KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[Sept. 25, 1885. 



did E 



)r do n 



. ir French friend right. Ti.: 

 Knowledge is to be difftn 

 " gross errors " ; those who i 

 series, but would have done 

 Editor objected to these ] 

 suggestion as to respoiiMliil 

 sponsibility. Most cert.ui. 

 On the other subject Sh;; 

 lines beginning "Tlicr. 

 forgotter 



, 3, 4 h 



n this in his • 



uf > 



odd idea of yours that the rising of the tid'i 

 fatal facility of explanation ! But •' pickled 

 mine, you say, you were tickled to find t 

 attributing to me the foible of omnisciti:* 

 learn that the Saturday Berien- would say . 

 sion of opinion, even doubtingly, ser\es tli< > 

 ' ' ' ■ rsal knowledge. But peopU- > i 



•! - ' iv me before 1881.— Your 

 : . i_l,t. Not my fault if you 

 . : .'irsi; that you thought 

 -J ■ ! i 1 synopsis ; but monthly 

 >\x tliink you have pointed out 

 ink otherwise. K. had such a 

 y better without it. The acting 

 tron;_'!y ; but a misunderstood 

 lifiii in, and nobody admits re- 

 il'l'ij mil cannot be admitted. 



It is a pity you "have 

 -t • :.n ever knew." I fear 

 urrect. The points numbered 

 astronomers, and would have 

 iduals " I explain as depending 

 .ugh known that the extent of 

 xaggeratcd. Humboldt dwells 

 A saying by Button, however, 



Whi 



es the a 



Ilerie 



ied, 11 



o belie 



and 



■\V. H. Jokes.— Few letters can now appe; 

 yours is not suitable fur an article. It is most certain, however, 

 that the mind of the infant cannot be compared to a sheet of paper. 

 Heredity is now an established scientific fact. Tliis does not prevent 

 what you advise in the way of training from being desirable. But 

 your advice would appear better in a non-scientific paper.—" OSB 

 WHO," &c.— Oh ! but excuse me ; you attributed to me a \vish to see 

 the R. Ast. Soc. crmnble, as it were, into nothing before my 

 imagined attacks. I hare "written some rather sharp remarks" 

 about squabbles in the R. Ast. Soc. ; but that is not attacking the 

 Society, rather the other way. I passed some of the plcasantest 

 hours of my life at the meetings of the Society before the squabbles 

 bogan ; I know, too, that many like myself withdrew from the 

 meetings because of them, and that the meetings are now, for that 

 reason, very poorly attended. Some actually left the Society because 

 so much of its time was occupied, and so unpleasantly, with the 

 fijht over the endowment question. The best friends of the 

 Society did as I did, — deprecating squabbles, especially about 

 personal matters, money, position, and so forth. Ton repeat 

 that I got into a "mess" of some sort! I repeat that I 

 know nothing of any mess. An anonymous writer, making use 

 of knowledge which only Mr. L. should have possessed, led me 

 into an erroneous belief as to the source whence his remarks came. 

 By indicating my belief openly, I got that error corrected, at no 

 expense to any one, except temporary annoyance perhaps to 

 Mr. L., for which his own mistake in communicating what he 

 shjuld have kept to himself was responsible. If you imagine that 

 it cost me anything to accept his explanation, you judge me 

 wrongly — doubtless from internal evidence. You mistake in sup- 

 posing "that we admit anonymous letters into our columns. A letter 

 which appears anonymously is not necessarily anonymous. All 

 honest writers send their names to us,—" not necessarily for publi- 

 cation " as the form ha? it, "but as a guarantee of good 

 fiith " : keeping back the name, in the case of a letter 

 relating to personal matters, is a guarantee of bad faith : 

 about the surest I know. Not knowing what was said 

 aboat the Vegetarian Society, I do not know whether it was 

 insulting, as you say, or not. If it abused vegetarians as such, I am 

 sorry for it : because every man has a right to his opinions. But 

 if it ridiculed the way in which some vegetarians treat those who 

 do not agree with them, " I'm there." A letter, signed (name not 

 necessarily for publication) stating what seemed objectionable, 

 would have received attention.— Pebcy. Received.— Russell. 

 Known and noted.— GowRiE. I think of publishing the Dif. Cal. 

 papers soon: am away from my volumes of Knowledge and 

 cannot recollect when those papers appeared. I have no idea 

 liow myself to pronounce some of the star-names. I used to say 

 Atdebaran (pronouncing it Aldebiihran), and liked that even as the 

 old lady liked that sweet word Mesopotamia (as a boy my favourite 

 name was Monomotapa)— but now, having been sat upon, I say 

 Al Debaran). Does it matter much ?— Welshman. I prefer 

 " dullness " to " dulness ; " and " defense " is better than " defence." 

