170 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[June 1, 1889. 



misread ings by the long-hand transcriber, or actual 



variations. 



The two shorthand systems of Shelton, Tachygraphy 

 (IG-tl) ami Zeiglography (1650), although very different 

 from each other, seem to have been lield in great repute 

 among the scholars and divines of the seventeenth century, 

 even long after Rich's system (properly Cartwright's) had 

 become popular. Shelton's Tachygraphy was used by Pepys 

 in his well-known diary and correspondence, althoui;h when 

 the Bev. J. Smith deci[)hered theoriginal shorthand MSS. for 

 Lord Braybrooke, he was under the impression that it was 

 Rich's system. Archbishop Sharp (1642-1673), a supposed 

 cousin of Abraham Sharp, wrote shorthand from his 

 earliest to his latest years. His father, the drysalter, had it 

 taught to him at a Bradford school. The sy.stem was pro- 

 bably Shelton's Zeiglography. All his works were written 

 in shorthand, and the diary of his life from 1702 to 1713 

 was transcribed by his son, the Archdeacon, " Tom Sharp," 

 the notice of who.se study of an uncouth system of short- 

 hand along with his friend Byrom is so well known. Arch- 

 bishop Sharp had the reputation of preaching by heart, or 

 making slight use of notes, when the fact was his sermon- 

 written in shorthand — was before him, so disposed that he 

 could look off and on, and with transient glances catch the 

 sentences as required, giving meanwhile life and zeal to his 

 utterances. 



It is not generally known what a number of famous men 

 of old times used the art of shorthand as an assistance to 

 study or for official purposes. I may mention a few names 

 without placing them in strict chronological order : — 

 Roger Williams, the Puritan, founder of the State of 

 Rhode I.sland, who wrote shorthand for Sir Edward Coke ; 

 Bishop Wilkins ; Sir Henry Nicholas, secretary of 

 Charles I. and 11. ; Bishop Jewel, who wrote in his own 

 Tachygraphy at the trial of Ridley and Latimer ; Elias 

 Ashmole ; Archbishop Seeker ; Sir Isaac Newton, who used 

 Shelton's system ; Dr. Hartlib ; Dalgarno ; Dr. Wallis ; 

 Dr. Holder ; Defoe, who reported the speeches of Fletcher of 

 Saltoun, Seton, and other Scottish patriots in the Scottish 

 Parliament of 1669; Pepys; John Evelyn; Dr. Hartley; 

 Franklin ; Dr. Kippis ; Dr. Darwin ; Dr. Aikin ; Dr. 

 Fordyce ; Doddridge ; Sir Henry Cavendish ; John Sturt, 

 the engraver ; Clement Walker, of Lilburn's time ; Le Sieur 

 Ramsay; Strype; Van Hove; Dr. Crutziger, who reported 

 the disputations of Luther, Eck, and Melanchthon ; Noah 

 Bridges ; Boerhave ; Violi, who noted Savonarola's orations ; 

 Charles I. in correspondence with the Marquis of Worcester ; 

 Morrice, General Monk's secretarj' ; Sir Henry Wotton ; 

 Cardinal Wolsey ; Burnet; Rushwortb, of the "Historical 

 Collections " ; Dr. Chamberlain, of " Anodyne necklace 

 leputation " ; Pierre Carpentier ; John Locke ; Holyoke, 

 the early Harvard President ; Lodwick ; Archbishop Laud ; 

 Judge Sewall, the Puritan; Archbishop Usher ; Lord Dart- 

 mouth ; Lord Chancellor King ; Home Tooke ; John and 

 Charles Wesley ; Dr. Watts ; Dr. Blair ; Enfield ; Dr. 

 Barbauld ; Philip Gibbs ; Priestley ; Professors Gilbert and 

 James Robertson ; Job Orton ; Hugh Farmer ; Philip 

 Holland ; Dr. Caleb Ashworth ; Dr. Samuel Clarke ; 

 Richard Baxter ; Breithaupt; Wachter ; Boswell; Jennings; 

 Stackhouse ; Dr. Mavor ; and Gibbon. I wonder how 

 many shorthand MSS. of one or other of these celebrities 

 would be discovered if public libraries and private collections 

 were thoroughly ransacked. 



