March 6, 1879] 



NATURE 



409 



the land to project very considerably between the two points. 

 On further examination, I found that, instead of making the land 

 trend inward to a very deep bay at Sapapali'i and Iva, as it does 

 in reality, it had been made to extend seaward in a series of 

 headlands. This error is perpetuated in all the maps I have seen, 

 including Grundemann's, and that published in the Journal des 

 Museum Godeffroy, both of which are based on Wilkes's chart 



My third and last example shall be one of a different kind. In 

 1870 I visited an island north of Samoa known as Quiros or 

 Gente Hermosa. Wilkes' expedition described it as being zvith- 

 out a lagoon. I found it to be barely four miles in diameter, but 

 with a deep fresh-water lagoon in its centre about three miles in 

 diameter. Now as the ring of land around this lagoon is only 

 about one-third of a mile across, I cannot imagine how any 

 members of the expedition could have landed without seeing the 

 water. Such an inaccuracy as this would have been bad enough 

 in the description of an ordinary traveller. It is inexcusable in 

 an expedition specially fitted out for scientific observation. 



S. J. VVhitmee 



Cook's Collections 



In Nature, vol, xix. p. 373, a remark of Dr. Hamy, of 

 Paris, is reproduced, concerning "the fate of Cook's collections 

 in being buried in an Austrian museum." It mil be of general 

 interest to make known that, what there is in Vienna of ethno- 

 graphical objects in relation to Cook, consists of 260 numbers, 

 chiefly originating from Cook's third voyage. These objects 

 were bought by order of the Emperor Franz in the year 1806, at 

 the auction of the Parkinson Museum in London (previously Lever 

 Museum), and now form part of the large ethnographical collec- 

 tions, which will be accessible to the pxiblic in a few years in the 

 new, nearly completed. Imperial Natural History Museum of 

 Vienna. This museum will become one of the greatest and 

 most complete on the continent, uniting all mineralogical, 

 geological, palreontological, prehistoric, anthropological, ethno- 

 graphical, zoological, and botanical imperial collections of Vienna 

 under the charge of Prof. Hochstetter. A. B. Meyer 



Royal Zoological Museum, Dresden, February 28 



Magnetic Storm, May 14, 1878 



There appears to have been a slight error in my note 

 (vol. xix. p. 148) ; in the sixth line, it should read 14th instead 

 of 15th. 



With this exception the observations are correctly reported, 

 and the period during which the greatest trouble was experienced 

 in working on the Persian Gulf cable covers the time at which 

 the magnetic storm was observed at Stonyhnrst" to be at its 

 height (vol. xviii. p. 617). 



I cannot quite agree with Mr. Preece when he suggests 

 (vol. xix. p. 173) the advisability of recording earth-currents in 

 Webers. Comparatively few of the readers of Nature would 

 appreciate the magnitude of an earth-current if expressed in 

 those terms, while every one, I think, will xmderstand me when 

 I say that the earth-current passing through the line equalled 

 that Avhich would be produced by a certain number of cells con- 

 nected to the same circuit. 



The systematic observation of earth-currents in different parts 

 of the world is no doubt very desirable, but to be of value it 

 must be regulated and collated by some central authority. I 

 feel convinced that if the Society of Telegraph Engineers invited 

 assistance in this matter, and pointed out what was actually 

 required, the appeal would be very readily responded to. 



Kurrachee, February 6 Henry C. Mance 



Intellect in Brutes 



If Mr. Henslow will read my letter again he will find it dis- 

 tinctly stated that the " several occasions " on which the leakage 

 took place were referred to in connection with the agency of 

 rats only. The plumber informs me that in none of the cases 

 (four or five) was there any sign of injury to the pipe by frost. 

 In the specimen which I have, the rats have made two ineffectual 

 attempts to perforate the lead, and have succeeded in two dis- 

 tinct places. Had a frost crack existed, with consequent escape 

 of water, there would have been no necessity to make two fruit- 

 less attacks on the pipe elsewhere. The specimen may be seen 

 by any one interested at the office of The Country, 170, Strand. 

