FEa -23, 1883.] 



KNOWLEDGE 



109 



MAGj^ZINEofMENCE 



KPlAm.!Ly)(fORJED -EXACrrfDESCRlBED 



^ 



LONDON: FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 23. 1883. 



Contents op No. 69. 



PIOB. 



Science and Art Gossip 109 



How to Use our Eros. (/Hm.) By 



.John Brownitif.F.R.A.S Ill 



A Naturalist's Yenr. VII. Willow 



Citkins. Bv Grant Allen 113 



A New Telephone. (/;/«..) 113 



Pleasant llours with the Microscope. 

 Bt Henrr J. Slack, .F.G.S., 



F:R.M.S.'. 114 



"Our Bodies." TI. The Trunk and 

 Limbs. (/«M.) Bj Dr. Andrew 

 Wilson, F.R.S.E 115 



(/«« 



Sun Views of the Earth. 



Bj B. A. Proctor 



Saturn's Rini^ ll>< 



Corpulence 118 



Waste of the World's Forests 119 



Evolution of Life 119 



Correspondence ; Springs and 

 Streams — Telescopes and Micro- 

 scopes — A Theoryof Atmospheres 



— Weather Forecaata, Ac 121 



Our Whist Column U3 



Our Chess Column Vli 



^titmt anil art #02!5fp. 



Dr. R. S. Ball is givinj; a course of lectures on the 

 "Supreme Discoveries in Astronomy," on Tuesday after- 

 noons, at the Royal Institution. There are few better or 

 brighter lecturers than the Astronomer-Royal for Ireland, 

 and these lectures should be well attended. 



When men of science misunderstand the position of 

 science, we cannot wonder that those who view science from 

 without should fall into mistakes. Dr. Romanes pointed 

 out recently in the Contempornnj Review, quite correctly, 

 that there is no point of contact between the sphere of 

 natural science and the spliere of supernatural religion ; 

 and in particular that science supplies no evidence, still 

 less proof of design. On this, Professor Asa Gray asks 

 if Dr. Romanes is quite sure that the observed fitness of 

 organs for their purpose could have come, even by 

 gradual processes, otherwise than by the direct interven- 

 tion of intelligence'? To this, of course, the answer is 

 that science can be sure of nothing of the sort, — simply 

 science now knows of no evidence of such direct interven- 

 tion. What was once thought to afford such evidence is 

 BOW seen to afford none whatever. But there may not 

 have been a single link in the chain of biological progres- 

 sion which — for aught science has proved to the contrary 

 — ^might not have required special intervention to cause it 

 to be precisely such as it was. 



The Austrian Government Sanitary Council has prepared 

 a set of regulations for life-saving on railways, and a guide 

 to first help to those injured by accidents until the arrival 

 of a physician. These have been sent to the several railway 

 companies for examination and suggestions. Every con- 

 ductor is to be provided with a leather case of bandages ; a 

 litter to be placed at every station and half-way between 

 such stations as are more than nine miles apart ; at 

 every station a small case of surgical instruments, of 

 specified kinds, is to be kept ; that a larger supply 

 of instruments and bandages are to be kept at 

 stations fifty and sixty miles apart, where there are re- 

 serve locomotives, which locomotives are to pick up the 



cars and litters on the way to an accident. Still more 

 complete provision is to be made at important stations 

 where there are many servants. For every 2.")0 or 300 

 miles of road, at an engine-house, there must be an 

 hospital car, of a specified pattern, used for carrying sick 

 and wounded in time of war. The guide to first aid to the 

 injured prescribes how the servants or others shall carry the 

 victims of accidents, how place them, treat their wounds, 

 apply bandages, transport them in the cars, and what to do 

 in case of sudden illness. 



The following account (from Mr. Oswalds " Zoological 

 Sketches") of the behaviour of a Siamese bonnet-macaque 

 monkey (Macacus rmliatits) will interest those of our readers 

 who read (redde) the papers on " Intelligence in Animals," 

 republished in Leisure Readin/js : — " His conduct under 

 circumstances to which no possible ancestral experiences 

 could have furnished any precedent, has often convinced 

 me that his intelligence differs from the instinct of the 

 most sagacious dog as essentially as from the routine knack 

 of a cell-building insect. His predilection for a frugal diet 

 equals that of his Buddhistic countrymen, and I have seen 

 him overhaul a large medicine-chest in search of a little 

 vial with tamarind jelly. He remembered the shape of the 

 bottle, for he rejected all the larger and square ones, and 

 after piling the round ones on the floor, he began to hold 

 them up aL;ainst the light, and sub-divide them according 

 to the fiuid or pulverous condition of their contents. 

 Having thus reduced the number of the doubtful receptacles 

 to something like a dozen and a half, he proceeded to scru- 

 tinise these more closely, and finally selected four, which he 

 managed to uncork by means of his teeth. Number three 

 proved to be the bonanza bottle, and, waiving all precau- 

 tions in the joy of his discovery, Prince Gautama left the 

 medical miscellanies to their fate, and bolted into the next 

 room to enjoy the fruits of his enterprise." 



Electric light apparatus has been fitted throughout 

 H.M.S. I/imalaj/a, and gives great satisfaction. It is 

 interesting to notice that the light is being very extensively 

 adopted in large steamers. One has only to make a brief 

 voyage to become acquainted with the disagreeable nature 

 of oil lighting, and if the cost for the newer illuminant 

 is a little higher, the gain is almost incalculable. 



By an inadvertency (no fault of the compositors) the 

 port and starboard side-lights on p. 104 were interchanged, 

 or rather the names were. The upper set are, of course, 

 starboard lights, the lower are port lights. The article 

 was corrected, but not returned to the printers, having 

 fallen among some newspapers on the editor's floor. In 

 the last line of the article the word " foregoing " should 

 have been " foreshortened." 



Sir Trevor Lawrence, says the Olohe, and the gentle- 

 men who have been associated with him in the praiseworthy 

 eftbrt to make the Royal Gardens at Kew more useful to 

 the general public of London, must be heartily congra- 

 tulated on the concession which Mr. Shaw-Lefevre was 

 recently enabled to announce. Sir Joseph Hooker 

 has come to the conclusion that the Gardens may 

 be opened an hour earlier than heretofore, " without 

 interfering with the important work carried on there." 

 From the 1st of April, therefore, the public will be 

 admitted at twelve o'clock, in.stcad of at one. This, it 

 may be remembered, is not the only benefit for which we 

 have to thank the association with which the honourable 



