March 1, 1888.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



lis 



treatise to gain acceptance. Luckily, under this guise, the 

 book was commercially successful.* The " Sun " was only 

 in appearance a resumption of my original plan. Even a;5 

 it was, the work was not sufficiently popular, and many 

 passages in the first edition which haJ been most carefully 

 written had to be removed from later additions, a.s too 

 difficult for the general reader. The " Moon " was nearer the 

 mark, at least as regards the first half of the first edition. 

 But here again the reading public showed that they must 

 not be invited to anything like arduous study, or even to 

 any prolonged efibrt of reasoning. The best parts of the 

 work had to be excised from the later editions. My 

 "Cleometry of Cycloids," and the books in which I discussed 

 the Transits of Venus, were naturally regarded as still less 

 suitable for the general public, though simple enough, I had 

 thought, for all readers. 



But while the plan for producing separate treatises had 

 to be given up, I continued to keep in view the general 

 work in which I had proposed to present in popular 

 form a summary of the results presented in fuller detail in 

 those monographs. " Old and New Astronomy " is the 

 treatise thus planned as far back as in 186-t, though it need 

 hardly be said that the original plan has been largely 

 modified during its subsecjuent development. The plan of 

 this genei-al work has been indicated elsewhere. So far as 

 I know, no work of the same scope is in existence. 



ROYAL VICTORIA HALL. 



{To the Editor q/" Knowledge.) 



X the 14th inst. an exceedingly interesting 

 lecture was given by Mr. Wethered on 

 " Volcanoes and Earthquakes." It is diffi- 

 cult to give an absti-act of a lecture which 

 depended so much on the gi'eat beauty and 

 interest of the slides shown. One set of 

 these were taken by a San Francisco photo- 

 grapher during the recent eruption in 

 Hawaii, and sent over by H.M.'s Consul in San Francisco 

 specially for this lecture. They were taken at intervals of 

 five minutes, and showed the progress of the lava. The 

 first showed the molten stream just slipping over a cliff into 

 the lake below. In the next the heated mass falling into 

 the water had already begun to generate clouds of steam. 

 Before long these obliged the photographer to shift his 

 position, and the series ended with a photograph taken 

 some time later, when the lava (which had entirely filled 

 up the little lake before mentioned) was cool enough in 

 places to walk on, and a scene of more entire desolation 

 could not be imagined. Other views were taken in the 

 crater of Mauna Lua, others again in the Bay of Naples ; 

 while a very interesting set showed the scene of the fearful 

 eruption in New Zealand, including a portrait of the old 

 chief who a few days before predicted an awful calamity. 

 This he did because he was vexed at being refused a loan by 

 a neighbour, but he did not beUevc in his own prediction 

 .sufficiently to run away, and he was killed by the eruption. 

 Passing on to earthquakes, the lecturer said eruptions were 



* Except Sir John Herschel and Mr. Herbert Spencer in England, 

 Gerigny in France, and Oscar Peschel in Germany, few recognised 

 the real purport of that work, which critics agreed in discussing 

 from the point of view of those who take interest in the scarcely 

 scientific problem of life in other worlds. Peschel recognised the 

 chapters on the stars as deliberately challenging the accuracy of 

 the Herschelian theory of the stellar universe, and, after an ex- 

 haustive analysis, decided that that theory was shown to be abso- 

 lutely untenable. 



always preceded by earthquakes, but their causes were not 

 certainly known. In Japan a veiy delicate apparatus is in 

 use for recording the shocks. A very slight jerk sets up an 

 electric current by which one clock is stopped (recording the 

 precise second of the shock), while other clockwork is set in 

 motion by which paper is drawn across the point of a 

 pencil. Thus the varying regularity and direction of the 

 dots and .strokes on the paper indicate the force and direc- 

 tion of the shocks. So delicate is this apparatus that it 

 shows not merely actual shocks, but so-called " earth 

 tremors," which seem to be due to the action of the wind on 

 the earth. One theory of earthquakes attributes them to 

 the shrinking of the earth's crust as it cools, which causes 

 sufficient pressure to liquefy some of the rocks in the 

 interior. As they liquefy they expand, and .shake the earth 

 above them in their efforts to make room or find a vent. 

 Another theory is that water, penetrating through cracks to 

 the hot interior, is changed into steam, and produces the 

 same effect. Profe.?sor Milne's opinion is that earthquakes 

 are the result of both causes combined, and his opinion is of 

 weight, since he has for years been studying earthquakes 

 under the mo.st favourable circumstances in Japan, where 

 they have an average of two daily ! 



'The lecture concluded with a set of very interesting 

 photographs, taken in Charlestown just after the earthquake 

 there. In these the apparently capricious action of the 

 destructive force was very striking. One house might be 

 reduced to utter ruins, while the next was almost un- 

 touched. 



The chairman (the Hon. and Rev. Canon Pelham) pro- 

 posed a vote of thanks, which was very heartily responded to. 



The leeturas in prospect are — February 28, Mr. E. 

 Hodder on Lord Shaftesbury : March tj, Dr. R. D. Roberts 

 on "Nature's Sculpturing Tools"; March 13, Profe.ssor 

 Sylvanus Thompson, " Electric Bells " ; March 20, Dr. 

 A. Wynter Blyth, '■ Food and its Adulterations " ; March 

 ■21, Dr. Litton Forbes, " The Great Ice Age." 



C. A. Martixeac. 



1 CUfton Place, Sussex Square, W.C. 



IN THE BEGINNING.' 



< I long as human vanity, fed and supplemented 

 bv man's ignorance of the nature of his 

 surroundings in the cosmos, prompted him 

 to believe that our tiny world was the end, 

 centre, and cynosure of all creation ; that 

 the sun, moon, and stars and all the host of 

 heaven were called into existence solely for 

 his beuetit and guidance, and even in some sort that they 

 might influence and reveal his destiny; in short, that the 

 entire visible universe was brought forth by the fiat of 

 Omnipotence for his behoof, and for that alone ; just so long 

 was he content to accept such l(?gends and myths as that 

 which appears, in two totally separate forms, in the opening 

 chapters of (Jenesis as an actual historical account of the 

 origin of the earth with its living wonders, the sky, and the 

 infinity of suns and worlds of the macrocosm. The first 

 blow (albeit, in the then existing state of knowledge it was 

 but a feeble one) inflicted on this belief was by the putting 

 forth by Copernicus of that theory of the solar system 

 which placed the sun in its centre, and converted the 

 hitherto suppo.sititious heart of the universe into an insig- 

 nificant member of a numljer of bodies revolving round 

 that mighty source of light and heat. Ajid, necessarily as 



* " The Story of Creation : a Plain Account of Evolution." By 

 Edward Clodd. (London: Longmans, Green & Co. 188S.) 



