•EB. 17, 1882.] 



• KNOWLEDGE 



345 



tlir lame excuses he made for the inaccuracies complained of; 

 bnt it amounted to this : — " That if I could tell them how to cast 

 i the weather for every subdivision of the Kingdom, I should be very 

 ' ik ver, as of course the climate varied in different districts from 



1 causes, such as mountains, &c., and it was left to each district 

 dify the forecasts so as to suit their different localities" ; but 

 . of what earthly use arc they for reference? We all know the 

 lor we are having in our own particular district, but vcrj- often 

 ant to see what kind of weather it is where we want to go to ; 

 r, I said to the secretary, leave us out altogether, or in justice 

 ■ district let ns be classed in a district to ourselves, say " Holy- 



i and North Wales." The secretary, 1 forgot to say, took the 



Me to send me a tabulated statement of what the weather had 

 during the fortnight alloded to at Barrow-in-Furness, and which 

 uited some 130 miles due north of ns, and wliich I considered 

 u bearing at all upon what 1 had complained of, and was begging 

 uc'Stion entirely. As you say, these daily forecasts are not to 

 ponded upon, and are apparently only a matter of guess work, 



-1 had better be drop^ied, as for reference and utility they are 



I'd to be utterly useless. 



A CONST.ANT Re.xpkr, .^np .\ RksII'ENT IX TlIK Prixciialitv. 



DREAMS. 



281] — The following incident would seem to corroborate a view 



h I hold — namely, that some dreams have turned out, and do 



ut, to be foretcllings,'iSc. ; and that science cannot possibly — 



ust, for the present — give any satisfactorj- explanation of them. 



-cntleman friend of mine, whom 1 shall call A., knows a young 



1!., whose house is situated in a crescent, about three miles 



V.'s dwelUng ; he is pretty well acquainted with the neigh- 



;ring district, bnt is at a loss to make out where tliis orescent 



I would not for one moment doubt the veracity of his statements, 



' 'his is what he relates: — 



: lireamt that I was walking up some road, of which I have a 



recollection; it seemed about eventirae. As I was going along, 



ic to a bye-road, where I saw B. walking on the right-hand 



and then enter into the third or fourth house. As soon as B 



iisappeared indoors, 1 seemed to run up to the house to have a 



: at it." .... And then he continues, " I suddenly awoke, 



iMund myself on a chair sketching a house." A, on writing to 



-. oung lady the following day, told her his dream, and sent her 



-ketch at the same time. 



■ av, it turns out that what he dreamt really did happen, for on 

 ; ruvious evening B was just returning to her house, which, by- 

 ye, is the fourth in the crescent (the bye-road would corrc- 

 • i to the crescent), and what is more strange, the sketch is such, 

 any one who has seen the house would immediately recognise 

 " uu the paper, and besides, there is a characteristic tree just biefore 

 the house, w-hich is reproduced in the sketch. 



It is true that this bears the testimony of one man only ; for no 

 one but himself can tell whether he had ever seen the house before 

 or not ; he denies having seen it. 



For myself, I consider the thing possible ; bat nevertheless 

 wcnderful and nnaccountable. Perhaps one of jour readers may 

 famish a cine to the eiplanatiou of a fact which puts mein mind 

 I of the story of Bach, the musician. — Yours, Ac, ReVElR. 



ICE AGE IX BRITAIN. 



;.'S2] — There are many proofs of the existence of an ice age 

 (yuery 102) over northern Europe, England as far sonth as the 

 Thames, Scotland, and Ireland. The undulating outlines of the 

 smaller hills, and the lower parts of the great ones, show the 

 smoothing action of vast sheets of ice moving slowly over the land, 

 and grinding down minor irregnlarities and abrupt eminences 

 which came in their way, out of the it'hris of which was formed 

 the thick tenacious clay usually found a few feet below the surfaco 

 in the valleys and plains. Wlien examined, this clay is seen to con- 

 tain stones varying in weight from a few ounces to several tons. 

 Most of these stones are subangular, i.e., have their sharp edges 

 and angles worn down and blunted, while upon their surfaces, 

 which are more or less roughly polished and worn by friction, are 

 scratches, some so fine as to be seen only with a magnifjnng glass, 

 others being deep grooves. When such stones are oblong, the 

 scratches are mostly in the direction of greatest length. 



