240 



• KNOWLEDGE - 



[April 20, 1883. 



of at least five or six million miles per day have to be 

 accounted for. Now, in my example 1 supposed the tem- 

 perature of evaporation to be 0°C. In the extreme cases, 

 where velocities of live or six millions of miles have been 

 observed, the perihelion distances of the comets have all 

 been very small, and the temperature of evaporation must 

 have been enormously high. By assigning a very high 

 value for the temperature, and at the same time supposing 

 a much smaller proportion of non-volatile material to be 

 present in the block, it is plain that the velocity obtained 

 by calculation would quite reach that observed even in the 

 most remarkable instances of rapid tail formation. 



' Let Knowledge grow from more to more." — Alfred Texntson. 



SftterS to t{)c editor. 



Only a small proportion of Letters receired can possihly be in- 

 serted. Correspondents Tnust not he offended^ therefore^ should their 

 letters not appear. 



All Editorial cotnmunications should le addressed to the Editoe of 

 BCnowledge; all Business communications to the Publishers, at the 

 Ofice, Ti; Great Queen-street, W.C. If this is xot attended to, 



DELAYS ARISE FOB WHICH THE EdITOE IS NOT RESPONSIBLE. 



All Remittances, Cheques, and Post 0£ice Orders should he made 

 payable to Messrs. Wymax & Sons. 



The Editor is not responsible for the opinions of correspondents. 



No communications are answered by post, even though stamped 

 AND dikected envelope be enclosed. 



A NEW PAEADOXER. 



[789] — I wish to explode the most vile and degraded superstition 

 that ever disgraced the woi-ld. I can find no language coarse 

 enough to characterise the swindlers and idiots who hold it. I 

 allude to what is known as the 47th Proposition of the First 

 Book of Euclid. I can prove it is false, Sir. You ask how. Simply 

 by denyin-j it, and by challenging its supporters to prove it to yne. 

 Yes, to ME, Sir. Their name is legion, and I am a solitary one. 

 Yet I defy them all. They cannot even drag me over the Asses' 

 Bridge. It is this ground upon which I take my stand. If further 

 argument is needed, I beg to say that vile scoundrel Enclid never 

 paid bis washerwoman. If any one dares deny what I say, let him 

 back his statements by proof. Let him bring one receipt from that 

 injured woman. Sir, after this, how can the squares on two sides 

 of a right-angled triangle together equal that on the hy])Othenuse ? 



Bedlam, April 1. Mad Tom. 



P.S. — I flatter myself I am not an unworthy disciple of the earth 

 flattencr. 



COKSETS. 



[790] — It having been unquestionably proved through tlie corre- 

 spondence in Knowledoe that corsets are nnneccssarj- and in- 

 jarious, the ne.\t step is to provide ladies who leave them off 

 with some garment which, while supporting, allows of the free 

 movement of the body without injurious consequences. 



I suggest that the Kational Dress Society should bring out a 

 tighttitting jersey, made of the same material as is used in the 

 mnnufaoturc of elastic stockings worn for varicose veins, and so 

 satisfy those ladies who uill wear something of that nature. 



I shall be glad to hear of any objections (medical or otherwise) 

 to this snggeation. C. Carus- Wilson. 



[Uow about the circulation ? — K. P.] 



LETTERS RECEIVED. 



A. O. n. Lectures will not be publi.ihed. Thanks for information 

 about occult matters. — John Shaw. Yes, so T should imagine ; a 

 power til control the weather must bo a key to meteorology. You 



arc lucky in being " in possession of a gift of that kind." — 

 H. J5. You can hardly expect us to insert a letter from a corre- 

 spondent who is not a regular contributor, and expects a co|)y of 

 number containing his letter to be sent to him. — A. Soxxen.sciieix. 

 No ; I did not ascribe to Herbert Spencer the idea of comparing 

 the heavenly bodies to trees in various stages of development. 

 Oddly enough, I was reading over, the day of the lecture, the 

 passage you quote from Humboldt's " Cosmos." Sir W. Her.«chel 

 presented the idea earlier, in reference to nebulae. — -H. M. C. Many 

 thanks, but the phenomenon is so clearly referable to peculiarity 

 in arrangement of clouds, that it would hardly be worth while to 

 make an en<rraving. — }1. Crofts. Tho word "religion" does not 

 necessarily imjily the slightest trace of belief in such matters as 

 you mention. It is, strictly speaking, simplj- that which keeps men 

 in the path of duty. — A. Wbigley. — R. N. — W. Goreif. — A. W. 

