Sept. 27, 1888J 



NATURE 



5'5 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



[The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions 

 expressed by his correspondents. Neither can he under- 

 take to return, or to correspond with the writers of, 

 reuctcd manuscripts intended for this or any other part 

 ■of Nature. No notice is taken of anonymous communi- 

 cations, ,] 



Electric Fishes. 



While I was fishing for cod the other day off Walmer, I 

 took up in my hand a small whiting pout that was flopping about 

 in the bottom of the boat, when I received what appeared to me 

 a slight though distinct electric shock in the palm of my hand, 

 which made me exclaim at once, " That fish has given me an 

 ■electric shock." On asking the fisherman (seventy years of age) 

 if he had known of such a thing occurring before, he said that 

 he had "heard tell of it," and on inquiring further I found that 

 he was referring to whiting pout and not to any other fish. He 

 had never, however, noticed anything of the kind himself. 



It will be interesting to know if any of your correspondents 

 •can confirm the observation. W. H. Corfield. 



Savile Row, W., September 22. 



gave a good result in Eigg. The form and composition of the 

 sand-grains differ considerably in the two localities. It seems 

 probable that sand of this character occurs in more localities than 

 hitherto supposed. K. 



Torquay, September 8. 



Sonorous Sands. 



The communication of Mr. Cecil Carus-Wilson in Nature 

 of August 30 (p. 415), induces us to state that we are rapidly 

 bringing to completion, and preparing for publication, an ex- 

 haustive study of " Sea, Lake, River, and Desert Sands " in their 

 geological, physical, and chemical aspects. Our researches have 

 ■extended over a period of six years, and are based on studies 

 made in the field, in the laboratory, and with the microscope, and 

 •will be found to embrace many novel facts and original views. 

 We have collected in person, by correspondence, and with the 

 nid of the Life Saving Service of the United States, and of the 

 'Smithsonian Institution, several hundred specimens of sands and 

 silts from localities in America, Europe, Africa, and Asia : 

 these we have subjected to systematic examination and have 

 tabulated the result-. 



The interesting phenomena of " musical sands," so called, 

 have also been made special objects of our investigations, result- 

 ing in the discovery of many new localities, and of novel 

 properties, as well as of the circumstances connected with the 

 origin, production, and extinction of the sonorous qualities from 

 which these i.ands receive their name. Furthermore, we have 

 traced the history of musical sands through the literature of many 

 ■centuries, and have brought together from widely scattered 

 sources memoirs and notices of both scientific and popular 

 interest. Throughout our work the bibliography of the subject 

 has not been neglected, and we have availed ourselves of the 

 photographic art for the purposes of illustration. We beg leave 

 to make this preliminary announcement because our researches 

 have been lengthened far beyond our expectations, and their 

 publication (save in a few abstracts in the Proceedings of the 

 American Association for the Advancement of Science) 

 unavoidably delayed. 



With regard to the occurrence of musical sand in Europe, the 

 existence of which is unknown to Mr. Carus-Wilson, we may add 

 that we have specimens from various localities, and the literature 

 ■of the subject is accessible to everyone. 



II. Carrington Bolton. 

 Alexis A. Julien. 



London and New York, September 1. 



Your correspondent in Nature of the 30th ult. (p. 415), 

 'mentions a sea-beach in Dorsetshire as the only place in the 

 Kingdom, besides the Island of Eigg, where "musical" sand 

 is known to occur. This summer I found the sand in Lunan 

 Bay (Forfarshire) to be distinctly sonorous. The sound occurred 

 on moving the foot across the sand, or moving a walking-stick 

 or the finger. The sound was little inferior to that in Eigg. The 

 attention of a fisherman having been directed to the circumstance, 

 he informed me they were quite aware of the occurrence, and that 

 the sound was frequently much louder than on the day I was 

 there ; depending, I presume, on the state of the sand and of 

 the atmosphere. He also mentioned that the sound occurs in 

 the sand of Montrose Bay. I observed that the best result was 

 got where the sand was moderately dry, and that little or no 

 •effect was produced with such a greater degree of moisture as 



THE LATE ARTHUR BUCHHEIM. 



T HAVE been requested, and feel it a melancholy satis- 

 *• faction, to notice in the columns of Nature the 

 premature decease on the 9th inst.,atthe age of twenty-nine, 

 of Mr. Arthur Buchheim, for many years Mathematical 

 Master at the Manchester Grammar School. 



He was educated at the City of London School, whence 

 he proceeded to Oxford, and gained an open Scholarship 

 at New College there. He was a favourite pupil of the late 

 Henry Smith, my distinguished predecessor in the Savilian 

 Professorship of Geometry, who always spokeof him as the 

 most promising young mathematician that had appeared in 

 the University of Oxford for a long series of years. 1 

 am not able to speak of his earlier work as an original 

 investigator, but know and value highly his contributions 

 to the great subject which engaged the principal part of 

 my own attention during the transition period between 

 my residence in Baltimore and at Oxford, and to which I 

 have given the name of Universal Algebra. He was 

 a man of singular modesty and goodness of heart, which 

 made him beloved by all who were brought into connec- 

 tion with him. Had his life been spared, I think we may 

 safely say of him what Newton said of Horrocks, that " we 

 should have known something " of what may now probably 

 remain long unknown. 



His life, it is to be feared, may have been shortened by 

 his intense application to study, as after the arduous 

 labour of the day he would sit up at night to study lan- 

 guages such as Sanskrit, Persian, Chinese, and Russian, 

 almost any one of which was sufficient in itself to occupy 

 his undivided attention. 



After leaving Oxford he studied for some time under 

 Prof. Klein at Leipzig. This episode in his life no doubt 

 contributed to widening his intellectual horizon, but at 

 the same time had the unfortunate effect of getting him 

 out of the style of ordinary English University Examin- 

 ations, in consequence of which he abstained, although 

 strongly pressed by the authorities to do so, from offering 

 himself as a candidate for a vacant Fellowship at the 

 College of which he was a Scholar. 



He comes of an intellectual stock, his father being the 

 well-known Prof. C. A. Buchheim, of King's College, 

 London. 



Up to the last, after he had been obliged from ill 

 health to resign his appointment at Manchester, he con- 

 tinued in harness, and made a communication to the 

 London Mathematical Society at the monthly meeting 

 in May or June last. 



I have been furnished with a list of his published 

 papers, fourteen in number, up to the year 1885 (ex- 

 clusive), of which four appeared in the Proceedings of 

 the London Mathematical Society, eight in the Cambridge 

 Messenger of Mathematics, one in the American Journal 

 of Mathematics, and one (November 1884) in the Philo- 

 sophical Magazine. This last was entitled, " On Prof. 

 Sylvester's Third Law of Motion," with which, I regret 

 to say, I was previously unacquainted. 



" The three laws of motion" of which it forms one were 

 formulated by me in one of the Johns Hopkins Circulars, 

 and it is a proof of the keenness of his research, that the 

 subject of this notice (probably the only mathematician in 

 Europe) should have made himself so well acquainted 

 with them as to be able to write an independent paper on 

 the subject. They have no direct connection (except in 

 a Hegelian l sense) with mechanical principles, but are 



1 By which I mean that sense according to which motion in space is 

 to be regarded as only a particular (visualized) instance of change in tutu. 



