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♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[May 11, 1883. 



" Let Knowledge grow from more to more." — Alfred Tex.vtson. 



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SPELLING REFOPvJI. 



[813] — Although the problem of spelling reform does not seem 

 to have found expression in the pages of your journal, I feel that 

 the question cannot have escaped your notice. The subject has 

 created attention, as may be seen from the fact of the existence of 

 the SpellingReform Association, with offices in John-street, Adelphi. 

 Its list of patrons includes all the leading philologists, and many 

 literary and scientific men of eminence. The names of Max Sliiller, 

 Sayce, Ellis, Murray, Latham, Skeat, Morris, Sweet, in England ; 

 and March, Whitney, Lomsbury, in America, prove that the ques- 

 tion has not been overlooked. 



Max Miiller says : — " Can this unsystematic system of spelling 

 English be allowed to go on for ever ? Is every English child, as 

 compared with other children, to be mulcted in two or three years 

 of his life, in order to learn it ? Are the lower classes to go through 

 school without learning to read and write their own language in- 

 telligently ? And is the country to pay millions every year for 

 this utter failure of national education ?" 



I refrain from entering now into any arguments for or against, 

 bnt hope to receive, as a subscriber to j'our journal, a short ex- 

 pression of opinion from yourself or your readers. 



A. Murray Cobeold. 



MY PARADOXES. 

 [By a Laputian of Ten.] 



[814] — Will you afEord me a little space to briefly, and, I hope, 

 clearly, state ray theories, which I call the Entelechian r* I promise 

 not to attack (for I utterly disdain) any theories to the contrary, 

 and I assert that mine are not alone new, but that they are also 

 old, and that they will outlive all ordeals. 



In the first place, I believe that I live, move, and have my being 

 'in a flat, circular Laputa, bounded edgewise by inaccessible ice, and 

 radiated by very powerful magnetic currents converging at the 

 centre of the circle, which centre has been hitherto called the North 

 Pole. I believe that those mighty currents, so uniting, ascend 

 straight from the Pole or Centre in an almighty pillar to the North 

 Star ; and by this magnificent column I believe that my Laputa is 

 suspended and upheld. 



Although I believe in a North Pole, I deny and denounce a South 

 Pole. 



I further believe that the Sun, like some gigantic warming-pan 

 or celestial cook's " salamander," is perpetually being passed about 

 over the flat surface of my Laputa (at a height of about 900 miles), 

 in orbits alternately semicircular and spiral, for the first six months 

 of the year approaching the dread Magnetic Pillar (by attraction), 

 and for the other six months receding from it (by repulsion) like a 

 frenzied comet. I also believe that several minor utensils, such as 

 the Jtoon, Jupiter, Venus, Meteors, and the rest, go cricketing 

 about above us in similar (but different) ways. Again, 1 am con- 

 vinced that the whole twinkling host of heaven is ever twiddling 

 round and round us, balanced on the pivot of the North Star. 

 I must admit (for I am nothing if not candid), that we have not 



• Please turn to " Rabelais," Book 5, chapters 19 and 22. [Note 

 by Professor Naggdrib, of Lagado.] 



yet discovered the thickness of this onr Laputa, though I hope 

 every day to hear that one or other of the over-worked coal-mines 

 has got through. I also believe that there is bnt one " Parallai," 

 and that Gulliver was his prophet. 



But I have reserved the most stupendous of my discoveries for 

 the end. I do not desire to speak disrespectfully of our Great 

 Magnetic Column of Suspension, but it is well known to be subject 

 to considerable perturbations, especially since the date of these 

 dangerous electric telegraphs and all that has followed in their 

 wake. /, however, am devoid of apprehension, for I knoxv that, in 

 view of possible accidents, this Great Laputa, wliich I believe to be 

 The World, is firmly placed upon the boweil shoulders of Atlas, who, 

 with arms a-kimbo, proudly sets his feet firmly upon the red houdah 

 of the Great White Elephant, who, in turn, serenely waggles liis 

 trunk and plants his four monstrous limbs upon the back of the 

 Eternal and Infinite Turtle, whose fins are firmly rooted in inferno. 

