen) have arranged themselves in layers. (4) Slightly- 
hammered Bloom. The imperfect and confused state of the iron and 
slag irregularly mixed are strikingly shown. (5) Bowling Bar-iron. 
Tn this, the slag being driven off, and the metal rendered more compact, 
the texture is seen. The result is very curious and valuable, and con- 
trasts singularly with (6) Swedish Iron—a steel-like substance, quite as 
different in texture as in its properties. (7) Armour-plate is a curious 
variety of No.5. (8) Blister-steel. The effect of the converting 
furnace is very singular and unexpected, and is well seen in this 
photograph ; while (9) Cast-steel shows the total change produced by 
an even mottled state of the metal, and the general uniformity of the 
sections of crystals cut transversely. 


1864. | Mechanical Science. 157 


No iron-master nor engineer can afford to be ignorant of this simple 
and effectual mode of determining the structure and texture of the 
metal he has to do with. 


Two papers were read on Submarine Telegraphy—one by Captain 
Selwyn, R.N., and the other by Mr. Fairbairn, the latter referring to 
the mechanical properties of telegraphic cables. Captain Selwyn 
urged that the ordinary cable defended by a spiral wire was weak in 
principle, as the first strain must be borne by the straight conducting- 
wire which alone requires defence. He also pointed out that a line 
to America might take advantage of a shoal in 38° 50’ W. long. in the 
direct great circle track between England and Bermuda, thus dividing 
the cable into two sections. Lastly, he recommended that in place of 
winding the cable as at present, so as to be packed in a ship’s hold, 
it should be wound on one or more closed cylindrical drums acting as 
floats, and large enough to carry the whole weight. Such cylinders 
need not be larger than an ordinary canal barge, and could be towed 
by a steamer, unwound when convenient, and left floating in case of 
storm. They would be perfectly independent and much cheaper, as 
well as safer, than the method hitherto adopted. Captain Selwyn 
proposed for the Atlantic cable a cylinder 120 feet long by 90 feet 
diameter, which would carry 22,000 tons. The whole weight of the 
present Atlantic cable is about 6,000 tons. 

Mr. Fairbairn’s experiments are more fully described at p. 624 of 
this Journal, than they were before the Association. 


CeTE8a0) 


| Oct., 


NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 


Additional Note on the Neanderthal Skull, By Wm. Turner, M.B. (London), 
F.R.S.E. 


In the April number of this Journal 
I discussed the anatomical charac- 
ters of the now well-known Nean- 
derthal skull, and advanced a num- 
ber of examples of modern British 
crania, which in the extent of their 
supra-orbital projection, in the re- 
treating nature of their frontal and 
diminished convexity of their occi- 
pital regions, presented forms closely 
comparable to that of the Neander- 
thal calvarium. Since the publica- 
tion of that article I have received 
a calvarium of a very remarkable 
form, which may serve as an addi- 
tional and striking illustration of 
the occasional appearance in Euro- 
pean crania of no great antiquity of 
characters not unlike those of the 
skull from the Neander valley. I 
am indebted for this specimen to 
the liberality of Dr. Arthur Mitchell, 
Assistant-Commissioner of Lunacy 
in Scotland, who informs me “that 
it was found many years ago, while 
digging the foundations of Gordon’s 
Hospital in Aberdeen, and that it 
was regarded, prized, and preserved 
from its peculiar form, but from the 
years which have elapsed since it 
was dug up, from the death of the 
finder, and the various hands into 
which it had subsequently passed, 
it is difficult to trace the exact con- 
ditions under which it was found.” 

I have since ascertained that Gor- 
don’s Hospital is built on the site 
of the Blackfriars Monastery, with 
which an extensive burial-ground 
seems to have been connected. It 
is probable, therefore, that the skull 
was obtained from a grave in this 
monastic necropolis. The calvarium 
is that of a male advanced in years. 
The sutures are ossified, the denti- 
culations of the sagittal and lamb- 


doidal are quite obliterated. The 
texture of the bones is very slightly 
affected; in the posterior part of 
the skull externally the diploe is 
partly exposed ; but in the anterior 
part externally, and the whole of 
the inner aspect, the surfaces of the 
two tables are smooth. The animal 
matter is not removed. ‘The bones 
are of average thickness. 

From the accompanying profile 
sketch of this calvarium (Fig. 1), on 
which the outline of the Neander- 
thal skull has been represented by 
the dotted line, a comparison of the 
two may be instituted. The supra- 
orbital projection, due to the size of 
the frontal sinuses and the retreat- 
ing forehead, are both well marked 
in the one from Aberdeen, though 
scarcely so pronounced as in the 
Neanderthal specimen. The verti- 
cal diameter is, however, greater, so 
that the former has not so flattened 
a form at the vertex as the latter. 
But in both crania the parieto-occi- 
pital regions slope downwards from 
the vertex, and the posterior parts 
of the parietal bones form an almost 
continuous curve with the squamous 
part of the occipital above the pro- 
tuberance and superior curved line. 
And in this its occipital form the 
Aberdeen skull approaches much 
more closely to the Neanderthal 
than does the old Batavian from 
the Island of Marken, cited by Pro- 
fessor Schaaffhausen, as presenting 
a great resemblance to it. For as 
Mr. Huxley has pointed out (‘ Natu- 
ral History Review,’ July, 1864, p. 
439), ‘if the glabello-occipital lines 
of the Dutch and Neanderthal speci- 
mens be made to coincide, the occi- 
put of the former projects back- 
wards beyond the superior curved 


1864. | 


Notes and Correspondence. 759 


line, whilst that of the Neanderthal 
slopes upwards and forwards from 
it.” 


In the cast of the interior of the 
Aberdeen calvarium many of the 
anatomical characters are well dis- 


played (Fig. 2). The comparatively 
low frontal lobes of the brain, the 
elevation of the vertex, and the 
slight posterior convexity of the 
occipital portion of the cerebrum, 
are all apparent. It may be noted 
that the posterior lobes of the cere- 
brum overlap the posterior margin 
of the cerebellum, though in the 
figure the extent of this overlapping 
is somewhat exaggerated, on ac- 
count ofa Pacchionian body project- 
ing from the dura mater just above 
the attachment of the tentorium. 


Inches, 
Greatest length of the Aber- 
deenrskull¥.) eS O28: aa 
Greatest breadth in the 
parietal region just above 


the squamous suture. 59 
Proportion of length to 

lpreadbl! ).))-. 1 a ee SEOO WS 
Length of the line of the 

sagittal suture . . . 4-9 
Longitudinal are 12°6 
Horizontal circumference , 22:0 


Greatest frontal breadth . 4°5 
Capacity of calvarium, 80 cub. in. 


760 


In conclusion, I may state that 
on p. 227 of Sir Wm. Wilde’s book, 
‘On the Beauties of the Boyne and 
Blackwater,’ a skull is figured and 
described as long and low, which, so 
far as can be judged from the out- 
line sketch, presents in combination 
characters which closely approxi- 
mate it to the Neanderthal cranium. 
The skeleton of which this skull 
formed a part was found in 1821, in 
a grayel-pit in the Island of Funen. 
Along with it were various metallic 
articles, a silver buckle, a spirally- 


Notes and Correspondence. 


[ Oct., 


twisted gold ring, and a large metal 
pan or kettle. 

Also, in the ‘ Reader’ newspaper, 
23rd July, 1864, Mr. Busk states 
that he has received from Captain 
Brome, of Gibraltar, a human cra- 
nium which resembles, in all essen- 
tial particulars, including its great 
thickness, the Neanderthal skull. 
From the conditions under which it 
was found, Mr. Busk ascribes enor- 
mous antiquity to it. 

Wo. TURNER. 


On the Septa and Siphuncles of Cephalopod Shells. By Harry Seeley, F.G.S., 
Woodwardian Museum, Cambridge. 


THE last generation of anatomists 
shelved the question of the signifi- 
cance of septa in Nautiloid shells, 
by assuming that the air-chambers 
were a beneficent provision for ena- 
bling the animals to float. But 
though the specific gravity of the 
mass is thus altered, that does not 
explain the physiological meaning of 
the septa. 

As the shells enlarge, the animals 
increase in size, and, with seldom- 
varying regularity, shut off behind 
them chambers which steadily en- 
large with the whorls. Only near 
the end of the series are the cells 
less uniform, where in the adult the 
last one is conspicuously shallow. 
And as the chambers are always 
empty, the animal must have moved 
forward, leaving a vacant space be- 
hind; so the question to be solved 
is, why did the creature always 
make the septa shut off spaces 
which progressively enlarged ? 

In certain Gasteropod shells there 
is something analogous. The genera 
Murex, Triton, Ranella, for instance, 
after making their shells uniformly 
for a third or half of a whorl, then 
begin thickening the lip into a varix 
—rarely with the least want of regu- 
larity. In other genera, as Bulimus, 
Conus, Turritella, species or speci- 
mens are found with the earlier part 
of the spire partitioned off. The 
same phenomena of varices is seen 


in many bivalves; and a process of 
shutting off air-cells in the lower 
valve is characteristic of several 
oysters. 

As the shell of an animal is 
moulded on its body, I suppose 
these cells in the abdominal part of 
an oyster-shell to indicate that the 
animal gets periodically larger and 
then smaller. Covering the visceral 
region are the white parts of the 
mollusc, the ovaries, and these pe- 
riodically thicken the body; the 
lips then in enlarging the shell will 
make it more concave, and when the 
ovaries are empty there will remain 
a vacancy under the ovary like a 
water-cell, which the abundant na- 
creous secretion soon shuts off. 
Moreover, the ovaries are the exte- 
rior parts of the organism adjacent 
to the shell. 

In Gasteropods, as the upper part 
of the spire contains the liver, simi- 
lar results cannot be looked for in 
their reproduction ; but the ovaries 
being placed in the middle of the 
body, and provided with oviducts, 
often of great size, an enlargement 
of the whorl must take place by 
growth at the lip of the mouth till 
the mollusc attains its full size. 
And that this is not merely needed 
to accommodate the body of the 
animal may, I think, be seen by 
noticing how far Helices which have 
laid their eggs retire from the 


1864.] 


mouths of their shells. And the 
varices of shells appear to be owing 
to a cessation of reproductive en- 
largement in the animal, and hence 
the mantle accumulates its secretion 
in a thickening at the lip. 

Now, on examining a nautilus- 
shell, two large muscles are seen to 
have been placed in the lower part 
of the body-chamber, and connected 
round the involute spire by a nar- 
rower muscle ; an arrangement to 
which the shell may owe its invo- 
lute form. Beneath the muscles 
are the liver which overlaps the 
Spire, the ovaries which abut on a 
large part of the septum, and cer- 
tain digestive organs above these. 
Before any new chamber can be 
made, the shell-muscles must have 
moved forward ; and before any in- 
crease in the ovaries can take place, 
a space must be formed behind. As 
the animal steadily grows, all its 
organs would enlarge, and with each 
successive brood the distended 
ovaries would require more space. 
There is a similar gradual increase 
in the size of the air-chambers. 
And since the development of ova 
would necessitate a forward growth 
of the molluse, the discharge of the 
ovaries would leave an empty space 
behind, into which the creature 
could not retire, which would then 
be shut off by a septum moulded 
on the animal’s body; and it may 
be worth notice that at the place of 
the flaccid ovaries, both at the sides 
and outer part of the shell, the sep- 
tum extends far forward. 

