92 



♦ KNO\ArLKDGE ♦ 



[February 1, 1887 



I 1st set. Anu, Laura, William, Frank. 



2nd ,, Mar}', Clara, Tom, Andrew. 



3rd „ George, Henry, Susan, Sarah. 



4th „ Charley, John, Jane, Kate. 



rist set. Ann, Mar}', George, Charley. 

 „ , , ) 2nd „ Clara, Laura, John, Henry, 

 drci Clay ; .^^^ ^^ j.^^^^^ Susan, Tom, William. 



1.4th „ Sarah, Kate, Frank, Andrew. 



ilst set. Ann, Clara. Susan, Sarah. 



2nd „ Mary, Laura, Jane. Kate. 



3rd ,, (Jeorge, John, William, Andrew. ■ 



4th „ Charley, Henry, Tom, Frank. 



fl.st set. Ann, John, Tom, Kate. 

 2nd „ Mary, Henry, William, Sarah. 

 3rd „ George, Clara, Jane. Frank. 

 4th ,, Charley, Laura, Susan, Andrew. 



Q. E. D. 

 * * * 



The jirison puzzle in the December number (" Gossip,' 

 p. 13) may be solved in many ways if only the first few 

 steps are rightly taken. These steps must take the prisoner 

 into either of the cells adjoining his own, and back into his 

 own, after which he passes out through the other neigh- 

 bouring cell, and can thence find his way to the gate (ful- 

 filling the conditions) in more ways than I care to count. 

 It seems to me that this puzzle is rather a sell, because the 

 prisoner certainly has to go twice out of his own cell, and 

 can hardly, therefore, be said to have gone once, and once 

 only, through it. However, there is no better solution ; 

 and, as I would not promise any solution at all, I have not 

 been worse than my word. 



« ^ ^ 



I HAVE received another solution of the nineteen trees in 

 ten rows problem, as shown in the accompanying figure. 

 The same correspondent remarks that solutions given in 

 figs. 2 and 3 (Knowledge, for November) are in reality 

 identical. I do not agree with him in this. For wherea 



in one arrangement the trees at the angles of the outside 

 triangle fall towards the same direction (from the centre) 

 as the bases of the interior triangle, in the other they fall 

 towards the same direction as the angles of that triangle. 

 * * * 

 It is told of Colonel Horatio Ross that, besides being able 

 to shoot straight and stalk deer .staimchly — qualities of 

 themselves sulBcing, in days which made Archer a sort 

 of minor god, to raise him into the ranks of the major 

 heroes — he was '• second " in sixteen duels. The manner of 

 his seconding was far worthier to be recalled than the mere 

 fact, which, did it stand alone, might mean little to his 

 credit. In every case lie brought the principals to an 

 amicable and honourable understanding. This speaks 

 volumes for his sense and kindliness. 



It must have been another Colonel Horatio Ross who 

 used to tell a story of a brutally-planned stee})lechase, in 

 which, following instructions, he rode down and nearly 

 killed a brother-officer, adding the semi-idiotic comment 

 that, he supposed, " in these shopkeeping days " had he 

 killed the other man — Captain Douglas — " it would have 

 been called wilful murder — but it was not so in 1826 — the 

 verdict would then have been justifiable homicide." 



It would seem we have improved in some respects — any 

 way, in the sixty years since the time of the first " Locksley 

 Hall." Though it is not " shopkeeping " which has taught 

 us to regard savage horseplay with contempt. Napoleon 

 said we were " a nation of shopkeepers " years before the 

 gallant exploit of that other and inferior Colonel Ross. 

 (The latter may have intended some subtle reference to that 

 most multitudinous of all shopkeepers who erst presided 

 over the naval, and later over the military, affairs of Great 

 Britain.) There is no more necessary connection between 

 shop-keeping and common sense than there is between the 

 soldier's trade and such loutish ruffianism as the late C'olonel 

 Ross commended. 



Fond Life : Insects. By Edwd. A. Butler, B.A. B.Sc. 

 (London : Swan Sonnenschein, Lowrey, &: Co. 1886.) — This 

 fresh volume of the " Young Collector " series will sufler 

 nothing in comparison with those of its predecessors, of 

 which we have spoken so favourably on former occasions in 

 these columns. Readers of Knowledge will need no re. 

 minder from us of the charm of Mr. Butler's style, and will 

 readily accept our assurance that in his most recent volume 

 our valued contributor is as readable and entertaining, as 

 well as scientifically exact, as ever. Everybody who is ever 

 likely to spend ten minutes on the bank of a pond should 

 buy this excellent manual straightway. 



Anniversary Address of the President of the Royal Society 

 of Nem South Wales, delivered May 6, 1885 : Local Varia- 

 tions and Vibrations of the Eartlis Surface, and Results of 

 Rain and River Observations made in Xew South Wahs. 

 By H. C. Russell, B.A., F.R.A.S., &c.. Government Astro- 

 nomer for New South Wales. Sydney, N.S.W., 1886. — In. 

 the three pamphlets whose titles head this notice the 

 Government Astronomer at Sydney has made a valuable 

 contribution not only to our knowledge of the local 

 condition of the earth's crust, and of the meteorology 

 of New South Wales, but to terrestrial physics generally. 

 The European astronomer and physicist wUl be most 

 interested in Mr. Russell's description of the apparatus he 

 has erected on Lake George for automatically recording the 

 height of the water, such height varying and oscillating with 

 every undulation of the surface of the earth. While his in- 

 strument lacks the extraordinary delicacy of Professor Dar- 

 win's pendulum and reflecting mirror, yet while any change 

 in gravity, or in the direction of the vertical, in the latter 

 case only affects a base of a few feet, or at most a few yards 

 sqtiare, in the case of Lake George we have it acting on 

 a surface twenty miles long by some five or six miles wide. 

 Some of the results are very curious. Just as in Europe 

 the pendulum has been noted to swing northward, or away 

 from the Equator, during the day, and towards it at night; 

 so at Lake George the water runs away from the equator in 

 the daytime and approaches it at night. Mr. Russell 

 further applies his results to the investigation of the alleged 

 tilting of the piers of transit instruments, a portion of his 

 work of considerable interest to the practical astronomer, and 

 deals with the alleged rise of the land about Sydney, itc, 

 &c. ; in fact, as we commenced by saying, he has really 

 made a valuable contribution towards our knowledge of the 

 physics of the earth's crust. 



First Year of Scientific Knotvledr/e. By Paul Bert. 

 (Relfe Brothers.) — We have no school-book of elementary 

 science which approaches this admirable work of the 

 lamented governor of Tonkin. There is not a dry page nor 



