POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



425 



measured three feet, less half an inch, in 

 length, and two feet, less half an inch, in 

 circumference. In June, 1847, the president 

 of the club killed a red-fleshed lake-trout 

 that weighed twenty-four pounds, the largest 

 that was ever taken there by trolling. With- 

 in eidit miles of Lake Piseco is T Lake, 

 whose waters flow down the mountains 

 toward West Canada Creek over a fall of 

 nearly seven hundred feet, into the pool 

 called "Snowstorm's Delight." In mid- 

 summer but little water comes down from 

 the lake, but in spring and fall immense 

 volumes thunder over the height with a roar 

 that is heard at Piseco. Many extravagant 

 statements are current respecting the height 

 of the falls, but the matter has been partly 

 settled by the measurements of Colonel J. 

 T. Watson, of Clinton, New York, made in 

 1876. The swift rapids at the top of the 

 falls are one hundred feet in length ; the 

 sharp pitch three hundred and ninety feet, 

 and the almost perpendicular fall below two 

 hundred feet, giving a total of six hundred 

 and ninety feet. The falls are thirty feet 

 wide at the top and three hundred feet at 

 the bottom. 



The Teleradiophone. M. Mercadier, the 

 French electrician, has ingeniously adapted 

 the photophone to telegraphy. When, in 

 working with the photophone, the ray of 

 light striking upon the selenium receiver is 

 eclipsed many times in a second, a continu- 

 ous hum is produced, and this may be bro- 

 ken up into signals by varying the intervals 

 between the intermissions, so that a kind of 

 Morse alphabet can be played upon the in- 

 strument. An arrangement for producing 

 signals of this kind is attached to the trans- 

 mitting instrument, when the signals are 

 sent along the line to a telephone at the 

 other end. No gain over the ordinary tele- 

 graph is realized by such an arrangement, 

 but, by multiplying the number of transmit- 

 ters at one end and the number of tele- 

 phones at the other end, it can be made to 

 admit of several different messages being 

 sent along the same wire at a time, and of 

 sending messages at once from opposite 

 ends of the wire without confusion. In or- 

 der to give the multiple messages effect, it is 

 only necessary to rotate the eclipsing wheels, 

 which act upon the several selenium re- 



ceivers at different speeds, so as to produce 

 notes of different pitch in the receiving tele- 

 phones, and to fit each resonator so as to 

 enhance a particular note. Then, although 

 the complex current flows through all the 

 telephones in turn, each telephone will only 

 render to the ear of the clerk the particular 

 note for which he listens, and the makes 

 and breaks of that note will be the mes- 



sage. 



Origin of the Astronomical Symbols. 



Every one who consults an almanac is ac- 

 cmainted with the curious figures that ap- 

 pear in its pages as symbols for the planets 

 and for celestial phenomena the only real 

 hieroglyphics which survive in current use 

 to our day but few, probably, have exam- 

 ined into their origin. Modern text-books 

 on astronomy do not condescend to discuss 

 such matters, but the books of the two for- 

 mer centuries gave full explanations on these 

 as well as on some other points, which the 

 school-room science of to-day is too dignified 

 to consider. Such books were Lalande's 

 " Astronomy," in French ; Long's, in Eng- 

 lish ; and Eiccioli's " Almagestum Novum," 

 in Latin. Lalande shows that > the sym- 

 bol of Mercury, is derived from the cadu- 

 cous, the serpent-wreathed mace of the 

 Greek and Roman divinity ; $ is a hand- 

 mirror, the most appropriate symbol of Ve- 

 nus, the goddess of beauty ; $ , a lance, 

 nearly covered by a buckler, which it most 

 became the god of war, whose planet, Mars, 

 it represented, to carry ; If , a capital Greek 

 zeta, the first letter of the name of Zeus, 

 or Jupiter, re-enforced by an intersecting 

 stroke ; "> , the sickle of old Father Time, 

 Chronos, or Saturn; and O and ">, figures 

 of the disk of the sun and of the new moon. 

 Huet gives the same explanation in his 

 notes on Manilius, and Long gives a series 

 of artistically designed pictures of the ob- 

 jects themselves, from which the figures are 

 derived. The symbols for the sun and moon 

 are very ancient. They occur on the Egyp- 

 tian monuments, and are mentioned by Cle- 

 ment of Alexandria in the second century. 

 The others are of comparatively modern 

 date, and are not so old even as the Ara- 

 bian manuscripts. They were invented by 

 the astrologers of the middle ages, and arc 

 said by Humboldt to be not older than of 



