Dec. 23, 1881.] 



KNOWLEDGE • 



159 



dies, llie cliildren belong to her sister or nearest female kin, Uie 

 matter being settled by tlie council women of the gens. Ouce a 

 jear the council women of the gens select the names for the children 

 bom daring the year, and the chief of the gens proclaims them at 

 ihe festival. So person may change Ins name, but by honourable 

 Condnct he may win another. 



Within the tribal area, each gens occupies a tract for cultivation. 

 ~! The women councillors partition the gentile laud among the house- 

 holders. The ground is rep.irtitioned once in two years. Cultiva- 

 tion is communal, that is, all of the able-bodied women of the 

 gens take part in the cultivation of each honsehold tract. 



The wigwam, or lodge, and all the articles of the household. belong 

 to the woman — the head of the household ; and at her death are 

 inherited by her eldest daughter or nearest of female kin. The 

 ■ lattor is settled by the council women. If the husband die, his 

 ropcrty is inherited by his brother, or his sister's son, except such 

 portion as may be buried with him. His property consists of his 

 clothing, hunting and fishing implements, and such articles as are 

 used personally by liimself. Usuallj-a small canoe is the individual 

 property of the man. Large canoes are made by the male members 

 of the gentes, and are the property of the gcntes. 



Each gens has a right to the services of all its women in the 

 cultivation of the soil. Each gens has the right to the service of all 

 its male members in avenging wrongs, and the tribe has the right to 

 tlie service of all its male members in time of war. 



This is a short abstract of Mr. Powell's paper, as far as it re- 

 :;:tcs to the status of woman among the Wyandottes, and I feel sme 



will be a surjirise to many to find that the despised Indian squaw 



ids a position so honourable; one to which her civilised white 

 Nters may never \ ope to attain; but the truth is, we find here, 

 , i:iong the Wyandotte, the snrrival of a social state once very 

 ■ idely spread, and which pi'obably existed wherever we find kinship 

 traced on the female side — that is, tlirongh the mother instead of 

 the father. It was, perhaps, the earliest of all forms of govern- 

 ment, especially among people of Mongoloid affinities. Among 

 the Semites, the government was patriarchal and paternal ; but 

 even among the ilebrews, we find prophetesses, possessed^ of no 

 small amount of authority. It remained for the Aryan races to 

 deprive woman of every shred of real power, whilst professing to 

 treat her with chivalrous deference, and it is to this probably that 

 we may attribute the diminution in the size of the heads of women 

 in modem times, as compared with those of men — a difference 

 which is not to be found in the more ancient skulls, as the late 

 Professor Bolleston and other able anatomists have so often pointed 

 oat ; and which it might be safely affirmed would not be found 

 among the Wyandotte councillors ; for there can be little doubt that 

 the brain develops by use, and that in a tribe or nation whereiullie 

 burden of government is divided between the sexes, there will be 

 no disparity,in the brain power of men and women, nor in the skulls 

 wherein those brains are contained. 



NOTE ON THE SPHEROIDAL STATE. 



By W. F. BARnETT, F.R.S.E. 



(Professor of Experimental Pliysics in the Eoyal College of 



Science, Dublin.) 



IX a paper read before the Eoyal Dublin Society, Mr. G. John- 

 stone Stoney has given a new and beautiful explanation of the 

 so-called spheroidal state of liquids, wherein he showed that the 

 force detected by itr. Crookes, and which is the cause of the motion 

 of radiometers, was also competent to explain the phenomena of the 

 spheroidal state. A liquid diop is said to be in the sphcrodial state 

 when falling upon a hot body it does not come into contact with the 

 surface but rolls over it as a flattened spheroid. A mobile clastic 

 spring evidently buoys up the drop tmtU such times as the hot body 

 cools, when, w^ith a sudden rise of temperature and generation of 

 steam, the drop comes into contact mth the surface below it, spreads 

 out into a film, and rapidly disappears into vapour. 



Hitherto this pheuomenon has been regarded as due to the fact 

 that the proximity of the liot surface converts a portion of the 

 liquid into vapour, the elastic force of which sustains the drop. 

