92 



• KNOWLEDGE • 



[Dec. 2, 1881. 



t'ulay, also, wc find the fruit-eaters and lierl>c-ators as en- 

 during, to say the least, ns the Hesh eaters, — and healthier. 



Are we then to infer with our author that a diet of fruit 

 and seeds, prefcraldy uncooked, is the best for the human 

 race? Or, if we infi'r this, nmy we conclude that all would 

 do well to adopt sui-h a diet i It might he unsafe to accept 

 the lattiT inference, for haliit and custom count for some- 

 thinj; in such matters. l>ut we may very safely adopt 

 the opinion, now f;enerally prevalent among experienced 

 physicians, that fruit and seed, hevhs and vegetahles, should 

 form a lar^^cr jiroportion of our food than they do. Pre- 

 cisely as many who do not accept, in its entirety, the views 

 of Dr. Richardson ahout alcoholic stimulants, yet hold that 

 these stimulants, if taken at all, should lie taken in much 

 smaller (luantity than is customary, so, many who would 

 not agi-ee with ^liss Kingsford, that animal food shoidd he 

 entirely displaced (which is Dr. Richardson's opinion also), 

 yet see that it would he well if flesh meat were taken in 

 much less fjuantity than at present. 



How much custom has to do with the use and efTects of 

 flesh meat is shown hy cases such as Miss Kingsford men- 

 tions, in which persons unaccustomed to flesh meat have 

 heen actually intoxicated by its use. Dr. Dundas Thomp- 

 son tells us fif some Indians accustomed to vegetable food, 

 who, dining luxuriously on meat, showed an hour or two 

 later, by their jabbering and gesticulations, that the same 

 eflect had been produced upon them as if they had taken 

 some intoxicating spirit or drug. 



Apart from the special doctrine which !Miss Kingsford 

 advocates, her little treatise is well worth studying for its 

 clear and correct account of the various forms of food used 

 by man. There is much matter for reflection, also, in what 

 she says about slaughter-houses, fox-hunting, pigcon-shoot- 

 iiiL', and the cruelties of the fur trade. 



The Spectroscopic Analysis of Light. — We may illustrate this 

 process by a similar one, whicli we jiiiglit imagine mankind to per- 

 form. Supjiose Xature shonid loan ns an immense collection of 

 many millions of gold pieces, out of which we were to select those 

 which wonld serve us for money and return her the remainder. 

 The Englisli rummage through the pile, and pick out all the pieces 

 which are the proper weight for sovereigns and half-sovereigns; the 

 French pick out those whicli will make 5, 10, 20, or 50-franc pieces ; 

 the Americans the 1, 5, 10, and 20-dollar pieces, and so on. After 

 all the suitable pieces are thus selected, let the remaining mass be 

 spread ont on the ground according to the respective weights of the 

 ))ieccs, the smallest pieces being placed in a row, the next in weight 

 in an adjoining row, and so on. AVe shall then find a number of 

 rows missing— one which the French have taken out for 5-franc 

 pieces ; close to it another which the Americans have taken for dollars ; 

 afterwards a row which have gone for half-sovereigns, and so on. By 

 thus arranging the pieces, one would bo able to tell what nations 

 had culled over the pile, if he only knew of what weight each one 

 made its coins. The gai)S in the places where the sovereigns and 

 half-sovereigns belonged would indicate the English, that in the 

 dollars and eagles the Americans, and so on. If, now, we reflect 

 how utterly hopeless it would appear, from the mere examination 

 of the niiscollanoons ))ile of pieces which had been left to ascer- 

 tain what i)cople had been selecting coins from it, and how easy the 

 problem would appear when once some genius should make the 

 proposed arrangement of the pieces in rows, we shall see in what 

 the fundamental idea of spectrum analysis consists. The forma- 

 tion of the spectrum is the separation and arrangement of 'he light 

 which comes from an object on the same sj-stem by which we have 

 supposed the gold ])ieces to be arranged. The gaps we see in 

 the spectrum tell the tale of the atmosphere through which the 

 light has passed, as in the case of the coins they would toll what 

 nations had sorted over the pile. — Xe^'comb's Popular Astronomij. 



7oyTi*9 Extract is a certain cure for Rhoumntism and Gout, 

 Pond'a KitncI ia a certain cure for Ilirniorrlioida (Piles). 

 Pond's Kxtract is a ccrtiiin cure fur Neuralpc pains. 



Sold l.y 1 



Get the genuine. 



[Adtt. 



A MILD NOVEMBER. 



'PIIG weather of the month that has just claps>cd has boon ift 



1 



unusually mild, that a few statistics respecting mild Norembrrs 



ill general, and the past one in ]iarticalnr, may not be withfuit 

 interest. 



