May 18, 1883.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE 



287 



^OVfhBj) 



fy 



% AN lUliSXf^ATED \^- 



MAGA'ZINE of soence 

 PlainlyWorded -£xactlV Described 



LONDON: FEW AY, ^fAy 18, 1883. 



OOHTKKTS OP No. 81. 



Personal. By E. A. Proctor 287 



PleasftDt Hours ^vith tho Micro. 



scope. By H. J. Slack, F.G.S., 



F.K.M.8 28? 



The Buying Power of Gold 2S8 



On s Toy Tricycle. By John 



Browning 290 



The Paradise Fish. (Illuttraltd.) 291 

 On the Formation of Comets' Tails. 



By A. C. Ranyard 292 



The Red Spot on Jupiter 293 



PAOB. 

 The Moon in a Three-inch Tele- 

 scope. (///«..) Bv F.K.A.S. ... 294 

 The Brush Dvnamo-Eloctrio Ma- 

 chine, {lllii'ilrateil.) 295 



The .Moon and May Frosts 29B 



Death at the Play 297 



Eeviews ; Tyndall on Sound 297 



Editorial Gossip 298 



Correspondence 298 



Our Mathematical Column 301 



Our Chess Column 302 



PERSONAL. 



By Richard A. Proctor. 



IN a letter to the publishers of Knowledge, Mr. Lockyer, 

 under date May 11th, writes as follows : — 



'• My attention lias to-day been rallrd to several references to mo 

 liy Mr. U. A. Proctor in recent numbers of Knowledge. Among 

 tbem I find the following (April 20, 1SS3, p. 240J :— ' J. N. Lockyer. 

 — Yonr unsigned post-card received.' I nnist request you to find 

 space in your paper for the following statements as to matters of 

 fact : — 1. I have sent Mr. Proctor no post-card. 2. I know abso- 

 lutely notbing about anyone else having done so." 



I need hardly say that I most gladly find space in my 

 paper for Mr. Loukyer's stateuiciits. 1 regret that he 

 should have had occasion to make them — partly through 

 undue haste on my part, but chiefly through the wrongdoing 

 of a common acquaintance. I must beg him to believe 

 that when I received from the oflice, on Monday evening, 

 April 16 (that is, when the last paragraphs of Kxcwledhe 

 for April 20 were being made up*), a postcard vituperating 

 me for what, it seems, Mr. Lockyer had regarded, seven- 

 teen months ago, as an oftence against him, I thought 

 more of the charge brought against myself than of the 

 meanness of anonymous letter-writing. I wrote llfu to 

 defend myself, not to attack him. I had made advances, 

 not, I think, ungenerous, a year and a half ago, and I was 

 ]>ained to find that a slight detail in the negotiation had 

 given new offence, at the very time when I was endeavour- 

 ing, at some sacrifice, to put matters right. I had 

 answered my friends — Professor Young, Mr. Clodd, Sir 

 Edmund Beckett, and others — through the correspondence 

 columns ; and there could be no cause of offence — no offence 

 certainly was intended — when, in the hurry of answering a 

 great number of communications, 1 responded to a business 

 letter of Mr. Lockyer's in that way. I was thinking of 

 this, not of the offence of the anonymous letter writer, 

 when I responded in Knowledge to a communication 

 which, at a first view, seemed — for reasons which I 

 then indicated — to come unquestionably from the only 

 person who could have known personally anything about 



• I lectured in Dublin on 'Wednesday, April 18, at 4 p.m. It 

 will bo seenliow little time there was for weighing the matter. 



the matter referred to. Yet it should be noticed that, even 

 in that first reply, I showed that there was that opening for 

 doubt which subsequently led me to recognise another 

 hand in the matter. In Knowledgk for April iTth, in an 

 article entitled " Social Dynamite," I indicated that doubt 

 very clearly, and denounced the writing of anonymous 

 letters, chiefly on the ground that they lead to precisely 

 such mistakes as that into which 1 had fallen. I had had 

 time to consider the meanness and cowardice of the wrong 

 done to Mr. Lockyer and (in loss degree) to myself, by 

 the person who had endeavoured to cloak his misconduct 

 by inserting a passage which was calculated, and doubtless 

 intended, to suggest the idea that Mr. Lockyer had sent 

 the card to ine. 



And now to the question whether the real wrong-doer 

 can be detected. Mr. Lockyer must be interested in this 

 even more than I am. Indeed, now that I find my first 

 idea was erroneous, I am only interested because the person 

 who did this thing caused me, in the hurry following the 

 first explosion of his keg of social dynamite, to entertain 

 and act upon an erroneous notion. The readers of Know- 

 ledge may not be for the most part interested in this 

 matter, any more than they are personally interested in 

 the capture of dynamite oflenders ; but I must ask them to 

 forgive me for giving so much space to the subject as may 

 help to unearth a mischief-making individual, who, if early 

 detected, or even threatened with imminent detection, may 

 be hereafter innocuous. 



The postcard bears date April 13, which was the date 

 of the last meeting but one of the Astronomical Society. 

 On that day, unless I mistake, Mr. Lockyer met, near the 

 region from which the post-card was issued, the members 

 of the Solar Physics Committee. I note this to remind 

 him of the time when this card was certainly written (or 

 rather printed) and posted. He may possibly remember 

 speaking on that day to some one of those (very few, 

 I am happy to believe) who entertain ill-feeling towards 

 me. It must also have been one who professes friendship 

 towards Mr. Lockyer — but very insincerely. Among the 

 subjects of conversation with such a one, then or a day or 

 two before (simply because the matter would soon have 

 been forgotten, if not quickly acted upon), must have been 

 Mr. Lockyer's annoyance at my answering him through 

 the correspondence column. If among those to whom, 

 about that time, Mr. Lockyer was led to speak on that 

 suliject, he can think of one who (1) really wishes ill to me, 

 and (2) may conceal under specious appearances a dynamitic 

 disposition, he will not be far from the wrong-doer to whom 

 he and I are alike indebted. 



Next for myself. Can I not in some degree help the 

 search 1 I think I can. 



First, the taste for sending abusive post-cards is, thank 

 goodness, an e.xceptional one. .Viiiong my acquaintances, 

 do I know any one who has shown an inclination that way? 

 I can think of only one (I omit a notorious offender in this 

 line, who happens, oddly enough, to be mentioned on the 

 first line of my post-card — because he always signs his 

 abuse, whether calling me or Mr. Wallace bad names.) 

 There was one who addressed a friend of mine, whom he 

 hates bitterly (and naturally, for my friend is a vei'y out- 

 spoken man), adding a number of titles between the name 

 and the address on the envelope, with obvious intent to reflect 

 ridicule on him and cause him annoyance. It so happens 

 (wherefore I think I must be outspoken too) that this person 

 honours me also with strong dislike. Strangely enough, 

 too, I happen to know that he had met Mr. Lockyer near 

 the time when, and not far from the place whence, this 

 post-card was despatched. 



A few other points I omit for the present. 



