Dec. 15, 1887] 



NA TURE 



151 



A Dictionary of Place-Names. By C Blackie. Third 

 Edition, revised. (London : John Murray, 1887.) 



Every teacher of geography knows that the derivation 

 of place-names never fails to excite the interest of intel- 

 ligent scholars. It is satisfactory, therefore, that there 

 should have been a demand for a third edition of Mr. 

 Blackie's excellent book, in which he presents in plain 

 and simple language many of the most suggestive lesults 

 established by students of topographical etymology. The 

 work has been carefully revised, and in its | resent form 

 ought to be of service to many a " general reader " and 

 tourist, as well as to schoolmasters and their pupils. 

 Prof. J. S. Blackie contributes to the volume an intro- 

 ductory essay, in which he offers, in his lively way, many 

 useful hints as to the spirit in which the study of topo- 

 graphical etymology ought to be pursued. 



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, 

 rejected manuscripts, Al? notice is taken of anonymous 

 com munications. 



[The Editor urgently requests correspondents to keep their 

 letters as short as possible. The pressure on his space 

 is so great that it is impossible otherwise to insure the 

 appearance even of communications containing interesting 

 and novel facts. 



The Supposed Earthquake in England. 



From the inquiries which have been made it is now ascer- 

 tained that llie loud noise — as of an explosion — heard over so 

 wide an area on the morning of November 20, and referred to 

 by Mr. Worthington G. Smitti in your i sue of last week (p. 127), 

 was due to the breaking up of a large meteor, which crossed 

 the north of Herts from east to west, upon a line of which the 

 extreme points are approximately Saffron Walden, in Essex, and 

 Swindon, in Oxfordshire. The meteor was seen by one ob- 

 server from Hertford, and probably it would have been generally 

 noticed but for the foggy state of the atmosphere. I have 

 undertaken to investigate this matter as far as Herts is concerned, 

 and shall be very much obliged to any of your readers who can 

 give me assistance if they will send a note of their observation-, 

 esf ecially as (o the direction from which the shock they expe- 

 rienced appeared to reach them. H. George Fordii\m. 



Odsey Grange, Royslon, Cambridgeshire, December 12. 



The "Umbria's" Wave. 



In Nature, vol. xxxvi. (p. 508) you published some details 

 from Mr. W. Watson about the wave which struck the Umbria 

 in mid-Adantic. Having heard of two similar cases, and 

 being in possession of the details of one, I have made the 

 following comparison. 



Comparison of the *' Umbria s " and the ^' Farada/s "■ 7c>ave. 



Umbria. Faraday. 



Date 26.7.87 14.2.84 



4.40 a.m. 6.45 a.m. 



27° 8' 27° 53' 



50 5 4'5° n' 



about 16 about 6 



Long. W. 



Hour 



Position of ship-j , ^^ xr 



Ship's speed — knots ... 



Ship's course 



The wave struck 



Probable course of wave 



E. 18' N. 



f West (probably ^ 

 \ partly South) j 



the bow the port beam. 



... f East partly I f South partly 

 ... \ North. / \ East. 



These two courses if piolonged backwards would intersect at 

 about 30° W. lat. and 50° N. long. This is the very point 

 where the Faraday, while laying a cable in 1882, discovered a 

 reef rising about 6000 feet above the bed of the ocean. The 

 l/mbria when struck was about 120 miles to the east of this 

 position, and the Faraday about twice as far to the southeast. 



The Faraday's wave was seen fully five minutes before it 

 struck, and then like the Umbria's, it did considerable d.xmage. 



Three life-boats, chart-house, deck-house, and part of the 

 bulwarks were smashed and one of the large buoys carried 

 away. 



In bis letter Mr. Watson doubts whether this wave was caused 

 by an earthquake, but a few more similar occurrences in the 

 neighbourhood of Faraday's Reef will possibly demonstrate it 

 to be of recent and volcanic growth. C. E. Stromeyer. 



Strawberry Hill, November 22. 



The Planet Mercury. 



The almosphere in this country is generally so unfavourable 

 that it is a very rare occurrence to see the planet Mercury even at 

 its greatest elongation from the sun, unless carefully looked for. 

 My experience of the last few days may therefore be worth men- 

 tioniiig. The day before yesterday, at 10 minutes past 7 in the 

 morning, I was in bed at some distance from a window, through 

 which, without directing my attention to it, I saw a star shining 

 with sufficient brightness in the twilight to attract my notice. I 

 raised the window and made use of a large opera-glass, when 

 any doubt I had would have been dispelled even if I had had no 

 previous experience of Mercury, for there was to be seen a small 

 planet with distinct disk some 15" above the horizon — Venus, a 

 magnificent object, being of course visible also. The same 

 thing hajipaned this morning, when I again noticed Mercury, 

 without having him in my mind, before leaving my bed ; but 

 this time I was better prepared, and in the course of the next 

 quarter of an hour had shown the planet, in a 3^ -inch telescope; 

 to several persons who saw it for the first time. G. F. P. 



Ilanworth, Middlesex, December 9. 



Meteor. 



On Friday night, about 9.15, a line meteor, as bright as a 

 star of the first magnitude, was seen in the western sky. It 

 made its appearance at an elevation of 35° west- south west, and 

 disappeared in the west, at an elevation of 20°, leaving no streak. 

 Perhaps some other of your readers might be able to identify the 

 meteor, and thus a clue to its course might be arrived at. If you 

 think this worth inserting, it may interest some one. 



Barrow-on-Humber, Hull, December 9, M. H. Maw. 



" Fairy Rings." 



Your article on "Fairy Rings" (November 17, p. 61) peaks 

 of rings of 100 feet in diameter as wholly exceptional. In the 

 parish of Stebbing, in Essex, there is a field containing 

 numerous rings of Paxilliis giganteus. The largest of these 

 is incomplete, being broken in places by gorse bushes and 

 stopped on one side by a hedge and ditch. Measurement is 

 consequently difficult, but the diameter of the ring cannot be 

 less tlian 120 feet. At Bunchrew, in Inverness-shire, I once 

 saw the same fungus covering about a rool of ground. The 

 grass all over this was very coarse and dark green in colour, 

 being chielly Dactylis gloincrata, but there was no trace of a 

 ring. J. Sarghaunt. 



Felsted, December 6. 



Music in Nature. 



In Nature (vol. xxxvi. pp. 343 and 605) reference was 

 made to melodies of bird-, &c. I have often heard in the 

 provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia a bird which 

 sin^s as clear and accurate a melody as can be given forth by any 

 human songster. It is a small gray bird with double lunes of 

 velvety white on the sides of its head. I do not know its 

 name. The song varies somewhat in different individuals, but 

 always has the same characteristics. The commonest form is as 

 follows : — 



'- 1 -m- — »— -• •- •■ ^ \-^ — f — * — a — 



Another variety often heard is thus : — 





-¥-/■ 



