July 13, 1883.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



27 



etittonal (Sostsiip. 



Captain Webb is to swim the Lower Rapids of Niagara, 

 for the benefit of himself first — should he survive the 

 experiment — and of the American railway companies in 

 any event We should be sorry to limit in any way 

 Captain Webb's legitimate right to do what he likes with 

 his own. But unfortunately his plan involves more than 

 this. He is setting a most demoralising example. The 

 railway companies are bartering a life against money, and 

 the rascality of their course is so obvious as to need no 

 comment. But many will feel sympathy with Captain 

 Webb instead of that contempt which should be felt for 

 the man who, being well able to earn an honest living in 

 more ways than one, prefers to stake liis life for a sum 

 large enough to keep him for several years, as a reward for 

 a. few hours' struggle with death. 



It is time that the nonsense ventilated about Zukertort 

 and his defeat by Sellman and Mortimer should be 

 answered. We are told of the exhaustion following his 

 protracted struggle, of his wilfully giving up the games, 

 and so forth. Any one who plays through the two games 

 will see that Zukertort, having no special reason for wanting 

 to win these two games, was content to play rather for 

 effect than on those strictly sound principles which can 

 alone ensure success in match games. There is not the 

 slightest trace of weakness in his game with Mortimer, the 

 weakest of his opponents ; but there is marked evidence of 

 rashness, or rather, of what would have been rashness if 

 success in the tourney had depended on success in this 

 particular game. Men are not apt when exhausted to go 

 in for undue daring. 



Dr. Hastinos, finding line 1,474 longer on that side 

 of the corona most exposed, both before and after totality, 

 starts the theory that the outer parts of the corona are 

 merely phenomena of diffraction. The observation really 

 shows that the matter giving this line does not extend into 

 or near the outer parts of the corona. We shall have Mr. 

 Lockyer going back to his first love, tlie atmospheric glare 

 corona, illustrated by the cork-in-a-shutter experiment, in 

 which the sun is the sun, the cor)-: the moon, and the 

 shutter is — nothing in particvdar. 



The simple facts that every solar appendage which is 

 not hidden by the moon illuminates our air even at the 

 time of totality, while any illumination so caused must 

 increase witli distance from the solar disc, accord perfectly 

 with Dr. Hastings' observation, as with all others yet 

 made, without the absurdity to which he is said to have 

 committed liimself, — at which I imagine those among his 

 fellow-workers in America who are competent to form an 

 opinion, as Professors Young, Newcomb, and Langley, will 

 be disposed to smile. 



In Knowledge for April 6 we chanced to remark of 

 the Sidereal Alesaenger for December, 1882, that it con- 

 tained chieff)' borrowed articles and editorial notes. 

 " ' Chiefly borrowed articles ! ' " says the Messem/er for 

 June ; " Knowledi:e ought to know that such a statement 

 is grossly untrue." If wo have offended against truth, 

 oven this " lie direct " is deserved ; and whether it is or not 

 deserved, it shall not provoke the " countercheck ([uarrel- 

 somo." Tlie SuhreaJ J/estKiiJ/er, conducted by Professor 

 W. W. Payne, Director of Carleton College Observatory, 

 is a very useful publication, and of the June number it 

 certainly cannot be said that it contains chiefly borftiwed 



articles. There is an admirable article on the " Effect of 

 Flexure on the Axis of Transit Instruments with the (so- 

 called) Broken Telescope," by Professor C. A. Young, Prince- 

 ton, N.J. ; one article only borrowed (from the proceedings 

 of the Appalachian Club), on " Mountain Observatories," 

 by Prof. E. C. Pickering ; an article by the editor on " The 

 Comet of 1882 "; one by Mr. Louis Swift on " Intra-Mer- 

 curial Planets "; and two other original articles. As to the 

 December number, we do not repeat our statement that 

 it consisted chiefly of borrowed articles and editorial notes, 

 because that would seem like giving our esteemed Trans- 

 atlantic contemporary the lie direct, and that would not 

 be courteous. We simply note that besides editorial notes 

 and borrowed articles, it contained two original articles, 

 one on " the Computation of a Para>)olic Orbit," and one 

 on the " Great Comet of 1882,"— "only these, and nothing 



We further expressed our opinion that our own very 

 early discussion of the orbit of the great comet of 1882, in 

 which we expressly referred to the possibility that the 

 Vienna observation of September 24, on which the discus- 

 sion was practically based, might be incorrect, ought not to 

 have been reprinted in December, when it was known that 

 that observation was utterly incorrect, without some remark 

 to that effect. The editor of the Messenger, instead of 

 expressing regret for what was a manifest injustice to us, 

 though doubtless only by inadvertence, dwells now on our 

 unique haste and liold guessing. There was no haste and 

 no bold guessing, but simply what we take to have been an 

 instructive computation (the Jfessenger admits that it 

 involved a simple and neat application of cycloidal geo- 

 metry), every line of which was correct, and the result, 

 with the proviso indicated plainly in the body of the article, 

 correct also. We repeat now what we said then, that were 

 the observation at Vienna on September 24 correct, the 

 period of the comet would have been as short as we stated. 



The Spectator charges Miss Peard, in " Contradictions," 

 with betraying ignorance of cricket, because she describes a 

 player as " caught at slip from a skyer," which he considers 

 next door to an absolute impossibility. ^Mr. H. Katenkamp, 

 joining issue, says that, on the contrary, of all the fates 

 that await an uncertain batsman, none, especially in the 

 long slip, is more common. To which the Spectator makes 

 rejoinder that a "skyer" is a ball hit or driven with the 

 batsman's full force, but with the left shoulder not suffi- 

 ciently forward; and that "a very late hit to leg might 

 just conceivably send a skyer to the slips." Surely this is 

 absurd. A "skyer" is a ball which flies skywards, whether 

 from a drive, a hit to leg, or a cut. A misjudged late cut 

 at a ball with plenty of spin on is as apt to .send a skyer to 

 the slips as any stroke a cricketer can make; but a "skyer" 

 to the slips from a late hit to leg is next to an impossibility, 

 and how such a stroke could be regarded as made with the 

 left shoulder in any degree forward, it would puzzle W. G. 

 himself to imagine. Let any one try to hit a leg ball to 

 the slips with his left shoulder forward, and he will learn 

 that there are twisters other than twisting balls. 



The produce of labour has, we read, been divided between 

 capital and labour as follows in the countries named : — 

 Assuming the produce of labour to be 100 in Great Britain, 

 .")G parts go to the labourer, 21 to capital, and 23 to the 

 Government. In France, 47 parts go to labour, 3G to 

 capital, and 17 to the Government. In the United States, 

 72 parts go to labour, 23 to capital, and 3 to the Govern- 

 ment. 