 Blomfield. Thanks. — E. A. S. Thanks.— S. E. Clabk. From De 

 Morgan's illustration of his owTi puzzle (see back numbers of Know. 

 LEDGE, it is clear he meant it as we presented it. — W. G. Rolfe. 

 Thanks, but must keep now to what all agree in liking. — Joseph 

 Clark. Why is tho s/,y blue ?— J. H. Tanner.— Faciebat. The 

 test is, can either " but " or " which " be left out without making 

 the meaning different from what was intended ? You will find that 

 neither can. — Coracoii). Out of print. — A. — A. S. D.ivis. — Room 

 No. III. Have written no article relative to purchasing power of 

 shilling. — C. Etherington. "Creatures like any known to us" was 

 my expression. Does not that leave open for you the wide field of 

 conjecture you mention? I did not myself want to enter that 

 field. — H. N. D. Have sent your query to Mr. Browning. — H. — 

 Stcdext. Among the varied pieces of information which have 

 reached me, noue tells me how to lessen excessive fleshiness at the 

 end of the nose. — R. H. Not H., but a man who has gone under 

 the name of Parallax, published a book on that silly theory. — A ScN 

 WOESHIPPEH. If the press would give reasonable support to scientific 

 lectures, the afternoon lectures you invite might well be given ; bnt 

 they do not. — .35o.\. You are a sun-worshipper of another kind, if in 

 earnest. But, surelv, your letter is an elaborate joke. — Myopia. — 

 Walter Jones. — a'Subscrieer.- F.E A.S. Thanks.— H. M. Wil- 

 kinson. — W. M. — Harveian. — H. L. I did V'ell to speak strongly 

 against such mischievous folly as Mr. Wiggins displayed. I retract 

 not a word. Those who hearkened to him were unwise, but those 

 who defend him after the event has shown how idly he spoke, 

 are worse than unwise. — A Little Girl. My dear child, your 

 " experience " (you will learn to spell experience with more e's 

 soon) is as yet limited. All the ladies who have thus far, to my 

 knowledge, left off wearing corsets have had small waists, even 

 singularly small waists ; yet you are so hard, you sarcastic little 

 girl, as to say that only the large-waisted leave off stays (!), and 

 tliat " those with small waists are so proud of their fine figures that 

 they draw themselves in as much as possible to make themselves 

 still smaller." — H. S. Your telescope has an erecting eye-piece ; it 

 would be easy to get an astronomical eye-piece made for it. — 

 G. Connolly. Lectures have never yet been committed to paper. 



J. N. LocKYEP.. — Your unsigned post-card received. I shonld 

 imagine the person mentioned in it is not, either by birth or 

 breeding, by nature or by education, qualified to form an opinion 

 on the subject touched upon. This I find to be the general verdict. 

 But his name (the value of which you singularly over-estimate) shall 

 in future be as rigid'.y kept out of these pages as you could wish ; 

 also from books and lectures of mine (those who heard my lecture 

 on " The Sun " at St. James's Hall will explain to you what this 

 means). I will be as careful in his case as in that of the earth- 

 flattening person whose cause you seem to espouse. My friend the 

 Editorof Vanity Fair shovred his accustomed kindness in the matter 

 you mention (quite misunderstanding it). Your card is unsigned 

 and in a disguised hand ; but you have overlooked the trifling 

 circumstance that it refers to a matter sixteen months old, of which 

 no one could know anything but yourself, except from yourself, and 

 no one bnt you would have remembered the matter a day. (If not 

 actually from you, yet! Qui facit per alium facit per se). That in 

 regard to this matter you should have entirely misunderstood me is 

 (for a reason suggested above) altogether natural. But internal 

 evidence is not always a safe guide. I had no thought save to indi- 

 cate publicly that desire to be on friendlier terms, which I had 

 privately and in kindly words conveyed to you. Be it, however, as 

 you will. Life is too short, and to me too pleasant, to be wasted 

 over idle wrangling. You have had no warmer admirer of your best 

 observational work than myself, who first made that work known, 

 with just commendation, to the public ; but, like the rest of us. the 

 Editor (not being the Author) of Nature has made a few mistakes; 

 and he does not very readily forgive those who pointed them out. 

 Were it not for this, all (I take it) would have been well. Give the 

 world some more good work like that of 1868 and the mistakes will 

 be forgotten. — Richard A. Pboctoe. 