 I also like " gotten," as " got " is an ugly sounding word. Americans 

 never use the redundant "got" so commonly used by Ds, as " I 

 have got" for "I have"— and I have gotten to dislike that re- 

 dundant " got " very much.— R. M. Hutchinson. Thanks for "magic 

 squares " ; but we must not put them in the last few numbers of 

 weekly Knowledge.— P. J. Bevebidge. Where you go wrong. 



iWtscellanra. 



The largest profit by a German railroad in 1883 was 9o9 per 

 cent, by the Right Bank of Oder Railroad. Four German roads 

 earned more than 8 per cent., two more than 7 per cent., but no 

 otlier earned as much as 6 per cent., while fourteen earned less than 

 3 per cent. 



An American contemporary says: "Tlie I'iku's Peak Railway, 

 which is expected to be in operation this year, will be the most 

 notable piece of track in the world. It willmount 2,000 feet higher 

 than the Lima and Oroya Railway, in Peru. It is now in operation 

 to a point over 12,000 feet above "the sea level. The entire thirty 

 miles of its length will be a succession of complicated curves and 

 grades, with no piece of straight track longer than 300 feet. The 

 maximum grade will be 316 feet to the mile, and the average grade 

 270 feet. The line will abound in curves from .")00 feet to 1,000 feet 

 long, in which the radius changes every chain." 



On the 3rd inst. the ground suddenly sank quite 10 ft. for eight 

 vards on the towin.e-path of the River Weaver, close to the town of 

 'Northwich. The water rushed in, forming a lake. The Wheat- 

 sheaf Hotel, ckisf to the place, has just been raised 3 ft. after 

 subsiding. Soon after the collapse of the towing-path a more 

 alarming subsidence occurrtd in the same npi<rhbourhood. Under- 

 neath a coachbuildcr's in Ca.*tle-stn-i t. a thorouL-lifare recently 

 restored at much expense by the c-i ; . , a ;-'reat quan- 



tity of earth suddenly disappear!.;, ; . rtion of the 



foundation wall and tlie adjacent i. : .iito achasiii. 



Thebuil'din ' ' ' 



e chas 



I, othei 



ted clay 



. ,im of which 

 : Harbour, called 



o the desired 



ONE of t 

 Dimond Reef, is composed of indur 

 presented unusual difficulties in the way 



depth, and is now being removed by means or me aiinuon oi 

 powerful streams of water forced against the bottom by hydraulic 

 dredgers. The mean velocity of the water discharged from the 

 special mechanism used for the purpose is about 7,000 ft. per minute, 

 and the Xautical Gazette reports that this "is sufficient to force 

 the earth and clay at the bottom into suspension, to be carried out 

 by the ebbing ti.ie, which is the only time these hydraulic ploughs 

 are used. After tjiu clay is washed away, the boulders are removed 

 by grappling-irons. This method has been so successful that it is 

 being applied to tliat portion of the bar in Gednev Channel, which 

 wiirsccure a dc].th of 28ft. at low water for a width of 480ft. 

 At the point selecte<l for this work the bar is about 4,000 ft. in 

 width, and the ebbing tide has a mean velocity of one and a-half 



The British Association.— In the Mathcni:;tii:;il and Physical 

 Science Section, the " Relative merits of iron ,, ; r ,^I.r^^:! ■ f-r 

 telegraph lines" formed the subject of a i .i 'I I' 



Preece, of the General Post-office. He rcii::i ' i -■- 



office had recently erected a copper wire bet«' • i - ; i i. ... u- 

 castle, weighing 1001b. per mile, with a view .. Usi.i.^- ii^ .ulm- 

 against the ordinary iron wire, which weighed 100 lb. per mile. 

 The cost of each "was about the same. As regards speed of 

 working, the copper showed decided superiority, the speed being— 

 for simplex working, copper, 414; iron, 345 : for duplex working, 

 copper, 270; iron, 237 words per minute. Copp" showed itself 

 more susceptible to rapid reversal of electric cnrrcnts than iron. 

 Hence it was better for fast-speed working and for telephones. 

 The progress made by the Post-office in inii.roving the rate of 

 working of the Wheatstone automatic appaiatus was shown by the 

 fact that while in 1877 the rate was 80 words per minute, in 1880 

 it was 170, in 1883 it was 250, and now it had reached 430 words 

 per minute. 



