Jan. 13, 1876J 



NATURE 



207 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 



[Iht Editor does not hold himself responsible /or opinions extressed 

 by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake to return, 

 or to correspond with the -writers of, rejected manuscripts. 

 No notice is taken of anonymous communications.^ 



The Late Eclipse 



An answer to Mr. Proctor (vol. sdiL p. 186) is unnecessary to 

 those who know all that has been written on the possibility of 

 photographing the spectrum of the corona, but I take the liberty 

 to give a few quotations out of the literature on the subject for 

 the benefit of those who take an interest in the discussion, yet 

 had no opportunity of following it in detail. Want of space 

 prevents me from quoting all the letters in full, but I believe that 

 I have not left out anything which might alter the sense of the 

 quotations. The passages which seem to me to be important 

 to the point at issue are printed in italics. 



1. Letter to the Editor of the Daily News, signed Richard A. 

 Proctor, January 26, 1875 '• — 



" It is said that some enthusiastic students of science propose 

 to try to get photographs, not of the corona as seen in a tele- 

 scope, but of the exceedingly faint coronal image seen with a 

 spectroscope. If they succeed they will have achieved a clever 

 photographic feat, but the result, so far as the corona is con- 

 cerned, can have little scientific value. // is mathematically 

 demonstrable that this is the case, for the quantity of light actually 

 forviing the coronal ima^e can be shown to be far less in amount 

 than is necessary for the formation of a satisfactory photo^aph." 



2. Letter signed '* A Fellow of the Royal Astronomical 

 Society " {English Mechanic, May 21, p. 248) : — 



" But if Mr. Proctor should take upon him to answer 



the first of these questions in the affirmative, the second in the 

 n^ative, then I could ask him whether any body or any set of 

 men possessing the slightut knowledge of the subject could or would 

 have issued the preposterous instructions about photographing the 

 spectra of bright lines in the corona, which emattated from the 

 Royal Society ? The bright lines in the corona ! Why, it has 

 been recorded again and again by skilful observers that so faint 

 is the light of the whole corona dturing thi totality of a solar 

 eclipse, that it casts no shadow whatever ; and we know that the 

 outer parts of the corona failed utterly to impress a collodion 

 plate in five seconds, upon which a sharp and effective image of 

 the partially eclipsed moon impressed itself in o'l second with a 

 longer focussed telescope ! " 



(1 should not have quoted in your columns any remarks of this 

 anonymous writer had not Mr. Proctor's reference to them in the 

 following letter rendered it necessary.) 



3. Letter from Mr. Richard A. Proctor (English Mechanic, 

 May 28, 1875, p. 272) : — 



" With respect to the eclipse observations last April, I have 

 already said, as 'F.R.A.S.' does (let 9,113, p. 248), that the 

 failure of the Government expedition was rendered certain by 

 the instructions of the Royal Society Committee. I pointed this 

 out also before the expedition started. / agree with ' F.R.A.S. ' 

 entirely in his interpretation of the matter." 



Taking these letters in connection with what Mr. Proctor now 

 writes, the following seems to be Mr. Proctor's opinion : — 



It is mathematically demonstrable that "the quantity of 

 light forming the coronal image is far less in amount than is 

 necessary for the formation of a satisfactory photograph " {Daily 

 News), yet " Dr. Schuster proves very readily that the spectrum 

 of the corona can be photographed in one minute " (Nature). 



Mr. Proctor "is not aware that anyone has questioned the fact," 

 but he ' ' fuUy agrees with an anonymous writer that no set of 

 men having the sl^htest knowledge of the subject could have 

 issued the instructions which emanated from the Royal Society." 



The failure of the Eclipse Expedition was rendered certain by 

 the instructions of the Royal Society Committee to photograph 

 in four minutes what Mr. Proctor admits to be capable of being 

 photographed in one minute. 



Anything which Mr. Proctor could have written on the sub- 

 ject besides what has been quoted, as, for instance, the passage 

 in " Science Byeways," he alludes to in his letter, can only add 

 to the hopeless confusion which must bewilder anyone tryintr to 

 form a correct and fair estimate of his view on the matter. 



Everybody will agree with 1s\t. Proctor that such a contro- 

 versy is not likely to be of any service to science. 



