Jan. 13, 1882.] 



♦ KNOWI^EDGE 



231 



safficient development of the abstract principles of justice, morality, 

 truth, causalit}', inventive, and executive power to hold society 

 tcjjethcr for one week. 



" In matters intellectual and moral the lonfr strain beats them 

 (lead. Do not look for a Bacona, a Xewtona.a Handella.a Victoria 

 Huga. American ladies tell us education has stopped the growth 

 of these. Xo ; these are not in nature. They can bubble letters 

 in ten minutes wliich you could no more deliver than a river can 

 play like a fountain. They can sparkle gems of stories, flash little 

 diamonds of poems. The entire sex has never produced one opera 

 or one epic that mankind could tolerate for a minute — and why ? 

 These come from long, high-strung labour." (Mr. Charles Reade, 

 in ■' White Lies.") 



Women lack the hiu'hest quality of the human mind— j«s'i<'e .' 

 Tliey never see two sides of a question. A woman makes a firm 

 friend — a dangerous enemy. , 



The eternal subordination of woman is conclusively exemi>lified in 

 her exaggerated admiration for the male prerogatives — strength and 

 intellect. Were intellectual sexual equality not an idle dream, it 

 would long ago have produced practical results. The strong- 

 minded woman would have proved her pretensions. Woman's 

 individuality and independent action in important matters are more 

 apparent than real. Savage life shows the nearest approach to 

 sexual equality, physical, mental, and moral. Yet among savages 

 woman is a slave ! In civilised countries, where she is free, almost 

 every woman is steered through life by the reflecting brain, strong 

 will, and protecting arm of a husband, father, brother, or son. A 

 woman with no male relative has her spiritual director, her con- 

 fessor, or favourite preacher, her conscience-keeper, whom she 

 regards as a superior being. Even revolutionary women are guided 

 by men. Platform ladies worshipped Mr. J. S. Mill. They could 

 not understand his works on Political Economy and ^Metaphysics, 

 but he advocated Woman-Suffrage ! If there is one woman ^-ithont 

 such a director, she is guided by male public opinion, supplemented 

 by oracles uttered by men in the past. 



Mentally, morally, and pln-sically woman is subordinate to man ; 

 although the Tneek idolator sometimes adores a brazen god ! 



J. McGeigor All.\x. 



POSSIBLE VAKLiTION OF PENDULUM. 



[192] — A letter from "Cogito" in Kxowledge(Xo. 8, p. 113) 

 refers to mine (in Xo. G, p. 88). He speaks of "want of pre- 

 cision of ideas ; " true, I am alluding to a stationary pendulum ; 

 he is speaking of a vibrating pendulum. 



The point is this : suppose a pendulum suspended in a railway 



carriage. On the train starting, motion must be communicated to 



the bob through the rod, and the pendulum will be thrown out of 



the perpenibcular backward.*! ; on slackening, the bob wnll be thrown 



! rwards, momentum having been given and then withdrawn. The 



"tion of the earth round the sun in the short space of twelve hours 



ly be considered as in a straight line, a b, the centre of the earth, 



; veiling uniformly a to 6, but the sides nearest to and furthest 



■m the sun will travel, the one 1 000 miles faster, the other 1,000 



li'S slower (as the upper and lower points of a carriage wheel). 



!• velocity of the bob in the direction a 6 will, therefore, vary 



- "<I0 miles per hour between midday and midnight, the accele- 



■ ion and retardation being communicated from the point of 

 =]iension through the rod to the bob. If this action were ra])id, 

 • effect would be evident enough, the difference 'of velocity being 



- at. but the time is long, and in consequence the movement of 



■ bob would no doubt be extremely small. The question is, would 

 with a rod say of 100 ft. in length, be perceptible under suitable 

 licate meastirement ? Hexry C.iRR. 



KATTLESXAKES. 

 '^193]. — You enjoy one great advantage over me. You are like a 

 •at in a pulpir, who from his elevated post can, with impunity, 

 rl his censures on the devoted heads of obscure sinners like 

 . who occupy the low free seats, and are debarred from saying a 

 rd in our own defence publicly. 



Mr. Darwin's discourse on the rattlesnake is to be found at pages 

 1U7 — 110, in his book on "Expression," <tc. (first edition)." I 

 maintain that the passage is susceptible of the meaning I attached 

 to it ; for if your explanation is correct, Wz, that Darwin attributes 

 "the habit of the snake to its development,',' — [We did not .say this. 

 "Rather," we said. " he would," <tc. — Ed.] — then we are landed in 

 the poor, paltry platitude, that when an animal possesses an organ, 

 the creature makes use of it. Most wonderful, traly ! But surely 

 it was hardly worth while to write three pages of " information " 

 to establish such an obvious, vapid circumstance — such a feeble 

 inanity. 



