Oct., 1904.] 



KNOWLEDGE & SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



235 



Of the planets, there can be little doubt that \'enus is 

 named in the splendid apostrophe : " How art thou fallen 

 from heaven, O Helcl, Son of the morning ! " It has 

 been thought that X'enus and Jupiter were meant by the 

 Gad and Meni (" that troop " and " that number ") of 

 Isaiah Ixv., 2, but this is doubtful. If Kaivan, rather 

 than Chiun, is the correct reading of Amos v., 26, Saturn 

 is here intended, for that was his name among the 

 ancient Arabs and Syrians. The passage would read : 

 " Ye have taken Sakkuth your king, and Saturn, the 

 star of your God, images which ye have made for your- 

 selves." 



The only other name in the Bible which is certainly 

 connected with stars is that of Mazzaroth. " Canst thou 

 bring forth Mazzaroth in his season ? " is asked of Job, 

 immediately after the mention of Orion and the Pleiades 

 quoted above. A name so nearly alike that it can hardly 

 fail to be the same thing occurs in one other place. In 

 the reform of Josiah, the burning of incense to " Baal, to 

 the Sun, and to the Moon, and to Mazzaloth, and to all 

 the host of heaven," was abolished. For etymological 

 and other reasons, Mazzaroth, or Mazzaloth, has been 

 variously translated as Lucifer, Sirius, Ursa Major, the 

 northern stars generally. Corona liorealis, Orion's belt, 

 the constellations of the Zodiac, the stations of the Moon, 

 the planets. Professor Schiaparelli, without venturing to 

 decide absolutely, favours the first, chiefly for the follow- 

 ing reasons : — 



(i) A plural noun is used with a singular pronoim, 

 suggesting the dual nature of Venus as morning and 

 evening star. 



(2) " In his season " indicates a periodical appearance 

 and disappearance. 



(3) The position of the name in the sentence, coming 

 after Sun and Moon, but before all the host of heaven, 

 suggests a star inferior only to Sun and Moon in bright- 

 ness. 



We may, however, be permitted to suggest tliat 

 Mazzaroth was perhaps superior to the host of heaven in 

 importance, not in brightness; and, if so, this argument, 

 as well as the two others, would apply equally well to 

 the constellations of the Zodiac. They are plural, 

 though the Zodiac is singular; and their chief feature is 

 periodical re-appearance. 



But Professor Schiaparelli reminds us also of the three 

 constantly recurring symbols on Babylonian monuments, 

 which we know represent Sin, Samas, and Istar — that is, 

 Sun, Moon, and Venus. The "host of heaven," when it 

 means something more than simply the stars in general, 

 he regards as all the planetary and starry deities of the 

 Babylonian Pantheon, the " spirits of heaven." 



The attempt to formulate a Hebrew cosmogony does 

 not appear to us altogether successful. It is difficult to 

 accept the view that, because Job speaks poetically of the 

 sky as " strong, and as a molten looking-glass," while in 

 a Psalm it is likened to a curtain, therefore the Hebrews 

 recognised two heavens, one above the other, the higher 

 containing the stars ; nor does it seem like serious criti- 

 cism to try to locate the " treasuries" of hail, snow, and 

 wind. 



The truth is that the ancient Hebrews felt no intellec- 

 tual need, as did the Greeks, to construct world schemes 

 in order to explain natural phenomena. The universe 

 was to them, as Professor Schiaparelli himself observes, 

 simply the marvellous and inscrutable manifestation of 

 one supreme Power. It will doubtless be a surprise to 

 some to find that a whole book can be filled with the 

 astronomy of the Old Testament. 



Photography. 



Pure and Applied. 



By CiiAi-MAN JoNiiH, I'M.C, P.C.S., iS:c. 



Measuring Apparatus. — Photographic operations and 

 apparatus for their investigation are far from perfect 

 from a scientific point of view. There are no instru- 

 ments, so far, even if there are methods, that can fitly 

 be described as " standard," so that every investigator 

 who seriously devotes himself to the subject lias first 

 to examine experimental methods and then, generally, 

 to design the apparatus that he considers will prove 

 most suitable. There are a few fundamental matters 

 that too often do not receive the consideration that they 

 demand by reason of the general want of experience. 

 It is obvious that in all experimental methods it is 

 waste of trouble to eliminate a very small error while a 

 large error remains. It is very diflficult to enforce this 

 principle even in the most obvious cases, as, for ex- 

 ample, in the common case of weighing a measured 

 quantity of liquid. Here, if the smallest difference in 

 measurement is equal to a drop (say -02 gram), it is 

 useless to refine the method of weighing beyond about 

 a tenth of its weight (say 002). One may admit the 

 correctness of this principle, and yet easily fall into the 

 error of neglecting it, especially when the larger source 

 of error is not particularly obvious. It is sometimes 

 easier to see the mote than the beam. It seems to me 

 possible that Messrs. C. K. K. Mees and S. E. 

 Sheppard have made this kind of mistake in designing 

 the apparatus described in the next paragraph, and 

 this suggestion receives a certain amount of confirma- 

 tion by fhe fact that they refer to my opacity meter as 

 an opacity balance, and to the opacity balance that I 

 subsequently described as an " improved form " of the 

 earlier instrument. Neither of these two instruments is 

 an improved form of the other, they are distinct instru- 

 ments. The meter measures the opacity by comparing 

 the light that it transmits with the original light, and 

 the measurement is absolute in the sense that the 

 estimation depends only on the correct adjustment of 

 the meter, the observer's experimental ability, and the 

 opacity measured. The balance cannot do this at all. 

 It merely serves to comp.ire similar opacities on the 

 same plate, as, for example, in evaluating the results 

 of an experiment by means of a light-scale of known 

 value produced on the same plate. The meter, of 

 course, can do this also, but the balance serves this 

 one purpose better, being more convenient and more 

 .accurate for it th.an the meter. The balance will not 

 even serve to estimate opacities by comparing them 

 with a standard opacity scale, such as the circular 

 graduated screen (incorrectly called a sensitometer) 

 first produced by Mr. W.irnerke and now made by 

 Messrs. .S.ingcr .Shepherd and Co., because in the 

 opacity bal;ince the light transmitted that is scattered 

 is lost. The proportion of this scattered light is very 

 large, and I have shown it to vary between wide limits 

 according to the nature of the deposit in the film, and 

 to vary even in different opacities in the same plate. 



Tlte Apparatus used by Messrs. Mees and Sheppard.— 

 In the current number (July) of the Journal of the 

 Royal Photographic Society, Messrs. C. R. K. Mees and 

 S. K. Shepp;ird describe the apparatus they use in their 

 photographic investigations, and which they intend for 

 use in "scientific photochemical research and plate- 

 making and testing." A machine for coating small 

 quantities of plates for experimental purposes has a 



