66 



KNOWLEDGE 



[.Tascary 1, 1887. 



By Richard A. Proctor. 



I SHALL ba%-e remarks to make later about a sundial for 

 mean time and a tellurium described and pictured for me by 

 two correspondents, and about a question relating to Euclid, 

 Book I., 32, and Axiom 12, by another. 



I GIVE this month, as illustrating Americanisms not 

 only of words but of manner, an account of a humorous 

 lecture delivered by Mark Twain a few weeks ago iu Xew 

 York. The " Xotes " will be continued next month. There 

 is in any case no occasion to hurry with the alphabetical 

 treatment of Americanisms, seeing that modes of expression 

 supply quite as good illustrations of the way in which our 

 cousins across the Atlantic speak English as mere words. 

 The reader of Mr. C'lemens's amusing address will find 

 several illustrations of American peculiarities, and of modes 

 of speaking which, if not absolutely peculiar to America, are 

 more commonly to be noticed in the States than in the 

 old country. 



* •* * 



I am reminded for a moment of the peevishly ignorant 

 ci-iticism in the Saturdai/ Ffvieir some time back. A new 

 ■weekly, speaking of my remarks thereanent, .says that I 

 interrupted my notes to "go for" that critic — as Americana 

 sjiy. I would invite attention to the fact that most of what 

 I said related directly to Americanisms. My critic's ignor- 

 ance of the subject gave me occasion to explain correctly a 

 number of words which he had blundered over. Except in 

 not being alphabetically arranged, the words " Gum," "' Use," 

 " Peart," " Horse Fiddle," and a number of others, belonged 

 as truly to my " Notes on Americanisms " as any in former 

 articles. I was interested myself to notice how much more 

 occasion there was for explanation of Americanisms than I 

 had supposed ; since here was one who at least pretended to 

 know something of the subject falling into mistake .after 

 mistake about the simplest, and, I had .supposed, the best 

 known, American usages. 



^ ^ ^ 



PoE the rest, the Saturday Etvkic ciitique illustrated 

 well what I formerly said in these pages in comparing 

 anonymous detraction to dynamite. For though the weak- 

 ness of the style, and the ignorance in regard to details, 

 sufficed to assure me the article was not written by anyone 

 worth considering, certain coincidences led me to the mis- 

 taken idea that points had been suggested by one of very 

 different quality. I suffer the annoyance of having made 

 this mistake, and of having so caused annoyance to others 

 whom 1 greatly esteem. All which would have been pre- 

 vented if the SaturJdij Eevieir criticisms were signed, or if 

 at least the columns of that pajier were open to an occasional 

 line of remonstrance or explanation. 



* * * 



I leaex, however, with satisfaction and some amusement, 

 that the proprietors of the paper have recently had a lesson 

 in this respect. 



T(t ^ ^ 



What a strange system it is, anyway, by which, in the 

 case of all works really the product of long and careful 

 labour, criticism is often entrusted to writers who have 

 given scarcely any time and attention to the subject. A 

 man shall give twenty years to some special study, and 

 present the result of his work in book form : then does 

 John Noakes or Thomas Styles, sitting down quickly, 



proclaim that ''While 'we' find a good deal that is 



interesting in this work, we must point out that the con- 

 clusions of the author are not such as will commend them- 

 selves to men of science," neither John Xoakes nor Thomas 

 Styles knowing more about the opinions of men of science 

 than they do about the subject of the treatise whose leaves 

 they have perhaps just cut, but quite possibly not. 



There is a mistake in my article on earthquakes 

 (Knowledge for November, p. 2) by which my argument 

 about the pressure of the atmosphere is badly weakened. I 

 had calculated the difference of pressure for two inches 

 change in the mercurial barometer. But while the article 

 was waiting to be sent off to England, I received a telegram 

 from the editor of the Xorlh American lievieio asking me to 

 send him an article on the earthquake, and in that article I 

 dealt with a difference of only one inch in the barometer. 

 (The article appeared in the October number of that 

 magazine.) It occurred to me then that it would be far 

 better to adopt the same difference in the article I had 

 written for Knowledge. I supposed I had made the neces- 

 sary corrections ; but I remember a visitor called while I 

 w-as making up matter for Knowledge, and I can only 

 suppose that I was interrupted after I had halved the pres- 

 sures, and before I had halved the differences in the 

 barometer. If the reader will complete the alterations at 

 p. 2 by writing one inch for two inches throughout, the 

 statements will be made correct. The strength of the argu- 

 ment will be doubled — not that I think this greatly matters, 

 as 100 millions of tons are as far beyond our power of con- 

 ception as 200 millions. Still, it is well to be accurate 

 in such statements. I\ly wish to be moderate led to the 

 mistake. 



A CORRESPONDENT referring to Knowledge (p. 16), Nov. 1, 

 1886, says : — 



It was not Augustine but TertuUian who said "credo quia impos- 

 sibile est." The expression occurs somewhere in bis treatise 

 " De Came." I have not the exact reference .it hand, but the pas- 

 sage is well Ijnown. 



* * * 



The correction is just. I was for the moment thinking 

 of Augustine in another connection. His special weakness 

 before, as he puts it, " an incredible conflagration was en- 

 kindled within him " by the treatises of divers Platonists, 

 was to require demonstration of things spiritual, not merely 

 to be shown they were possible, far less to know they were 

 impossible, before he accepted them with fulness of faith. 

 In his tract " De utilitate credendi " Augustine came near 

 Tertullian's paradox in the " De Carnc Christi." Augustine 

 is, of course, the greater of the two, though he might have 

 written even such a saying as Tertullian's, seeing that, as 

 was well said of him, he sports with Punic arguments, fear- 

 ing to sicken the reader with tedium of his verbosity (lectorem 

 lie mult'doquii tiedio /astidiat, Punicis quihiisdam argutiis 

 recnare sokt). 



* * * 



Another correspondent writes as follows : — 



You say in Knowledge, July 1 (in article on Americanisms) 

 that " Diimpy, for sad, is about as old Engli?h as can well be,' 

 which may be true enough, although I am not aware of its occur- 

 rence in any writer earlier than about 1530-40 ; but you are unques- 

 tionably in error in quoting the ballad of " Chevy Chase " as evidence 

 of its antiquity, for the old orir/inal ballad (written probably not 

 long after the battle, which was fought in l.'iSS) has nothing what- 

 ever about " dumps " and Witherington fighting "on his stumps." 

 The lines you mention are only to be found in the modernised 

 version, which was certainly not made till some time after 1600, 

 and [is] therefore no authority on "old English." 



