May 26, 1882.] 



KNOWLEDGE 



617 



Pl.MNLY\yORDED -EXACTLYDESCRIBED 



LONDON: FRIDAY, MAY 26, 1882. 



Contents op No. 30. 



PAOV. I 



Oar New Volumf .— To Our Readers 617 , 



Beienoe at lh« Royal Acadomf 617 



Th» Total Eclip-o 619 



Th» Amateur Eleclricisn — £lec- | 



trio Geniralora (Co»(in««i) 619 I 



The Cold Week in May 620 



Fhoto);raphv for Amateura. Bv A, 



Brothers, K.R.A.S. (Part VIII.) 621 

 Sinsws: Prof. Huxley on Science 



and Culture 623 



SoUr Energy. By Sr. Sliuixa ...6231 



Bufterllies and Moths ( 



The Stars for Juno {Iltuttrattd) . 625-( 



Weather Charts ... < 



Notes on Art and Science 6 



CoBREspoxDBWcE : The late Mr. 

 Tho3. Dunman — Aurora Borealis 

 — Tobacco and Consumption. &c. . C 



Answers to Correspondents € 



Our Mathematical Column ( 



Our Whist Column « 



Our Chnss Columa ( 



OUR NEW VOLUME. 



TO OUR READERS. 



OUR second volume begins with No. 31, and will end 

 with No. 60, closing therefore with the year 1882. 

 Hereafter there will be two volumes in each j'ear. A 

 copious index for the present volume will be published in a 

 few weeks. 



We propose in the new volume to continue the same 

 general plan as in Volume I. The columns for queries and 

 replies have been cIoskI, for the simple reason that we 

 could not meet the wishes of the majority of our readers, 

 in other respects, without finding room somewhere ; and 

 these columns could be best spared. A large proportion of 

 our letters have, for a similar reason, to be omitted. The 

 reason is as inexorable as the law that two bodies cannot 

 occupy the same space at the same time. Some of our 

 readers have not been willing to take this inexorable reason 

 into account Others compare their letters with some which 

 have appeared, to the disadvantage of the latter, forgetting 

 that a letter wliich appears may represent, not one corre- 

 spondent, but a great number. If we receive ten lettera on 

 a subject, we insert the best of the ten, even though it were 

 in some respects inferior to a single communication on 

 another subject 



Many ask us to lie more popular, and we shall bear 

 their wishes in view ; but there are limits to wliat we can 

 do in that direction. Otliers liave asked that papers should 

 be shorter, and appear more continuously. This suggestion 

 seems good, and we shall follow it as far as contributors 

 will allow us. The request is really for concisene.ss. 



In the ne.xt volume will appear the first of a most 

 interesting series of papers by Miss Amelia B. Edwards, 

 placing beyond dispute or cavil the identity of the Pharaoh 

 of the Oppression. Professor Wil.son's "Found Links," 

 a series of papers having special interest just now, will 

 be concluded early in the volume. " Nights with a 

 Three-Inch Telescope," by F.R A.S., Chemical Papers by 

 Mr. Jago, Photography by Mr. Brotliers, Electrical, Geo- 

 logical, Botanical, and Entomological papers will appear 

 systematically. The papers on Probabilities will be brought 

 to a close with a brief discussion of the important subject of 

 indirect probabilities — that is, of the chances, not that such 



and such things will happen, but that, such and such things 

 having happened, the cause was this or that. Afterwards, 

 we shall have a series of short papers on the solution of 

 Geometrical Problems. Wiiist will continue under the 

 management of " Five of Clubs," who hopes in the next 

 volume to complete his simple explanations of the prin- 

 cipal rules for play. We hope (but are not justified 

 in promising) that tlie skilful players of Whist among our 

 readers (like Mr. Lewis, " Mogul," and others) will, from 

 time to time, contribute problems, interesting positions, 

 (.tc, for discussion by our Whist readers. The Chess column 

 remains in the able hands of that skilful and courteous 

 player, Mephisto. The chief editor has not forgotten his 

 promise that beside problems there should be illustrative 

 simply annotated games, and discussions of the best lines 

 of opening. In Volume I. the Two Knights' Defence and 

 the Giuoco Piano were fully analysed, and Mephisto hopes 

 in Volume II. to give the analysis of other openings. It 

 may, perhaps, interest our readers to know that three 

 games illustrating the openings already discussed have 

 been in progress for some time past between the Chess 

 Editor and the Chief Editor, and will presently appear, 

 witli notes by both players (written independently). We 

 may point with some satisfaction to the early and full news 

 we have given of the Chess Tournament at Vienna. 



Early in the new volume we hope to commence papers 

 on " Home Cures for Poisons " (beginning with prevention 

 as the best cure, and pointing to medical aid, as soon as 

 possible, as essential, whatever home cures may be avail- 

 able), on "How to got Strong" (without training for 

 athletic exercises), on Health Resorts, Our Food and 

 Drinks, Cycling ( Bi- and Tri-), Swimming, and other sub- 

 jects wherein a little knowledge is good, and more know- 

 ledge better. 



We have been strongly urged by many not to continue 

 our eflbrt to keep Knowledge at its present low price, but 

 to enlarge both the price and the paper. We believe we 

 should be justified, in a mercantile sense, in increasing our 

 price (without enlargement of the paper) in the same pro- 

 portion in which the only contemporary paper with a 

 similar (but less popular) scope, enlarged its price soon 

 after it was started. But as long as steady growth 

 promises that before long, even at our present very low 

 price, expenses will be met, we shall hearken to no such 

 suggestions. We have wished, and we still wish, to do 

 " our little possible '' in the cause of cheap scientific litera- 

 ture. As long as we have our readers' support, we shall 

 keep to this line. We remind them that, if each reader 

 (or if, now, but one in three) were to get but one new sub- 

 scriber, we could at once, and definitely, reject the 

 suggested departure from our original plan. 



SCIENCE AT THE ROYAL ACADEMY. 



LET us return to the paintings, leaving the sculptures 

 for another visit. We have also the Grosvenor 

 Gallery to visit, and we are warned that space is limited. 



Mr. Arvid M. Lindstrom's " Winter Landscape from 

 Kollandso, Sweden" (No. 45, Room I.), shows close study 

 of nature, — not wintry details only are represented, but the 

 general eH'ect is caught ; we seem to breathe the cold crisp 

 air ; the snow is not white wool merely, as in so many 

 winter scenes, but cold to the touch. Tliere is similarly 

 close observations of nature in Mr. Rickatson's " Autumn 

 Evening" (No. 16). Mr. John Smart's "In the Track 

 of the Storm " (No. 69) is in many respects very 

 fine, but in such a picture as this, which cannot 

 possibly be painted from nature, we seldom fail 