 There are, however, several phenomena, applied to the spheroidal 

 condition, to which this generally received explanation gives no 

 solution, — such, for example, as the mobility of light powders in a 

 hot crucible, or the formation of globules on the surface of water 

 and other liquids. Mr. Stoney's explanation, on the other hand, 

 embraces the whole of these outstanding and hitherto enigmatical 

 phenomena. Briefly stated, this theorj- is based on the fact that 

 ■whenever two bodies at different temperatures are brought sufficiently 

 Bear each other, a modification takes place in the molecular struc- 

 ttire of the layer of gas or vapour between them, given rise to the 

 so-called " Crookes' force," wherein there is an excess of pressure in 



the direction joining the hot and cold surfaces over the pressure in 

 transverse directions. Now this excess of pressure depends partly on 

 the quantity of heat making its way across the intervening layer of 

 gas or vapour, and partly on the proximity of the two surfaces, — a 

 proximity not to be estimated absolutely, but with reference to the 

 length to which a molecule of the gas will travel in the intervals 

 between its encounters with other molecules. Hence there are 

 obriously three modes whereby the excess of pressure, this Crookes' 

 force, may be developed or aagincnted : — 



1st. By lengthening the paths of the molecules between the 



warm and cool surfaces, accomplished by attenuating 



the gas. 



2nd. By bringing the hot and cold surfaces very near together. 



3rd. By increasing the difference of temperature between the 



two surfaces. 



Xow if the support of the spheroidal drop be due to this Crookes' 

 force a difference of temperature must exist between the drop and 

 the sui-face over which it stands, and the greater this difference of 

 temperature the larger the drop that ought to be supported, and the 

 more persistent the phenomenon, Mr, Moss has shown (Proc, 

 E. D. S., Dec, 1877) that by securing a continual difference of 

 temperature a globule of ether may be supported on the surface of 

 its own liquid for upwards of an hour, until in fact some accidental 

 derangement occurs. The conditions of the two theories being thus 

 defined, it is easy to see that several crucial experiments might be 

 devised which should help to decide the question at is.'iue. 



The following experiment the author has made with this object 

 in view. Upon the surface of the ordinary petroleum of commerce, 

 liquid globules ef transient duration can readily be formed, simply 

 by removing a small quantity of the liquid in a pipette and care- 

 fully depositing a drop on the surface of the liquid. These drops 

 are clearly in the spheroidal condition, and they are easily and 

 abundantly formed by dipping a vibrating tuning-fork into the 

 liquid, or by drawing a fiddle bow over tbo edge of the vessel 

 containing the liquid. According to the ordinary explanation the 

 drops are supported by the elastic force of the vapour of the 

 liquid, which would, of course, be greater the higher the tempera- 

 ture of both liquid and drops. According to Mr. Stoney's theory 

 the drops are supported by the Crookes' force, generated by the 

 proximity of the drop and liquid, and by the fact that they are 

 at different temperatures. Evaporation rapidly cools the drops 

 jerked up from the liquid, and thus a slight difference of tempera- 

 instantly comes into play. If, however, Mr. Stoney's theory be 

 true, then a drop of cool petroleum would be more easily and 

 longer sustained on a stu-face of warm petroleum, or rice vcrs&, 

 than a drop taken from the mass of liquid below it, where only a 

 slight temperature difference is created. 



■Two beakers were filled with petroleum from a common source, 

 one (.i) at the temperature of the air, the other (b) at a temperature 

 of 100° F. With a pipette some liquid was taken up from A and a 

 drop carefully deposited on its o«ii surface, a globule was formed, 

 floated for a fraction of a second, and then disappeared. The same 

 occurred with a drop from B placed upon B, A drop of B was now 

 removed and deposited on A, a large globule was easily formed on 

 the surface, floated about from 10 to 20 seconds, and then 

 disappeared. A drop of a was now placed on B, the same thing 

 occurred, but the duration of the drop was not quite so great, owing 

 to the greater density of the cool drop tending to sink it below the 

 surface of the warm liquid, thus rapturing the Crooke's layer and 

 destroying the difference of temperature. 



There is no doubt or uncertainty whatever about this experiment, 

 and it shows that, if the ordinar)- explanation be correct, the second 

 case, where B rests on B, should give the best result, whereas the 

 reverse is the case. Further, the experiment wherein the best 

 result is obtained, is such as best fulfils the condition of Mr. Stoney's 

 theory. 



The limit of formation of these spheroids, when the liquid is 

 unifomtly dropped through a gradually -increasing height, may be 

 employed to test the relative degrees of force which sustain the 

 globule, and careful experiments made by the author in this 

 direction still further corroborated the truth of Mr. Stoney's views. 



The Light of the Stars. — For a number of years the special 

 work carried on at the Harvard Observatory, under the direction of 

 Professor Pickering, has been the measurement of the intensity of 

 the light of the heavenly bodies. Some of the results presented at 

 a recent meeting of the Society of Arts, at the Institute of Tech- 

 nology, Boston, indicate measurements almost incredibly fine. The 

 light which falls upon the earth from the satellites of Mars, for 

 example, is about equivalent to what a man's hand on which the 

 sun shone at Washington would reflect to Boston. The labour of 

 measuring the brightness of all the visible stars was begun two 

 years ago. It has since gone on at the rate of about 40,000 a-year, 

 and will be completed next fall. — Scientijic American. 



