182 



♦ KNOWI.EDGE ♦ 



[Aug. 29, 1884. 



OrUitorial (§0E(2!tp. 



Another illustration of gross superstition reaches me : 

 this time from across the Channel. Iq La Petite RepvMique 

 Frangaise for August 10, I read an announcement, that 

 some pious pupils at a school having forwarded five francs 

 to an establishment of the Sacred Heart, had been prayed 

 for and passed their examination with flying colours. Ap- 

 pended to this are testimonials conceived in the true " Pills 

 and Ointment" style. One from a young lady (seemingly » ell 

 on her way to a lunatic asylum) would be ridiculous were 

 it not positively pitiable and humiliating. After saying 

 that she knew nothing and dreaded everything ("Jene 

 savais plus rien et je redoutais tout "), she goes on to attri- 

 bute her success to having a statuette of Our Lady of the 

 Sacred Heart in her hand or by her side during the whole 

 of the oral and written examinations. Rude people may, 

 perchance, attribute the success of these pupUs to some- 

 thing approaching collusion between the examiners and the 

 knaves who defraud these poor girls of their 5 f. pieces. 

 If, however, this explanation be not accepted, and a candi- 

 date for examination has nothing to do but to hold a 

 statuette in his (or her) hand to pass it, the plaster image 

 trade about Hatton-garden ought speedily to revive and 

 flourish hugely, while Professor Loisette will have to look 

 to his laurels. 



Every true student of astronomy must learn with sincere 

 gratification of the continued success of that most prac- 

 tical working association, the Liverpool Astronomical 

 Society. From its third annual report I learn that during 

 the year ending August 16, 11-1 fresh members and asso- 

 ciates were elected ; and that the Society has during the same 

 period issued 114 pages of printed matter, illustrated by 

 W plates. The list of officers for the ensuing year could 

 hardly be improved upon ; while it is instructive to note 

 that, out of a total expenditure of X72, 32 shilliivjs {\) has 

 gone for purely local expenses. It is hard to avoid a com- 

 parison between such trading on science as this on the part 

 of the local authorities proper of the Liverpool society, 

 and the beautiful disinterestedness and self-abnegation of 

 ■certain gentry at Brompton ! 



If we may believe all we read in the French newo" 

 papers, the problem of aerial navigation has been solved 

 by Captains Renards and Krebs in the very way in which 

 we have been assured by experts that it was hopeless to 

 attempt it ; that is, by directing a balloon, with all its 

 enormous resisting surface. 1 seem to remember reading 

 an essay by the late Dr. Lardner, published in the days of 

 our fathers, in which he demonstrated the physical im- 

 possibility of a steamer crossing the Atlantic. 



The prediction of M. Ch. Montigny, of Brussels, that 

 the present summer would be a very dry one — a prediction 

 founded on his observations of the change in the character 

 of stellar scintillation — has been fulfilled ait. pied de la 

 lettre. Apparently, the scintillometer affords a rather more 

 trustworthy method of meteorological vaticination than the 

 quack method of sun-spot watching. 



I HAVE just got a new adjective out of the Mirror of 

 American Sports, which will last me for some time to come. 

 A performer on roller-skates is called "a ZampUirationistic 

 artist " ! How's that. Umpire ? 



Sir W. Parker Snow sends me a stirring Appeal to 

 the English Nation to equip yet one more Arctic Expedi- 



tion, and to place him in command of it ; pledging himself 

 to conduct it safely to the actual North Pole of the earth. 

 In the face of the ghastly series of records of failure, culmi- 

 nating in that of the appalling sufferings of Greely and 

 his band of fellow-exjilorers, I can conceive of no possible 

 advantage, religious, social, commercial, or scientific, to be 

 gained by the exposure of yet another company of brave 

 and devoted men to imminent death and destruction, in 

 order that they may (in the incredible event of their 

 reaching their destination) be able to say that they have 

 stood over the extremity of the earth's axis of rotation. 