The Argonaut similarly accumu- 
lates its eggs in the involute part 
of the shell, but not being attached 
to it, does not form septa. 

In the male nautilus the testes 
are placed in exactly the same posi- 
tion as the ovaries of the female, 
and, excepting the liver, are the 
largest organ in the body, It may 
therefore be concluded that the de- 
velopment of the male organs would 
produce results similar to those in 
the other sex, and likewise end in 
the formation of chambers. 

There are no other organs of the 


Notes and Correspondence. 


761 


body which are liable to periodic 
changes in size; and therefore as 
the position and progressive en- 
larcement with age of the genera- 
tive apparatus necessitate results 
like those seen in the chambers and 
septa, I regard one as the cause of 
the other. 

If this is the significance of septa 
in the nautilus, the same must be 
said of all nautiloid shells, and the 
families of Ammonites and Ortho- 
ceratites ; and as the structure of 
the phragmacone of Belemnites is 
essentially similar, it must also be 
applied to such debranchiate shells 
as arechambered. Among these is 
the Spirula, connected with a shell 
essentially like a nautilus shell. 
Professor Owen describes the greater 
part of the animal as in front of a 
shell that is enclosed by a protect- 
ing lappet on each side, which is 
regarded as anovary. Though this 
is different from the arrangement 
in the nautilus there need be no 
discordancy, for as the animal is 
not contained within, but overgrows 
its shell, so ovaries would be ex- 
pected to extend beyond the rudi- 
mentary shell; but from the defect 
of specimens, I can offer nothing 
but analogy on behalf of the homo- 
logy of the two sets of chambers. 

In the sepia the ink-bag and ova- 
ries are placed at the end of the 
animal’s body just in front of the 
mucro of the shell; and in the Be- 
lemite the ink-bag is found just 
above the phragmacone. 

Connecting the chambers is the 
tube known as the s/p/ uncle running 
through every septum to the first, 
but not through the nidamental 
capsule. In the nautilus it is often 
but partly calcified ; it changes its 
position in different genera ; and in 
some fossil-forms, as the sub-genera 
of Orthoceras, is large and compli- 
cated, being sometimes radiated 
like a coral, and perforated by an 
inner tube. 

Seeing the extreme elasticity of 
many membranes of invertebrata, 
as, for instance, the oral membrane 
of a starfish, I would also point 


762 


out that when ova were discharged 
by the nautilus there must have 
remained the empty membrane, 
which being attached to the base 
could not but contract into a tube 
smaller or larger according to its 
tenuity or vascularity. The fine 
siphuncle of the nautilus would in- 
dicate a single highly contractile 
membrane ; the large siphuncle of 
Actinoceras may indicate two or 


Notes and Correspondence. 


[ Oct. 


three membranes contracting differ- 
ently. 

And the conclusion from these 
considerations is that the chief 
fossil genera of cephalopods are 
based on slight modifications of the 
reproductive apparatus, which have 
produced, in their many beautiful 
and complex variations, the septa 
siphuncles of the Nautilus and its 
allies, 

Harry SEELEY, F.GS. 


On the Existence of the Reindeer and Aurochs in France during the Historic 


Period. 


In some remarks upon flints and 
carved bones and horns found in 
the grottos of Périgord, in the 
number of ‘The Quarterly Journal 
of Science’ for July, p. 579, these 
implements are stated to prove 
the existence of the reindeer in 
the centre of France in prehistoric 
times, and from the carving on 
them to give the impression that 
aurochs also existed then in the 
same country. Your correspondent 
does not seem to be aware that both 
these animals existed in historic 
times ; that Cesar describes an ani- 
mal which has been taken by scho- 
lars to represent the reindeer, and 
that he mentions the aurochs * 
(urus) by name. The description of 
Cesar certainly shows that he had 
never seen these animals, but that he 
had gathered his information from 
others; in fact he brings forward 
this description in a part of his 
work in which he contrasts what 
he has heard of the different nations 
of the Gauls and Germans. I can- 
not think, however, that this en- 
tirely invalidates his testimony, as 
he appears to have seen the horns 
and heard of the hunting exploits 
of the young Gauls of his day. 
Thinking your readers may be in- 
terested in Ceesar’s own description, 
I annex a translation of the two 
chapters alluded to, ‘De Bello Gal- 
lico,’ lib. vi. cc. 26, 28. 


* German Auer-ochs, heath or wild 
ox. 


By the Rev. C. W. Kett, M.A. 


“There is an ox (bos) with the form 
of a stag, and from the middle of 
its forehead between the ears cne 
horn stands up, higher and straighter 
than those horns which are known 
to us. From the end of it branches 
like palms (palme) spread out very 
widely. The male and female are 
alike, and the shape and size of 
their horns the same.”—Casar : De 
Bell. Gall. lib. vi. c. 26. 

“The third isa kind of them which 
are called aurochs (wri). These are 
of a size little less than elephants ; 
in appearance, colour, and form 
they are bulls (¢auri). Their 
strength is great and so is their 
pace, and, when they have seen 
them, they spare neither man nor 
beast. A good deal of trouble is 
taken to catch and kill these in 
pitfalls. In this work the young 
men harden themselves, and they 
exercise themselves in this kind of 
hunting, and those who kill most 
of them bring their horns as a pub- 
lic testimony, and in this way ob- 
tain much honour. Even if they 
catch them very young, they can- 
not accustom them to man or make 
them toward. The size, form, and 
appearance of their horns differ a 
good deal from our oxen. They are 
very careful to tip the lips with 
silver, and then they use them at 
their grand feasts.”—Cas.: De Bell. 
Gall. lib. vi. c. 28. 

The word 60s, here translated 
* ox,”’ is used of all kinds of horned 


1364. | 


animals, and even for elephants. 
Palme has been variously trans- 
lated, the palms of the hand, the 
branches of the palm-tree, and the 
blades of oars. But whatever ex- 
planation we put upon these words, 
the whole description has usually 
been referred to the reindeer, and 
has been so understood by Cuvier, 
Buffon, and Beckman. The single 
horn, of course, is a mistake, though 
one that is common enough. Some 
writers still assert that there is 
good evidence of the existence of 


Notes and Correspondence. 


unicorns in the centre of Africa, 
and although we will not say that 
such things cannot exist (having 
the fear of the author of the ‘ Water 
Babies’ before our eyes), still Caesar 
is as likely to have been mistaken 
in this matter as in the assertion 
he makes in the following chapter, 
that the elk cannot bend its legs or 
get up when once thrown down, 
whilst he is true as regards the main 
facts of existence of the animals in 
France in historic times. 
C. W. Kerr. 


THE GOLD MEDALLISTS OF THE SCIENCE “EXAMINA- 
TIONS, MAY, 1864, AND SCIENCE INSTRUCTION BY 
THE STATE. 


We have great pleasure in publishing, as conspicuously as we are able, 
the names of those Students of the Classes who, to their honour, suc- 
ceeded in obtaining the Gold Medals at the recent (May) examinations 
of the Science and Art Department. The names in italics are those 
of Middle Class Students who obtain Honorary Certificates instead of 


Medals. 


Name of Gold 


Metallist. Age. Residence. Subject. Teacher. 

Joun B. BAKER 18 Chester Geometry, Mechanical E, A. Davidson, 
Drawing, and Building 
Construction. 

Epwarp RicHarps 19 London ‘Theoretical and Applied R. Straughan. 
Mechanics. 

Joun G. ANDERTON 20 Birmingham Acoustics, Light, Heat, C. J. Woodward. 
Magnetism, and Elec- 
tricity. 

John W. Judd 24 London Ditto ditto Self-taught. 

WILLIAM Barr 19 Glaszow Inorganic and Organic Dr. F. Penny. 
Chemistry. 

Alfred H, Allen 18 Sheffield Ditto ditto Self-taught. 

JoHN CONNOLLY 22 Cork Road, Geology and Mineralogy  Self-taught. 

Bandon, 

John W. Judd 24 London Ditto ditto Ditto. 

Henry ANGEL 20 Islington Animal Physiology and J. Howard. 
Zoology. 

ISABELLA MAFFETT 22 Belfast Vegetable Physiology, R. Tate. 
Economie and System- 
atic Botany. 

John W. Judd 24 London Ditto ditto Self-taught. 

George J. Snelus 26 Macclesfield Physical Geography — Hewitt. 


The Department of Science and Art also grants Silver and Bronze 


764 Notes and Correspondence. [ Oct., 


“ Queen’s Medals,” (as these rewards are termed,) to successful com- 
petitors at the Annual Examinations; but, for the names of these, we 
must refer our readers to the published Report of the Department. 

From the last Report it appears that the number of Science 
Classes, Teachers, and Students is on the increase, and it was our 
intention to devote an article in our present number to the question of 
the extension of Science instruction as it is undertaken by the State— 
to the relations, in fact, of the Department of Science and Art to the 
community at large. 

The Report has, however, been so recently issued, and so many 
grave questions are involved, that we must for the present defer the 
consideration of the subject. 

We hope, however, shortly to be able to deal with the matter in 
an impartial spirit, and all communications which we may receive 
from Science Teachers, or the promoters of Science Classes in regard 
to the working of their Schools, or the operation of the various 
“Minutes” which have from time to time been issued by the Com- 
mittee of Council on Education, will receive our earnest consideration. 
Such communications will enable us to arrive at correct conclusions, 
and to reflect the opinion of a large body of hard-working-men of 
Science, who, as far as we know, possess no other suitable medium for 
the expression of their views on matters connected with their material 
interests. 


1864. | ( 765 ) 


Books received for Kebieto, 


From Messrs. Longman § Co. :— 


Sicut anp Toucn: an Attempt to Disprove the Received (or Berkeleian) 
Theory of Vision. By Thomas K. Abbott, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of 
Trinity College, Dublin. 

THe Linen Trape, Ancient and Modern. By Alex. J. Warden, Merchant, 
Dundee. 

PAssaGES FROM THE Lirr or A PuiosopHER. By Charles Babbage, M.A., 
E.R.S. 


ON THE APPLICATION OF Cast AND Wrovucut Iron ‘ro Bumpine PuRPOSES. 
By William Fairbairn, C.E., F.R.S, F.G.S. 3rd edition. To which is 
added, A Short Treatise on Wrought-Iron Bridges. 


From Messrs. Triibner & Co. :— 


OrGanic PutLosopuy; or, Man’s True Place in Nature. Vol. I. Epicos- 
mology. By Hugh Doherty, M.D. 