 So it's all right. And you are all wrong, and I do no( believe in 

 steamers or voyages. Sonowthen I— I remain, sir, yours para- 

 doxically, A Laputun. 



The Academy, Lagado. 



P..S., by Professor Naggdrib. Your March Part did not reach 

 Lagado until yesterday. Our Postmaster's flapper-bearer having 

 suddenly died, the service has been, and still is, disorganised. We 

 trust you may receive this. 



LETTERS RECEIVED AND BRIEF ANSWERS. 



ExcELsioK. Sorry for the mistake ; but correction would now 

 serve no useful purpose. Had ?iO " earthly reason " for correcting 

 it, except that when the proof reached me I could not tell what 

 were the dates referred to by the words Saturday and Sunday, 

 which appeared without either "last" or "following." It was 

 necessary to insert one of these (at the time when letter appeared), 

 and I put the one which seemed the more probable. — E. H. B. S. I 

 said that London newspapers give very limited attention to lectures. 

 You point out that twenty lines in relation to one of my lectures 

 appeared in the Daily Telegraph, and abont as much in Lloyd's 

 Weelhj Paper, besides, probably, other notices which you did not 

 see, whereas scarcely any notices of lectures have appeared in 

 Knowledge. But in the first place. Knowledge is not a newspaper, 

 and has scarcely any space for lecture reports (you find as few in 

 the Academy, Athenctum, Mature, and so forth) ; in the second 

 place, the lectuers you mention are given for societies which need 

 no notice, because they have been long established, are supported 

 by hundreds of subscribers, &c. (the notices in the Illustrated 

 London Neivs are supplied by the lecturers themselves) ; thii-dly 

 and lastly, the sum of £120 was expended in advertising my 

 course of lectures in the papers I referred to, besides some 

 fifty course-tickets — sofa stalls — corresponding in value to 

 £5-. 10s. at the advertised price. Now, when theatrical 

 and musical matters are advertised in the newspapers, and 

 free admissions given to the press, it is expected that a reason- 

 able amount of notice will be given in colunms not devoted to paid 

 advertisements. This is done ; and my contention was that what is 

 done for theatrical, musical, and artistic entertainments should, in 

 common fairness and courtesy, be done for scientific lectures, given 

 at greater risk of loss. When a similar claim can as justly be 

 made on Knowledge, it will not bo found that the cl.aim is over- 

 looked. — H. L. The lectures have never been committed to paper. 

 —A. H. S. Shortly.— L. Y. 1.— J. R. Sutton.-T. A. (1.) Prof. 

 Tyndall could not very well tell what neither he nor anyone 

 knows, or explain what neither he nor anyone understands. 

 (2.) There is no risk of collision with live suns ; why should dead 

 suns be feared ? (3.) Th.at the sun's surface we see is not that of 

 a molten mass may be true enough ; yet the sun's real globe may 

 be a molten mass. So the real globes of Jupiter and Saturn may 

 be (and I think are) molten masses. But I do not know. I doubt 

 very much whether the earth and moon ever were as Dr. Ball sug- 

 gested. But again I don't know. In these columns, at any rate, 

 neither Mr. Always-Right nor Mr. Never- Wrong shall appear, — 

 to pain the soul of Mr. Wilkie Collins. — K. M. Will cer- 

 tainly find space. — Sajiuel. Querj* column closed months since. — 

 Etonia.v. It is very difficult to guess precisely what Carlyle believed 

 in such matters. In his " Sartor Resartus" there is a passage im- 

 plying that he would regard miracles as belonging simply to a higher 

 order of natural events than the order with which we are familiar. 

 I doubt if he, or any one whose opinion was or is worth aught, 

 accepted the particular matter to which you refer as other than a 

 myth — doubtless, a solar one ; at any rate, it is common to all solar 

 myths, without any exception whatever. — E. Y., Lieut., F.R.A.S., 

 Willing, M. Small. Letters shall appear as soon as space avail- 

 able. — Justitia Omnibus. Joke worn out. — Beccabunga. Perhaps 

 you can explain (what I must admit beats me) how the light which 



