Dec. 27, 1877] 



NATURE 



169 



he became quite certain that the movement could not be 

 accounted for by any residuum of the force which he had 

 himself communicated, his astonishment developed into 

 dread, and he ran to conceal himself under some articles 

 of furniture, there to behold at a distance the " uncanny " 

 spectacle of a dry bone coming to life. 



Now in this, and in all my other experiments, I have no 

 doubt that the behaviour of the terrier arose from his 

 sense of the fftysterious, for he was of a highly pugnacious 

 disposition, and never hesitated to fight an animal of any 

 size or ferocity ; but apparent symptoms of spontaneity 

 in an inanimate object which he knew so well, gave rise 

 to feelings of awe and horror which quite enervated him. 

 And that there was nothing fetichistic in these feelings 

 may be safely concluded if we reflect, with Mr, Spencer, 

 that the dog's knowledge of causation, for all immediate 

 purposes, being quite as correct and no less stereotyped 

 than is that of " primitive man," when an object of a class 

 which he knew from uniform past experience to be inani- 

 mate suddenly began to move, he must have felt the 

 same oppressive and alarming sense of the mysterious 

 which uncultured persons feel under similar circum- 

 stances. But further, in the case of this terrier we are 

 not left with a priori inferences alone to settle this point, 

 for another experiment proved that the sense of the mys- 

 terious was in this animal sufficiently strong of itself to 

 account for his behaviour. Taking him into a carpeted 

 room I blew a soap-bubble, and by means of a fitful 

 draught made it intermittently glide along the floor. He 

 became at once intensely interested, but seemed unable to 

 decide whether or not the filmy object was alive. At first he 

 was very cautious and followed it only at a distance, but 

 as I encouraged him to examine the bubble more closely, 

 he approached it with ears erect and tail down, evidently 

 with much misgiving ; and the moment it happened to 

 move he again retreated. After a time, however, during 

 which I always kept at least one bubble on the carpet, he 

 began to gain more courage, and the scientific spirit over- 

 coming his sense of the mysterious, he eventually became 

 bold enough slowly to approach one of the bubbles and 

 nervously to touch it with his paw. The bubble, of course, 

 immediately vanished ; and I certainly never saw astonish- 

 ment more strongly depicted. On then blowing another 

 bubble, I could not persuade him to approach it for a good 

 while ; but at last he came and carefully extended his paw 

 as before with the same result. But after this second trial 

 nothing would induce him again to approach a bubble, 

 and on pressing him he ran out of the room, which no 

 coaxing would persuade him to re-enter. 



One other example will suffice to show how strongly 

 developed was the sense of the mysterious in this animal. 

 When alone with him in a room I once purposely tried 

 the effect on him of making a series of horrible grimaces. 

 At first he thought I was only making fun ; but as I per- 

 sistently disregarded his caresses and whining while I 

 continued unnaturally to distort my features, he became 

 alarmed and slunk away under some furniture, shivering like 

 a frightened child. He remained in this condition till some 

 other member of the family happened to enter the room, 

 when he emerged from his hiding-place in great joy at 

 seeing me again in my right mind. In this experiment, 

 of course, I refrained from making any sounds or gesticu- 

 lations, lest he might think I was angry. His actions, 

 therefore, can only be explained by his horrified surprise 

 at my apparently irrational behaviour — ?>., by the violation 

 of his ideas of uniformity in matters psychological. It 

 must be added, however, that I have tried the same expe- 

 riment on less intelligent and less sensitive terriers with 

 no other effect than causing them to bark at me. 



I will only add that I believe the sense of the mysterious 

 to be the cause of the dread which many animals show of 

 thunder. I am led to think this, because I once had a 

 setter which never heard thunder till he was eighteen 

 months old, and on then first hearing it I thought he was 



about to die of fright, as I have seen other animals do 

 under various circumstances. And so strong was the 

 impression which his extreme terror left behind, that 

 whenever afterwards he heard the boom of distant artillery 

 practice, mistaking it for thunder, he became a pitiable 

 object to look at, and, if out shooting, would immediately 

 bolt home — or, if at a great distance from home, would 

 endeavour to bury himself. After having heard real 

 thunder on two or three subsequent occasions, his dread 

 of the distant cannons became greater than ever ; so that 

 eventually, though he keenly enjoyed sport, nothing would 

 induce him to leave his kennel, lest the practice might 

 begin when he was at a distance from home. But the 

 keeper, who had a large experience in the training of 

 dogs, assured me that if I allowed this one to be taken to 

 the battery, in order that he might learn the true cause of 

 the thunder-like noise, he would again become service- 

 able in the field. The animal, however, died before the 

 experiment was made. George J. Romanes 



RUHMKORFF 



VXT'E regret to record the sudden death on December 

 '' * 20, at Paris, of Henry Daniel Ruhmkorfif, whose 

 name is so closely connected with the history of magneto- 

 electricity. He was born in Hanover, Germany, in 1803, 

 and but little is known of his early life. In 18 19 he 

 wandered to Paris, and obtained a position as porter in 

 the laboratory of Prof. Charles Chevalier, at that time one 

 of the leading French physicists. Here he displayed a 

 remarkable fondness for electrical apparatus, as well as 

 ingenuity in its arrangement, and was enabled shortly 

 after to start a modest manufactory of physical apparatus. 

 Through the efforts of Chevalier and the excellence of the 

 work performed, the business was rapidly extended. In 

 1844 Ruhmkorff brought out his first invention, a con- 

 venient thermo-electric battery. Soon after he turned his 

 attention to magneto-electricity, especially the production 

 of the induced currents, discovered by Faraday in 

 1832. A long series of experiments resulted in the 

 appearance, in 1851, of the famous "Ruhmkorff 

 coil," with its later modifications, the most important 

 piece of apparatus in this branch of physics. With 

 this powerful adjunct the electrician was enabled 

 to obtain sparks 18 inches in length, pierce thick plates 

 of glass, and carry out a vast variety of experiments. 

 The invention was rewarded by a decoration and medal 

 at the Ex^iibition of 1855, while in 1858 it received the 

 first prize of 50,000 francs at the French Exhibition of 

 Electrical Apparatus. Since then the manufacture of the 

 coils and of electrical machines in general has assumed 

 enormous dimensions, and the leading physicists of 

 Europe are well acquainted with the dingy little bureau 

 in the Rue Champollion, near the University, Personally 

 M. Ruhmkorff was of a quiet, dignified appearance, and 

 despite the disadvantages of his early life, he enjoyed the 

 friendship of the leading Parisian savants, and was an 

 honoured member of the French Physical Society, M, 

 Jamin delivered an address over the grave, in which he 

 stated that Ruhmkorff died almost a poor man, because 

 he had spent all his earnings on behalf of science and in 

 works of benevolence. 



LIQUEFACTION OF OXYGEN 



THE number of the permanent gases is rapidly 

 diminishing. We have had occasion recently to 

 refer to M. Cailletet's successful attempts to compress 

 nitric oxide, N3O2, methyl hydride, CH^, and acetylene, 

 C2H2, to the liquid form. The list of non-compressible 

 gases was thus reduced to three, viz., hydrogen, nitrogen, 

 and oxygen. Within the past week M, Raoul Pictet has 

 succeeded in obtaining the last-mentioned gas in the 

 liquid state, an event which is certainly one of the most 



