84 



KNOWLEDGE 



[Feu. 9, 1883. 



Sanionn l8land.s tliero aro snid to l)e a woman, a child, and 

 a mallet A woman was onoo hammcrinp; out papor cloth, 

 and .scoing the moon ri.so, looking liko a groat bread-fruit 

 trpo, she nskod it to come down and hit her child oat a 

 piece of it. I'ut the moon was very angry at the idea of 

 lieing eaten, and gohliled up woman, child, and mallet, and 

 there they are to this day. The Helish Indians of North- 

 western America say that the little wolf was in love with 

 the toad, and jiursued her one moonlight night, till, as a 

 last chance, slii' niafle a desperate spring on to the face of 

 the moon, and there she is still. In Greenland myth, the 

 moon was in love with his sister and stole in the dark to 

 caress her. She, wishing to find out who her lover was, 

 lilackened her hands so that the marks might be left on 

 him, which accounts for the spots. The Khasias of the 

 Himalaya say that the moon falls in love every month with 

 his mother-in-law, wlio, like a well-conducted matron, 

 throws ashes in his face. 



Comparing these with our familiar myths, we have our 

 own Man in the Moon, who is said to be the culprit found 

 by ]\Ioses gathering sticks on the Sabbath, although his 

 place of banishment is a popular addition to the Scripture 

 narrative. According to the German legend he was a 

 acofler who did the same heinous offence on a Sunday, and 

 was given the alternative of being scorched in the sun 

 or frozen in the moon. The Frisians say that he stole 

 cabbages, the load of which he bears on his back. In Ice- 

 landic myth the two children familiar to us as Jack and 

 Jill were kidnapped by the moon, and there they stand to 

 this day with bucket on pole across their shoulders, falling 

 away one after the other as the moon wanes, — a phase 

 described in the couplet : 



Ja"k fell down and brDke his crown, 

 And Jill caoio tumbling after. 



IMr. Baring Gould, whose essay on this subject in his 

 " Curious Myths of the Middle Ages " gives a convenient 

 summary of current legends, contends that Jack and Jill 

 .are the Hjuki and Bil of the Edda, and signify the waxing 

 and waning of the moon, their bucket indicating the 

 dependence of rainfall on her phases, — a superstition extant 

 among us yet. 



Poetry has made the man in the moon its theme. Dante 

 calls him Cain ; Chaucer describes him 



Bearing a bnsh of thorns on his back, 



Wliieho for hia theft might clime so ner the heaven ; 



and Shakspere refers to him in " Midsummer Night's 

 Dream " and the " Tempest" 



The group of customs observed amongst both barbaric 

 and civilised peoples at the changes of the moon, customs 

 which are meaningless except as relics of lunar worship, 

 will be more fitly referred to when we deal with the 

 passage of mythology into religion, of personifying into 

 deifying. 



EtBCTBlo LiOHTiNO. — From America comes the report that about 

 three weeks ago the wires of the Baxter Electric Light Company 

 •were crossed by the wires of the New Jersey Telephone and Tele- 

 graph Company in Jersey City, and part of the city thrown into 

 ilaikneas for several hours. The diverting of the powerful current 

 from the Baxter wires to the teleidionc system destroyed several 

 in.strumonts. The llaxter Light Company say that the crossing 

 was the rcsnlt of m.'ilicimns mischief, the wires being found tied 

 together with an old woollen scarf. Kxperts say that the fault 

 was caused by the s.-igging of the Haxtor wires, as the insulator is 

 burned off in several places. There liave been two fires in Cliost- 

 nntstreot, Philadelphia, since tho electric light wires wore creeled 

 there. In both cases the firemen were greatly impeded in their 

 efforts to gel ladders up to the burning places by the electric 

 conductors ovorhead. — Klcctrical lievieio. 



TTTE CRYSTAL PALACE ELECTRIC 

 AND GAS EXHIBITION. 



BOTH .sections of this Exhibition have developed very 

 considerably during the past four or five weeks, and 

 provide pk'nty of food for reflection for those interested in 

 the question of illumination, either domestic or public. 

 The north nave is well lighted by arc lamps of the 

 Mackenzie, J5rokic, and (Julcher type. It is noteworthy 

 that the Brokie lamp, with the principle of which several 

 authorities have seen fit to find fault, burns with remark- 

 able steadiness, and indicates, we apprehend, careful and 

 intelligent engineering. The Gulcher light also bums 

 steadily and well, a compliment we cannot by any means 

 bestow upon the recently-introduced and much-belauded 

 Lever lamp. Whether the fault lay with the lamp itself 

 or resulted from carelessness in the engine-room, we are 

 not prepared to say ; but a cur.sory inspection of the latter 

 did not reveal a fault there. The lamps, one could not 

 help noticing, burnt with many shades of colour and 

 degrees of brilliance. Among the prettiest application of 

 the arc light it has ever been our pleasure to witness is the 

 artificial glen at the side of the Alhanibra Court, illu- 

 minated by the Lea arc lamp (exhibited by the Werde- 

 mann Company). An invisible lamp throws a beam of 

 purest light through an opening of the glen with an exceed- 

 ingly pleasing efTect. It is a very near approach to a solar 

 beam, being if anything slightly whiter in tone. The 

 Duplex Company exhibit their arc lamp, which is well 

 worthy of its reputation of steadiness. It is a remark- 

 able fact that the general appearance of the arc lights this 

 year is a decided improvement upon what was to be 

 observed last winter. To a great extent this is due to 

 improved workmanship in the apparatus, but perhaps to an 

 even greater extent to the increased familiarity of the 

 engineers with the work they have in hand. An ocean 

 traveller would be somewhat dubious about placing himself 

 in the care of a lad fresh from a school near which a ship 

 had never been seen, and in which navigation had never 

 been heard of. But this is a fair example of what has 

 frequently taken place in the history of electric light 

 installations. In incandescent electric lighting there is 

 at present nothing to call for remark, unless it 

 be that we see here, for the first time, the duplex 

 incandescent lamp, in which there are two short 

 incandescing filaments so arranged as to be capable of 

 being used singly or together, either in " series " or in 

 "parallel circuit." It is, however, questionable whether 

 there is any real advantage in such an arrangement over 

 the single long filament of the Edison or Swan type. 



The floor of the north nave is allotted to electrical ex- 

 hibits of a miscellaneous character, amongst them being 

 a good display, by Messrs. Sanderson ct Co., ©f lightning 

 protectors, with one or two novelties in the way of 

 burglar-alarms. !Mr. Meyer exhibits e.xamples of his 

 underground system. He has a number of longitudinal 

 grooves iii a slab of glass, etc., and, laying a wire in each 

 groove, pours an insulating material over the whole, so as 

 to form one solid mass. The slabs with the wires 

 may then be laid one over the other in an iron or 

 earthenware subway or box-channel. Some difficulty, 

 it is fancied, would be experienced in connecting con- 

 tinuous lengths, unless the parts are put together in the 

 street, which is scarcely practicable. However valuable 

 some of the claims of ilr. Meyer may be, there is at least 

 one of them which reads somewhat amusing. He says : — 

 " It [the system] permits the use of ribbons of copper as 

 well as wires, l/ie greater surface of tfie^e being of advantage 



