July 4, 1884.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



17 



sometimes perpetrated " by media. Can you give the name of one 

 single ivell-known medium who has not been ultimately detected ? 

 I refuse to suffer the precious space in these columns to bo wasted 

 in connection with an imposture which can only be legitimately 

 met by proceeding against media under 5th Geo. IV., c. 83, s. 4, 

 and b}- placing their dupes in safe confinement. — Miss F. H. Wood. 

 I have received your historical chart, and your description of your 

 new adjustable geometrical ruler with which it was executed. The 

 latter seems an ingenious instrument, but as I have not the smallest 

 idea when I shall bo in town, I regret my inability to make an 

 appointment to inspect it. — iliss Maegaret B. Aldeb opines that 

 if " the abysmal depths of the oceans were laid bare .... the 

 red clay, mth its incipient zeolites, feldspars, and iron oxides, and 

 superfluous silica, would harden into basalt, granite, whinstone, 

 trachyte, and other rocks said to be produced by former volcanic 

 action" — in which I regret to differ from her. — Cbas. I know 

 nothing about the books read for the London degree. The Hamil- 

 touian system of interlinear translation will enable you to construe, 

 but you will infallibly be tripped np in your examination 

 if you do not study the grammatical structure of the sentences 

 as well. — Geokge Chapman. Out satisfaction is mutual. — 

 A. N. Professor Hughes was the real inventor of the 

 microphone. I cannot spare the column which a descrip- 

 tion of its construction would occupy. So far as I know it 

 has not been used by any maker of car trumpets. — J. JIckrat. 

 Send your communication to some other journal, with the offer of a 

 handsome reward to any one who can make head or tail of it, — W. 

 CosMox. Tour " puzzle " is as old as the hills. Everything depends 

 upon the direction in whicli you sail round the world. A ship going 

 from west to east gains a day, on going from east to west loses one, 

 so that if they started simultaneously on their respective voyages, 

 and met again at their conclusion, it might be Tuesday on board 

 of one ship and Thursday on the other. The difficulty is insuper- 

 able. There is no such a thing as a hora mundi. — C. E. Mabeiott 

 sends a letter to the Editor (for Mr. Pillinger) stating that he 

 encloses fifteen stamps — which he does not — for a timepiece ! My 

 dear young friend, you must find out where Mr. P. lives, and write 

 straight to him yourself. I am not his agent, and don't keep his 

 timepieces here. — The Xatioxal He.\lth Society sends me an 

 excellent little tract on vaccination, which can hardly be too widely 

 circtdated. — Sir Daniel Coopee and E. Howell. Thanks for cards of 

 invitations, which overwhelming pre-occupation only has prevented 

 me from accepting. — X. Hopken, Ax Old Dracghtsmax, Rosalie 

 Vaxsittart, and Ajithue A. West. See reply to " John E. Syms," 

 above. — W. W. S. It is utterly beyond the province of Knowledge to 

 recommend individual tradesmen, but of the names yon give the third 

 is undoubtedly that of the most scientific artist. — A Scbsceibeb 

 asks for the composition of some transparent medium for the crysto- 

 lenm process, which will not spot. Can any of our photographic 

 readers oblige him ? — R. RrssELL. Neither the names nor addresses 

 of correspondents can be given without their special permission. — 

 Gaxga Ram. Tour pamphlet, when received, will be read by an 

 expert in the matter to which it relates. — Erxest (sic) Enquikee. 

 As your facts are wrong, and your conclusions from them erroneous, 

 I feel that I shall best comply with your request to " deal gently 

 with " you by simply acknowledging the receipt of your letter. — 

 W. Cave TH0^us. Tour original letter was already in type when 

 the one you wished to be substituted for it arrived. — M. E. SlMp- 

 sox. Tour communication shall be forwarded to the proper quarter. 

 — J. The subject is being treated of from a scientific point of 

 view, and from that alone ; but science is dumb in the presence of 

 such considerations as those which you advance. — T. Commox. It 

 seems probable, as you say, that Mr. A. McD. has misunderstood 

 the passage you quote. I entirely agree with you that " Mr. 

 Garbetc would probably get as much information with regsird to 

 the flood from the ' Homo diluvii testis ' among the Salamanders 

 in the British Museum as from Mount Ararat and Xoah's rainbow." 

 — Watsox & Soxs. Received. 



The eighteen principal English railways have earned almost 

 exactly a million a week for the twenty-fonr weeks of the present 

 year. 



