.Jak. 20, 1882.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



247 



i 



THE MAGIC WHEEL. 



\T"E give, this week, the series of pictures of a galloping 

 \ * horse. We have to notice, however, that the instruc- 

 tions given in the Scientific American are erroneous. If 

 a slit is cut exactly beneath each figure of a horse, we get a 

 \iew of a horse galloping without* advancing. Eleven slits 

 should be cut (which the reader will find no difficulty in 

 doing), at eriual distances, when the horse will not only be 

 found to move his legs, tail, itc, but to advance, as might 

 reasonably be expected from a galloping horse. The same 

 remarks apply, of course, to the trotting liorse, in number 

 ,10, in fact, the trotting horse alone is taken from the 

 Scifiitific American, the ten views of a galloping horse 

 being from a series kindly supplied to the editor by Mr. 

 Muybridge, of San Francisco, who photographed them. 



Twelve slits will produce the desired illusion even better 

 than eleven, a coirespondent notes, and their places arc 

 more easily measured. 



THE MOOX AND THE WEATHER. 



IT 18 held by a larf,'e luimbpr of cfliu-ntod people that a belief in 

 the influence of the moon on the weather is a remnant of a 

 past and now discredited system of divination by wliich all the 

 events of life were referred to the influence of the heavenly bodies. 

 It should, however, be borne in mind that the Kcrms of truth may 

 be found in every system of religion and i)hilosophy, and that tho 

 interests of truth are served better by seokinjr for the trath under- 

 lyini? any particular theory, than by denouncing it as false because 

 it lies beyond the range of superficial observers. 



In the' first place, the theory of lunar influence upon tho atmo- 

 sphere stands apart in a great degree from tho old system of astro- 

 meteorology ; for, as may be seen in the toxt-books containing tho 



