Jan. 19, 1883.] 



• KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



31 



'H<f V^ AN ILLJi^tlR^TGD ^J^ 



[ ^^MAGi^ZlNEoTSgENCE^ 



^ PLAINL y\fORDED -£XACTI^ I)ESCR1BED 



LONDON: FRIDAY, JANUARY 19. 1883. 



Contents op No. 64 



Scieace And Art Gossip 31 



ThpChemi^trT of Cookery. Bt W. 



M.tlieu William.i 33 



PleaMut Hours xritbthe Miscroscope. 

 Br Henrf J. Slack, F.G.S , 



FiR.M.S..' W 



The El»clric- LiKht Companiea 35 



Wu RamMCS II. the Pharaoh of the 

 Oppresiion f—(Conetiuio») By Misi 



.Amelia B. Edwards 36 



Nishls wieh n Three-iacli Telescope. 

 {TllinlniUJ) 38 



FAOB 

 Our Bodies.— IT. Life and Work. 



By Dr. A. Wilson, F.R.S.E :ii 



Lecturing Notes. By K. A. I'roctor I'l 

 Mr. Spencer's Impressions of Ame- 

 rica 11 



The Face of the Sky 13 



CoRKBspoirDBVCB ; The San-dial of 



Ahaz— A Logical Puzzle, &c -12 



Answers to Correspondents 1;* 



Our Mathematical Column 16 



Our Whist Column Li 



Our Chess Column 1(1 



^rirnrf anii 9lvt 0o^&ip. 



I SCARCF. ever lecture for a week without some 

 new experience, though I have lectured so long and 

 so often. La.st week I had two entirely new e.xpc- 

 riences. I unwillingly came near upsetting a Mayor 

 (never mind where), and not less unwillingly came near 

 being upset liy a lantern. The first was on this wise : — 

 There being but one seat on tlie platform, and the chair- 

 man having begun to address the audience, I remarked to 

 him that till he had got through I would borrow " the 

 chair ; " but in the full How of his elotjuence he heard me 

 not ; so when he had done, deeming the chair still behind 

 him, he prepared to sit where no seat wa-s. Luckily he 

 heard my warning voice just in time. The fall of the 

 lantern occurred the following night. I caught the lantern 

 twice, first on my shoulder (where I did not want it), then 

 in my arms, as it was on its way, after glancing from my 

 shoulder, to the floor below the platform, where it must 

 inevitably ha\e been destroyed. It worked pretty well 

 after this, but I think in future I shall look more cheer- 

 fully at a lantern on a floor or in an opposite gallery than 

 ■when set where it may fall on the lecturer. I am a fairly 

 good " catch " at cricket (my boys think), but I have not 

 had much practice catching o.\yhydrogen lanterns. 



" The stars in their courses," we are told, " fought 

 against Sisera." We are by no means clear as to the 

 method adopted by the astral belligerents ; but perhaps it 

 was after the style in which the comet is said to be fighting 

 against two Cabinet Ministers in China. It is generally 

 believed in that country that the appearance of a comet is 

 an intimation from Heaven that his Imperial Majesty 

 "The Continuation of Glory " must at once, under pain of 

 heavy judgment, put down the misgovemment which pre- 

 vails somewhere in the Empire. Now, the coincidence of 

 the comet's apparition with the impeachment of two 

 Ministers for bribery commends itself to the Celestial 

 mind as a divine fiat against the accused. Wherefore the 

 unfortunate functionaries are likelj-, whatever the human 

 evidence of their guilt or innocence, to be sacrificed to the 

 comet. 



A French cliemist claims to have discovered a method 

 of overcoming tlie danger threatening ^-ineyards from the 

 ravages of thi> phylloxera. His process is to inoculate the 

 vines with the phenol poison. The phylloxera do not 

 attack plants thus treated, and arc extirpated for want of 

 food. The ^■ines are in no way injured by tlie inoculation 

 process. 



CoRiiECTiONs are sometimes needed for corrections. Thus 

 Mr. R. Tucker, in Xatinv, marks among the corrections to 

 be made in the Memoir of Professor de Morgan, for Haussen, 

 Hanssen, and for Hencke, Encke ; but the first should be 

 Hansen, and Hencke is right enough. Hencke, the dis- 

 coverer of Astnea and Hebe, is referred to, not Encke 

 the mathematician, whose name is associated with a comet 

 of short period. 



The Engineer says : — " The electric light is coming 

 extensively into use at Jliddlesbrough. The Yorkshire 

 Electric Light and Power Company (Limited) has already 

 commenced operations. Their plan is to supply Brush 

 lights at a rental of .£25 per annum per light, the renter 

 paying also for carbons consumed, estimated to cost a 

 further £'3 per annum. Messrs. Jones Bros., B. Sauiuelson 

 it Co., Gjers, Mills, A- Co., and the North-Eastern Steel 

 Co., have already become renters. The electric light will 

 not, however, be without serious competition. The Gas 

 Committee have undertaken to put up the Sugg lamp at 

 Messrs. Fox, Head, A.- Co.'s work.?, free of cost to them, 

 except so far as that they are to pay for the gas actually con- 

 sumed. It is computed that the cost of supply of gas will 

 not exceed one-sixth the cost of the electric light, and that 

 the illuminating eflect of the Sugg light, if not equal to its 

 rival, will at all events be far ahead of anything which has 

 been in use at rolling-mills before." 



Oldest Tree in the World. — The oldest tree in the 

 world, so far as any one knows, is the Bo tree of the 

 sacred city or Amarapoora, in Burmali. It was planted 

 288 B.C., and is, therefore, now 2,170 years old. Sir James 

 Emerson Tennent gives reasons for believing that the tree 

 is really of this wonderful age, and refers to historic 

 documents in which it is mentioned at diflcrent dates, as 

 182 A.D., 223 A.D., and so on to the present day. " To 

 it," says Sir James, " kings have even dedicated their 

 dominions, in testimony of a belief that it is a branch of 

 the identical fig tree under which Buddha reclined at 

 Urunielaya when he underwent his apotheosis." Its leaves 

 are carried away as streamers by pilgrims, but it is too 

 sacred to touch with a knife, and therefore they are only 

 gathered when they fall. The king oak in Windsor 

 Forest, England, is 1,000 years old. 



CoMMENTixo on the communications of the Duke of 

 Argyll, Emeritus Professor Blackie, and others, which 

 have appeared in the Times in connection with the de- 

 population ill the Highlands, a statement appears in the 

 C'n/lic Mnt/rnine to the ellt'ct that since the census of 18.31 

 the population of Argyllshire iias actually declined from 

 100,973 to 76,103; and as to the latter number, no fewer 

 than 30,387 are classified as urban. The conclusion 

 arrived at is that the rural population has been reduced 

 in the course of the last fifty years from 8,5,973 to 10,081, 

 or nearly one-half. 



Hehr K Bassel, a Berlin engineer, who last year pub- 

 lished an article in the CentralhhUt dcr Bauverxi^altuiuj on 

 the aqueduct of Betilienus at Altari, has recently made 



