P OP ULAR MIS CELL ANY. 



283 



The object of his paper is to suggest a way 

 in which this waste of resources may be in 

 part remedied, and in which money may be 

 most advantageously employed for the ex- 

 tension of astronomical knowledge. This 

 way is through the establishment of a cen- 

 tral agency to which funds might be sent, to 

 be expended on observatory or other work, 

 so as to attain the best results, independ- 

 ently of all local and personal conditions. 

 No institution appears to be better adapted 

 for such service than Harvard College. It 

 is financially strong ; the management of 

 the funds intrusted to it has been excel- 

 lent ; and its officers know perfectly well 

 what are the requirements of scientific work. 



The Boomerang.— Several German ob- 

 servers have been studying the boomerang 

 for the discovei7 of the secret of its curious 

 course of flight. Dr. H. Landois, of Miin- 

 ster, from intercourse with a group of na- 

 tive Australians who were exhibited there, 

 has found that there are larger and smaller 

 boomerangs. The larger ones are slender 

 crescents, about sixty centimetres long, five 

 and a half centimetres wide, and one cen- 

 timetre thick ; plane on the lower side, 

 convex on the upper side, pointed at either 

 end, and sharpened toward the edges. The 

 lower end is cross-grooved, to aid in hold- 

 ing it. The careful manner in which the 

 savages manipulated the weapon, trying its 

 shape, testing its qualities, and scraping it 

 down, is significant of the importance they 

 attach to its having exactly the right curva- 

 ture. The wood of which the instrument is 

 made is an extraordinarily heavy Australian 

 iron-wood ; and the only tools used in mak- 

 ing it are sharp stones and pieces of glass. 

 The smaller boomerangs are bent at an angle 

 of 45°, but are in other respects conformed to 

 the larger ones. An exhibition of boomerang- 

 throwing revealed a degree of strength in the 

 natives which was in astonishing contrast 

 with the thinness of their forms. They took 

 the weapon in their right hand, with the flat 

 side downward and the concave side for- 

 ward, and with a run and a shout, threw it 

 by a short jerk about one hundred yards up 

 into the air. It flew away in a straight line, 

 then turned to the left, and returned in a 

 curved line back to the thrower, whirling 

 around constantly and whizzing unpleasant- 



ly. The curve which the weapon describes 

 in its return is not a screw- line or a spiral, 

 but is more like a figure 8. The savages 

 seemed able to control their instrument, 

 oven when wind interfered to complicate its 

 course. Once the projectile went astray, 

 and, coming in contact with a gentleman's 

 hat, cut it off as cleanly as a razor would 

 have done. Hcrr Hermann Frocbel, of Wei- 

 mar, who seems to be a manufacturer of 

 toy-boomerangs, as he speaks of having 

 made eleven thousand specimens of the 

 article, believes he has discovered the mys- 

 tery of its shape. It is not a crescent or 

 even curvature, but must have a kind of 

 nick or sharper curvature in the middle, 

 with the two arms of unequal length, in the 

 proportion of about four to five. The arms 

 should not be of the same thickness, but 

 the longer one should be pared down so as 

 exactly to balance the shorter one. The 

 correctness of these principles may be veri- 

 fied by adding a very little to the weight of 

 either arm, or by slightly shortening the 

 longer one. The instrument will then no 

 longer answer its peculiar purpose any bet- 

 ter than if it were only a common stick. 

 The peculiarity of the motion of the boom- 

 erang is due to the difference in the length 

 of the arms, by the operation of which a 

 divergence from the circular is imparted to 

 its curve of rotation. The remarkable feat- 

 ure of the whole matter is that such sav- 

 ages as the Australians should have been 

 able to discover the peculiar properties of 

 this form and apply them. The fact shows 

 what extraordinary powers of observation 

 the people of nature possess. The attempts 

 to give a philosophical explanation of the 

 trajectory of the boomerang variously com- 

 pare it with the caroming of a billiard-ball, 

 the sailing of a piece of paper or card-board 

 in the air, and the flight of birds. 



Tf hat is Graphite ? — Graphite is not 

 lead, as its names plumbago and " black- 

 lead" would seem to indicate, nor is it a 

 carburet of iron, as some works of scientific 

 pretension still call it. Except that some 

 impure specimens contain about as much 

 iron as ordinary clay, it is the purest form 

 of carbon, the diamond not excepted. Pro- 

 fessor W. Mattieu Williams believes that it 

 is nothing else than extremely finely divided 



