HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



233 



aside for her, so she was obliged to make way for 

 them. Early next morning only a few dead ones 

 were visible ; and as they were not seen at Ransby, 

 five or six miles below, it is probable the swarm had 

 swum across the river, and entered the forest on its 

 western side. The lady's husband once saw a swarm 

 of them crossing the river Trysild in Norway j some 

 of them were drowned in the attempt, but a great 

 many got well over and continued their route east- 

 ward back to the mountains from which they had 

 probably descended. Her maid-servant, from Dale- 

 carlia, says they are not so rarely seen in the forests 

 of that province, especially during wet summers ; 

 numbers of them at such times being found there 

 lying dead, having, according to peasant belief, fallen 

 from the mountains along with the heavy rain. 



The first time I saw lemmings in Sweden was in 

 1872, at or near Wemdalen, in the poor but pic- 

 turesque province of Herje&dal, where I was told 

 they are usually found during summer in the valleys, 

 and not unfrequently in numbers sufficient to do 

 much damage to the grass and corn ; but in winter, 

 it was said, they remain on the fjelds. From 

 Wemdalen I crossed Herjeadal in a south-westerly 

 direction, on forest tracks, to Fjaton, the first little 

 hamlet in Dalecarlia ; and all the way I met with 

 lemmings ; seldom more than two or three together, 

 though rather numerous here and there, but never in 

 swarms. Thence I continued on foot my lonely way 

 through forest, and over the broad, elevated heathery 

 and moss-grown basement of Stadjan, a mountain 

 near 4000 feet high, to Idre, the most northerly 

 village, or hamlet, of East Dalecarlia ; finding there 

 that the lemmings had preceded me. They had 

 arrived in the earlier part of the summer, it being 

 now about the middle of August ; and the people 

 said it might be five years since their last previous 

 visit, but could not tell me where they came from ; 

 some, they said, were always to be found on the 

 higher fjelds. In winter they burrow in the ground, 

 and eat grass under the snow. From Idre I drove 

 southwards to Sarna ; and next morning, on taking 

 to my legs and forest tracks again, saw the last of 

 the lemmings — a few dead ones on the forest floor — 

 and henceforth, on this tour, I saw nothing more of 

 them, though I continued to foot it for a week longer, 

 on forest tracks, through a corner of Norway and 

 Norra Finskogen, to Slattne in Wermland. 

 (7<7 be continued.) 



The following is taken from a small "Handbook 

 for Emigrants to Queensland, Australia," published 

 by authority of the Agent General. "Fine tracts of 

 rich herbage exist, as at the Herbert and Diamantina, 

 on the western broad downs. As kangaroos consume 

 much pasture, a recent Act offers eightpence for a 

 kangaroo scalp. One party of hunters killed a 

 thousand in two days." Readers please supply 

 comment according to taste. 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



In last month's "Gossip" the paragraphs on the 

 chemical investigations of Messrs. Dixon & Lowe, 

 and of Mr. Turner, should have followed the para- 

 graph which there follows them, the reference being 

 in each case to the Journal of the Chemical Society. 



An astronomical matter of considerable interest has 

 lately been attracting much attention. On August 

 31, Herr Hartzig announced, from Dorpat Uni- 

 versity, that a bright body had appeared in the great 

 Andromeda nebula. There had been a condensation 

 of the nebulous matter before, but this intensely 

 bright point was new. An anonymous correspondent, 

 who contributed an article on the subject to the 

 " Times," says that this appearance disposes of the 

 theory that this nebula may be a distant galaxy of 

 solar systems, distinct from our own galaxy. The 

 Andromeda nebula was perhaps the one star-cloud 

 which might be supposed to be such a galaxy, but 

 that a star of the eighth magnitude should have 

 appeared in it shows that this nebula is not an 

 exception to the rule, but belongs to our own galaxy. 

 For if the Andromeda galaxy were a galaxy equal 

 in size to our own, it must be at a distance of at 

 least more than a hundred times that of the farthest 

 star in our galaxy ; and to put it briefly, a star at that 

 distance to shine as does this star would have to be 

 30,000 million times larger than our sun, if its 

 surface lustre resembled his ; and even if the 

 existence and sudden development of such a mass 

 be admitted, it would, he says, prevent our believing 

 that the star-cloud could be a galaxy like to the same 

 nature as our own. The brightness of the star has 

 been observed to diminish. 



In his presidential address to the British Associa- 

 tion at Aberdeen, Sir Lyon Playfair reviewed the 

 position of Science, its relation to the State, to 

 Secondary Education, to the Universities, and to 

 Industry. He expects to see a Minister of Educa- 

 tion during the next Parliament, blames the middle 

 classes for what he considers a too great attention to 

 classics, and thinks that under a proper university 

 system teaching and investigation are not incom- 

 patible. He attributes the progress in the arts, 

 independently of science, to three conditions — the 

 substitution of natural forces, as those of fire or 

 water, for brute animal power ; the economy of time 

 or of production, as by machinery ; and the methods 

 of utilising waste products, as in manufacture of ink, 

 dyes, &c. He considers abstract discovery in science 

 to be the true foundation on which modern civilisa- 

 tion is built, and that in this view science should be 

 studied and advanced for its own sake, and not for 

 its applications. 



Professor G. Chrystal, President of the 

 Mathematical and Physical Section, in the course 



