6o.': 



NATURE 



[Oct. 23, 1879 



An Essay on Spiritual Evolution considered in its 

 Bearing upon Modern Spiritualism, Science, and 

 Religion. By J. P. B. (Triibner and Co., 1879.) 



This is an essay of 150 pages by a thoroughgoing 

 "spiritualist," according to the most "modern" signifi- 

 cation of the term. As sach it is not a book very easy to 

 review in the pages of a periodical devoted to the con- 

 sideration of modern science. Whether or not spiritualism 

 has any basis of truth, it is certain that a genuine belief, 

 if not in spiritual agency, at least in the occurrence of 

 certain weird and inexplicable phenomena, has of late 

 years spread with extraordinary rapidity, and now 

 includes among its avowed supporters some distinguished 

 scientific men, of the day. The estimate that a reader 

 will form concerning the merits of the essay will de- 

 pend chiefly on his attitude of mind concerning its 

 subject. For "J. P. B." assumes the genuineness of so- 

 called spiritual manifestations, his thesis being that grant- 

 ing a future state and the reality of spiritual communica- 

 tions, these communications invariably teach a doctrine 

 which is in harmony with — or rather analogous to — the 

 doctrine of organic evolution ; they teach that gradual de- 

 velopment is the law of spiritual life after death as it is the 

 law of bodily life before death. We feel that our function 

 as reviewers ends, when we say that in all his statements 

 of and references to the facts of physical science the 

 essayist is accurate. These statements and references 

 appear, indeed, to us more numerous than the treatment 

 of his subject requires ; but if so they at all events serve 

 to show, what perhaps they are intended to show, that 

 "J. P. B." is an intelligent man, who, while'prosecuting his 

 spiritual studies — whether in the body or oi-t of the body 

 we do not know — still keeps his eyes open to what is 

 going on in the lower world around him. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 



{ 7'he Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions expressed 

 by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake to return, or 

 to correspond with the writers of, rejected manuscripts. No 

 notice is taken of anonymous communications. 



[The Editor urgently requests correspondents to keep their letters as 

 short as possible. 7 he pressure on his space is so great that it 

 is impossible otherwise to ensure the appearance even of com- 

 munications containing interesting and novel facts, \ 



Sun-Spots in Earnest 



After three days of total cloud, but after months and months 

 of general watching for sun-spots, and seeing either nothing at 

 all, or only the smallest possible points visible in my household 

 instrument, merely a little picture-forming model of an equatorial 

 by the ancient Ramsden — I could hardly beUeve my eyes this 

 (Saturday) morning on beholding, even in spite of driving clouds, 

 haze, and smoke, threecomparatively enormous sun-spots besides 

 strings of smaller ones connecting them. The group was situated 

 not in the sun's northern, as all the other little points had been, 

 but in its southern, tropic ; not just coming into view at the fol- 

 lowing limb after unknown periods of concealed growth on the 

 other side of the solar orb, hut only a day or two past the very 

 middle meridian of its earthward side. 



Hence these gigantic spots may have burst, exploded forth, 

 only a day or two ago, and just when their locality was turned 

 towards the earth ; and it is indeed greatly to be hoped that some 

 regular and accomplished solar observer in one of the astro- 

 physical observatories may have been lucky enough to have posi- 

 tively seized and photographed this, for years past, most un- 

 equalled phenomenon both in its suddenness and immense extent. 

 The energy too which must have presided at their birth, was 

 borne continued witness to this day by rapid changes in the 

 configuration of the spots ; and certainly, take them all in all, 

 the long quiescent period of the sun's internal heat-forces seems 

 now to be fairly over, and the wondrous orb, on whose influences 

 we all physically exist, is embarked on a new cycle of radiant 

 activity. PiAZZi Smyth 



15, Royal Terrace, Edinburgh, October 18 



Climatic Effects of the Present Eccentricity 

 I HAVE just read the Rev. O. Fisher's letter (vol. xx. p. 577) 

 asking for an explanation of the reason why the January tempe- 

 rature at the equator, when the earth is in perihelion, is not much 

 higher than in July when in aphelion. The temperature to which 

 Mr. Fisher refers is the ordinary temperature as indicated by the 

 shaded thermometer, which, of conrse, is simply the temperature 

 of the air. I do not think it is difficult to explain why the air at 

 the equator in January cannot be much hotter than in July. 