 For surely no other result than this could accrue ; and, 

 knowing from bitter experience at what an awful risk it 

 must be achieved, I cannot consent to aid any attempt to 

 effect it. Le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle. 



- THE FACE OF THE SKY. 



Feom August 29th to Septembee 12th. 

 By F.K.A.S. 



THE student will keep, as far as may be, his daily watch on the 

 .Sun for spots and facalae. He will find the night sky por- 

 trayed on Map IX. of " The Stars in their SeasonB." There will 

 be minima of Algol (" The Stars in their Seasons," Map I.) at 

 Ih. 3m. a.m. on Sept. 5, and at 9h. 51m. p.m. on the 7th. Two 

 other minima occur at sach inconvenient hours during the next 

 fortnight as to need no mention here. Jlercury is an evening 

 star during the whole of the succeeding fortnight, but can scarcely 

 be picked up by the observer unprovided with an equatorially- 

 mounted telescope. Venus is a morning star, and is a most brilliant 

 and conspicnous object before sunrise, presenting the appearance, 

 under proper optical aid, of the Moon when she is between twenty- 

 two and twenty-three days old. Mars is invisible for the purpose 

 of the observer, a remark which applies to Jupiter too ; but Satom 

 rises soon after half-past ten o'clock at night at the beginning of 

 September, and before ten p.m. when these notes terminate. He 

 will be found a little to the north of ? Tanri (" The Stars in their 

 Seasons," Map I.), and, with his rings nearly as mde open as they 

 can be, forms a glorious object in the telescope. Neither Urantis 

 nor Neptune is fairly visible just now. The Moon will be fnll 

 rather more than an hour before noon on Sept. 5, so that she will 

 be risible during the first half of the fortnight which our notes cover. 

 She has, though, too great south declination during the major part 

 of this week to be scrutinised in the telescope to any great advantage. 

 Two occnltations only will occur at convenient hours during our 

 specified period. The first is of the 6Jth mag. star 11 Piscium, 

 which on the night of Sept. 5 will disappear at the Moon's bright 

 limb 1 min. after midnight, at an angle from her vertex of 117°. It 

 will reappear at her opposite limb at 19 min. after 1 a.m. on the 

 6th, at a vertical angle of 301°. The next occultation will happen 

 on the 12th, when the Moon will already have occulted BAG 1930, 

 another star of the 6Jth magnitude, before she rises. Later, 

 however, at llh. 14m. p.m., the star may be seen to reappear at 

 her dark limb at an angle from her vertex of 220^. The Moon is 

 in Ophiuchus to-day and to-night, leaving that constellation for 

 Sagittarius to-morrow at 1 p.m. It takes her nntil 2 o'clock in the 

 morning of Sept. 2 to cross Sagittarius and enter Capricomus, 

 across the northern part of which she has travelled by 7 o'clock 

 the same evening, at which hour she crosses into Aquarius. She 

 quits Aquarius for Pisces at 6 p.m. on the 5th, and occupies until 

 4 p.m. on the 8th in traversing this great constellation. At that 

 hour she enters Aries, which she leaves at 7h. 30m. on the morning 

 of the 10th for Taurus. She is travelling through Taurus until 

 7 p.m. on Sept. 12, and she then crosses into the extreme northern 

 part of Orion. As it is 6 o'clock in the morning of Sept. 13 before 

 she emerges from the narrow strip of Orion into Gemini. We 

 there leave her. 



To Cleaxse Laboeatoet Tessels. — Dinglers' Journal says that 

 flasks which have contained oil or fatty matter may be easily 

 cleansed by a solution of permanganate of potash. Hydrated per- 

 oxide of manganese is formed, which, on addition of strong hydro- 

 chloric acid, liberates chlorine. This decomposes the organic 

 matter, and allows of washing with water. When the fiasks have 

 held resinous solutions it is necessary to wash with a caustic alka- 

 line lye, and afterwards to rinse with alcohol. To remove turpen- 

 tine, petroleum, photogene, &c., wash with thirty or forty grammes 

 of sulphuric acid and rinse thoroughly in a stream of water. 