This rubbing down and scratching has been produced by the 

 finding which went on between the ice and the rock-surfaces over 

 which it moved. The rock-surfaces in many places are scratched 

 by the stones which have been dragged over them, and these marks 

 show thsfc line in which the ice moved when they were made. Tlie 

 direction towards which the ice moved can often be ascertained by 

 observing glaciated stones of a different formation to that on which 



they are found, so that if a glaciated piece of granite is seen in a 

 limestone district, one looks for the nearest granite beds, and if the 

 majority of scratches on the limestone rock point in that direction, 

 it is nearlv sure to be the source whence the granite fragment was 



taken by the ice. These are only some of the signs of ice w6rk. 

 The great basins in which lie the lakes of Cumberland and West- 

 moreland have been, at least partially, excavated by glaciers. This 

 drawing is from a glaciated limestone pebble, and gives a good 

 idea of what " Arachnida " should look for. E. C U. 



AT THE NORTH POLE. 



[3S3] — What is the aspect of the heavens, when the sky is cle^, 

 to an observer situated at the North Pole ? ' . 



Assume the epoch to be noon at Greenwich on Februai-j- 3, the 

 date of the last number but one of K.vowledck. The sun will be 

 16J° below the polar lioriton ; there will, therefore, be a dim twilight. 

 The moon will be 10° above the horiion, and just past the full. 

 Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars will hold their relative positions as with 

 us, bnt wiU maintain day after day a nearly constant attitude 

 equal to their declinations (Jupiter 16°, Saturn Hi", liars 27 J., 

 The constellations, together with the planets and the moon, will 

 appear to sweep round the horizon in then- daily course, the mgon^ 

 alone showing any appeararce of sotting. Her altitude will de- 

 crease about 10', or one-third of her apparent dianieler, every hohr! 

 and after two or three diurnal revolutions, she will set below the 

 polar horizon somewhere over the mountains of Greenland, if such 

 are in view. The monotony of such a scene would be excessive. 

 It would probably convince the most sceptical that the earth does 

 really turn upon its at>3. > ' ' 



Celestial observations for the verification of the position could 

 be t«ken with the same, if not with greater facility, than in <Mt» 

 latitudes, but they would have some peculjixities. For instanf^, 

 there being no time of day at the pole, Gre<.-uwich time alone, 

 would be kept, the determination of which by tho moon's disUvnce 

 from certain stars or planets, would be the tir*t step. 'Jr, if the 

 moon happened to be below the horizon, the eclipses of Jupiter's 

 satellites could be observed for the same purpose. The calculations 

 would be more or less simplified by reason of tho assumed latitude 

 being 90°, and one element of nil other positions, namely, longitude, 

 would no longer exist. . /. • 



With no meridian of the place— or, rather, with an mfinitc 

 number of meridians— there could be no such thing as a transit 

 observation. The mariner, accustomed in temperate climates to 

 observe the altitudes of celestial bodies at their culmination, would 

 here wait in vain for them to" dip" that he might make his ship- 

 time noon and find his latitude. At the Polo he would never 

 make the tmie noon, but ho would find his hititude notwith- 

 standing. 



In the utter confusion of the north, south, east, and west pomtB 

 of the horizon, no meaning could attach to the term "variation of 

 the compass." For, although the compass at the Pole should not 

 lose altogether its directive force, since the magnetic Pole is at some 

 distance from tho true Pole, yet, in the face of the fact that every 

 line that could be drawn from the Pole would be in a direction due 

 sonth, what could we make of the variation ? The direction of the 

 magnetic Pole eiven by the compass could only be called magnetic 

 north, but with no direction that could be called true north, and 

 with an infinite number of directions true south, it would be as 

 absurd to speak of the variation of the compass as of the longitude 



SPECTRAL LINES.— OPTICAL ILLUSION. 

 [284]— It may interest amateurs like myself to know that the 

 scrapings of a galvanic battery— decomposed zinc, copper, salt, 

 4c.— when put on to retl embers of a wood fire, give very pretty 