From Messrs. Lockwood & Co.:— 


A Series or Merric Tases, in which the British Standard Measures and 
Weights are compared with those of the Metric System at present in use 
on the Continent. By Charles Hutton Dowling, C.E. 


From Messrs. Simpkin, Marshall, & Co.:— 


GENERAL AND Concise History AND DEscRIPTION OF THE TOWN AND Port 
or Kinesron-upon-Hutn. By James Joseph Sheahan, Author of Histories 
of Cambridgeshire, Oxfordshire, &e. &e. &e. 


From the Authors :— 


RAMBLES IN SearcH OF FLower.ess Puants. By Margaret Plues. (‘Journal 
of Horticulture’ Office; and Houlston & Wrizht. ) 

RHopALOCERA AFRICA AUSTRALIS. A Catalogue of South African Butter- 
flies; comprising Descriptions of all the Known Species, with Notices of 
their Larvee, Pupze, Localities, &e. &e. By Roland Trimen, Mem. Ent. Soe. 
London. Part I. Papilionidee, Pieridee, Danaidw, Acrieide, and Nympha- 
lide. (Cape Town: Mathew, George Street.) 

PumotocicaL Papers, comprising Notes on the Ancient Gothic Language. 
Parts I. and II. Sanscrit Roots and English Derivations. By J. A. Picton, 
F.S.A., President of the Liverpool Literary and Phil. Society. Also, A 
Chapter on the Philology of Architectural Terms. (Liverpool: Brakell.) 
(For private distribution only.) 

Tue Stupy oF THE PuystcaL Sciences: their Value in Education, and the 
Part they play in advancing the Civilization of Mankind. An Essay. By 
George D. Wood. (London: F. W. Calder.) 


PAMPHLETS, REPRINTS, LECTURES, ADDRESSES, &c. 


Own THE MrcroscoricaL Srrucrure or THE Mount Sorret Syenire. By 
H. C. Sorby, F.RS., F.G:S. 

ON THE CHRONOLOGICAL VALUE OF THE New Rep SanpsTonE System oF 
DevonsuirE. By W. Pengelly, F.R.S., &e. 

ELEMENTARY Inquiry INTO THE LAws oF THE ConpDUCcTION oF HEAT on 
Bars, AND INTO THE ConpucTING Power or WroucuT Inox. By James 
D. Forbes, LL.D., D.C.L., F.R.S., &c. 

VOL. I. 3F 


766 Books Received. [Oct., 


On Vrirauiry. (Read before the Liverpool Literary and Philosophical So- 
ciety.) Rev. H. H. Higgins, M.A. 

On THE ExecrricaL Reiarions or Merats, &c., IN Fusep Supsrances. By 
G. Gore. 

EXPERIMENTS ON THE ADHESION OF Liqgumps To Mercury. Same author. 

On THE PROPERTIES OF ELECTRO-DEPOsITED ANTIMONY. Same author. 

Dovpts RELATIVE TO THE EpocHaL AND DerriraL THEory or GroLtocy. By 
a near Kinsman of Thomas Didymus. (No publisher.) 

Tue Trure or THE Brste Upnenp; or, TrurH versus Scrence. By L.&. 
Benson, South Carolina. (Saunders, Otley, & Co.) 

Tur ABBEVILLE Jaw. An Episode in a Great Controversy. By J. L. Rome, 
F.G.S. (Longmans. ) 

A New System or Musica Gymnastics. By M. C. Taylor, M.A., M.C.P. 
(Tweedie.) 

On THE WAVE oF Hicu WATER; with Hints towards a New Theory of the 
Tides. By Thomas Carrick. (Taylor & Francis.) 

M¥MorrE DES PROFESSEURS-ADMINISTRATEURS DU Muséum p’HisrorrE Natvu- 
RELLE, en réponse au Rapport fait en 1858, par une Commission chargée 
d’étudier l’organisation de cet établissement. (Paris: Mallet-Bachelier.) 

Kew anp Lisson Magnetic Curves. Photolithographic impressions of 
Traces produced simultaneously by the self-recording Magnetographs at 
Kew and Lisbon. (With explanatory circular.) 

L’Hiver DANS LE Mipr: Indications climatologiques et médicales, et Conseils 
aux Malades. Par A. Buttura, M.D. Paris, &. &e. &e. (London: Hipp. 
Bailliere.) 

Toe Sanitary Dutms or Private Inprvipvats. (The Ladies’ Sanitary 
Association.) 

Lumuey’s Parent Rupper: Descriptive Particulars, &c. 


PERIODICALS, AND PROCEEDINGS OF SCIENTIFIC 
SOCIETIES. 


JOURNAL OF THE AsIATIC SoctreTy oF Brencau. No. 293. (Calcutta.) 

JOURNAL OF THE CHEMICAL SocteTy. (Bailliere.) 

BULLETIN MENSUEL DE LA Sociith IMPERIALE ZOOLOGIQUE D’ ACCLIMATATION. 
(Paris : Masson.) 

Memorrs OF THE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF GREAT BRITAIN, AND OF THE Musrum 
or Practrican GroLtocy. By Robert Hunt, F.R.S., Keeper of the Mining 
Records. (London: Longmans; and Stanford.) 

TRANSACTIONS OF THE WooLtHope NaturaAuists’ Fretp Crus.  President’s 
Address, The Mistletoe, Harthquake of 1863, and Meteorological Report. 
(Hereford: Head.) 

Tue GEOLOGICAL MaGazIne (with which is incorporated the ‘ Geologist’). 
vais ‘by T. Rupert Jones, F.G.8., assisted by Henry Woodward, F.G.S., 

Revue UNIVERSELLE Des Mines, de la Métallurgie, &ec., &e. (Paris & Litge : 
Noblet & Baudry.) 

JeNAISCHE ZELTSCHRIFT FUR MepEctn unp NaturwIsseNscHarr. (Published 
by the Natural History Society of Jena.) (Leipzig: Engelmann.) 

Tur Mining AND Smevtrinc Macazine. (At the Office, 36, Cannon Street; 
and Simpkins.) ; 

pe BririsH AND ForeriGN Mepico-CumrtureicaL Review. (Churchill & 

ons.) 

REPORT OF THE SUPERINTENDENT OF THE UNITED STATES Coast SURVEY DURING 
THE YEAR 1861... (From the Superintendent.) 


1864. | ( 


var) 


INDEX TO) VOI. 


A. 


ABBEVILLE Jaw, the, 294. 

Aset, Mr., on Metallic Impurities in 
Refined Copper, 289. 

Absorption of Mixed Gases, 287. 

Acanthocephali, Development of, 173. 

Acclimatization, 427. 

Acid, Leucie, 289. 

Aconella, 460. 

Apams, Dr. Lerrn, on the Ganges and 
Nile, 292. 

Aérolite of Orgueil, Analysis of the, 689. 

Aérolites, 150. 

Africa, Southern, Desiceation of Interior 
of, 756. 

African Explorations, 464. 

Agricultural Societies, 440. 

Statistics, Duty of Collecting, 442. 

Agriculture, Influence of Leases on 
Progress of, 98. 

Report of Maine Board of, 124. 

Air of Barracks, Organic Impurities in, 
510. 

— Breathers of the Coal Period, 675. 

Arry, G. B., on Origin of apparent 
Luminous Band which in Partial 
Eclipses of the Sun has been seen 
to surround the Visible Portion of 
the Moon’s Limb, 284. 

Allahabad, Proposed Museum at, 710. 

Alloys of Silver and Zine, &e., 497. 

ApuHonso X., of Castile, Astronomical 
Work by, 108. 

Amazon Valley, Contributions to Insect 
Fauna of, 181. 

Amazons, Delta of the, 755. 

Ameebina, Characters of, 174. 

Ammonias, Possible Number of New, 
re 

Ammonium, New Combinations of, 671. 

Sulphocyanide of, as a Fixing 
Agent, 156. 

Analysis of Line D, 500. 

Anatomy of Quadrumana, 750. 

Anperson, Professor, on Artificial 
Manures, 311. 

Andes, Passes over, 470, 471. 

Animals, the Relation of Light and 
Heat to the Vital Forces of, 259. 


Animals, Acclimatization and Domesti- 
cation of, 749. 

AnsteD, Professor D. T., on Copper 
Mining in Tuscany, 433. 

Scientific Education, &c., in King- 
dom of Italy, 206. 

Antiquity of Man, Evidence of Osseous 
Caverns in Languedoc in respect of, 
326. 

Ants, White, Ravages of, in St. Helena, 
359. 

Apsoun, Dr., Manual of the Metalloids, 
561. 

Archzeopteryx Macrorus, the, 127. 

Armour Plates, Manufacture of, 153. 

Artillery, American, 519. 

Asterism in Crystals, &c., 491, 499. 

Astragalus and Phaca, Relations of the 
Genera, 454. 

Astronomical Society of Germany, 104. 

Work by Alphonso X. of Castile, 
108. 

Atlantic Cable and its Teachings, 44. 

Failure of, 51. 

Time occupied in transmitting 
Signals by, 49. 

Atlantic, Depth of, 38. 

—— the Deep-sea Bed of, &e., 36. 

Atmospheric Contaminations, 168. 

— Refraction, Calculation of Optical 
Effect of, 285. 

Auk, Discovery of a Mummy of the 
Great, 306. 

Skeleton of the Great, 702. 

Aurochs, Existence of, in France dur- 
ing the Historie Period, 762. 

Australia, the Gems of, 340. 

Autolytus, Polymorphism in the Genus, 
516. 

Autophysiotypie, 318. 

Aye-aye, the, 701. 


B. 


Bxcxer, Herr, New Telescopic Comet. 
106. 
Baur, M., on Wasium, 115-152. 
Bavsrant, Dr., Experiments on Produc- 
tion of Protozoa, 607. 
3r2 


768 


Barium Compounds, New Applications 
of, 116. 

Spectrum, 498. 

Batayian Society of Experimental Phi- 
losophy, Programme of, 377. 

Bates, Mr., on the Delta of the Ama- 
zons, 705. 

Bath Building Stones, 748. 

Thermal Waters, 743. 

Bate, Mr. Spence, on a Kitchen Mid- 
den in Cornwall, 707. 

Bates, H. W., the Naturalist on the 
River Amazons, 181. 

Battery, Minotti’s, 350. 

Bauxite, 150. 

BaxenDe.tL, Mr., on a Solar Ring, 
448. 

Beate, Dr. L., on Germinal Matter of 
Blood, 296. 

on the Highest Magnifying Power 
of the Microscope, 205. 

Bees, Why they Work in the Dark, 
344, 

Bett, Mr., on recent Movements of 
Earth’s Surface, 328. 

Birds of Timor, Flores and Lombock, 
307. 

Bismuth, Cause of the High Price of, 
692. 

BuLackwatL, JouHn, a History of the 
Spiders of Great Britain and Ireland, 
R20. 

Black Stones which fell at Birmingham, 
Analysis of, 746. 

Blasting Compositions, New, 688. 

Blister Steel, Method of illustrating the 
Structure of, 392. 

