August 1 8, 1887] 



NATURE 



365 



first quarter and the three legged Manx man in the second quarter; 

 the motto belonging to this latter is Quocumjue jerciis stabit.^ 

 The Duchess of Sutherland (Countess of Cromartie) bears this 

 symbol in her arms for Macleod, in the first and third quarters. 

 The crest of the Earls of Seafieid is a salamander in flames ; 

 the Marquis of Hertford has a phoenix in flames out of a ducal 

 coronet ; Mackenzie of Scatwell, co. Ros«, has on the second 

 quarter of his arms a rock in flames, and on the third quarter 

 three legs of a man armed, for Macleod of Lewis ; Lord 

 Ongley, a phnenix in flames holding in its beak a fire-ball ; 

 Verney, Bt., a demi-phoenix in flames looking at the rays of 

 lie sun ; and Carmichael, Bt., has in the second and third 

 :uarters of his arms, a cup with flames of fire issuing there- 

 Irom. 



We will now turn to the third portion of our subject — the sun 

 as a ring, or a si-nple circle — bearing in mind that the former 

 type is in heraldry called amulets or annulets, and that the 

 simple circle is styled a bezant. 



The Earl of Lonsdale has in his coat-of-arms six annulets 

 forming a triangle ; the Earl of Bantry one annulet in the first, 

 and ten bezants in the fourth quarter of his coat-of-arms ; 

 Harron, Bt., on a Saltier gu., five annulets. Amory Bagge, and 

 Bailey, Bts., bear also annulets. 



In the possession of a member of the writer's family is a seal 

 of rock crystal, on which is the motto Luceo non uro ; ^ beneath 

 this is a baron's coronet (for the Barony of Strange, which came 

 to the Dukes of Athole through the female line), and below 

 this, again, the sun in glory. It is believed (but none are now 

 living who know this for a fact) that this seal formerly belonged 

 to Marjory, second wife of the fourth Duke of Athole, eldest 

 daughter of James, sixteenth Lord Forbes, and widow of John 

 Lord Macleod, who died s.p. in 1789 ; she married the Duke in 

 1 794, and died in 1842, having had by him a son and a daughter 

 \\ ho predeceased her. 



The Isle of Man belonged at one time to the Macleods — when, 

 is apparently not known — but in 1405-6 it came into the pos- 

 session of the Stanleys (afterwards Earls of Derby), through 

 Sir John Stanley, Kt., who in conjunction with Roger Leke 

 received a commission to seize the city of York and its liberties, 

 and al>o the Isle of Man upon its forfeiture by Henry Peroy, 

 Earl of Northumberland. The Stanleys held the Isle of Man 

 until the death of Ferdinando, the fifth Earl, without male heirs, 

 when the Barory of Strange — which title had been borne by the 

 second Earl, who died in 1522— fell into abeyance between his 

 daughters, and the earldom went to his brother William, sixth 

 Earl, who bought from his nieces their claims on the Isle of 

 Man. His son, again, the seventh Earl, was summoned to Parlia- 

 ment in 1627 as Baron Strange, under the impression that his 

 father had enjoyed it ; this was, however, not the case, and the 

 summons was virtually a new peerage, which eventually devolved 

 upon the ducal house of Athole, through the marriage of 

 Amelia Anna Sophia, youngest daughter of the seventh Earl of 

 Derby, by his wife Charlotte de la Tremoille, daughter of the 

 Due de Thours in France, with John, second Earl and first 

 Marquis of Athole. Failing male heirs to her father, Charlotte, 

 daughter of the second Duke of Athole, became Baroness 

 Strange on his death in 1764, and also succeeded to his rights in 

 the Isle of Man. She married her cousin, John Murray, who 

 became the third Duke. 



Another seal, also in the writer's family, has an impression 

 which differs essentially from the armed legs of the Isle of Man. 

 It is known to have been the private seal of the fourth Duke. 

 The Manx emblem correctly described is "the three legs of a 

 man armed ppr. conjoined in the centre at the upper part of 

 the thighs, placed in triangle garnished and spurred or" : but 

 on this seal the three legs are bare, and conjoined in the centre 

 by a sun with rays. In fact, it is the trinacria of Sicily. 



Harriet G. M. Murray-Aynsley. 



Bishop's Ring.— The Sky-coloured Clouds. 