A Ship Struck by Lightxixg. — A despatch from Derry, dated 

 22nd ult., says: — "Captain M'Cann, master of the Derry barque 

 Village Bell, arrived in port this evening from Baltimore. He 

 reports having eight sailors on board belonging to the Spanish ship 

 Angeleta, from New Orleans to Barcelona, which was struck by 

 lightning and set on fire." The message states that the whole of 

 the crew were rescued, and makes no mention of any casualty 

 amongst them. The ship appears to have been burnt to the water's 

 edge. 



0m- ^3cira330)r Column. 



THE foolish fellow who mischievously threatened a universal 

 storm some time since, publishes the following curious illustra- 

 tion of paradoxical absurdity. We give it, heading and all, as it 

 appeared in the Kew York Tribune : — 



WIGGINS'S DARK MOON. 

 IS THE EARTH ACCOMPANIED BT TWO SATELLITES ? 



THE CAXADIAX WEATHEE-SEEE SAYS IT I.S AXD TELLS THE 

 REASON' WHY. 



To the Editor of the Tribune. 



SiE, — For many years it has been my belief that our planet is 

 accompanied by two satellites, a visible and a dark one, the dis- 

 tance of the latter from the earth being probably double that of 

 the former. The librations of the moon, the irregularity of her 

 motions in her orbit, and the fact that her perigee seldom takes 

 place immediately on the orbit of our earth in advance of the 

 earth's course, are strong evidence of the disturbing influence of a 

 sister satellite. The variation in the time and height of the tides, 

 occasional tides of excessive height without apparent cause, and 

 the frequent occm-rence of double tides, cannot be explained 

 on the hypothesis that the earth is attended by only one 

 secondary. Earthquakes which are cansed by unusual plane- 

 tary attraction frequently occur when it would appear that the 

 force which produced them had not yet reached its climax, and 

 could not till after the moon's conjunction with the sun. The 

 recent earthquake in England occurred two days before the moon 

 was in conjunction with the solar orb, and before she was in 

 perigee, showing that her attractive power must have joined with 

 anotlier and very nearly equal force before she reached the line of 

 her solar conjunction. This earthquake I predicted would return 

 with increased violence on May 20. It did so, causing the destruc- 

 tion of many villages and the death of hundreds of people. On 

 the same day occurred the disastrous cyclone in British Burmah. 

 The earthquake, however, did not appear in England, and I am 

 convinced it was moved eastward by the infiuence of this dark 

 planet. The recent cold wave which passed over America must 

 have been due to this source, and as nearly the same conditions 

 will exist on the 26th and 27th of the present month, the same 

 cold wave would appear were it not for the changed position of 

 this dark horse of the heavens. 



All great storms should occur after certain planetary conjunc- 

 tions, whereas they frequently precede them, and it is for this 

 reason that many meteorologists — among them Sir William Thomp- 

 son (sic) — have denied that the moon has any influence whatever 

 in producing storms on the surface of our globe. Tears before I 

 published predictions I found that some of my storms would be 

 delayed for several days, others would appear ahead of time, and 

 frequently the heaviest would be annihilated altogether. There 

 were no known planets which could possibly produce this effect, 

 and I was at length forced to the conclusion, as I have said, that 

 otir earth is accompanied by a dark satellite. It would further 

 appear that the " dark days " of which frequent mention is made 

 in history — so called because they could not be traced to an ordi- 

 nary solar eclipse — were of such a character as to justify the belief 

 that they were caused by an opaque body intervening between our 

 globe and the sun, for the suddenness and brevity of the darkness 

 could not be interpreted as due to smoke or vapour in the earth's 

 atmosphere. 



I am confident that the moon and this dark satellite were in con- 

 junction with the sun, or nearly so on March 9, 1883, which pro- 

 duced the eruption of the great Java volcano, and caused the storm 

 which I predicted would be — and the London Times says it was the 

 greatest storm of the present century. On March 26, 1884, this 

 planet was somewhere in the neighbourhood of her inferior or 

 superior conjunction, and heightened the storm of the 28th of that 

 month. Strange to add, I have jnst received letters from Michigan 

 saying that a solar eclipse was visible in that State on May 16, 

 1884, at 7 o'clock in the evening, when fnUy one-third of the solar 

 disc was in darkness. As the moon at that moment was twelve 

 degrees south of the celestial equator, and the sun was as many 

 degrees north of it, this phenomenon cotild not have been cansed 

 by our visible satellite. Doubtless it was the passing of this dark 

 planet across the sun's disc. 



I have little sympathy with Professor Proctor and others, who, 

 with the prejudice of the old schoolmen, persist in declaring that 

 our moon is a dead planet, and is not possessed of an atmosphere. 

 Any one who wUl take the trouble to look when she is in quadra- 

 ture, will see with the naked eye on a clear night the whole luminous 