Blood-corpuscles, Fatty Substance in 
Red, 685. 

Botanist’s Guides, 567. 

Botany, Popular Works on, 728. 

BraDLey, LONSDALE, Sections of Lead- 
bearing Rocks, 147. 

Breaks in the Succession of the British 
Paleozoic Strata, 290 

Brewer, J. A., Flora of Surrey, 200. 

Brirish Association — Bath Meeting, 
Tees 

President’s Address, 735. 
Section A, 740. 

Section B, 742. 

Section C, 746. 

Section D, 749. 
Sub-Section D, 751. 
Section EH, 754. 

Section G, 756. 

Bromides of Lithium, Zine, and Lead, 
Gos 

Bromine in Water of Dead Sea, 117. 

Brovauton, Mr., on possible Number 
of New Ammonias, 117. 


Index. 


[ Oct., 


Browne, Rev. G. F., on Several Ice- 
caves, 747. 

Brucine Test for Nitric Acid, 118. 

Btcuyer, Dr. Louts, Force and Matter 
(Review), 545. 

Bucxianp, Mr. F., on the Natural 
History of the Oyster, 751, 

Bunsen, Prof., on Ceesium, 116. 

Burron, Captain, on Dahomey, 754. 

Buiterflies of Madagascar, on the, 648. 


C. 
Cables, Submarine, Difficulties in laying, 
47 


Tnsulation of, 45. 

Cesium, 321. 

-in Diirkheim Water, 116. 

Calabar Bean, Active Principle of, 323. 

Calcutta, Meteorological Observations 
at, 714. 

Catvert, Dr. C., on a New Method of 
Extracting Gold from Auriferous 
Rocks, 745. 

Cambridge University Natural Science 
Society, 709. 

Canada, Metallic Minerals of, 338. 

Carbon, Spectrum of, 498. 

Carpenter, W. B., M.D., on the Appli- 
cation of the Principle of the Con- 
servation of Force tu Physiology, 76, 
259. 

Carphosiderite, 340. 

Cattle Feeding, 315. 

Number in United Kingdom, 316. 

Cephalopod Shells, on the Septa and 
Siphuncles of, 760. 

Cerebellum, Functions of, 512. 

Cuauuts, Prof., on the Calculation of 
Optical Effect of Atmospheric Re- 
fraction, 285. 

Chelonia, Respiration in the, 171. 

Chemical Action of Light, Measure- 
ment of, 154. 

— Formule, 380. 

Chemistry of Rock Formations, 488. 

Chloride of Gold, Detection of Adultera- 
tions in, 354. 

Chlorophyll, Optico-Chemical Analysis 
of, 301. 

CuristorLe and Brtsrery on the Spec- 
trum of Phosphorus, 116. 

CHRONICLES OF SCIENCE :— 

Agriculture, 98, 309, 439, 659. 
Astronomy, 104, 444, 660. 
Botany, 110, 317, 452, 666. 
Shemistry, 115, 320, 457, 670. 
Geography, 462. 

Geology and Paleontology, 

324, 474, 673. 


119, 


1864. | 


CHRONICLES OF Scrmncr, cont.— 
Microscopy, 129, 483, 683. 
Mining, Mineralogy, and Metal- 
lurgy, 137, 333, 486, 686. 
Photography, 154, 351. 
Physies: Light, Heat, and Elec- 
tricity, 157, 342, 497, 694. 
Sanatory Science, 163, 506. 
Zoology and Animal Physiology, 
170, 355, 510, 701. 
Cinchona Alkaloids, Tannin, a Substi- 
tute for, 323. 
—— Plants and Alkaloids, 460. 
Crarke, Mr, A., on Solar Photometry, 
108. 
Cuiaupvet, Mr. A., on Photo-Sculpture, 
741. 
Coal, Amount of available, 33. 
Cutting Machines, 141-144. 
— Rate of Production of, 35. 
—— Fields, Bristol, Map of, 747. 
General Summary of the, 33. 
— —— Rate of Exhaustion of the, 
138. 
—— —— Survey of, suggested, 139. 
the Brazilian, 387. 
Group, the Eastern, 27. 
the Northern, 26. 
—— the Southern, 32. 
—— the Western, 28. 
Mines, Explosions in, 140. 
Resources of Great Britain, the, 


Banuee 


24. 

Coal-tar, new Hydro-carbon from, 671. 

CossoLp, Dr., on the Development and 
Migrations of Entozoa, 750. 

CoLtitinewoop, Dr. C., on Acclimatiza- 
tion, 427. 

Comets, New, 106-7. 

Compass Plant, the, 318 

Conchology, British and American, 570. 

Contorted Pebbles in Conglomerate, 
125. 

Cooxe’s Spectroscope, 158. 

Copper and Iron in Photography, 355. 

— Conducting Power of Commercial, 
627. 

— Determination of Oxygen in Re- 
fined, 289. 

—- Metallic Impurities in Refined, 
289. 

— Mining in Tuscany, 433. 

— Powder for Pigment, 322. 

— Smelting, 745. 

Corals, Anatomy and Physiology of, 
360. 

CoRENWINDER on Respiration of Leaves, 
114. 

Correlation of Vital and Physical 
Forces, 77. 

Crabs, Habits of, 173. 


Index. 


769 


Crania, Average Capacity of European, 
257. 

Cranium of the Stone Period, 746. 

Crete, Brackish Water Fossils of, 413. 

Crisp, Dr., on the Anatomy of the 
Quadrumana, &e., 750. 

Crookes, W., F.R.S., the Atlantic Cable, 
and its Teachings, 44. 

on Gun-cotton, 405. 

—— on a Thermo-spectroscope, 699. 


D. 


Dahomey, its People and Customs, 209. 

Burton on, 754. 

Dairy Arrangements, 276. 

Farming, 658. 

Danteu’s Battery, Use of Sand or Sul- 
phur in, 700. 

Davpeny, Dr., on the Bath Thermal 
Waters, 743. 

Davirs, Mr. 'T., the Preparation and 
Mounting of Microscopie Objects, 
955. 

Davy, Dr. J., on the Salmonide, &c., 
oles 

on the Temperature of the Sexes, 
Mode 

Dawes, Rev.W. R. Telescopic Appear- 
ance of External Envelope of Sun, 
&e., 280. 

Day, Mr., on Acrodus Anningiz, 674. 

Decaisne, M., Variability of the Pear, 
453. 

Deep-sea Bed, Composition of the, 38. 

Conditions of Life on the, 42. 

— Foraminifera on the, 43. 

Dr Lirrrow, New Method of Deter- 
mining Time and Longitude at Sea, 
449. 

Devonian Period, Flora of, 455. 

Devonshire Association for the Ad- 
vancement of Science, &e., 706. 

Diatomacez, New Species of, 454, 485. 

Diatoms in Deep-sea Deposits, 114. 

Dissits, H. C., De Spectraal-Analyse, 
&e. (Review), 379. 

Dicxiz, Dr., a Flora of Ulster, &c., 
567. 

— Botanist’s Guide to Counties of 
Aberdeen, Bamff, and Kincardine, 
568. 

Dietary Question, Present State of, 751. 

Digitaline, 671. 

Dinornis, Skeleton of, 701. 

Diseases of Animals, Parasitic, 165. 

of Operatives, 167. 

Distance of the Earth from the Sun, 
105. i 

Double Culture, 108. 


770 


Draper, Professor H., Silvered Glass 
Telescopes and Celestial Photo- 
graphy in America, 381. 

Drought of 1864, Remarks on the, 655. 

Dumeny and Lemut, MM., Mechanical 
Puddler, 496. 

Donxwy, Mr., on Chronographie Obser- 
vation of a Transit, 662. 

Duruters, Professor H. L., on the For- 
mation of Coral, 614. 

Recent Contributions to Natural 
History and Ethnology in France, 
575. 

Dyes, Soluble Aniline Blue, 322. 


E. 


Earth’s Crust, Elevation and Depres- 
sion of the, 475. 

Surface, on Recent Movements of, 
328. 

Earthquake, an, What it is, 57. 

—— of October 5, 6, 1863, 53. 

Waves, 69. 

HKarthquakes, Ancient Theories of, 57. 

MA.tet, R., on, 53. 

Number felt in Great Britain, 55. 

Earthworm, Anatomy of, 751. 

Eastern Archipelago, Geology of, 295. 

Eclipses recorded inan Ancient Chinese 
Historical Work, 286, 663, 665. 

Elastic Waves, Rate of Transmission 
through different Media, 65. 

Elasticity of Bodies, 62. 

Electric Conductibility of Metals, 161. 

— Light in Photography, 352. 

— Photometric Value of, 158. 

— Use of, in Theatres, &c., 345, 700. 

— Relations of Elements in a State 
of Fusion, 505. 

Electricity, Lighting Gas by, 700. 

Electrophorus, a new Portable, 700. 

Hlements, on the Proportional Num- 
bers of the, 642. 

Emerald, Colouring Maiter of, 671, 690. 

Emeralds, Mode of Occurrence, 690. 

Emeu, Incubation of, 702. 

Engis Skull, compared with that found 
at St. Acheuil, 250. 

Entozoa, Development and Migrations 
of, 750. 

Kocene Flora of Europe, Australian 
Character of, 675. 

Equisetums, Natural History of, in 
France, 669. 

Estheriz Fossil, 291. 


Index. 


[Oct., 


F. 


Farrpairn, Dr., &e., Mills and Mill- 
work, 194. 

on the Construction, &c., of Sup- 

marine Telegraph Cables, 624. 

on Wrought-iron Girders, 302. 

Fat and Sugar, Relative Values of, as 
Blood, 753. 

Fermentation, 460. 

Fibrin, Production of, 298. 

Frevp, Mr., on a New Ore of Tin, 745. 

Fish, the Climbing, 358. 

and Shale Manure, 124. 

Fishes, Composition of Air in the 
Swimming Bladders of, 358. 

Flax Growth in Ireland, Extension of, 
Blas 

Flora of Carboniferous Epoch of Nova 
Scotia, 732. 

of the Devonian Period, 455. 

of Marlborough, &e., 200. 

of Surrey, 200. 

Food, Dr. E. Smith on, 166. 

-—— Nutritive Principles of, 754. 

Footlights for Stage, 501. 

Fossil Birds, Distribution of, 476. 

Skull Controversy, the, 250. 

Fossils, Brackish Water of Crete, 413. 

-—— in Laurentian Rocks, 475. 

in Clay near Frome, &c., 748. 

Fosrmr, Dr., Report on Muscular [rrita- 
bility, 752. 

France, Mineral Statistics of, 149. 

FRANKLAND, Dr., on Glacial Epoch, 
304, 324. 

Fresenius and Buttock, a System of 
Instruction in Qualitative Chemical 
Analysis, 371. 

Frescoes, on the Premature Decay of, 
744. 

Fruits, Respiration of, 459, 668. 


G. 


Gauron, Mr., First Steps towards the 
Domestication of Animals, 749. 

Galvanic Batteries, New, 162. 

