♦ Ki:50\^3LEDGEi -. 



killed from two to three hnndred every evening of the season, 

 during three jeare; the fourth summer there was hardly a. sing to 



PRINTERS' DEVILRY. 





had, 



but T 1 



:onfes 



irthur; 



lOUgh 



>fay 30, the S. 

 eoul went to Arthur's losom (where 

 in some of its nioodg have pot on excellently with 

 inmate)" . . . and below — " durrnp his sojourn in 

 ?a.-...„i." Kow, I cannot imafrine how any bc-ing able 

 have developed type as his "protective peculiarity" 

 could fail to see by the allusion to La/.arns— whom he must have 

 heard of at church, if nowherfe else— that, if even his copy had had 



laws of cenrse appears as "Breton" in the same journal; and I 



it is not always subordinates who are preternaturally obtuse. " As 

 to this I confess I am tv,„didenius " (in an old letter). Can there 

 be a doubt as to what this means ? Yet the reviewer declared it 

 insoluble. A confrere flashed the levin of scorn on a hapless novelist 



for having a " Bp. of ■ shire ; " declaring no district ever to give 



title to a see ; in face of Man, Galloway, Argyll, the Isles, ileath, 

 Ossory, &c. 



Considering how many broken-down scholars there are " around" 

 living on their wits, (which must be good, or else they would 

 starve) it seems strange they cannot be cash as press-correctors, 

 where they would be " the right men in the right places." 



Hallyasds. 



LETTERS EECEITED AND SUORT ANSWERS. 

 J. Webb. I do not know who the London agent for the Sidereal 

 Messenger is. Try Grevel, Triibncr, cr Wesley & Son. No one but 

 Mr. Nasroyth has, so far as 1 am aware, ever seen " willow-leaves" 

 on the sun, but the "rice-grains," "granules," or "leaves" of 

 other observers may be seen with apertures of 6 in. and upwards. 

 —A Kreophagist. Assuredly not ; it is ntterlv baseless.— J. L. P. 

 Shall be handed to " Five of Clubs" on his return to London.— 

 Dr. Lewiss. You compel me to speak plainly. Briefly, then, I 

 cannot convert the columns of KNOWLErcB into a propaganda of 

 your doctrines for two simple reasons. The first is that this journal 

 was established for the purpose of affording efficient and trust- 

 worthy instruction in what is proved and knou-n in Natural and 

 Physical Science, and by no means for the setting forth of the 

 subtilizations of Metaphysics. The second you will regard 

 doubtless as a merely sordid one; but this will scarcely 

 affect its validity. If I were to favour mv readers 

 weekly with columns of declamation in favonr of Atheism 

 pure and simple, I should speedily have so very limited a number 

 of such readers as to render the paper a ruinous loss to its pro- 

 prietors, which I could assuredly plead no justification for doing. 

 This is why I suggested to you to start an organ of your own. 

 Snrely, as sporting men say, " you ought to back jour own 

 opinions."— W. Cave Tuojias. He lives in Italy. If I can ascer- 

 tain his address accurately, I will forward it.'— D. Walkinsuaw 

 sends a new system of spelling, which surpasses all the systems of 

 phonetics that I have, so far, seen in simplicity. It contains no 

 new characters nor letters. Try the Philological Society.— J. 

 FocLEETON. Received with thanks.— H. A. BuLLEY. The discussion 

 is a very barren one. Y'ou only meet your opponent's dogmatic asser- 

 tions with others equally dogmatic, and, let me add, equally un- 

 provable.— Commentator. Please send your exact address, as there 

 is a letter lying here for yon.— W. Solthwick Rogers. In its 

 existing stage it is simply a commercial speculation which I 

 certainly do not feel called upon to advertise gratis. — John 

 HiHPDEN. Don't talk nonsense ! The gnomonic projection of the 

 circles of the sphere upon the plane of the terrestrial equator was 

 employed ages before either you or I were bom or thought of. The 

 southern (outside) part of your map is wildly wrong !— Comme.v 

 tatob. Requieseat in pace. Observe what factitious importance 

 such a discussion confers on the subject of it.— Jas. S. Gkeig. I 

 shall be happy to accept it as a voluntary contribution. Should 

 you not agree to this, I will return yonr MS. on receipt of a 

 properly - addressed and sufficiently - stamped envelope. The 

 conductor is in the United States. — Hallyakds. All safe 

 to hand, and will appear in instalments. The precis was 

 not set up after what you said, your remonstrance reaching 

 me in time for me to stop it.— M. B. The actual superior 



* [How many of these have their origin in the detestably bad 

 writing of people to whom it is impoEsib'.e to send proofs ?— Ed.] 



limit of the atmosphere is supposed to be about 200 miles 

 above the earth's surface. This estimate is derived from 

 the observations of twilight by M. Liais, in Rio Janeiro. I 

 know nothing of Faraday's esperinui.ts i.'^tal.:i.l,ing the limit 

 of diffusibility of mercury. T ■ ■■ . problem is 



insoluble without more data'tl;.- ■ -cnf.— J. II. 