The cause and mode of developing the rattle are, however, a 



secondary consideration in comparison with the use to which the 

 snake is said to devote its organ, when it is found, viz., " to frighten 

 its enemies." I contend that the means of accomplishing the as- 

 signed purpose are simply suicidal, and that the noise of the rattle 

 attracts the snake's enemies who seek its destruction. 



I have read somewhere that in America, when the workmen in 

 the woods hear the rattle tliey are sure there is no danger, but 

 directly the sound ceases they infer that the snake is bent on 

 mischief. So here it is not the noise of the rattle, but its silence, 

 which is a source of alarm. 



You are quite right in thinking that Jlr. Darwin has never done 

 mo any injury. On the contrary, I believe him to be an estimalile 

 man, and incapable of injiu'ing any one intentionally ; but his 

 writings appear to me to be a great offence to the Creator, to 

 Nature, and to common sense, and therefore that his i)roductions 

 ought to be denounced. They have also set an example of a lax 

 scientific method. In your own columns, at page 153, a disciple of 

 Darwin's writes in this style on the origin of the grape : — " Suppose, 

 however, that any plant happens to have its seeds covered with a 

 moderately hard and indigestible coat," &c. And again : " If such 

 a tendency were ever to be set up even to the slightest degree bj- a 

 mere sport or chance variation," &c. 



1 venture to think that we shall never properly comprehend 

 God's works in aU their might and majesty of original design while 

 we deal with them in such a puerile fashion ; and with this senti- 

 ment I now respectfully take my leave of you. 



Newton Cbosland. 



[We insert this letter, though doing so is, we fear, rather hard 

 on Mr. Crosland. — Ed.] 



LONGEVITY IX ANIMALS. 

 [194] — In your article on " Food and its Relation to Muscular 

 Work," you only appear to treat with what I would call active 

 beings. I should like to know what you have to say about inactive 

 animals, such as tm-tles and tortoises. I presume to call them 

 inactive on account of tlieir sluggishness and their dormancy. It is 

 a well-known fact that they will live a long time without having 

 partaken of any visible means of sustenance. I have known turtles 

 to live without food for weeks out of their oivn element. A wrong 

 idea exists with a good many people as regards the heart of a 

 turtle. Many do believe that they have three hearts. I have 

 examined the heart of a turtle, and I have come to the conclusion 

 that what is taken to be three hearts is but one externally divided 

 into tliree parts, not like the human heart, which is lUvided into- 

 four, and then encased in a membrane, called a pericardium. Can 

 you tell me if I am right ? The late Frank Buckland, when looking 

 at the turtles in the tank at the Adelphi Hotel, Liverpool, supposed 

 they live on the water they take in, then on their fat and blood. 

 How is it they live a long time without water and pass urine ? If 

 any of your readers can explain, it would be cordially received by 

 those readers physiologically inclined. — Yours most respectfully. 



Physio. 



TOADS, &c. 



[195] — In reference to query 87, and the doubts expressed as to 

 the existence of toads in rocks of an earlier than the tertiary forma- 

 tion, it is an acknowledged fact amongst miners that toads have 

 been extracted living from the solid coal, at various depths. I heard 

 of one found two months ago in a pit 100 yards deep, near Oldham, 

 where the coal, with the hole where the toad had been imprisoned 

 for countless ages, was preserved, and the toad, although alive when 

 reached, died on being exposed to the atmosphere. If " .\ Fellow 

 of the Royal .\stronomical .Society" will make inquiries of scientific 

 men in that district, he will learn the wliole truth. 



I have heard miners relate the extraction of one from the Lanark- 

 shire coalfield, which was heard croaking before it could be libe- 

 rated, and so frightened the working colliers that they fled, and 

 would not return without the manager was jiresent, and under these 

 conditions the toad was hewn out, in the presence of several wit- 

 nesses. Although it was rolled carefully in a wet cloth, it died 

 before it could be taken out of the mine. It was deposited in a 

 local museum, and no one dared to contradict the fact at that time. 



Zakes. 



[196] — I am only an inquirer without time or means for syste- 

 matic observance, but I am interested in the query of " Arachenda" 

 (87), and submit that I was disappointed in " A Fellow of the Roval 

 .\stronomical Society's" treatment of it (1.38), page Ifio, which 

 must be my apology for troubling you with the copy of " cutting " 

 from my scrap-book herewith enclosed. 



A tradesman at Bromley, Kent, observed me examining flint 

 pebbles which abound in that district and volunteered the state- 

 ment, that on breaking a similar one to that I held in my hand, a 