Ganges, Recent Changes in Delta of, 
292. 

Gas Furnace, Gore’s, 161. 

Gases, Molecular Mobility of, 320. 

exhaled by Aquatic Plants, 456. 

Gasstot, Mr., Analysis of Line D, 500. 

Gasteropodous Mollusca, Nervous Sys- 
tem of, 172. 

Generation of Insects, 515. 

Geological Epochs, an Attempt to 
Calculate the Duration of Time in- 
volved in, 325. 


1864. | 


Geological Magazine, Notice of the, 


oe Survey of the State of Maine, 
125. 


of the United Kingdom, 
Progress of, 678. 

Geology of West Indian Islands, 294. 

— of Palestine, 748. 

Gerarp, Jutus, Dahomey, its People 
and Customs, 209. 

Germ Force, 82. 

Germinal Matter of Blood, 296. 

Germination of Seeds, 83. 

Gurvats, M., on Evidence of Osseous 
Caverns in Languedoc, in respect of 
Antiquity of Man, 326. 

Gestation, Periods of, in Ruminants, 
356. 

Gipp, Dr., on the Action of the Bromides 
of Lithium, Zinc, and Lead, 753. 

on the Larynx of the Negro, 750. 

Glacial Drift, supposed, of Labrador 
Peninsula, &e., 480. 

Glacial Epoch, 304, 324. 

Guapstonz, J. H, Ph.D, FE.BS., 
Lighthouse Illumination by Mag- 
neto-electricity, 70. 

Glonoine, Effects of, 118. 

Gold Medallists of 1863, List of, in Con- 
nection with the Science and Art 
Department, South Kensington, 211. 

of the Science Examination, 

May, 1864, 763. 

from Wales, 333. 

on the Extraction of, from Auri- 
terous Rocks, 745. 

Gore, Mr., on the Electric relation of 
Elements in a State of Fusion, 505. 

—— Gas Furnace, 161, 347. 


GrauaAm, Professor, on Molecular Mo- ~ 


bility of Gases, 320. 
Granveat, M. L., Instruction pratique 
sur l’Analyse spectrale, 573. 
Granite, Origin of, 120. 
Graphite, Origin of, 689. 
Gray, Dr. Asa, Relations of the Genera 
Astragalus and Phaca, 454. 
Dr., Address as President of 
Section D, British Association, 749. 
on Calluna Vulgaris, 666. 
Great Eastern, Description of the, 245. 
GRirFin’s Oil Furnace, 348. 
Grirrity, Dr. J. W., an Elementary 
Text-book of the Microscope, 555. 
Grirrites, Mr., Machinery for Pud- 
dling, 493. 

Gris, M., on Functions of Vascular 
Tissue, 112. 

Contents of Vessels of Plants, 452. 

Grove, Mr., Q.C., on Boiling Water, 
303. 


Index. 


771 


Gouurver, Mr., on Spheeraphides, 113. 

Gun-cotiton, 118, 401. 

Chemistry of, 405. 

—  Mechanies of, 408. 

—— Report on, 744. 

Ginruer, Dr., on the Poison Apparatus 
of Thallassophryne Reticulata, 518. 


1EE 


Hartety, Professor, Binocular Micro- 
scope, 135, 

Havueuton, Professor, an Attempt to 
Calculate the Duration of Time in- 
volved in Geological Epochs, 325. 

Haypen, Dr., on Fat and Sugar as 
Respiratory Food, 753. 

Hearper, Mr., on the Preservation of 
the Iron Coating of Wooden Ships, 
707 

Heat, Effects of, on Magnetic Force, 503. 

Determination of the Mechanical 
Equivalent of, 346. 

—— of Sun’s Rays, 502. 

Heidelberg, Astronomical Society, 660. 

Hers, D. E., Die grosse Feuerkugel, &e. 
190. 

Henna, Colouring Matter of, 319. 
HerapatH, Dr., on the Presence of 
Indigo in Purulent Discharges, 752. 
HerscueL, Sir Jonn W. F., Catalogue 

of Nebulee, 107. 

on the Solar Spots, 219. 

Heterogenesis, Theory of, 600. 

Hicers, the Rev. H. H., on Vitality, 
729. 

HiImpesraNnpd, Dr., on Fertilization of 
Orchids, 110. 

Hixp, Professor, Supposed Glacial 
Drift in the Labrador Peninsula, 
480. 

Hrrewcocn, Professor, on Origin of 
Granite, 120. 

Hoee, Jabez, a Manual of Ophthalmo- 
scopic Surgery, 559. 

Houtmes’ Magneto-electrie Light, 70. 

Honey, Cause of the Solidification of, 
B44, 

Hooibrenk, System of Artificial Feeun- 
dation, 110. 

Hvceers, Mr., on the Spectra of some of 
the Heavenly Bodies, 741. 

Huike, J. W., on Minute Anatomy of 
penne of Amphibie and Reptiles, 
300. 

Hott, Edward, B.A., the Coal Resources 
of Great Britain, 24. 

—— the Brazilian Coal Fields, 387. 


772 


Hunt, Srerry, on Chemical and Mine- 
ralogical Relations of Metamorphic 
Rocks, 121. 

on Fish and Shell Manure, 124. 

Hont, Dr., the Negro’s Place in Nature 
(Review), 376. 

Huxtry, Professor, Lectures on the 
Elements of Comparative Anatomy 
(Review), 534. 

Hydrogen, Passage of, through Wrought- 
iron Tubes, 698. 

Hyposulphite of Soda, Detection of, 353. 


1. 


Ice, Physical Properties of, 348. 

Ice-caves, 747. 

Indian Army, Sanatory State of, 168. 

Indigo in Pus, 752. 

Indium, 115. 

Induction Coil, a Compound, 504. 

Industrial Resources of the North Coun- 
try (Review), 368. 

Inhabitants of the Deep-sea Bed of At- 
lantic, 36. 

Insects, Artificial Production of Mon- 
strosities in, 703. 

Insulation of Telegraph Wires, 627. 

—— Hffects of the Absorption of Water 
on, 636. 

Insulators, Absorption of Water by, 
630. 

Todide of Silver, Modifications of, 696. 

Tron, Manufacture of, 492. 

Plates, Preservation from Oxida- 

tion and Fouling, 119. 

Spontaneous Ignition of, in Oxy- 
gen, 348, 

Ischia, Medicinal Muds of Island of, 
746. 


J. 


Jamieson, Mr., on Origin of Parallel 
Roads of Glen Roy, 292. 

Japan, 465. 

Jrerrrey, J. G., British Conchology, &c. 
(Review), 570. 

Jena, Natural History in (Review), 731. 

Jrnnins, H. M., on the Brackish-water 
Fossils of Crete, 413. 

JeRDON, T. C., the Birds of India, &e. 
(Review), 176. 

-—— Illustrations of Indian Ornithology, 
WiGs 

JOHNSON and CALverT, on the Preser- 
vation of Iron Ships, 119. 

Jones, Professor R., on Fossil Estherize, 
291. 

Jordan Valley, Peculiarities of, 750. 


Index. 


[Oct., 


Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 
1864, 711. 


K. 


Kine, Mr. A. P., on the Premature 
Decay of the Frescoes in the Houses 
of Parliament, 744. 


L. 


Laticiferous Tissue, 112. 

Lamy, M., on the Manufacture of Iron, 
492. 

Language, the Science of (Review), 715, 

LANKESTER, Mr. E. R., on the Anatomy 
of the Earthworm, 751. 

Lantern for Night Pictures, 352. 

Larter and Curisty, MM., on Pre- 
historic Human Remains, 578. 

Larynx of Negro, 750. 

LasseELL, Mr., Planetary Nebula in 
Aquarius, 107. 

Lawes, Mr., on Value of Common Salt 
as Manure, 310. 

Lea, Isaac, Observations on the Genus 
Unio, &e., 570. 

Leaden Pipes, Preservation of Water 
from Contamination by, 118. 

Leases, Influence of, on Agricultural 
Progress, 98. 

Leaves, Respiration of, 114. 

Lenz, General Von, on Gun-cotton, 
118. 

Lens, Photographie, 
Government, 156. 
Lenses, Grinding and Polishing of, 155. 

Rock Crystal, 156. 

— to increase Intensity of Solar 
Rays, 499. 

Leontodon, Milk Vessels of, 319. 

Lesrisoupots, M., on Laticiferous Tis- 
sue, 112. 

Leucie Acid, 289. 

Lewis, Dr. F. W., New Species of 
Diatomacee, 454. 

Lizperkunn, M. N., on Changes oceur- 
ring in Sponges after Death, 684. 
Light and Heat, Relations of, to the 

Vital Forces of Plants, 76. 
Lighthouse Illumination by Magneto- 
electricity, 70. 
Lightning, Spectrum of, 343. 
Lithium in the Bath Waters, 746. 
Liverpool Observatory, Work at, 446. 
Longitude, New Method of deter- 
mining, at Sea, 449. 
Low, Grorer, Improved Machinery 
for Boring Rocks, 582. 


for Melbourne 


1864. | 


Lunar Craters, 397. 

Scenery, 399. 

Lungs, Arteries of the, 752. 

LyeE..L, Sir CHartes: Address, as Pre- 
sident of the British Association, 
7/830). 


M. 
Machinery for Boring Rocks, Improved, 
582 


Madagascar, the Colossal Bird of, 572. 

the Butterflies of, 648. 

the Mammals of, 213. 

Madder, East Indian, 299. 

Separation of Colouring Matters 
from, 673. 

Madeira, Geology of, 677. 

Magnesium Lightin Photography, 353. 

Photometric Value of the, 344. 

Magnetic Observations at Point Barrow 
and Port Kennedy, 300. 

Magneto-Electric Light Apparatus, 72. 

Expense of, 75. 

— History of, 70. 

— Merits and Demerits of, 73. 

Maagnts, Constitution of the Sun, 447. 

Maine, Geological Survey of, 125. 

Mattet, R., C.E., F.R.S., on Earth- 
quakes, 53. 

Malt as Cattle Food, 390. 

Man's Place in Nature, 511. 

Manufacture of Armour Plates, 153. 

Manures, Artificial, 311. 

Fish and Shale, 124. 

Influence of, on Agricultural Pro- 
gress, 101. 

Martin’s Process for Silvering Glass, 
159. 

Mayer, Dr., on Organic Movement, 
&e., 78. 

Mercurie Methide, 159. 

Menrricr, W., on Effects of Vapour of 
Glonoine, 118. 

Metallic Minerals of Canada, 338. 

Oxides, a New Series of, 116. 

Metals, Conducting Power of, 161. 

—— Optical Properties of, 342. 

— Produce of, in Spain, 149. 

—— Photographing the Structure of, 
756. 

Metamorphic Rocks, Chemical 
Mineralogical Relations of, 121. 

Meteor, the Great, of 1863, 190. 

Meteorites, 661. 

Metallic, 747. 

Composition of, 339. 

Meteorological Observations at Cal- 
cutta, 714. 

