August 30, r 888] 



NA TURE 



42r 



SONNET* 



Commemorative of an Incident which occurred in St. Margaret's 

 Church, Westminster, en August 9, 1888. 



BEFORE the altar Man and Maid they stood, 

 On altar-step as Man and Wife then kneeled- 

 Its Heaven-lent strains the sacred Organ pealed, 

 Moulding thoughts, hopes, and passions as it would, 

 Till all hearts swam in one melodious flood. # 



When as rapt Fancy wandered far a-field 

 Lo ! Eve's fresh bower stood to her sight revealed 

 Where hung upon the spray a pure white bud — 

 The bride's half-sister on her nurse's breast- 

 Fair-writ indenture of prevenient Mind, 

 An Imogene stole back from far Dream-land 

 (Spirit of womanhood by a child possessed !) 

 O'er whose soft gaze, as Ocean deep, inclined 

 My lips with reverence, kissed her dimpled hand. 



New College, Oxford, August 26. J. J. S. 



NOTES. 



Prof. Piazzi Smyth has resigned the office of Astronomer- 

 Royal for Scotland, and no one who takes the trouble to read 

 the second appendix to a paper on " The Edinburgh Equatorial in 

 1887," contributed by him lately to the Proceedings of the Royal 

 Society of Edinburgh, and now reprinted, will be surprised at 

 his decision. Before he consented to join in the project of the 

 Board of Visitors, about 1870, of applying to the Government 

 for a large equatorial, Prof. Piazzi Smyth pointed out that such 

 an instrument, even if once set up complete, would require 

 further expenditure year after year to keep it fully efficient, and 

 that the working with it would be" so peculiarly onerous and 

 responsible that the salaries of the officers of the Royal Obser- 

 vatory, Edinburgh, already acknowledged to be at, or below, 

 starvation point, should be raised more nearly to the level of 

 those of other Observatories or of any ordinary Government 

 offices. He was told that all that was most certainly right, and 

 would be brought about ; and the Board of Visitors did most 

 honourably proceed to frame a scheme providing for a modest 

 addition not only to the observers' salaries, but to the available 

 income of the Observatory, to be expended by the Astronomer 

 in instrumental repairs, experiments, and improvements at his 

 discretion. Under these promising circumstances he acted with 

 the Board in their application for a large equatorial. The 

 instrument was in part set up, under the authority of the Office 

 of Works, in 1872 ; but in the following year, when the election 

 was found very incomplete, the scheme of the Board of Visitors 

 for increasing the salaries and available income of the Observa- 

 tory to a point sufficient to finish, maintain, and work the instru- 

 ment, was suddenly and finally disallowed. A Committee, 

 appointed in 1876 by Mr. (now Lord) Cross to investigate the 

 matter, reported for a series of financial improvements similar 

 to those suggested by the Board of Visitors ; but the Home 

 Secretary declined to listen to his own Committee. Another 

 Committee was appointed in 1879. This Committee did not 

 admit the Astronomer to its council, and limited its inquiries to 

 the equatorial. It advised certain improvements, and obtained 

 a grant for executing them ; but the grant either still remains 

 in the possession of the Office of Works or has lapsed to the 

 Treasury — a fact which is the less to be regretted as the sum 

 was absurdly inadequate. It would be hard to match this 



* This sonnet would furnish an unrivalled new situation and a noble sub- 

 ject for a young painter wiih lofty aims (if such there be among us) to depict. 

 In the church invited to participate in the sacred rite were Star-gazers, 

 Wonder-workers, and Magi (the Darwins. the Thomsons, and the Cayleys), 

 who may be supposed in the person of their representative to be doing 

 homage to the Suirit of Womanhcod incarnated in the infant held in the 

 arms of her proud and comely nurse, from whom I learned that the child's 

 name wai Imogene. 



wretched tale in any other civilized country ; and we can scarcely 

 expect that science will c mtinue to flourish in Great Britain if 

 its claims are to be treated with so much contempt. Prof. Piazzi 

 Smyth, having withdrawn from his position at Edinburgh, retires 

 to Clova, Ripon, where he will c mtinue bis astronomical studies. 

 Warm appreciation of his services during the forty-three years 

 in which he has held office has been expressed on behalf of the 

 Secretary for Scotland, and by the Senatus Academicus of the 

 University of Edinburgh. 



The British Archaeological Association, of which the Marquess 

 of Bute is this year the President, began its sittings in Glasgow 

 on Monday. Although this is the forty-fifth annual Congress, it is 

 the first occasion on which the Association has crossed the 

 border. 



The Association of Public Sanitary Inspectors of Great 

 Britain held on Saturday, by invitation of the Mayor (Alderman 

 Martin), a public conference on sanitation in the Royal Pavilion, 

 Brighton. An address by Mr. Edwin Chadwick, the President, 

 who could not be present on account of his advanced age, was 

 read by Dr. B. W. Richardson. The address presented an 

 interesting general view of the recent progress of sanitation in 

 this country. 



Mr. William Chappell, F.S.A., who died on the 20th 

 inst. at his residence in Upper Brook Street, was known chiefly 

 for his efforts to popularize old English music ; but' he deserves 

 to be remembered also as an ardent student of music in its 

 scientific aspects. He had a wide and accurate knowledge of 

 the natural laws on which the principles of musical composition 

 are based, and his book on the History of Music, both as an 

 Art and as a Science, is of great value. Mr. Chappell was 

 seventy-eight years of age. 



Mr. P. H. Gosse, F.R. S. , the well-known zoologist, died at 

 hi-; residence, St. Marychurch, Torquay, on the 23rd inst., at 

 the age of seventy-eight. Mr. Gosse was elected a Fellow of 

 the Royal Society in 1856. 



Mr. William A. Croffut has been appointed executive 

 officer of the United States Geological Survey, in the place of 

 the late Mr. James A. S^ev^nson. Mr. Croffut is a well-known 

 journalist, and Science anticipates that he will fill with success 

 the difficult position in which he is placed. 



Captain H. Fabritius, of the Norwegian Hydrographical 

 Office, is engaged during the present summer in the steamer 

 Professor Hausteen in making hydrographical researches on 

 the west coast of Norway, similar to those of last year. 

 The course followed is from Malangeit southwards, soundings 

 being taken at about every mile to a distance of some sixty 

 miles from the coast. 



Several recent shocks of earthquake are reported from 

 Norway and Sweden. In the former country an earthquake 

 shojk of great severity was felt in various parts of Hardanger, on 

 the west coast, shortly after midnight on July 17. Houses 

 were shaken, and furniture was thrown down. In one place three 

 shocks were felt. The earthquake was accompanied by loud 

 subterranean rumblings. Its area seems to have been very 

 limited : in places only a few miles distant no trace of disturb- 

 ance was perceived. On July 28, about 3 a.m., a very severe 

 shock of earthquake was felt along a great portion of the 

 northern Baltic shore of Sweden. At Hernosand, Ornskoldsvik. 

 and Lungon, the shocks are reported as particularly severe, 

 houses shaking, &c. In some places two or three shocks were 

 felt, lasting, so correspondents maintain, several minutes. In 

 every place loud subterranean detonations were heard. Again, 

 on the evening of August 17, during a hurricane, a severe 

 earthquake shock was felt in the neighbourhood of Ystad in 

 Scania, in the extreme south of Sweden. 