It appears that in London the uvcrage tcmpcTatorc of the lii 

 twenty-five days of the past month has been as much as 7° above 

 the mean of twenty years' obnervations ; and, if it is fair to compare 

 the London temperatures with those of fireenwich, the past Novem- 

 ber has been decidedly the warmest ctperienccd during the present 

 century. Relatively warm Xoveml)cr8 were observed in the follow- 

 ing years :—lSOG, 1817, 1818,1821, 1822, 182t, 18-15, l&t«, 1847, 

 1850, 1852, 1857, 1863, 1805, 18GC, and 1877. The wannest of these 

 was 1852, when the mean temperature in London was tS'!*°, or rather 

 more than a degree lower than tliat of the month that has just 

 passed away. The maximum readings observed during the month 

 under review have been exceptionally liigh, and those of the Sth 

 and 10th, when the thermometer in the shade rose to 61°, have 

 only been exceeded once daring the present century. This was on 

 Xov. 8, 1847, the reading then being ns high as 07'. 



On looking over the meteorological returns from seveml English 

 stations, wc find that, while the thermometer has been annsoally 

 high throughout, there have been three periods of especially warm 

 weather. The first of these occurred on the Sth, the second about 

 the 13th or Utli, and the third about the 20th or 21st. In the sub- 

 joined table, the temperature on each of these occasions has been 

 comiiared with the mean for the corresponding day of thirteen 

 rears : — 



51h. 



13th or 14th. 



Differ- 

 ence .p 



from T""P- 



mean. 



Differ- 

 ence 

 from 



3(Hhor21f 



Temp. 



deg. deg. I 



Xorth Shields 510 -I- 62^ 



York 51-5 + 6'7 



Yarmouth 52"5 + 6"5 



Cambridge ' 58-0 ;-h 128 



Nottingham 560 -HlO-o 



Leicester ] 546 '+ 92 



Birniingham 561 -HlO'6 



Hereford . 56 6 + 98 



Oxford 570 -HOB 



London 595 -I- 197 



Marlborough 54.2 + 7'5 j 



Dover 545 + 69 



Hastings 51-5 + 69 j 



Silloth (Carlisle) i 49-7 + 4-7 



Bariow-in-Funiess ' 50'5 '+ 5'2 j 



Manchester | 502 j -h 5-0 



Liverpool I 53-0,+ 68 1 



Holyhead 54'5 ; ■^ 7"5 



Pembroke \ 54-0 + 62 



Plvmouth 56-8 -I- 7-2 



deg. 

 550 



deg. 

 + 12 2 



550 -H20 

 52-5 '+ 8-9 



54-5 

 570 

 55-3 



-Hll-3 

 -+13-7 

 -t-12 



deg. deg. 

 500 I + 8-5 

 500 -1- 8-4 

 500 I + 7-6 

 52-5 1 + 10-5 



50 6 + 13-2 



57-9 +\3G 



54-5 -HlO-6 



560 -4- 11-4 



55-5 -fll^ 



520 :+ 6 8 



52-7 + 7 5' 



54-1 UlOS 



51-5 + 8-3 



55 -tll-O 



56o + 12-3 



83 -^ 7-5 



540 + 7-7 



548 + 75 



525 

 501 

 500 

 510 



-I- 10-7 

 + 9-3 

 + 7-4 

 •i- 81 



54-5 -(■12-3 

 54 5 ■ +11-6 



496 

 530 

 52-5 

 49-7 

 500 

 47-6 

 51-5 

 52-5 

 530 

 53-8 



+ 6-8 



+ 9-7 



■+ 9-2 



+ 71 



+ 7-2 



+ 5-7 



-I- 8-7 



+ 8-3 



+ 7-3 



+ 7-7 



It will be seen that on the 5th, the average temperatnre was from 

 5° to 7° above the mean in the north of England, and also on the 

 south coast, but that in the Midland counties it was between 9° and 

 11° above, while at Cambridge and in London the excess was nearly 

 13°. On the 13th or 14th — for in some places the greatest heat was 

 on the former date, and in others it occurrcdon the latter— the excess 

 was between 7° and 8° on the west and south-west coasts, but 

 between 11° and 13° at most of the inland stations, while at Notting- 

 ham and Hereford it amounted to more than 13J°. On the 20th and 

 21st the weather was not quite so warm, but even then the tcmpera- 

 ttire was more than 10° above the mean in many i>arts of central 

 England, and as much as 12' in excess at Oxford. 



(in e-xaminaticn,_it appears that a warm November is usually 

 associated with great storms, ami frequently accompanied by dis- 

 turbance of an electrical nature in the shape of thunderstorms and 

 displays of aurora borealis. The month under review has certainly 

 been distinguished for these phenomena, nithongh their influence 

 has been chiefly confined to the more western and northern parts of 

 the kingdom. F. J. B. 