Microscopes, Binocular, 133. 


and 


Index. 


773 


Microscopes, Cheap, Improved, 131. 

Milk, Adulterations of, 272. 

—— and Dairy Arrangements, 267. 

—— Circumstances affecting Quantity 
and Quality of, 274. 

Composition of, 268. 

— Microscopic Examination of, 269. 

Miter, Dr., on the Spectra of some of 
the Heavenly Bodies, 741. 

an the Wheal Clifford Hot Spring, 
744. 

Mills and Millwork, by W. Fairbairn, 
194. 

Miine-Epwarps, M.A., Distribution of 
Fossil Birds, 476. 

Mineral Lodes, 148. 

Statistics of, 1863, 686. 

— France, 149. 

— Prussia, 149. 

Mineralogy, Works on, 149. 

Minerals, Diminution of Density efter 
Heating, 698. : 

Produce of, in Spain, 149. 

in United Kingdom, 137. 

Miners, Duty of Instructing, 687. 

Mining, &c., Literature of, 337. 

—— Machines, 334. 

Operations, Number of Persons 

engaged in, 337. 

Report, 486. 

Mistletoe in Herefordshire, 706. 

Moa, Remains of the, 357. 

Moors, Mr. C., on Fossils in Clay near 
Frome, 748. 

Molecular Mobility of Gases, 320. 

Mollusea, Tunicated, Morphology of, 
360. 

Mont Cenis Tunnel, 334. 

Moon, on Certain Depressions on West- 
ern Limb of, 283. 

on the Physical Aspects of the 
Surface of, 395. 

Morfa Colliery, Explosion in, 140. 

Moray, M., on Ozone, 116. 

Morren, M., des Phénoménes Lumi- 
neux, &c., 379. 

Monion, J. C., Malt as Cattle Food, 
390. 

Moth, an Qvoviviparous, 358. 

Mu Medicinal, of Island of Ischia, 
746. 

Mttier, Max, Lectures on the Science 
of Language (Review), 715. 

Munjeet, Chemistry of, 299. 

Muscular Lritability, 752. 


N. 


Nasmytu, James, on the Physical 
Aspects of the Moon’s Surface, 395. 


(74 


Natural History and Ethnology, Recent 
Contributions to, in France, 575. 

Neanderthal, the Reputed Fossil Man 
of, 88. 

Skull, 758, 252. 

— Additional Notes on, 758. 

compared with that of the Chim- 

panzee, 96. 

Description of, 90. 

Huxley and Blake on, 92. 

Nebulew, Catalogue of, 107. 

Negro’s Place in Nature, 511. 

Negro, Larynx of, 750. 


Nemataphores in the Plumularian Zoo- _ 


phytes, 360. 

New Fixing Agent, 156. 

New Zealand Alps, 470. 

Newton, Mr. A., on Discovery of 
Mummy of Great Auk, 306. 

Nickies, M., on Wasium, 115-152. 

Nile, Changes in the Valley of, 293. 

Discovery, 469, 

Nitrogen, best Form in which it can be 
supplied as Manure, 288. 

Nova Scotia, Flora of Carboniferous 
Epoch of, 732. 

Nounvexy, Tuomas, on the History and 
Uses of the Ophthalmoscope, 422. 

Nores AND CORRESPONDENCE :— 

On the Highest Magnifying Power 
of the Microscope yet employed. 
By Lionel S. Beale, F.B.S., 
205. 

Scientific Education and Natural- 
History Science in the Kingdom 
of Italy. From D. T. Ansted, 
E.R.S., 206. 

Dahomey: Its People and Customs. 
By Jules Gérard, 209. 

List of the Gold Medallists of the 
United Kingdom, in connection 
with the Department of Science 
and Art, South Kensington, 211. 

Silvered Glass Telescopes, and Ce- 
lestial Photography in America, 
From Henry Draper, M.D., 381. 

The Brazilian Coal Fields. By 
Edward Hull, B.A., ¥.G.S., 387. 

Linseed and Malt as Cattle Food. 
J. Chalmers Morton, 390. 

A new Method of Nature Printing 
from Steel. Illustrated. H. C. 
Sorby, F.RS., 392. 

Recent Contributions’ to Natural 
History and Hthnology in France. 
1. Pasteur on Ferments; 2. 
Tremaux on the White and 
Black Races in Africa ; 3. Lartet 
and Christy on Pre-historic Hu- 
man Remains. By Th. Lacaze 


Rr 


Duthiers, 575. 


Index. 


[Oct., 


NoTEs AND CORRESPONDENCE, cont.— 
Improved Machinery for Boring 
Rocks. By George Low, 582. 
Additional Note on the Neander- 
thal Skull. By William Turner, 

M.B., 758. 

On the Septa and Siphuncles of 
Cephalopod Shells. By Harry 
Seeley, F.G.S., 760. 

On the Existence of the Reindeer 
and Aurochs in France during 
the Historic Period. By Rey. 
C. W. Kett, 762. 

The Gold Medallists of the Science 
Examinations (May, 1864), and 
Science Instruction by the State, 
763. 


O. 


Observations on the Variable Star 7 
Argus, 285. 

Oceanic Telegraphy, 36. 

Opuine, W., M.B., on the Proportional 
Numbers of the Elements, 642. 

Tables of Chemical Formula, &e. 
(Review), 380. 

—— Address as President of Section 
B, 742. 

Olivine in Meteorites, 747. 

Ophthalmoscope, History and Uses of, 
422. 

Optical Properties of Metals, 342. 

Orchids, Fertilization of, 110, 111. 

Ordnance Survey of Great Britain and 

Treland, 472. 
Organisms, on the Source of Living, 
598. 

ORIGINAL ARTICLES : 
Introduction.—Scientifie Survey, 1 
The Coal Resources of Great Bri- 

tain. By Edward Hull, B.A., 
E.GS., 24. 

Oceanic 'Telegraphy :— 

I. The Atlantic Deep-Sea Bed 
and its Denizens. By Dr. 
G. C. Wallich, F.L.S., 36. 

II. The Atlantie Cable and its 
Teachings. By William 
Crookes, F.R.S., 44. 

The late Earthquake, and Earth- 
quakes generally. By Robert 
Mallet, C.K, F.R.S., 53. 

Lighthouse Illumination by Mag- 
neto-Electricity. By Dr. J. H. 
Gladstone, F.R.S., 70. 

The Conservation of Force applied 
to Physiology. In Two Parts. 
By Dr. W. B. Carpenter, F.R.S. 
Part I. The Relations of Light 


1864. | 


ORIGINAL ARTICLES, cont.— 
and Heat to the Vital Forces of 
Plants, 76. 

The Reputed Fossil Man of Nean- 
derthal. By Professor William 
King, 88. 

The Mammals of Madagasear. By 
Dr. Sclater, 213. 

The Solar Spots. By Sir J. F. W. 
Herschel, Bart., &c., 219. 

Steam Navigation: Its Rise, Pro- 
gress, and Prospects. By Martin 
Samuelson, M.1.C.E., 235. 

The Fossil Skull Controversy : 
Human Crania allied in Anato- 
mical Characters to the Engis 
and Neanderthal Skulls. By 
William Turner, M.B., 250. 

The Conservation of Force applied 
to Physiology. Part II. (con- 
clusion). The Relation of Light 
and Heat to the Vital Forces of 
Animals. By W. B. Carpenter, 
M.D. BRS 259. 

On Milk, and Dairy Arrangements. 
By Dr. Aug. Voelcker, 267. 

On the Physical Aspects of the 
Moon’s Surface. By James 
Nasmyth, 395. 

On Gun-Cotton, By John Scott 
Russell, C.E., F.R.S., 401. 

On Brackish-Water Fossils of 
Crete : being Illustrations of the 
Characters of Fluviatile, Lacus- 
trine, and Estuarine Formations. 
By H. M. Jenkins, F.G.S., 
413. 

On the History and Uses of the 
Ophthalmoseope. By TT. Nun- 
neley, F.R.C.S.E., &c., 422. 

Acclimatization. | By Cuthbert 
Collingwood, M.A., M.B. Oxon., 
E.L.S., 427. 

Copper Mining in Tuscany. Ac- 
count of the Copper Vein occur- 
ring in Tertiary Volcanic Rock 
worked at the Mine of Monte 
Catini, in Tuscany. By D. T. 
Ansted, F.R.S., 433 

On Radiant Light and Heat. By 
Balfour Stewart, M.A., F.R.S., 
589. 

On the Source of Living Organisms. 
By James Samuelson, Hditor, 
598. 

On the Formation of Coral. By 
Professor Th. Lacaze Duthiers, 
614. 

On the Construction and Mechani- 
cal Properties of Submarine 
Telegraph Cables. By William 


Index. 


775 


OricinaL ARTICLES, cont.— 
Fairbairn, C.E., LL.D., F.R.S., 
624, 

On the Proportional Numbers of 
the Elements. By Dr, William 
Odling, F.R.S., 642. 

On the Butterflies of Madagascar. 
By Roland Trimen, Cape Town, 
Memb. Ent. Soc. Lond., 648. 

Orion, Drawings of the Nebula of, 664. 

Ornithology of Palestine, 750. 

Owen, Professor, on the Archeopteryx 
Macrorus, 127. 

-—— the Power of God in His Animal 
Creation (Review), 374. 

Memoir on the Cavern of Bruni- 
quel, 676. 

Owl-Parrot, Habits of the, 357. 

Oxygen, Determination of, in Refined 
Copper, 289. 

Oyster, Natural History of, 751. 

Ozone and Antozone, 670. 

Effects of, on Germination and 
Vegetation, 523. 

— Formed by Evaporation, 116. 

In the Blood, 509. 

Ozonized Air, Effects of Respiring, 508. 


Vee 


Paleozoic Strata, Breaks in the Suc- 
cession of, 290. 

Paucrave, Mr., Journey through Arabia, 
466. 

Papilionide, Malayan, 513. 

Paraffin Oil, 746. 

Parallel Road of Glen Roy, Origin of, 
292. 

Parthenogenesis of Bees, 514. 

Parysite, Analysis of, 691. 

Pasteur, M., on the Origin of Fer- 
ments, 575, 603. 

Pau, Dr., on Paraftin Oil, 746. 

Pear, Variability of the, 453. 

Peioponnesus, Geology and Palzeonto- 
logy of Western Coast of, 329. 

PENGELLY, Mr., on Joints in the De- 
vonian Limestone, 707. 

Percy, Dr. J., on Metallurgy, 525. 

Permian Rocks of the North-west of 
England, 481. 

Persian Gulf Cable, 52. 

Prruerticr, Mr., Nile Discovery, 469. 

Petroleum, American, 521. 

Canadian, 339. 

Puruiies, Professor, on a Cranium of 
the Stone Period, 746. 

on the Physical Aspect of the 

Sun, 741. 


776 


Purpson, Dr., on Black Stones which 
fell at Birmingham, 746. 

on the Medicinal Muds of Ischia, 
746. 

Phosphates, New Method of analyzing 
Mineral, 672. 