DtJRiNG a recent visit to the Alps I carefully looked for 

 Bishop's ring, and found that it was generally visible at high 

 altitudes in the iniddle of the day when the sky was clear. On 

 the whole, the higher one ascended, the plainer it was, up to a 

 height of 9000 feet, beyond which I did not go. On one occa- 

 sion it was visible nearly or quite as low down as Chamounix, 



i » Signifying, "However you throw me I stand." This is true of the 

 I svastika, a fire symbol likewise. 



" " I give light, but I do not burn." 



altitude 3400 feet ; but this was the lowest point I saw it from. 

 It was always extremely faint, so much so that if I had not seen 

 it previously in its greater brightness I should not have noticed 

 it at all, — indeed, it could usually only be detected by a careful 

 comparison of the colour of different parts of the sky. Its 

 dimension seems the same as heretofore. 



About sunrise and sunset this circle continues occasionally 

 conspicuously visible here, but it is long since I saw it in the 

 middle of the day, when the sky has been really clear ; some- 

 times, however, I have seen a similar circle, but with much 

 duller colours and extremely feeble, giving one the impression 

 that it was lower in the atmosphere than Bishop's ring as caused 

 by the volcanic dust, and that it might be caused by smoke. 



Last evening, and still more this morning, there was a bright 

 display of the " sky- coloured clouds" (if I may so call them). 

 I seldom or never saw them more brilliant than they were this 

 morning, when I observed a circumstance as regards their colour 

 that I have not noticed before : the greater part of them was 

 coloured as usual, the lower part a dull yellowish green, and the 

 upper part a bright, though light, blue ; but there was a border 

 of yellow above the blue, very faintly lit up it is true, but unmis- 

 taka'ole. The display was almost confined to that part of the 

 horizon between north-north-east and north-north-west, the 

 cloud-mass evidently not extending further east or west to 

 any extent, and the upper border after 2 a.m., at least, was 

 evidently the actual southern edge of the cloud sheet. 



I had the opportunity of watching these clouds gradually fade 

 away in the increasing daylight, showing that in all probability 

 they did not evaporate, but simply became invisible owing to the 

 increasing light of the sky, and perhaps also to their losing light 

 themselves. It is again evident, therefore, that they are of an 

 exceedingly filmy and transparent nature, and indeed can hardly 

 be considered real clouds at all. 



Their motion was very slow, but appeared on the whole much 

 as usual — viz. from a north-easterly direction. 



Sunderland, July 30. T. W. BACKHOUSE. 



The Electricity of the Contact of Gases with Liquids. 



Since the delivery of Helmholtz's famous Faraday Lecture, 

 " the charge on the atom " h3s been assumed by physicists, not- 

 withstanding the very serious objections urged by Maxwell against 

 such a theory. A re-perusal of the latter, some eighteen months 

 ago, excited me to make some experiments on the subject. It 

 occurred to me that by allowing such solutions as potassic iodide 

 and chlorine water to react in an insulated vessel some informa- 

 tion might be obtained as to the equality or inequality of the 

 atomic charges. 



My object at present is not to give an account of the many 

 experiments of this kind which I made, but briefly to call atten- 

 tion to one result to which they led, and I shall describe only 

 such experiments as are necessary for this purpose. 



One of the electrodes of a quadrant electrometer was ** put to 

 earth," the other was connected to an insulated stand on which 

 was placed a porcelain dish containing a small quantity of dis- . 

 tilled water. The instrument was in a rather sensitive state. A 

 high-resistance Daniell, through which a current never passed, 

 gave a deflection of 94 divisions either way. A small fragment 

 of potassium was cast on the water. The spot went rapidly to 

 the left, indicating a negative charge on the porcelain dish, and 

 a positive charge on the escaping hydrogen. A second fragment 

 of K was thrown on the liquid in the insulated dish. The spot 

 moved 28 divisions to the left, then turned and went up the scale 

 to the right 300 divisions. A third piece of K was thrown on 

 the liquid in the insulated basin, and the spot moved 40 division^ 

 to the right. This behaviour was extremely perplexing. The 

 connexions were looked up, and the experiment repeated with 

 like irregular results. 



Na was used instead of K, and although the deflections then 

 obtained were also irregular, the tabulated results showed a 

 contrast. When Na was used, 40 per cent, of the deflections 

 were first to the left ; when potassium was used, 70 per cent, of 

 the deflections were first to the left. Speaking broadly, this 

 seemed to indicate that with K the hydrogen came off charged 

 positively, with the sodium it came off charged negatively ; and 

 as I thought that such a result would throw some light on the 

 atomic charges I tried very hard to eliminate what I then believed 

 to be accidental exceptions, and to prove that in reality such was 

 the case. But I tried in vain. 



Retaining the same method of testing the electrification, other 



