Oct. 19, 1883.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



237 



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AN ILLUSTRATED 



MAGAZINE o?SGIENCE 



PLAmLVl/fORDED -EXACigDESCRIBED 



LONDON: FRIDAY, OCT. 19, 1883. 



Contents op No. 103. 



PAGB 



British Association Scraps %i7 



The Birth and Growth of Myth. 



XVIII. BvEdward Clodd 239 



The Hinialaras and the Alps. I. 



By Colonel Godivin Austen 2» 



Flames. By W. M. Williams 242 



Pleasant Hours with the Microscope. 



ByH. J. Slack 242 



Krao 243 



fiea-Anemones. VI. {Illtt*.) By 



Thomas Kimber 241 



FAOB 



Sun-Views of the Earth. By E. A. 

 Proctor 245 



Fish and Phosphorus. By W. 

 Mattieu Williams 24G 



Locusts 247 



Correspondence : Green Sun and 

 India — Great ' Snn-Spots — Moon's 

 Surface— Small Wheels for Tri- 

 cycles — Short Answers and Letters 

 Received 247 



Our Chess Column 248 



BRITISH ASSOCIATION SCRAPS. 



Mr. B. H. Inglis Palgrave, President of the Section 

 of Economic Science, made the following suggestive 

 remarks at the close of his address : The old age of the 

 honest working man should be made secure against dis- 

 tressing want or degrading relief, and the power of 

 obtaining rational pleasures should be provided for him 

 within reasonable bounds. The question for the economist 

 to consider is — How far can it be granted without impairing 

 the great principle of self-help 1 This is a point too fre- 

 •quently ignored ; but, considering the condition of mauy 

 of our working classes, their prospects in this country, and 

 the openings which our colonies and the United States pro- 

 mise to energetic industry, we must be prepared to otl'er 

 'better terms than we liitherto have done to those who con- 

 tinue to dwell here. Legislation, conceived in a somewhat 

 similar spirit, has recently been determined on in the 

 •German Empire ; and if the iron spirit of Prince Bis- 

 marck has felt it needful to yield this concession to 

 popular feeling, it would not seem improbable that other 

 .statesmen may have, willingly or otherwise, to travel 

 in the same road. There are limits, however, to the 

 application of this class of payments by the State which 

 must be borne in mind. ]\[r. Fawcett is careful to enforce 

 this warning. The real incentive to labour and economy is 

 individual interest. Self-help is the best help. The ques- 

 tion how far the principles usually included under the de- 

 nomin.ition of Socialism should be taken into consideration 

 by the State is one economists would do well to con- 

 sider. The economist who sees that the happiness of the 

 community can only be secured by causing individuals to 

 submit to restraints which arc irksome and perhaps painful 

 should not l)e termed cruel for pointing out what is essen- 

 tial to the general well-being. A community which is not 

 prosperous can scarcely piossesa all the elements essential 

 for happiness. Economic science, like all other branches 

 of science, is governed by certain laws. These laws must 

 be adhered to, though it may not be possible to atlirm of 

 them that they are always more than relative)}' true. 

 Economic teaching is the natural utterance of the most 

 fervent patriotism, and possesses the sanction even of a 

 more serious authority. 



Mr. Litton Forbes stated that the territory of Arizona 

 is now practically opened up for the first time in its 

 history by the completion of the new Atlantic and Pacific 

 Railway. The port of Guaymas, on the Gulf of California, 

 probably in the not far distant future will be the port of 

 arrival at least for mails and passengers bound eastward 

 from Australia, China, and Japan. At present Guaymas is 

 a small Mexican town, consisting of adobe houses. Its 

 harbour is excellent — one with deep water up to the very 

 shore, and well sheltered from every -wind. It is the only 

 possible mail station on the Gulf of California, and is some 

 500 miles, or nearly two days' steaming, nearer Australia 

 than San Francisco. Of all the western territories, Arizona 

 has long been the most remote and inaccessible, and, there- 

 fore, the least known of all the territories. The aridity of 

 the climate and the presence of hostile Apache Indians 

 have had much to do with this. Arizona is a country of 

 extraordinary mineral wealth. In many parts of its exten- 

 sive territory it offers large tracts of excellent land to the 

 farmer and the stock-raiser. Its chief drawback is a want 

 of water, but this can be supplied by irrigation works and 

 by artesian wells. Coal, salt, and the precious metals exist 

 in larger quantities probably than in any of the Western 

 mining territories. The copper mines are even now the 

 richest known. The area of the territory is about 114,900 

 square miles, or approximately 73,000,000 acres — in other 

 words, three times the size of the State of New York. The 

 general topography of the country is that of a plateau, 

 sloping towards the south and west from an altitude of 

 7,000 feet to the sea-level. The surface of Arizona is much 

 diversified, and contains some of the finest scenery in North 

 America. In no country in the world can the evidences of 

 past geological action be better studied. The canon of the 

 Colorado is a stupendous waterwork chasm, 400 miles long 

 and from a quarter of a mile to a mile and a quarter in 

 depth, and the scenery in many parts is grand and 

 impressive. 



A NOTE on some recent astronomical experiments at high 

 elevations on the Andes was contributed by Mr. Ralph 

 Copeland. At La Paz (elevation 12,000 ft), he saw stars 

 with the naked eye, when the moon was full, that are 

 with difficulty seen in Europe without artificial aid. At 

 Puno (12,500 ft.), Canopus, Sirius, and Jupiter were 

 visible to unaided vision from one to twenty-five minutes 

 before sunset. A number of small planetary nebuhe 

 and stars, with very remarkable spectra, were found 

 in the southern part of the Milky Way, by searching 

 with a prism attached to a 6 in. telescope on Professor 

 Pickering's plan. The most remarkable stars showed 

 spectra of little more than two bright lines, one near D, 

 and one beyond F, with a wave length of 4(57 ninim., which 

 the author, in conjunction with Jlr. Lohse, had observed in 

 the spectra of various nebulae ; -/ Argus is a star of this 

 type, with the addition that the line near D is threefold. 

 Several close double stars were discovered. At Vincocaya 

 (14,3G0 ft.) the solar spectrum was very much increased in 

 brightness at the violet end. The solar prominences were 

 seen with nearly equal ease in C, D^, F, and H-y. With a 

 small spectroscope a number of lines were visible beyond 

 II and 11^. The solar corona was not seen, nor were any 

 lines discernible in the spectrum of the zodiacal light, 

 although that light was sufficiently bright to be very 

 obvious when the moon was eight days old. 



Dn. CoPELAXi) made also several interesting meteoro- 

 logical observations. Black-bulb temperatures up to 

 205 '5 deg. F. were recorded, this being the limit of the 

 tube of the instrument, and not the actual maximnm. 