Phosphorus, Best Form in which it can 
be supplied as Manure, 288. 

Photographic Prints, Method of Wash- 
ing, 353. 

Photographs, Wedgwood’s supposed,154. 

Photography, Celestial, 156. 

—— in America, 381. 

—— Ophthalmoscopic, 559. 

Photometric Liquid, 344. 

Photosculpture, 741. 

Pictrt, Professor, Exchange of Heat, 
595. 

Picton, J. A., Philological Papers (Re- 
view), 715. 

Planetary Nebula in Aquarius, 107. 

Planets, New Minor, 106. 

Plants, Contents of Vessels of, 452. 

used for Poisoning Food in India, 


669. 

Platygaster, its Mode of Laying Eggs, 
309. 

Puvucker and Hrrrorr, MM., Spectra 
of Gases and Vapours, 497. 

Purves, M., Rambles in Search of Wild 
Flowers, &¢c. (Review), 728. 

Poison Bottles, 323. 

Pollux, Analysis of, 457. 

Poucuet, Dr., on Non-existence of In- 
fusorial Ova in the Air, 602. 

PouMAREDE, M., on the Reduction of 
Silver Ores, 693. 

PowELL, Mr. G. B., Notes on the Binary 
Star q@ Centauri, 663. 

PowreLt and Leauanp’s 1-25 Object 
Glass, 132. 

Prestwicu, Mr., on Quaternary Flint 
Implements of Abbeville, &c., 305. 
Prizes offered by French Academy, 

Bulge Bia 
offered by Royal Horticultural 
Society, 317. 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE METROPOLITAN 
SocreTrIEs :— 
The Royal Astronomical Society, 
280, 449, 661. 
The Chemical Society, 287, 461, 
673. 
The Geographical Society, 466. 
The Geological Society, 290, 479. 
The Microscopical Society, 296, 
484, 
The Royal Society, 299. 
The Royal Institution of Great 
Britain, 303. 
The Zoological Society, 306, 517. 


Index. 


| Oct., 


Prussia, Mineral Produce of, 149. 

Puddling Process, Machinery for, 493, 
496. 

Pulverizing Machine, 340. & 

Purus, on the River, 755. 

Pyrometer, Electric, 160. 


Q. 


Quadrumana, Anatomy of, 750. 
Queensland, 468. 
Quinine, a Substitute for, 323. 


R. 


Radiant Light and Heat, on, 589. 

Relation of, to Aqueous Vapour, 
UA) 

Rags, Protozoa in Dust from, 611. 

Ramsny, Professor, Anniversary Ad- 
dress to Geological Society, 479. 

on Breaks in the Succession of the 
British Paleozoic Strata, 290. 

RANDELL, Mr., on Bath Building Stones, 
748. 

Recent Astronomical Works, 109. 

Refraction, Indices of Twelve Rays of 
Solar Spectrum for Distilled Water, 
343. 

Reicu and RicatTer on Indium, 115. 

Reindeer, on the Existence of, in France 
during the Historic Period, 762. 

Relations of Light and Heat to the 
Vital Forces of. Plants, 76. 

Report of Maine Board of Agriculture, 
124. 


of Medical Officer of Privy Coun- 
cil for 1863, 163. 
on Natural History Department 
of British Museum, 170. 
Retinz of Amphibia and Reptiles, 300. 
Revscu, Professor, on Physical Proper- 
ties of Ice, 348. 
REVIEWS :— 
The Birds of India, 176. 
Natural History of the Amazons, 
181. 
The Great Meteor of 1863, 190. 
Mills and Millwork, 194. 
Local Floras, 200. 
The Story of the Guns, 362. 
The Industrial Resources of the 
North Country, 368. 
Fresenius’ Chemical Analysis, 371. 
The Power of God in His Animal 
Creation, 374. 
On the Negro’s Place in Nature, 
376, 
Programme de la Societe Batave 


1864. 


RevIEws, cont.— 
de Philosophie Expérimentale de 
Rotterdam, 377. 
s Spectrum Analysis, 379. 
Chemical Formule, 380. 
Metallurgy, 525. 
Comparative Anatomy and Classi- 
fication, 534. 
Atheism and Science, 545. 
The Microscope, 555. 
The Ophthalmoscope and Ophthal- 
moscopic Photography, 559, 
Elementary Chemistry, 561. 
Botanist’s Guides, 567. 
British and American Conchology, 
Sy, 
The Colossal Bird of Madagascar, 
572. 
Spectrum Analysis, 573. 
The Science of Language, 715. 
A History of the Spiders of Great 
Britain and Ireland, 725. 
Popular Works on Botany, 728. 
On Vitality, 729. 
Natural History in Jena, 731. 
The Flora of the Carboniferous 
Epoch of Nova Scotia, 732. 
Riptey and Jones’ Coal-cutting Ma- 
chine, 144. 
Rosrn, Dr. C., on the Development of 
the Spinal Column, 683. 
Rock Crystal Lenses, 156. 
Salt at Middlesbro-on-Tees, 150. 
Romsberc, M., Elements of New Comets, 
106. 
Roscor, Dr., on Constituents of Bath 
Waters, 746. 
Rost. H., on a New Series of Metallic 
Oxides, 116. 
Rosesureu, Dr. A. M., a New Ophthal- 
moscope, &e., 559. 
Rotation of Crops, 102. 
Rovx, M., on Water of Dead Sea, 117. 
RvssELL, JoHN Scorr, on Gun Cotton, 
&e., 401. 


S. 


Salmonide, 751. 

Salt, Value of, as Manure, 310. 

Salt Water Crustacean in Fresh Water, 
Olas 

Satter, Mr., on the Pebble-bed of 
Budleigh Salterton, 674. 

SAMUELSON, JAMES, on the Source of 
Living Organisms, 598. 

Martin, Steam Navigation, &c., 
Zao. 

Sand Grouse, the, 701. 

Sanpers, Mr., on the Bristol Coal-fields, 
747. 


Index. 


777 


Saponification, New Processes for, 672, 
673. , 
Sarcolemma, {Structure of, in Insects, 

485. 

Savory, Mr., on Dreaming, &c., 305. 

Science in Asia, 710. 

in the Provinces, 705. 

Scientific Expeditions, 361. 

Scuwanrz, Dr., on Preservation of Water 
from Contamination by Leaden Pipes, 
118. 

Scumipt, M., New Minor Planet, 106. 

Scuarer, Dr., The Mammals of Mada- 
gascar, 213. 

Scorespy-Jackson, Dr. R. E., on the 
Influence of Weather on Disease and 
Mortality, 506. 

Sections of Lead-bearing Rocks of 
Swaledale, 147. 

Seeds, Selection of, 313. 

SeeLey, Harry, on the Septa and 
Siphuncles of Cephalopod Shells, 760. 

Seismic Vertical, the, 66. 

Seismoscope, the, 65. 

SeLwyn, Captain, on Submarine Tele- 
graphy, 797, 

Separation of Heat from Light Rays, 
503. 

Sexes, Temperature of the, 753. 

Sextant Observations, Importance of 
Corrections for Refraction, 451. 

Short Horns, History of, 439, 

Sidereal Astronomy, 444. 

Silico-tungstic Acids, 458. 

Silkworms, Diseases of, 515. 

Silver, Behaviour of Chloride, Bromide, 
and Iodide of, 155. 

Todide, Modifications of, 351. 

— in Water of Dead Sea, 671. 

—— Separation from Lead, 152. 

—— Soap, Use of, in Photolithography, 
354. 

Silvering Glass, Martin’s Process for, 
159. 

Sirius, Observations on the 
discovered Satellite of, 661. 

SmirH, Dr. E., Address as President of 
Sub-section D, 751. 

on the Nutritive Principles of Food, 

754. 

Solar Envelopes, 447-448. 

Photometry, 108. 

Radiation, 498. 

Influence of, on Plants, 3438. 

—— Spectrum, 342. 

— Spots, 219. 

—— —— Connection with Terrestrial 
Magnetism, 228. 

—— —— Forms of, 223. 

Periodicity in Appearance 


Newly- 


of, 226. 


778 Index. | Oct., 


Solar Spots, Telescopic Appearance 
of, 222. 

Surface, Appearances of, 662. ~ 

Sorsy, Mr. H. C., on Metallic Meteor- 
ites. 747. 

Microscopic Examination of Rocks, 

691. 

on Photographing the Structure of 

Metals, 756. 

Structure of Blister Steel, 392. 

Spain, Minerals, Statistics of, 149. 

Spectra of certain Fixed Stars and 
Planets, 695. 

— of Chemical Elements, 342. 

—— of Gases and Vapours, 497. 

— of Heated Vapours, 593. 

of Heavenly Bodies, 741. 

Spectral Lines, Wave Lengths of, 158. 

Spectroscope, Cooke’s, 158. 

Spectrum Analysis, 379, 573. 

Explanation of the, 591. 

— of Blood, 500. 

— of Electric Light, 161. 

— of Lightning, 363. 

— of Phosphorus, 116. 

—— Solar, Telluric Rays in, 157. 

Spence, Mr., on Copper Smelting, 745. 

Spheeraphides, 113. 

Spider, Mimetic Resemblance to a 
Flower, 703. 

Spiders of Great Britain and Ireland, 
the, 725. 

Carpet produced by, 516. 

Spinal Cord, Photographs of, 685. 

Sponges, Bleaching of, 323. 

Spontaneous Generation, 704. 

Ignition of Iron in Oxygen, 348. 

Spring, Hot, Wheal Clifford, 744. 

Spruce, Mr, on the River Purus, 755. 

Stars, Causes of Scintillations of, 157. 

Spectra. of certain Fixed, 695, 


741. 

Steam Boilers, Mode of Preventing Ex- 
plosions of, 699, 

Cultivation, Value of, 309. 

—— Navigation, History.of, 237. 

its Rise, Progress, and Prospects, 

235. 

Power, New Plan of applying, for 
Agricultural Purposes, 658. 

Steamers, Comparative Dimensions of 
the Largest, 246. 

Steel Tubes, 341. 

Stellar Parallax, 108. 

SrenuouseE, Dr., on Munjeet, 299. 

Stereoscope, Swan’s, 159. 

Stewart, Baurour, M.A., on Radiant 
Light and Heat, 589. 

Stock, Improved Production of, 102. 

Stoppart, Mr. W., on a highly Fossili- 
ferous Limestone, 748. 


Sroxres, Professor, on the Discrimination 
of Organic Bodies by means of their 
Optical Properties, 696. 

on Chlorophyll, 301. ,. 

Stones, Black, which fell at Birming- 
ham, Analysis of, 746. 

Stratification of Electric Discharges, 
Picture of, 505. 

Strontium in the Bath Waters, 746. 

Struthious Birds, Systematic Relations 
of the, 357. 

Sruper, M., on Origin of Swiss Lakes, 
330. 

Submarine Telegraph Cables, the Con- 
struction of, &e., 624. 

Substitution Compounds, 288. 

