364 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[Dec. 14, 1883. 



We'll hasten onward from the Earth, for Fancy knows no 



limits, 

 The story of the previous weeks whirls by in a few 



minutes.* 

 Now past Gibraltar, Malta, Greece, the ships sternforemost 



skim : 

 Whoa ! slacken speed to former rate, for see, the air grows 



dim. 

 And muskets flash, and cannon blaze, the battle's all 



around, 

 But as we have no telephone there's not the slightest 



sound. 

 The movements are confusing 'twill be better if you please ; 

 To travel at a slower rate, and see things at our ease. 

 Our soldier is a gunner, and he ought to think it fun, 

 For here the clouds of smoke grow thicker, rolling t'wards 



the gun; 

 They gather at the muzzle, now, and with a blinding blaze, 

 The shot comes up and drives them down the barrel as we 



gaze. 

 An oflicer unwriting a dispatch, by " Raglan " signed, 

 The pencil gliding to the right leaves paper clean behind. 

 The battle, as we've hinted, does not seem so very sad. 

 For the dead on all sides rise up, although many wounds 



are bad ; 

 And now the bullets quit their bodies, leaving unharmed 



skin, 

 And finding their respective muskets, with a flash go in. 

 The cartridge-cases fill, and soon the cannonadings cease, 

 The troops march backwards to their camps, and all again 



is peace. 

 Now home .again, lest some fixed star's attraction should 



allure us, 

 For now we're more than twice as far from Earth as is 



Arcturus. 



* * * * * 



At first it seems impossible to witness bygone scenes, 

 But it is not unthinkable to us by any means ; 

 The laws of Physics on this Earth, we cannot but obey : 

 This does not contradict the laws of Thought in any way. 



A. P. T. 



The Railway Revieiv (Chicago, October 6) copies from 

 the Pittsburgh Dispatch an account of the tunnel lately 

 completed, under part of the city, for the Pittsburg, 

 McKeesport, and Yonghiogeny Railway. The ground was 

 covered with buildings and piles of metal, ttc. ; it was 

 chiefly composed of cinder, and intersected with sewers and 

 pumping mains connecting the river with numerous works. 

 Thousands of tons of metal, ore, sand, itc, had to be moved 

 for the purposes of the survey; and when the works were 

 begun, every foot of the way had to be shored up, for the 

 protection of the workmen from the loose, cindery soil. All 

 difficulties were, however, overcome, and the tunnel, 1 6-5 ft. 

 long and 18 ft high, was completed in a few days over a 

 year, with only the loss of a single life. 



* JuBt here I would throw in a note suggested by this poem 



(On things that we can surmise, though perchance we never know 



'em). 

 This voj-ager in space, as our deponent seems to say, 

 Saw more than had elapsed within the compass of a day ; 

 But all that time the earth was swiftly turning without jars, 

 And the places seen from far away were turned tow'rds diff'rent 



stars. 

 So to see those places clearly during several days' expiral, 

 Our trav'ller mnst have voyaged in a most amazing spiral. 

 See this subject lightly touched on in my cheerful little treatise, 

 Called " Geometry of Cycloids," which for seaside reading meet is 

 (It's advertis'd, I notice, in the outside sheets of Knowiedge, 

 But the bulk of it I worked out in my " salad days " at College). 



E. P. 



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



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THE EXTKAORDINAKY SUNSETS. 



[1039] — I have just read Mr. Eanyard's communication in this 

 day's Knowledge on the above subject, and find that he has 

 arrived at the same theoretical conclusion as myself. To test its 

 soundness, I placed some strips of glass in an exposed position, 

 and examined the dust deposited thereon in order to ascertain 

 whether it included any evidence of meteoric iron. The results 

 hare been equivocal. I found traces of iron, but until the last few 

 days the wind has blown from the south and south-west, and thus has 

 brought me so much London smoke that no reliance may be placed 

 on such traces. The snowfall of Wednesday and yesterday has, 

 however, come to the rescue. The wind that brought it is from 

 the north and north-west, which reaches me after crossing the 

 Weald of Harrow, and that curious district around, which, though 

 so near to London, is one of the most thinly-peopled parts of 

 England. The virgin snow carefully collected from my garden 

 at a distance of 80 yards from my chimnies, and about half a 

 mile from any to windward, is thus a fair samjile. 



On thawing some of this that had been collected by slicing off 

 the top film of the snow with a piece of glass, I found a sediment of 

 fine brownish-black powder. Ferrocyanide of potassium added to 

 the snow-water produced no change of colour, showing the absence 

 of iron in solution there, nor was there any visible reaction on the 

 black dust until I added some hydrochloric or nitric acid. Then the 

 characteri?tic blue compound indicating iron was abundantly 

 formed all around the granules, and presently, as their solution was 

 effected, a bluish-green deposit was formed, and the whole liquid 

 deeply tinged with the same. It was not the true Prussian-blue 

 reaction of iron alone, but jnst the colour that would be produced 

 by mixing small quantities of the cyanide of nickel (yellowish 

 green), with a preponderating amount of Prussian blue. 



I have posted to Mr. Eanyard the precipitate obtained from IJoz. 

 of snow, and he will probably be surprised — as I was — at its 

 quantity. There is no doubt about the iron, but the nickel 

 demands further investigation before its presence is demon- 

 Btrated. The green tinge is merely suggestive. If it is really 

 there, the evidence of cosmical origin of the material brought 

 down by the snow wiU be overwhelming. 



The iron appears to be in the condition of magnetic oxide. The 

 particles that I have examined in the microscope do not display the 

 pear-shape which has been described as characteristic of meteoric 

 dust. They are more like agglomerations of minute spherules, and 

 with them are the usual crystalline and organic particles found in 

 dust. Never having examined unquestionable meteoric granules 

 I am unable to speak with any confidence concerning the micro- 

 scopic evidence afforded by these. W. Mattieu Williams. 



Stonebridge-park, Dec. 7, 1883. 



[1040] — I think that I can give categorical replies to two of the 

 questions suggested by Mr. Ranyard's very interesting article on 

 p. 341. The first snow" fell here (very slightly) on the 5th, followed 

 by a much heavier fall on the night of the 6th and the morning of 

 the 7th. The sunset on the latter evening was a tolerably fine one, 

 but the astonishing after-glow of the preceding one was no longer 

 visible. I have examined the deposit from about a gallon of snow 

 carefully collected, and find under the microscope that it is full of 



