K.rHOWJLE.nGM. 



[July 17, ^886. 



depreeaions instead of three, and Hio corners-ara much sharper. I 

 have since (in the very same place) seen one that was bu£E with 

 green markings, redaJling a jockey. 



In 1883 I addressed to K a long letter, showing that the 



chronology of Miss A. B. Edwards, in her " Pithom and Ramses" 

 articles was totally impoesiblo. This was not inserted, but sent to 

 Miss p., who addressed to me in next no. a very courteous note. 

 ; I then resolved to confine myself to enriching K. with auroras, 

 zodiacal lights, and other meteors, which are to scientific what the 

 I hptable " enormous gooseberry " is to general journalism ; and I 

 Tencw this resolution now. Should I ever be tempted to write 

 ..'mere opinions, or quotations, or arguments, I really think the 

 .' kindest course for the editor to follow will be simply W.P.B. and 

 j:j'.gjlei>ce— but a note lascd upon a burked letter is very apt to pre- 

 judice the correspondent. Vaija con dios ! Hallyakds. 

 r.S. At first 1 did not intend to comment on Mr. Proctor's 

 ...notes ) but it has occnrred to me that it was inferred from the 

 T probable rectilinear motion of the majority of stars that there 

 ^ .would be collisions ; that these,thoHgh apparently accidents, might 

 ,, in reality be foreseen, ajid part of the provision of the cosmos. I 

 f incline to believe that this was in the papers on Sir VV. Herschel's 

 , views as to the distribution of the stars, tlus year (to which 1 am 

 ., unable to refer at present). If it was not there, it was certainly 

 snot on "outer barbarian" who wrote it, but one of the "inner 

 ,^«iro^e"— of "the clever ones" (Mrs. Clennam & Co.)— of those 

 I. who justly say "we are they that ought to speak — who is lord over 



,, If the above (abont ooUisions) is pure imagination, how is it that 



1 : I am aware that the following is in<ieed so ? 



A century ago Sir VV. H. discerned that the sun is moving, very 



(,. muoh slower than the earth in her orbit, towards a point in Hercules. 



>_^: There is, hitherto, no change in direction observed (though the 



, no. of miles per second is declared ?). Therefore, if tlie sun is 



1, moving in a carve, it is so vast that in a century it does not appre- 



:, ciably differ from a straight line. This does not show it to be 



: one ; but, so fur, it may be supposed to be straight. Mr. Proctor (?) 



i,' has shown that Miidler was quite mistaken in his " central sun" 



[) theory. 



B When I wrote "It will be replied," I had not the least idea of 



., Mr. P.— so there is no creation of a " semi-idiotio second self." 



;. • " It will be replied that their rate of translation will overcome the 



I pull of the nearest body^ — though any one who would reply thus 



;! would say anything." ("I think my friend Mr. — — -of the 



i. club said he knew yon." — "There'» fellers in thai cluh would say 



,. anything,"— -Tep]ie(\ the — (certainly not amiable) — character. I 



! here cite from Thacker.ay.) 



\. I am disconsolate to be found wrong abont so simple a matter. 



i:. ■ I thought that in the case of one body revolving round another 



■c: there are but two forces in question. The smaller may bo con- 



i ceived passing in a straight line ; the pull of the larger is just suffi. 



d^: formerly as centrifugal and centripetal force. That is what I meant. 



Put so much more "rate of translation" on the earth, and it 



(!,■ would overcome the sun's pull, and she would go off in space in a 



s - straight line — saving accidents. The suspected companion of 



.1 . Venns is supposed to have got loose in some such way. 



., A correspondent pointed out the other day that Mr. P. had stated 



b; that space must be infinite. I refrained from saying that that in 



,1: no way convinces me he has not said also the contrary. (Because it 



■t is a mere matter of speonlation ; a wise man's opinions are liable 



to change ; and when a man writes a great deal he cannot possibly 



remember all he writes. " Commentator " complained lately that 



Mr. P. had contradicted himself flatly about the present habitability 



of the planets; I believe he did.) He tells me he has said "we 



[1 cannot conceive infinite space, — a mightily different matter." 



ij. . , Different, concedo ; mightily so, negv : contrariwise, it is a long step 



^.1 towards my version. It is still more inconceivable that space should 



ep be finite. I believe the human mind will never be able to compre- 



J_ : hend the real state of the question at all. It was created for its 



ri own special needs, and no higher. I can imagine a mind as far above 



t it as Mr. P.'s is above my own. XI. 