CoBBETT. The image of any pi-. '. lebaran, or 



whatnot — formed by the objectj.;]:i i.^ thrown on 



to the slit of the spectroscope, tj '' ■ know what 



object it is that we are examining spccfr'i?fn[.if:i!Iy. Light travels 

 in straight lines, so that no other rays can reach the eye than 

 those from the object under observation. Light passing across the 

 field of view is absolutely invisible (see Vol. V., p. SuO). Do you 

 not see that if the light of the different stars traversed the imma- 

 terial population you postulate, it would render the stellar spectra 

 all alike— or at all events they would have a vast amount in 

 common. But for the kind of discussion it would provoke, I should 

 print your very amusing letter in erlen^o.—U.A.Il. Shall be sub- 

 mitted to the Conductor immediately on his return from America. 

 — Arctukvs. — Bather a question for a crammer or private tutor 

 than for a scientific journal. I do not possess Todhunter's " Euclid." 

 You may always describe a right-angled triangle by making the 

 sides=3, 4, and 5. Y'ou have the length of the hypothenuse given ; 

 calling this 5, the sum of the two other sides = 7. Take the sides 

 in the proportions given. I am very much of your opinion as to 

 the most advantageous types of communication for [he Correspon- 

 dence Columns. The Mind-aad- Matter question has been utterly 

 thrashed out.— St.vckyakd. The courtesy and pleasant tone of 

 your criticism is only equalled by its candour. I trust that you 

 will find future nuniber.s altered in precise compliance with your 

 requests. — W. M. K. With a preliminary request that you will 

 study section 3 of the concluding paKigraph on p. 505 of Vol. VII., 

 I would ask yon seriously whether you expect me to insert eighteen 

 sheets of the most dogmatic possiljle assertion, unsupported 

 by one atom of proof ? There is intemperance in language and 

 argument as well as in drink. Alcohol does mischief. Granted. — 

 but so does water. Because a woman uses it to drown herself in, 

 am I never to have a bath ? When you reiterate that favourite 

 phrase from Mr. Tweedie's tracts, " Our drink bill," doea it not 

 strike you by how many millions the population of these islands 

 increases in every decade, as shown by the census ? Surely you do 

 not expect the consumption of alcohol to diminish ! That " the 

 road of moderation leads to drunkenness " is, you must really 

 pardon me for saying, merely offensive cant. Again, your allega- 

 tion as to what " every sensible person believes " is very arrogant, 

 inasmuch as it brands with stupidity everyone who dares to think 

 differently from the comparatively small clique to which yon 

 belong. Your ideas of the operation of the law with reference 

 to fire are vague, to say the least of it. The law does not 

 prevent a man having gas-burners, Ac, in all sorts of 

 dangerous positions ; while it does prohibit a publican from 

 serving an intoxicated man. Furthermore, your assertion that 

 it would be for the good of a temperate man to deny him- 

 self any stimulant whatever is simplv the expression of yom- 

 opinion. Thousands of the best and w'isest men who have ever 

 lived have thought differently. Y'es, I can say that, living arti- 

 ficially as we do, strong drink is a very " necessary article of con- 

 sumption for proper nourishment of a man in ordinary health." 

 When gentlemen wore nothing but a few dabs of woad on their 

 persons, and ate acorns, spring water was obviously the most 

 fitting beverage for so pig-like a diet. And here, again, yon are 

 guilty of maWng an assertion without a fragment of proof when 

 you assert that " the leading men of the medical faculty " 

 think total abstinence reasonable or wholesome. Why, I 

 could fill this column with the names of the very greatest 

 physicians and surgeons, all of whom not only recommend alcohol, 

 (in strict moderation), but take it themselves. Y'onr two questions 

 are modest demands for me to prove a negative— which no one is 

 called upon to do. The qnestion as to the superior " vitality and 

 endurance" of water-drinkers was tried out in the hayfield in an 

 English county only last year, with the result that the beer-drinkers 

 beat the brethren of the pump off their heads. As for your evi- 

 dence of longevity, it is worthless. A vast proportion of the oldest 

 men whose deaths have been recorded have been both moderate 

 drinkers and smokers. And can you give me the name of onP 

 single insurance office which takes teetotalers' lives at a lower 

 premium ? To be brief, your tremendous letter consists of asser- 

 tion from beginning to end. My first impulse was to print it tn 

 extenso, and let the reviewer of the book which evoked it reply to 

 yon. In mercy to you, though, I have done so myself. From the 

 days of Noah downwards men have taken wine, and will continue 

 to take it, the United Kingdom Alliance notwithstanding. — M. 

 HuMM. Lectures will be duly announced. — Geologists' Assocta- 

 TioN. Received. 



