55* 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



with which all the other marvels re- 

 corded are the merest commonplace. 

 The gifted narrator tells us how, short- 

 ly after the sun had sunk in the west, 

 there came a glow in the east, and 

 presently " the crescent moon peeps 

 above the plain and shoots its gleam- 

 ing arrows far and wide. 1 ' What do 

 our astronomers say to this — the cres- 

 cent moon rising in the east shortly 

 after sunset? It won't do, Mr. H. Ri- 

 der Haggard ! "We will believe your ele- 

 phant stories, if you like, follow you into 

 ghostly caves, and accept with a reason- 

 able discount what else you tell us that 

 is remarkable; but we don't believe 

 that in South Africa, or anywhere else 

 on this planet, the crescent moon rises 

 in the east shortly after sunset. It can't 

 be done as the solar system is arranged, 

 and you should have left that out. 

 Speaking seriously, it does seem extra- 

 ordinary that a man who all his life has 

 seen the crescent moon setting in the 

 west shortly after the sun, should, even 

 for a moment, imagine that he could 

 see it rising in the east at the same 

 time of day. Tom Hood has described 

 a somewhat similar case for us in his 

 " Love and Lunacy," where " Ellen " 

 drives her astronomer-lover distracted 

 by announcing that the moon is at the 

 full, and that she is thinking of him ; 

 the fact being that the moon had been 

 full just three weeks before, and that 

 the object she took for the full moon 

 was "the new illuminated clock." Of 

 poor " Ellen " Hood tells us that — 



" As often happens when girls leave their 

 college, 

 She had done nothing but grow out of 

 knowledge." 



But here we have the same thing over 

 again fifty years later, and on the part 

 of a really clever writer; the only dif- 

 ference being, that whereas "Ellen" 

 saw the full moon (or said she did) at 

 a date when it was not to be seen, 

 Mr. Haggard affirms that he saw the 

 "crescent moon " rising about the hour 

 when, if visible at all, it must really 



have been setting. Popular education 

 has been advancing during these fifty 

 years; but it is still, we fear, the ex- 

 ception for people to be taught to 

 interest themselves in even the more 

 important phenomena of the physical 

 world. If it could once be realized to 

 how large an extent the intelligence of 

 the community must depend upon the 

 assimilation of true scientific knowl- 

 edge, and how increasingly important 

 it is becoming from year to year that 

 the public mind should be fortified by 

 intelligence against ill-digested and rev- 

 olutionary theories, we believe a new 

 impetus would be given to scientific in- 

 struction everywhere. We do not wish 

 to make too much of the careless blun- 

 der into which the author of " Solo- 

 mon's Mines" has fallen; but, seeing 

 that such blunders are possible in such a 

 quarter, teachers might well take some 

 special pains to draw attention to the 

 facts in this simple matter. Here, we 

 may say in conclusion, a book like Miss 

 Bowen's " Astronomy by Observation " 

 is an excellent guide. As its title partly 

 indicates, it summons the student to a 

 close personal observation of the move- 

 ments of the heavenly bodies, and thus 

 brings the facts home to him more viv- 

 idly than could be done by any amount 

 of purely theoretical dissertation. 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



History of the Pacific States of North 

 America. By Hubert Howe Bancroft. 

 Vol. XXIV. Oregon, Vol. I. San Fran- 

 cisco: The History Company. Pp. 789. 



The more remote events in Oregon affairs 

 have already been given in the " History of 

 the Northwest Coast." The later volumes, 

 to which this one belongs, deal with events 

 that occurred within the memory of men 

 now living. They have been wrought out 

 from original sources, and contain a large 

 proportion of facts which have never before 

 appeared in print. The author has found it 

 more difficult to treat fully and fairly this 

 comparatively modern epoch, from crude 

 material, than earlier ones which had been 

 worked over by scholars. Of hundreds of 



