Jl-se 1, 1883.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



331 



my sisters, my wife and daughters, and so forth. It has so 

 chanced that not one of these shots has been quite ri^'ht. 

 I may be permitted to suggest to these anonymous scribes 

 that there is a considerable range for choice among relation- 

 ships corresponding with what I wrote. Thus (merely to 

 begin), there are sisters, daughters, nieces, cousins in the 

 first, second, and third degree, wife, mother, aunts ; -wife's 

 sisters, cousins, nieces, aunts ; brother's wife, h^r sisters, 

 cousins, itc. ; there miglit be the sisters, cousins, nieces, 

 «tc., of a tirst or second wife, or of a wife's first or second 

 husband, and so there might be stepdaughters, brother in- 

 law's sisters, cousins, aunts, and so forth ; or, again, there 

 might be none of these. 



Mr. Proctor has just closed a very successful course of 

 six lectures at the Royal Concert Hall, St Leonard's, at 

 which more than 1,000 persons have been present Two 

 lectures have also been given at the Pavilion, Eastbourne, 

 and these are the first of a series which, during the summer 

 season, will be continued at Brighton, Tunbridge Wells, 

 Lewes, Worthing, and elsewhere. The experiment is as 

 bold as that recently completed with such gratifying re- 

 sults at St. James's Hall, and there is every indication of 

 even greater success. The arrangements of the lecture 

 tour are in the hands of Mr. John Stuart, of St Leonard's. 



Among the most interesting features of the Zoological 

 Gardens (Philadelphia) are the peculiar relations existing 

 between the capybara and two prettj- kittens. The capy- 

 bara {Hydroclomis caj'i/bara) is a curious creature. It is 

 the largest of rodents, and in its habits and characteristics 

 very much resembles our musk-rat. It lives in the water 

 and burrows in the banks of the South American rivers. 

 It is about as large as a big dog, and is covered with coarse 

 hair. As it lies in the pen in the deer-house it is con- 

 tinually accompanied by the two kittens. Sometimes 

 he will play with them and poke them about with his nose: 

 thereupon they will mount his back and sit serenely, while 

 he is unable to get them off. Then he will plunge into his 

 water tank, and water-hating tabby will spring oft" to escape 

 the undesired bath. If the cats leave the pen, " Porgy " 

 (he is so called after " Porgy " O'Brien, the circus man) will 

 follow them to the bars and make a funny squeaking noise, 

 beseeching his companions to come back to keep him com- 

 pany. Sometimes the keepers will bother the kittens. 

 They fly at once to the protecting sides of " Porgy," while 

 he will bare his long teeth and chatter fiercely. In the 

 next cage is a wallaby, and while the cats go in and out, 

 they do not attempt to be at all friendly. They confine 

 their allegiance wholly to the more ugly capybara. — I'hila- 

 delphia I'ress. 



Mid-Ocean TELErjRAriiv. — The following, taken from a 

 contemporar\-, is given for what it may be worth : — The 

 idea of telegraphing from ships at sea is not a new one, 

 and crops up from time to time. Mid-ocean telegraph 

 stations have been proposed, and will, probably, )>e carried 

 out some day. The chief difficulty in the way of their 

 adoption has hitherto been the necessity of keeping the 

 ship connected by a branch cable to the main cable lying 

 on the bottom, and anchoring her so as to maintain this 

 communication in all weathers and depths desirable. But 

 Professor A. E. Dolbear has proposed a plan which may 

 render this fixed communication unnecessary. A large 

 metal plate attached to an insulated conductor is lowered 

 from the ship to the bottom on the track of the cable, and 

 another plate is merely submerged. Between these two plates 

 a batterj- and ^lorse key is inserted. On working the key 

 the Morse currents induce other currents in the cable, which 

 can be heard in telephones attached to the cable on shore. 



" Let Knowledge grow from more to more." — Alfred Tennyson. 



afttrrs to t\)t editor. 



Only a small proportion of Letters receiied can possibly be in- 

 serted. Correspondents must not be offended, therefore, should their 

 letters not appear. 