If it can be shown from observation that the black bulb ther- 

 mometer which indicates, not the temperature of the air, but the 

 direct heat of the sun does not stand higher at the equator in 

 January than in July there would certainly be a difficulty, if the 

 temperature of space be as low as - 239° F. It would be desir- 

 able to know if such is actually the case. Perhaps some of your 

 readers might be able to afford some information on this point, 

 which seems to have been overlooked by meteorologists. 



In a future letter I shall give what appears to me to be the 

 reason why the air at the equator is not hotter in January than in 

 July. James Croll 



Greenwich Meteorological Observations 



With reference to Mr. Elli-i's letter in Nature, vol. xx. 

 p. 576, it may be enough to point out that, as Table 77 

 gives only the mean temperature of each day and month of 

 the year for the whole period of the twenty years' observa- 

 tions, we must look elsewhere for the mean temperatures of the 

 months of each successive year ; and that this information is not 

 furnished by Table 52, seeing that the means of that table ha-.-e 

 been prepared without correction for omitted days. Could Table 

 125 have been accepted as giving accurate mean temperatures 

 this information would have been before us; but as matters 

 stand a table showing the mean monthly and annual temperatures 

 of Greenwich during each of these twenty years 'remains still to 

 be constructed. An explanation as to how the daily mean values 

 for those days on which no photographic value was available, 

 were obtained in constructing Table 77, and a statement of the 

 daily inequality of temperature of the underground apartment in 

 which the photographic barometer is placed, would enable 

 meteorologists to value even more exactly the highly important 

 results of the Greenwich Meteorological Observations. 



Alexandir Buchan 



Rag-Bushes 



Co^^suL Layard has given a remarkable instance of this form 

 of fetisbi m, practised by the Cingalese, near Jaffna, as illustrating 

 the paper read by Mr. Walhouse at the Anthropological Institute, 

 April 8, 1879. When passing through the ISetsileo forestj 

 country many years ago we came frequently on somewhatf 

 analogous monuments. 



' ' Often on the summit of some of the steepest ascents we 

 found huge piles of branches, twigs, bits of cloth, &c., the! 

 thank-offerings of passing travellers for having reached thus fari 

 on their journey and surmounted the hill" ("Madagascar audi 

 the Malagasy," p. 32, Lieut. OUver, R.A.). According to Mr. I 

 George A. Shaw, of the London Missionary Society, in the lastl 

 number of the Antananarivo Annual, " These heaps are calledl 

 tatao, and have been added to at various times by people! 

 carrying firewood or dried grass, &c., to market. They throwj 

 on a piece 'for luck,' repeating a form of words, signifying, thatl 

 if they are fortunate in getting a good price for tlieir goods, whenl 

 they return they will add another piece to help the tatao to growl 

 large. Men driving cittle, or sheep, or pigs, throw on stones 1 

 with the same speech, often spoken mentally only." 



The Rev. R. Batchelor, S.P.G., who accompanied Bishop 

 Kestell-Cornish to the Antankarana country also mentions that 

 when, in trying to knock down the seeds, he threw pieces of 

 wood and stone up at a fan palm, he was requested to desist by 

 one of the villagers "as the tree was Zanahary, i.e., God, adding 

 at the same time, that a man who had dared to cut the trunk 

 with a knife had been killed the same day by Zanahary's anger." 

 But should I find an intelligent Malagasy battering one of my 

 pet conifers to obtain the cones I should also remonstrate, and 

 unless he was a good linguist he would assuredly believe that I 

 considered my specimen-plants sacred, i.e., from stones and 

 sticks. A far better example is that recorded by the Rev. J. 

 Richardson, Head Master of the London M.S. Normal School 

 at Antananarivo, as occurring at Volotariy, in the Bara country. 