[182.3]-I s 



A DEEAM. 



n aitract from a letter, received on Monday 

 last, trom a son of mine who is in command of the fastest s.s. in 



the New Zealand waters, merely premising that the " poor N " 



referred to was a younger brother of his who was washed over- 

 board in mid-Atlantic, and the "poor P " a quadroon, who returned 



with me from the West Indies in the eventful year 1848, and who 

 nursed him and all his brothers and sisters, except the eldest, but 

 died last January twelvemonth : — " Now, my dear father, I am 

 going to tell yon an astonnding fact. On the date poor N was 



drowned I saw him struggling in the water on the port-side of a 

 steamer in a stormy sea, when all at once he disappeared, and 



directly after, in uiy dream, I saw poor P sitting at the foot of 



my bud. She said, " Not you," and vanished. I woke upj went 

 on deck, and told the chief-otiicor of it, and, on my return below, 1 

 made a note of it in an almanack. Since then 1 have worked it 

 out, and it tallies to thu moment of the sad occurrence " (I having 

 given him, in a letter to which the above was his answer, the 

 latitude and longitude, with local time of it). W. A. 



MENTAL PHENOMENA. • ' ' 



[182 1]— I was muoh struck the other day by a little French(')&,oy 

 informing me that his grandfather's peacoi^k was sometimes HeRrd 

 as far as Noirmentier (an island ten miles off). This, examjjied, 

 turned ont to be based on a reported fact that some one had beard 

 it on the sea — i.e., a few hundred yards away. But, on reflexipn, I 

 conld not deny that the original statement was specious. Thus : — 

 "" peacock is hoard on tho sea, — 



Noi 



D tho 



Therefore the peacock is lie; 



Just after, I took up a jiriuted letter of the Card. Abp. otj^ina 

 to the Pope. lu tho first two lines U. E. ti-Us 11. H. that he,:^ad 

 recovered from a dangerous illness, " thanks, 1 tliink, to ,y;on» 

 U.'s blessing." 



Now, was the Abp. more logical than the child ? Does he ^old 

 that none ever recover without tlie Pope's blessing ? If he.^oeB 

 not, how does he connect cause and effect .' ! 



It is like Tenterden Steeple and the Goodwin Sands j an<^ not 

 altogether unlike some modern speculations on cause of sup'e 



I believe there will always bo Christiana : but it is surely timpfor 

 churchmen to "report progress" on some points, and "tapjtly 

 recede from " (Card. Newman's phrase) prayers for fine ^efiibsr, 

 and against earthquakes, thunderstorms, and pestilences. 



There is a collect (8th after Trinity)— which I never could read 

 gravely. Who are " we," that we should get all profitable things (the 

 orig. has "cuncta'-anrf " omaia" )and escape all hurtful things 

 (of course to the detriment of some of otfr "dearly beloved 

 brethren" elsewhere.) Hallyaeds. 



MEAN-TIME SUN-DIALS. 



[1825] — I propose having a mean-time sun-dial conatmotedi *nd 

 shall bo much obliged to " E. L. G." (with reference to his letter. 

 No. 1724, p.ige 105) if he will tell me how he derives his rale, for 

 the ordinates. It had seemed to me that if the radius of the hour 

 circle wers multiplied by the sine of half the equation of time, plus 

 the quantity S (expressed as angle), we should have the true length 

 of the ordinate, the axis of the gnomon passing through the centre 

 of the circle j but I have no doubt that he is right. __. 



In the expression for the abscissa, the factor (1 - sin" K + S) 

 might, I think, be omitted, as (except in tho case of very large 

 dials) its effect on the length would be inappreciable. 



Since writing the above I have seen E. L. G.'s letter. No. 1658, 

 p. 290 (previously overlooked), which gives the explanation asked 

 for. The factor (I— sin' N-^h) may certainly be omitted. In 

 small dials it would make no difference, and in large ones the edge 

 of the shadow is so vague that great accuracy is impossible. 



Mdsafih. 



LETTERS EECEIVED AND SHORT ANSWERS. 



Jos. HoRNEH. The reply which you enclose was written by the 

 Conductor of Knowledge, and 1 had never even seen it before. 

 Nor, so far as I am aware, was your MS. in existence when I took 

 over the editorship about the end of last .Tune. Hence the seeming 

 inconsistency, which I can only sincerely regret. — An Anonimous 

 Correspondent forwards a leaf cut from The Bazaar of July 3, 

 containing grave charges against the promoters of the Qolden 

 Argosy scheme of prizes, and complaining that these prizes were 

 advertised in Knowledge. I must reiterate that the appearance of 

 an advertisement of any sort in the columns here devoted to them 

 can and must in no sense whatever be held to imply any sort of 

 editorial guarantee for its ionn fides. Of course, an announcement 

 knou-n to emanate from a doubtful source would be refused 

 insertion, but advertising belongs to the business department of 

 the paper, with which the editor has nothing whatever to do. — 

 J. Webb asks Mr. Clodd for the name of the publisher of the re- 

 issue of the " Biblia Pauperum " ? With regard to your request 

 for a Greek Lexicon, I myaelf always use the English edition of 

 Schrevelius, in which the definitions are, as yon require, framed on 

 philological and not on merely doctrinal grounds. — W. invites 

 " Coleford's " attention to the circumstance tha', according to his 