Sugar and Fat, Relative Values of, as 
Food, 753. 

Sulphate of Lime, Action of, in Soils, 
ADS: 

Sulphur, Determination of, 322. 

Heonomizing, 745. 

Sulphuric Acid, Purification of, 322. 

Sun, Arrangements for Viewing the, 


— Constitution of, 447. 

—— Difference in Luminosity between 
the Centre and Edge of, 694. 

— Distance of, from the Earth, 105. 

—— Physical Aspect of the, 741. 

—— Photographs of the, 665. 

—— Photosphere of, 450. 

—— Period of Rotation, 230. 

Ring of Nebulous Matter round 
the, 449. 

-— Telescopic Appearance of Exter- 
nal Envelope and Spots of, 280. 

Spots, Connection with Terrestrial 
Magnetism, 299 

Swiss Lakes, Origin of, 330. 


i 


Telegraph, Oceanic, 36. 

Submarine, 757. 

Telescopes, Silvered Glass, 381. 

Telluric Rays in Solar Spectrum, 157. 

TrmpPreL, M., New Telescopic Comet, 
106. 

TENNENT, Sir J. H., The Story of the 
Guns (Review), 362. 

Thallassophryne Reticulata, on the 
Poison Apparatus of, 518. 

Thallium in Pyrolusite, 688. 

New Sources of, 458. 

Thermometer, Joule’s, 160. 

Thistles, Fertilization of, 111. 

Tuupicuum, Dr., on Pigmentary Mat- 
ters in Urine, 288. 

Tin, a New Ore of, 745. 


1864.] 


Tinea Vivipara, Larvee of, 358. 

Torquay Natural History Society, 707. 

Tremavx, M., on the White and Black 
Races of Africa, 577. 

Tresca and LasovuLaysk, on the Deter- 
mination of the Mechanical Equiva- 
lent of Heat, 346. 

Trichina Spiralis in Worms, 516, 

Troy, Ronanp, on the Butterflies of 
Madagascar, 648. 

Tristram, Rev. H. B., on the Geology 
of Palestine, 748. 

‘on the Ornithology of Palestine, 
&e., 750. 

Tungsten Steel. 693. 

Turner, W., M.B, the Fossil Skull 
Controversy, 250. 

Additional Notes on the Neander- 

thal Skull, 758. 

on a Supplementary System of 
Nutrient Arteries for the Lungs, 752. 

Tuscany, Copper Mining in, 433. 

Tyneside Naturalists’ Field Club, 
Transactions of, 705. 

Typhus Fever, Causes of, 169. 


wy: 


Unio, Observations on the Genus (Re- 
view), 570. 

Upas-tree, Poison of, 319. 

Urine, Pigment Matters of, 288. 


V. 


Vanadium in Pig-iron, 321. 

Vancouver’s Island and British Colum- 
bia, 467. 

Vascular Tissue, Functions of, 112. 

Variable Stars, 108. 

Venus, Stations for Observing the 
Transit of, December 6, 1882, 664. 

Vital Activity, What it is, 79. 

Forces of Plants, Relations of Light 
and Heat to, 76. 

Vivisection, 356. 

Vorncker, Dr. A., on Milk, and Dairy 
Arrangements, 267. 


Index. 779 


W. 


WaALLAcg, Mr., on Mineral Lodes, 148. 

—— Mr. A. R., on Birds of Timor, 
Flores and Lombock, 307. 

on the Phenomena of Variation 
and Geographical Distribution of Ma- 
layan Papilionide, 513. 

Wauttcu, Dr. G. C., the Deep-sea Bed 
of the Atlantic and its Inhabitants, 
36. 

Wasium, 115, 152. 

Water, on Boiling, 303. 

Destructive Energy of Hot, 160. 

— Roots, 320. 

Watson, Mr., New Minor Planet, 106. 

Wave Lengths of Spectrum Rays, 502. 

Weather, Influence of, on Disease and 
Mortality, 506. 

Wertssz, Dr. F. T., on the Development 
of the Eggs of Floscularia Ormata, 
685. 

West Indian Islands, Geology of, 294. 

Wheal Clifford Hot Spring, 744. 

Wutams, Mr. J., on Eclipses recorded 
in an Ancient Chinese Historical 
Work, 286. i‘ 

Wuson, Mr. J. F., on the Desiccation 
of the Interior of Southern Africa, 
756, 

Wines, Test for Artificially Coloured, 
S2a: 

Woopwakrp, Mr. 8S. P., on the Bridling- 
ton Crag, 674. 

Woolhope Naturalists’ Field Club, 706. 

Wrought-iron, Change of Form in, when 
Heated, and Cooled by Partial Im- 
mersion in Water, 153. 

Wrought-iron Girders, Effects of Long 
Continued Change of Load on, 302. 


Z. 


Zircon, Density of, 339. 
Zoea, Forms of Prawns and Stomapoda, 
172. 


( 780. ) [Oct., 


LIST OF PLATES IN VOLUME I. 


Map of the Coal-bearing Tracts of Great Britain. By Ed. Hull. Facing page 25 
Group of Calcareous and Siliceous Organisms from the Deep Sea Bed. By 


G. C. Wallich . : : : 3 42 
(1) The Reputed Fossil Man ‘of Neanderthal. By He Ae King : : 5 OH 
(2) The Reputed Fossil Man of Neanderthal - ‘ . Sez: 
The Ardsley Company’s Coal-cutting Machine. 2 - . 148 
Bradley’s Section of Strata, showing “ Ore- qe roducing, Beds” : : . 147 
The Mammals of Madagascar. By Wolf . : : : aeeailes 
Sclar Spots. By Sir John F.W. Herschel. - 224 
The ‘ Great Eastern, ‘ Persia,’ ‘Great Britain,’ and * Great Westerns By 

J. Humphreys and H. Adlard. © . 246 
Recent Crania allied to the Engis and Neanderthal Skulls. By Dr. Wm. 

Turner. 258 
A Group of Lunar Craters south-east of Ty cho. By James ‘Nasmyth . - 3895 
The Explosive Effects of the First Charge of English-made Gun-cotton. 

By John Scott Russell. ; 412 
The Brackish-water Fossils of Crete and Cerigo. By H. M. Jenkins . 421 
Contents of a Drop of pure Distilled Water, after 14 days’ Hep to the 

Atmosphere (coloured). By James Samuelson, Editor . ; 613 


LIST OF WOODCUTS, &., IN VOLUME I. 


PAGE 
Section of the Forest of Dean Coal-basin . : : : . : 2D 
Section of the Yorkshire Coal-field 6 : 5 : c : : 5 ada 
Section of the Western Coal Group : : : : : : 5 | Ae) 
Plant Cells undergoing Duplicative Sub- division . : . 80 
Flattened Pebbles in a Conglomerate Bed in Washington County . ? . 125 
Ross’s Binocular Microseope : : : : ‘ : : : ‘ . 133 
Parkes’s Microscope ; : : , ‘ , : : : . 134 
Collins's Binocular Microscope 3 : : : : : : Bp als} 
Ridley and Jones’ s Coal-cutting Machine : : : ; . jae 
Ridley and Jones’s Coal- cutting Machine ; detailed parts. Two Figures . 145 
Rodderup Fell Vein 3 148 
Appearance of the Meteor of 1863 passing the Window of Munster Cathedral 192 
Bier pecon lea Appearance of Healthy Milk . : : 270 
The same: largely diluted with Water . : : : ; ‘ : Spa ae: 
Milk with Pus : é : ‘ : : : : 2 2rd 
Milk with Blood. : : ‘ . : 5 : < : . da: 
Vessel for Strainng Milk. : : : : : : . 278 
Depressions on the Moon’s Western Limb. : : ; : : . 283 
Green’s Boring Machines. Six Figures. 0 335 
Outline of the Interior of the Observatory at Hastings- ~upon-Hudson, near 
New York ¢ 383 
Portion of Escarpment, showing the Outerop of the Coal Seams along the 
border of the Candiota Coal-field (Brazil) . ; : : - 1389 
Fac-simile of the Surface of Blister-steel, nature-printed > : : . 392 
Structure of a Lunar Volcanic Crater, with Central Cone. < 5 . 397 
Section of the Same : 398 
Section of a Lunar Crater, showing the Formation of the Outer Circular 
Wall =. ; : . 03 


Section of a TES Crater, showing Formation of Inner Cone ; ; . @. 


1864. | List of Woodcuts. 


Section across the Valley of Xanthus 
Puddling Machine . : : 
The same, in Section 


Appearances of Casemate No.2, at Fort Hindman (U. S.A. )p before and 


after being under fire of Ironclad ‘Lexington.’ Two Figures 


Carved Handles of D: aggers found by Lartet and Christy in the Cavern of 


Perigord. Two Figures . 
Carving of Aurochs on Dagger. Same source : : 
Low’s Machine for boring Tunnels, Adits, &e. Two Figures 
The same: Section of the Boring Tool . : ; 
Low’s Machine for Quarrying 
Low’s Machine for Sinking Perpendicular Shafts . 
Elevation and Ground ‘Plan of Glass Prism. Two Cuts 
Solar Spectrum, after Kirchoff ; : : 
Solar Spectrum, after Gassiot 


Pictet’s Apparatus (exhibiting the Principle. of Thermal Exchanges) . 


“Cercomonas fusiformis,”’ found by Balbiani in infusions 
The same form, after Dujardin 


Different stages of Cercomonas fusiformis found in Distilled Water by 


Samuelson. 
Amceba (Gleichenii ?). “From Dr. Balbiani’s infusions 
The same, after Dujardin 


Ameceba Balbianii (Three Fi ures) £ found by Samuelson i in Distilled Water 
Various stages of Vibrio found by Samuelson in Dust from Eg ayuane Rags. 


Formation of Vermiform Larvee of Coral ( ‘after Duthiers) 
Larvee or Embryos of Coral, of natural size . ‘ 
The same, Magnified 

Dise resulting from the Metamorphosis of the Larve 


Young Polype (of Coral), with Tentacles already provided w with Processes 


Young Polype (of Coral), commencing to throw out Buds 
A Colony of Young Polypes (of Coral), showing the aed 
Spicule from Cortical Stirface of Coral. 


Part of a Branch of Coral, magnified and prepared so as to show the Poly p- 


stem 


Cylinder for Testing the Absorptive Properties of Substances used in Coating 


Telegraph Wires (Fairbairn) . 
Apparatus employed for the same purpose 


Similar Apparatus, furnished with Water-bath for Experimenting under 


High Temperature . 


Apparatus for Testing the Insulating Power of Telegraph « Cores.” 


Cuts 
“Core” subjected to Pressure in the Apparatus : 
Box containing “Core” undergoing the Insulating Test 
Portion of the . Atlantie Cable of 18 58. Two Cates 
Portion of the Atlantic Cable of 1864-5. Two Cuts . 
British Skull contrasted with the Fossil Skull of Ni eanderthal 
Cast of Interior of the above British Skull 


END OF VOL, I, 


VOL. I. 


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