 Metaphysicians will probably think that Mr, Henslow has 



stumbled into a quagmire in his discussion of "practical " and 

 " abstract " reasoning. Does he believe that brutes and boys 

 in common have nothing but the faculty of "practical" reason? 

 When a boy finds the value of jt in a simple equation, is he not 

 dealing with "abstract" ideas? Arthur NicoLS 



I AM not opposed to Dr. Darwin's teachings, nor do I care 

 much whether science proves that man is descended from Adam 

 or from some extra clever race of monkeys, so long as the truth 

 is established. In regard to the explanation given at p. 365 of 

 the rats eating the pipe to get at the water because they " heard 

 the water trickling," I am inclined to look at the matter in a 

 simple matter-of-fact way, and so feel inclined to think they cut 

 the pipe because it was somehow in their way. Lead and block- 

 tin gas-pipes are found cut in a similar way. Now, are they cut 

 to get at the gas ? Lead waste-pipes are also often found so 

 cut, both from the outside and inside. I happen to be a prac- 

 tical plumber myself, and have had to deal with rats in many 

 ways, but I scarcely think that "the reasoning power of the 

 rat " in this case has been properly reasoned out. 



21, Renfrew Street, Glasgow, March i W. P. Buchan 



I BELIEVE "that the reasoning faculty in man and animals 

 differs in degree only." But I do not thmk Mr, Nicols' 

 plumber's lead-pipe case (Nature, vol, xix, p. 365) a well- 

 tested instance of rat sagacity. We have not sufficient proof 

 that the rats gnawed the pipe for the purpose of getting at the 

 water ; though, of course, they used the water after having come 

 upon it. It seems more likely that they gnawed the pipe because 

 it obstructed their tunnelling operations ; else why did they cut 

 it in two separate places ? Mr. Nicols says " a rat will not drink 

 foul water," Neither will I when I can get better, but I am. 

 afraid I should need to put up with the foul if I lived in a sewer» 



Cambuslang Henry Muirhead 



It is somewhat difficult to understand Mr, Henslow's remarks 

 on the above subject in Nature, vol. xix. p, 385. He tells us 

 that if the dog that rang the bell to fetch the servant to let him 

 out of a room in which he was shut up, had not been taught to 

 ring the bell, " it would have been abstract reasoning, but jt was 

 only practical," Further on he says that brutes never acquire 

 "abstract reasoning." 



The Arctic fox, by Mr, Henslow's own showing, appears to 

 have used " abstract reasoning," because it had never been 

 taught to cut the line attaching the bait to the trigger of the 

 gun before taking the bait (of which I have seen several ca es), 

 or to dig a trench in the snow to avoid the shot. Can Mr. 

 Henslow be a sportsman ? If so, he ought to know that in the 

 case referred to, to pull the bait downwards out of the line cf 

 fire was the only safe way for the fox to have acted, so as to get 

 his head out of danger. Had he used what Mr. Henslow calls 

 "abstract reasoning" — which, I presume, means pulling the 

 bait, not the line, to oyte side out of the line of fire, the fox 

 would certainly have been shot, as the bait could not have been 

 moved more than four or five inches from the wooden stake 

 through which the bait-line passes. 



If Rlr. Henslow really means that the fox should have shown 

 his powers of "abstract reasoning" by going up to the line of 

 fire betv.een the gun and the bait, and then pulled the string 

 until the gun went off, I think the chances of reynard's ever 

 eating the bait would be very small indeed. I have known him 

 do what showed equal or greater intelligence, namely, cut the 

 bait-string, as already mentioned. John Kae 



Royal Institution, February 28 



Mr. Henslow, in his letter on this subject, complains that 

 " brute reasoning is always practical, but never abstract^ As an 

 instance of what appears to me abstract reasoning in a dog, I 

 beg to offer the foUowng : A few years ago we had in cur 

 possession a terrier gifted with a propensity (probably instruc- 

 tive) for worrying the sheep that were put to graze in a field 

 separated from our house by another field. Coming out of the 

 house one day I observed this dog crossing the latter field, 

 evidently intent upon a little amusement. I called him back, he 

 obeyed ; but when he came to a patch of brushwood vs'hich hid 

 him from view, he cut straight across the field, under cover of 

 the brushwood, to behind a hedge, and then pursued his course 