All Editorial cotnmunications should be addressed to the Editor of 

 Knowledge ; all Business communications to the Pcblisheks, at the 

 Office, 74, Great Queen-street, W.C. If this is not attended to, 

 delays arise fob which the Kditob is not responsible. 



All Remittances, Cheques, arid Post Office Orders should be made 

 payable to Messrs. Wtman & Sons. 



The Edit<>r is not responsible for the opinions of correspondents. 



No commc.nicatioxs are axsweeeb by post, even tbocgh stamped 

 and directed envelope be enclosed. 



JOSHUA AND THE SDX. 



[837] — I beg to refer any reader of Letter 798 (April 27) to 688 

 (Jan. 9), the sole mention yet made of Jacob Bryant, to see what 

 grounds there are for saying I "quote Bryant as an authority." I 

 named him as having " fully convinced me." What has con- 

 vincing to do with authority '^ But let none who may turn to his 

 arguments fancy there are no better. He was ignorant that the 

 book the Samaritans call " Joshua," which is now thrice as long as 

 ours, but about twice if we omit everything after Joshua's 

 time, while quite agreeing in most details, and specially those of 

 the Gideon battle, and thunderstorm and hail, has not a word 

 of the sun or moon. If we must come to " authority," here is 

 probably the earliest e.'itant — certainly, as all admit, much older 

 than the LXX. As for these translators (who were never a 

 bit more authority than our "James, King of France's"), of 

 course, they adjusted it to the vulgar creed of their time, with no 

 more criticism than Habakkuk (iii. 11) or the son of Sirach 

 (xlvi. 5, 6). But even the blindest retailers of pulpit-stuff 

 to-day, who say (see Barrett's " Synopsis of Criticism") "that the 

 sun and moon did really stand still, is proved by" the above texts ! 

 — are puzzled enough by Joshua's speech having nothing about 

 standing still. "Sun on Gileon, he dumb," was the best even Dr. 

 Adam Clarke could make of it. Very odd that the Power able to 

 make the sun stand "still in the midst of heaven" should inspire 

 nobody to mention aught nearer to " stand still " than " be dumb," 

 or nearer " the midst of heaven" than Gibeon ! Then the topo- 

 graphers all agree that Ajalon was so much west of Gibeon that, 

 for the moon to be seen at all, the miracle must have been in the 

 morniihj, and "hasted not to go down about a whole day," was 

 exactly what the sun would naturally not haste to do. The only 

 miracle would have been not hasting up towards the meridian. But 

 in what tribe, however savage, is a general childish enough to con- 

 nect the heavenly bodies thus with neighbouring spots ? 



Poor Josephus was nearly nonplussed here. After far more 

 about the thunder and hail, by which Joshua " believed that God 

 assisted him," he manages to compress the whole day phenomenon 

 into a line, and without mention of sun, moon, God, miracle, or 

 that most glaring inconsistency that " they were more which died 

 with hailstones than they whom the children of Israel slew mth 

 the sword." (Did the chief executioners, the hailstones, need 

 more daylight, then ?) Carefully sinking this, he proceeds : " It 

 happened, too, that the day was lengthened, that the night might 

 not come on too soon." (Quite a piece of luck, you see, like snow 

 at Charles I.'s funeral. Afterwards he adds, " That the day was 

 really lengthened at that time, and was longer than usual, is stated 

 in the books that were kept in the Temple." 



Now, the first mention of a book being laid up in the Temple — 

 or rather Tabernacle— was on the anointing of Saul (1 Sam. x. 25): 

 " Then Samuel told the people the manner of the kingdom, and 

 iviote it in a book, and laid it up before the Lord." This book, as 

 Sir Isaac Newton showed, must have included the first, and pro- 

 bably the first seven, of the present Bible. It influded Genesis, 

 which, in its chap, xxxvi,, brings down Edomite history to that same 

 generation, and professes not to be edited till there was a king in 

 Israel (ver. 31). And the seventh. Judges, dates itself, at its ver. 

 21, as completed whUe the Jebusites yet held Jerusalem, of which 



