July 1, 1887.] 



♦ KNOW^LEDGE ♦ 



207 



friend of science could take away from these most able 

 observers their big playthings and send them back to the 

 smaller instruments with which thev did such noble work. 



THE JAPANESE MAGIC MIRROR. 



Bt J. Parnell, F.R.A.S. 



THIXK I can give Dr. Hutchinson the informa- 

 tion he requu-es, as I investigated the matter 

 more than twenty years ago, and had the good 

 fortune to arrive at a satisfactoiy result. If 

 Dr. Hutchinson will examine his mirror care- 

 fully he will, I think, find that it is not 

 absolutely plane, but more or less convex, and 

 the phenomenon in question is due to the fact that the por- 

 tion of the surface behind which is a raised figure is, if not 

 plane, at least flatter than the rest of the mirror. Con- 

 sequently when a parallel beam of light, such as comes from 

 the sun, is reflected by the mirror on to a screen the general 

 convex surface will dLsperse the light more than the plane 

 portions, which in consequence will appear on the screen as 

 bright fignres. I arrived at this result by a careful examina- 

 tion of the distortions produced in the image of a luminous 

 globe as viewed in the mirror, and the result was published 

 in 1866 in Thf Reader (since extinct); and afterwards, in 

 July 1877, finding that the explanation above given was not 

 generally known, I republished in Xature the substance of 

 the previous communication. Subsequently, and I presume 

 independently, in December 1878, Messrs. Ayrton and Perry 

 arrived at the same lesult, and read a paper thereon at the 

 Royal Society. 



CRICKET AND BASE-BALL.* 



By Richard A. Proctor. 



EW base-ball players know much about 

 cricket ; few cricketers know much about 

 base-ball. I am not one of those who 

 know much about both games ; yet I know 

 more about base-ball than most cricketers 

 do. I have watched many games at it, 

 and three of my sons have played at it 

 during two or three years, in such sort as 

 to be able to explain the points of the games I have watched 

 and to tell me of a number of details which otherwise I 

 should have known nothing about. In regard to cricket 

 I have always been an enthusiast, and until this year, when 

 the List available spot at St. Joseph was built over, I have 

 played at the game whenever I had the chance. On the 

 whole, it seems to me I am rather better qualified than 

 most pereons to talk about the two games, especially about 

 those points of comparison on which I am about chiefly to 

 touch, which depend on .scientific principles of which few 

 professional cricketers or ba.^e-ball playei-s would be apt to 

 know much. It happens, rather oddly, that during the past 

 Septembei- 1886 an article of mine has appeared in the 

 London Titiifs on these .--pecial points of comparison, an 

 article entitled " The Break at Ciicket and the Curve at 

 Biise-ball,"and I suppose that it was within less than a week 

 of the appeai-ance of this article in London that Key and 

 Buckland, the English cricketera (one a leading batsman, 

 the other a clever bowler), watched a base-ball game at 



* From the St. Louis Globe Bcmorrat (October 31, 1886). The 

 article is given in full, so that English readers may note whether 

 my description ot cricket, for comparison with base-ball, is correct 

 or not. 



Philadelphia, and subsequently tested the bafiling effects of 

 Fothergill's pitching. 



That was not, however, by any means the first time that 

 English cricketers had appeared on the base-ball field. A 

 quarter of a century ago, when Parr and Cafiyn brought 

 over a first-class English eleven to America, long before the 

 Australians had acquired the skill which recently enabled 

 them to face on fully equal terms the best players in 

 England (for it was Caflyn who, visiting Australia later, 

 stayed there and taught young England to beat his mother). 

 After the Englishmen had won their last cricket victory, 

 they took part in a base-ball game in which, though they 

 did fairly well, they found the Americans fixr their superiors. 

 I question, however, whether the pitching of a quarter of a 

 century ago would bear comparison with that which is now 

 regarded as essential in first-class base ball. 



At any rate the English cricketers said nothing when 

 they reached home about the various curves, which per- 

 plexed Key and Buckland at Philadelphia; and I cannot 

 but think that if they had recognised these curves they 

 would not only have spoken about them, but would have 

 tried to bring them into effective action in bowling at cricket, 

 as Buckland, I understand, thinks of doing. 



Cricket then, as now, needed some new devices in the 

 bowling department, seeing that already the bat was begin- 

 ning to get the better of the ball. Formerly an innings 

 of over 100 runs was thought excellent; but anything 

 under 200 runs in first-class matches is now regarded as 

 un.satisfactory ; and we hear from time to time in matches 

 not far from first-class, of a single member of an eleven at 

 cricket making more than 400 runs off his own bat. (Such 

 numbers as these serve of themselves to suggest to those 

 who know only of base-ball and nothing about cricket, that 

 the two games must be entirely diflerent in character, as 

 indeed they are.) 



A few remarks on the essential features of cricket will 

 not be out of place, then, in such an article as this, appear- 

 ing in St. Louis, where I am given to underst;ind they do 

 not need any particular information about the game of base- 

 ball — though I shall presently have a point or two to notice 

 about base-ball which may be new to some even in the home 

 of the champions of the world. 



Cricket is essentially a game of attack and defence. A 

 wicket formed of three upright stitmps, with two cross-bars 

 or " bails " at the top, is bowled at by a member of one 

 eleven, while a member of the opposite eleven defends it 

 with a bat. In the game as usually played now, though 

 formerly single-wicket games were common enough, there 

 are two wickets set twenty-two yards apart, each defended 

 by a batsman ; and after a series of four balls, called an 

 " over," have been aimed by a bowler at one wicket, another 

 bowler proceeds to trundle four balls at the other wicket. 

 (It is hardly necessary to say that only one ball is used 

 throughout, but the act of bowling is called delivering " a 

 ball.") The bowler, then, attacks while the batsman defends 

 the wicket. If the bowler can hit the u icket, or even touch 

 it so lightly as to bring down one of the bails — the merest 

 gi-aze will generally do this — the batsman is out, and mu.st 

 be replaced by another. If, however, the batsman can 

 strike away the ball in such sort that he and the other bat 

 can exchange wickets before the ball is sent in again, that 

 counts as a run. As many times as they c;tn exchange 

 wickets, each running across from wicket to wicket, so 

 many runs do they count. They may run in this way even 

 though the batsman has not touched the ball, if it is missed 

 by both the wicket-keeper (corresponding in some degree to 

 the catcher at base-ball) and by his backer-up, called the 

 long-stop. Xay, a run is often stolen when the long-stop 

 has not mi.-sed the ball, if he is slow in sending it in, and 



