466 



KNOWLEDGE 



[Maucu 24, 1882. 



^J3^. 



2.rttri£i to tljt etiitoi-. 



f r*# SJiior i9f$ not \old h\mat\f rttponnlU for thr opinioni of kU eorrrtpondmh, 

 S* coMmot undertakt to rtturn munutcriptt or to correipomt tcilh their trntrrt. Alt 

 communiftiiioiu $\oulJ be at ehort om poMaxble, eoaeutentty rith fuU and clear etate- 

 meni, of t\e rrilrr', vteaninp.'\ 



AH Kditorial eommuniealiont tkould be addreieed to the Editor <tf KirowLBDOl; 

 alt Bmeitieu cammuHicatwnt to Ike Publiekere, at Ike OJlee, 71, Oreal Queen- 

 tirerl, ir.C. 



All Xemillancei, Ckruuei, and Poil-OJIee Orieri ikould be made payable lo 

 Meeert. Ifyauin t Soni. 



'.'All leltrri lo Ike Editor rill be Ifumblred. For eoncenirnce of rrferrnee, 

 eorrttpondente, vhen referring lo any leller^ vitl oblige by mentioning it* number 

 and Ike page on vkieh it appeari. 



All Ltttert or Queriei to the Editor ickirk require attention in Ike current itiue of 

 KlTOWLBDOl, «Aou/</ reach the Pubtieking Office not later than the Saturday preceding 

 the day qf publication, 



(I.) Letters to h»vo aolianco of apprariDC must be concise ; they must be drairn 

 np in the form adopted for letters here, so that they may po untouched to the 

 printer* : private comniuliicntions, therefore, as well as queries, or replies, to 

 queriee (Intended to appear as such) should be written on separate leaves. 



(II.) Queries and replies should be cien more concise than letters ; and drawn 

 npin the form in which they are here presented, with brackets for number in case 

 of queries, and the proper query number (bracketetl) in case of replies. 



(III.) Letters, queries, and replies which (either because too long, or unsuitable, 

 or dealing with matters which others have discussed, or for any other reason) can- 

 not find place here, will either be briefly referred to in answers to correspondents, or 

 acknowledged in a column reserved for the purpose. 



" In knowledge, that man only is to be contemned and despised who is not in a 



state of transition Nor is there anything more adverse to accoraoy 



than fliity of opinion. "^foraJuv. 



" There is no harm in making a mistake, but ^eat harm in making none. Show 

 me a man who makes no mistakes, and 1 will show you a man who has done 

 nothing." — Liebia. 



" God's Orthodojy is Truth."~CTur/fK Kingilry. 



©\\x CorifSponiinuf Columns. 



SEEKING AFTER A SIGN.— KRRATA.— REFLECTING 

 TELESCOPES. 



[346] — Eqnations, in some fashion mentally associated by mo 

 with curves, are, I am amused to see by yotu- Answers to (Corre- 

 spondents (p. 365), now applied to tavern-signs. As a humble 

 oontribntor towards this fresh application of them, 1 would say 

 that the Pig and Whistle = (a) the Pige Washael (the Maiden's 

 Greeting; i.e., the Salutation of the Virgin) of the Danish; or (6), 

 the Peg in Wassail. The Bear and Ragged Staff = the heraldic 

 cognizance of the famous Earl of Warwick ("The King-maker"), 

 who inherited it through the Beauchamps. I regret that I am not 

 up in the Magpie, and am — in cricketing parlance — " stumped " by 

 his adjunct. 



Albeit, the heading. " Diameter of the Moon's image in the focus 

 of a 42-inch oliject-glass," appears to my letter (293) on p. 387, 

 the paragraph to which it refers seems to have dropped out. [The 

 correction made elsewhere ; heading should also have been omitted. 

 — Ed.] The compositor has not been very kind to me in the letter 

 referred to. For example, in my first paragraph, where " Sheppey 

 flints" should be "Sheppey fruits;" and " sulpherised iron," 

 " sulphuret of iron." By-the-bye, in the new nomenclature this is 

 called Ferric sulphide. 



Mr. Jones (Query 281, p. 390) had very much better get a 

 silvered glass reflector, than a metal one. 



A Fki.low of the Royal Astronomical Society. 



THE CAT'S-EYE TIMEPIECE OF THE CHINESE. 