Upper Avenue Road, Jan. i 



Arthur. Schuster 



The Fossil Skeletons of Le Puy en Velay 



As there is to be a meeting of the Scientific Congress of 

 France in Auvergne and Velay next summer, it may be useful 

 to direct attention, through the columns of Nature, to certain 

 difficulties connected with the supposed antiquity of the fossil 

 human bones preserved in the Museum of Le Puy. 



With respect to the position of the bones, I visited the 

 locality they were supposed to be found in last September, in 

 company with some friends, and we were conducted, by the 

 peasant who professes to have found them, to a well near the 

 little auberge, where he now resides, and which is certainly a 

 very different spot to that indicated by Mr. Poulett Scrope in 

 his sketch at page 182 of the " Volcanos of Central France." 

 The locality given by Mr. Scrope is much higher up the hill 

 than is the well we were shown near the "Hermitage." Sir 

 Charles Lyell also, according to the "Antiquity of Man," 

 p. 229, was conducted to a spot ' ' not far from the summit of the 

 volcano." The well of the Hermitage is a long way from the 

 summit of the hill. 



It has long been obser\ed that the rocky matrix in which the 

 human bones have been enveloped is altogether different from 

 the matrix of the rock where they are said to be found. This is 

 certainly the case as regards the matrix of the rock in which the 

 well is situated, which is a coarse volcanic breccia, while the 

 bones lie in a volcanic sandy mass with a mixture of tuff and 

 lime. I especially wish to direct attention to the position of 

 one of the larger bones marked (I think) as an "iliac bone " in 

 the Museum. The laminated mass between which it rests ap- 

 pears to me stalagmitic, as if these human remains had been 

 washed into a fissure through which the water percolates down- 

 wards to the well of the Hermitage, and of which traces may 

 be found higher up the hilL 



I would also direct attention to certain^ stratified breccias near 

 the western summit of the hUl of Denise, which we thought 

 looked more like the result of melting snow and the action of 

 nmning water than of "volcanic alluviums," to which they 

 have been generally attributed. These may be seen beyond the 

 Croix de Paille on the road to Briowde high up on the flanks of 

 the hill west of the volcanic outburst known as ' ' The Chimney. " 

 The black and red scoriae shot out through this "chimney" 

 cover the summit of the hill and overlie the stratified breccias. 

 But these breccias are, if I read the geology of the district 

 aright, the equivalents of those which, on the slopes of Denise, 

 west of Polignac, have furnished the bones of the mammoth 

 and tichorhine rhinoceros, and belong to glacial times. 



The antiquity of the human skeletons must, I suggest, depend 

 upon the correct determination of the spot where the bones were 

 found. It is possible that they may belong to the age of the 

 stratified breccias, and were washed into a crack or fissure during 

 the Mammoth epoch, but they certainly do not look like it, if we 

 may judge from the matrix in which they are enclosed. It is 

 possible that they were enveloped in volcanic materials which 

 were evolved during the last volcanic outbursts, for I believe 

 that at Le Puy en Velay and in the Ardeches there have been 

 eruptions of scoriae and ashes through volcanic vents and chim- 

 neys since the glacial epoch, when deep snows covered the sum- 

 mit of Denise in the winter time and the mammoth pastured in 

 the vales. W. S. Symoxds 



A Meteor in the Daytime 



The meteor referred to by the Rev. T. W. Webb was also 

 seen at Dorking and at Southampton. The times given were 

 "about 1.38 P.M." and " ih. 38m. 45s. P.M.," Dec 22. Mr. H. 

 J. Powell, writing to me from the former to\vn, says : " Its course 



wasfrom S.S.E. to N.N.W., and it shot down the sky so — ^V 



It had no well-defined outline like the moon, but was merely 

 an irregular luminous ball. Its size as compared with the moon 

 was about one-sixth. Its motion was not a very rapid one, but 

 more like a cricket ball (after it has been thrown) falling. I did 

 not hear any soimd after its disappearance." Mr. Powell, 

 writing to the Times, also mentioned that it " left a long trail of 

 fire behind it," and that the nucleus " broke up and disappeared 

 before it had reached the horizon." 



In the limes of the same date (Dec. 23), " F. W. " writes : 

 " In the full blaze of the sun — a rare sight in itself nowadays — I 

 observed a bright meteor traversing the sky from south-west to 

 north-east, in form like a common rocket." 