With respect to the shorthand notes of Sir Isaac Newton, 

 which Professor Adams has deciphered, I have no doubt 

 that he would fiud, if he published them, that a wide 

 interest was taken in even small and personal details of the 

 life of such a man. — Yours faithfully. 



May 23, 1889. John Westby-Gibson. 



INSECT SWARMS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 

 To the Editor of Knowledge. 



Rio de Janeiro : April 20, 1889. 



Dear Sir, — 1 beg to enclose a translation of a newspaper 

 extract, which may be of interest to some of 3'our readers. 

 — Yours truly, G. W. Nicolls. 



" On March 25, at Buenos Ayres, an enormous quantity 

 of moths was noticed flying about in the evening. At night 

 there fell upon the city, like fine rain, such an unprece- 

 dented invasion of small flies that in some places the 

 passers-by were obliged to run. In the theatres, cafes, 

 houses, and streets it was impossible to go a stop save 

 through legions of these insects. Some one, out of curiosity, 

 having counted 20,000 in a square vara (about 44 inches), 

 calculated that there could not have fallen less than 500 

 thousand millions over the who'e city. Such a phenomenon 

 is quite unheard of in the locality." 



DOUBLE STAKS. 

 To the Editor of Knowledge. 



Sir, — I ask permission to make a remark or two in reply 

 to your editorial comments on my paper on the above 

 subject. As to the blue stars referred to, I am not familiar 

 with them, but Sir John Herschel, who spent .some time at 

 the Cape, must have known them, and could not have 

 regarded them as possessing the decided blue tint exhibited 

 by the fainter of many pairs of stars. The colours of stars, 

 however, is a subject on which different observers frequently 

 differ, and I believe that the supposed changes in the 

 colours of certain stars chiefly arise from this cause. With 

 regard to the m.ajority of stars with sensible parallax being 

 double, however, I cannot assent to your criticism. The 

 thirty-four stars in Young's " General Astronomy " cannot 

 be regarded as stars with a sensible parallax. In two of 

 them the only p.arallaxes given are negative, and both of 

 these are single stars, viz. Betelgeuse and a Cygni. Two 

 other tine single stars, Arcturus and Vega, have, according 

 to the latest determination (Elkin's), insensible parallaxes 

 (O'OIS" and 0'034", both figures being less than the probable 

 error). In several other cases the parallaxes are almost 

 equally small, and, where they are more considerable, they 

 usually depend on the observations of a single astronomer 

 sometimes made before the difficulties and uncertainties of 

 such measurements were fully known. If we mean by near 

 stars, those for which a parallax exceeding 1" has been 

 found by two independent observers, and for which no 

 parallax of less than 1'' has been found by any observer, I 

 think the following list is nearly complete — -a Centauri, 

 01 Cygni, Sirius, Procyon, Aldebaran, Altair, and 

 o., Eridani. There may be others which I have over- 

 looked. All of these are either certainly or probably double 

 stars with the exception of Altair. The agreement in 

 proper motion and parallax of the two components of 

 61 Cygni seems to me almost conclusive as to their physical 

 connection. — I remain, truly yours, W. H. S. Moxck. 



Dublin : May 4, 1 889. 



P.S. — As to the evidences of physical connection afforded 

 liy the colours of double stars, I may cite Professor Young 

 (" General Astronomy," p. 494) : — " Not unfrequently the 

 components of a double star present a finecontr.ast of colour, 

 never, however, in cases where they are nearly erjual in mag- 

 nitude. It is a remarkable fact, as yet wholly unexjilained, 

 that when we have such a contrast of colour thetiut of the 

 smaller star always lies higher in the spectrum than that of 

 the larger one. The larger one is reddish or yeUoiriah , and 

 the smaller green or blue, without a single exception, among 

 the many hundreds of such tinted couples now known." 