 [317] — The paragraph on this subject (p. 313) reminds nie of 

 what Herodotus says (Book I., 10) about the cat among the Egyp- 

 tians : — " They say that the male cat changes the shape of the 

 pupils of his eyes according to the courses of the sun ; for, in the 

 morning, at the rising of the god, they are dilated ; in the middle 

 of the day they become round ; and about sunset become less 

 brilliant. Hence, also, the statue of the god in the City of 

 the Sun is of the form of a cat." In the Egyptian Ritual 

 (ch. 17), one of the transformations of the solar god is 

 into a cat. As such, ho " makes the likeness of Scb," or 

 Time. In Egyptian, the cat is Ma, Man, or Mai (an inner 

 African name for the animal, by-the-bye, as Mai in Undazu, with 



barinuts in other diuloctii) and the Ramo word aiguifica the eye 

 ■ight, and lo fii-o ; ChincHu Mcih, to hco, to seek with cUwal 

 Mil ('•.';/.) tho name f>f the cat, also mcanii truth, that which ia tni^ 

 Ma being the GoddiHS of Truth ami Jimtice. Now time ia th 

 which in true, nor Hhull we get a more appropriate origin for ( 

 word time, or tcmpus. than Ma the trne— she who, i« Tema, irappU 

 the (ireck Themig. Tema is the Mi, tho true, the manifeitor i 

 truth ; but it is 0(|ually the cat, whose eye was held to toll true : 

 the mutter of time, and whose type was assumed by the God Bai 

 the likeness of Time, or Seb-Kronus. Lastly, " Adeno is the i 

 of the Mother-goddess of Time" (Ritual, ch. 1C5). 



GEB.tLIi MaSSCT. 



TELESCOPES, Ac, ON THE THREE YEARS' SYSTEM 

 [3-18]— It has been suggested in these pages that it would be » 

 boon to many an honest science lover if such goods as microBco] 

 telescopes, ic. (good ones of which are far to<j expensive for a gi 

 many who would much like to become possefsed of them, to pn^ 

 chase), if opticians could make it profitable to themselrca to sd 

 their instruments on a plan after the three years' system. I knoir 

 an excellent firm, who ore willing to adopt the system, if they 

 devise a plan whereby the risk of loss and nonpayment from 

 honest persons may be reduced to a minimum. Since scieni 

 apiiuratns i« so much more portable than pianos and the like, wl 

 are now sold on the three years' system (and apparently with profit^, 

 tho risk is certainly greater ; but surely there is a plan, if oidy hll 

 upon, whereby honest persons may be benefited by tho three jeax^ 

 system, and the attempts of dishonest persons to ill-use it thwarted. 

 It is for this reason I write to ask the help of the readers of Know- 

 LEDGE to devise a plan whereby it may be safe for opticians who 

 willing to adopt such a system of trading. Will readers, with the 

 Editor's iiermission, kindly think amd suggest soracthingsatisfactory? 

 F. C. 



NEOLITHIC MAN. 



[349] — I have read with interest Mr. Grant Allen's article 

 Neolithic man in Britain. 



Why does he use the form Euskan'an ? If he does not 

 Euskal, why not followthe Basques themselves and say Euskarra 

 — ana being the termination which means people, as £sj)anarro 

 EspaTiol. 



Is there good ground for stating that the Etiskarran skull ia 1 

 and narrow ? 



I have no acquaintance with the stripped skull, but, as clot 

 with flesh, ic, it gives both to the eye and to the hand the impr 

 sion of great roundness, and it is certainly neither so long nor 

 narrow as my ov^ti head-piece, though I am descended in lar 

 part from black Celts of Southern Ireland, and possess, aloj 

 with other physical characteristics of the race, a complexion son" 

 shades darker than that of nine Basques out of ten. M. S. 



ARE WOMEN INFERIOR TO MEN ? 



[350] — A friend has just sent me your very interesting joDraall 

 for December, and I have read the letters in rejily to ILl 

 Delaunay's somewhat tmgallant pamphlet on womanhood. Inl 

 looking back at the past, it is easy to see that man alone posaesaadl 

 any real incentives for the exercise of the intellectual faculties. It| 

 was his to fight, to exercise his utmost ingenuity, to hnnt, z» out 

 his foes, to protect his family, to win a mate for himself ; and in I 

 this long struggle into the very moderate degrees of civil" 

 attained by the great nations of the world, still always engaged ; 

 warfare, woman had naturally to fill a very secondary place. 



But as a higher and more refined view of life, of the purposea ofl 

 man's existence in the world, of the relations between the seze(|l 

 is recognised, so will the survivals of these conditions of the pMtl 

 which meet us in tho form of legal and social disabilities, tend to| 

 become unsatisfactory, and finally obsolete. As soon as men 

 women both recognise that they exist as such by the reign of •■ 

 great and most useful law — one, indeed, without which progie|i| 

 would have been impossible — and that woman was not createdl 

 specially for man, they will realise that freedom for woman ia thel 

 best attd safest guide for the future. Men and women represeati 

 different principles, meant for complete development ; and in'a vaiyl 

 high state of civilisation, the ([ualities both possess are required )dI 

 nearly all things in active co-operation. Man is the tree, womMl 

 tlie flower, and, when fully understood, they are too closely nnitT' 

 to admit the question of the lattcr's " inferiority." 



If, in educational systems, boys and girls more frequently atndif 

 together in classes, it wotild do nmch to refine the ideas of : 

 with regard to women in early life, and introduce healthier feoli 

 of sympathy and friendship between them. They have at preseBtl 

 far too few interests in common. 1 ueed hardly say I am whoQyl 



