Sept. 2G, 1884.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



265 



entrusted with the training of children, to bring this most 

 useful contribution to the wants of the household to their 

 notice, and in so doing we can rest assured that they 

 will have ample reason to congratulate themselves on 

 having added to the comforts of a happy home. 



THE FACE OF THE SKY. 



From Sepiembee 26Tn to October IOth. 



By F.K.A.S. 



THE Sun, as heretofore, will be examined whenever the sky is 

 clear for spots and facula?. The Night Sky will be found 

 delineated on Map X. of '' The Stars in their Seasons." Minima of 

 Algol will be observable at llh. 31ni. p.m. on September 27, and at 

 8h. 20m. p.m. on the 30th. Mercury attains his greatest elongation 

 west of the sun (17° 55') at 3 a.m. on the 5th, and at this time may 

 be well seen in the east before sunrise. Venus is still brilliant and 

 conspicuous as a morning star, but is becoming a less interesting 

 object in the telescope, as she is assuming a gibbous, or humped, 

 figure, like the Moon when between full and her last quarter. Mars 

 continues invisible, and Jupiter does not rise until between 1 and 2 

 o'clock in the morning. Saturn, however, is above the horizon 

 about a quarter to nine o'clock at night at the beginning of 

 October, and about 10 minutes past 8 when our notes terminate. 

 CJranus is absolutely invisible, and Neptune, in an utterly blank 

 region in Taurus, may be seen after 8 o'clock in the evening in 

 the east, attaining a considerable height above the horizon by 

 midnight. The Moon enters her first quarter at lOh. 21m. a.m. on 

 September 27, and is full at 10 o'clock at night on October 4. 

 Hence the first half of the period of which we are treating will be 

 the best to observe her in. During the next fortnight there ^'ill be 

 four occultations of stars by the Moon. On October 1 6 Aqnarii, 

 a star of the 4ith magnitude, will disappear at the Moon's dark 

 limb 40 minutes after midnight, at an angle from her vertex 

 of 77°. Afterwards it will reappear at Ih. 7m. a.m. on the 2nd, 

 at the bright limb, at a vertical angle of 29°. On the 3rd 

 BAG 8,311, a 6Jth mag. star, will disappear at the dark 

 limb at 8h. 12m. p.m. at an angle of 69° from the vertex of the 

 Moon, to reappear at the bright limb at Oh. 19m. at a vertical angle 

 of 292°. On October 6 a 5th mag. star, 38 Arietis, will disappear at 

 the Moon's bright limb at 9h. 9m. p.m. at a vertical angle of 39'. 

 It will reappear from her dark limb at lOh. 2ra. at an angle of 283° 

 from her vertex. Lastly, on the 9th, 130 Tauri, a 6th mag. star, will 

 disappear at the Moon's bright limb at an angle from her vertex of 

 73° at 9h. 45m. p.m., its reappearance at her dark limb happening 

 at lOh. 37m. p.m. at a vertical angle of 219°. The Moon is in Ophiuchus 

 at noon to-day, but quits that constellation for Sagittarius at 



I o'clock to-night. Her passage across Sagittarius occupies until 



II a.m. on the 29th, when she enters Capricornus, and, crossing 

 that constellation, crosses its boundary iato Aquarius at 3 a.m. on 

 the 30th. She does not quit Aquarius until 2 a.m. on October 3, at 

 which hour she passes into Pisces. It is midnight on the 5th ere 

 she has traversed this great constellation and entered Aries. At 

 3 o'clock in the afternoon of the 7th she quits Aries for Taurus. 

 Travelling through Taurus, she arrives half an hour after midnight 

 on the 9th on the western edge of the extreme northerly strip of 

 Orion, and, as she crosses this in 12 hours, it is evidently noon on 

 October 10 when she emerges in Gemini. She is passing over 

 Gemini when our notes terminate. 



During the past few weeks over a ton of mushrooms has been 

 despatched every day from Dublin to Liverpool. 



Sir E. Temple, in his presidential address to the Economic 

 Science Section of the British Association at Montreal, said, re- 

 garding electric telegraphs on land, that there are 86,000 miles in 

 the British Empire, or nearly one-fifth of the sum total for the 

 world. It is remarked that the telegraphs in Australia — 26,000 

 miles — are exactly equal to those in the United Kingdom. But in 

 illustration of the difference between an old and a new country 

 there are 31,000,000 of messages yearly in the United Kingdom, 

 and only 5,000,000 in Australia. In other words, the telegraph 

 does six times as much in the old country as in the new. Similarly 

 in the United States, the length of telegraph — 121,000 miles — is 

 amazing ; but the messages are only 34,000,000 — just in excess of 

 those in the United Kingdom. In other words, the work is more 

 than four times as heavy in the United Kingdom as in the United 

 States. Besides the land telegraphs, there are submarine cables in 

 the world with the surprising length of 105,000 miles. Of these 

 the greater part belong to the British Empire. 



" Let Knowledge grow from more to more." — Alpbed Tennysob. 



Only a small proportion of Letters received can possihly be in- 

 serted. Correspondents mvet not le offended, therefore, should their 

 letters not appear. 



All Editorial communications should ie addressed to the Editor o» 

 Knowledge ; all Business communications to the Publishers, of the 

 Office, 74, Great Queen-street, W.C. If this is not attended to 



DELATS ARISE FOR WmCH THE EorTOR IS NOT RESPONSIBLE. 



All Remittances, Cheques, and Post Office Orders should le made 

 payable to Messrs. Wtman & Sons. 



The Editor is not responsible for the opinions of correspondents. 



No communications are answered by post, EVEN THOCGH STAMPED 

 AND DIRECTED ENVELOPE BE ENCLOSED. 



TEA-DBINKING. 



[1411] — I have taken the advice of Mr. Williams, and at once 

 commenced the experiment of weaning myself from the '" drug." 

 Should you deem it of sufficient interest to your readers, I will, in 

 a few weeks, give them the result of my experience. 



In the meantime, if Mr. Williams would fill up the omission in 

 his article (as a reply to my letter), and state the nature of the 

 mischief to be apprehended and its symptoms, I believe it would 

 serve to arrest the attention of a large proportion of the readers of 

 Knowledge who may still be waverers. A. Gacbebt. 



A VERT OLD TRICYCLE. 



[1412] — Truly there is nothing new under the sun. In Know- 

 ledge, No. 150, I read an account of a modified tricycle called the 

 " Coventry Chair." Soon afterwards I found in an old book an 

 account of the oldest sociable. This old book, called " Recreations 

 in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy," was written by James 

 Ozanam in 1694, improved by John Steven Montucia about 1754, 

 and finally translated from the French, and further improved, by 

 Charles Hutton, in 1803. After describing two invalid chairs, in 

 which the invalid grinds himself along by means of handles, the 

 translator goes on to say, " The other carriage, as Ozanam says, 

 was moved by a boy seated behind, who trod alternately with his 

 feet on two movable treadles. These treadles, in rising and fall- 

 ing, moved two pieces of wood fitted into toothed wheels fixed to 

 the axis of the large wheels ; but this mechanism is so badly 

 explained by Ozanam, both in the description and the figure, that 

 no one can understand it. For this reason we have thought 

 proper" to say nothing more about it. Percy Major. 



VACCINATION. 



[1413] — Permit me to state a few facts relating to the above im- 

 portant subject. My father had three brothers and three sisters, 

 all of whom were marked more or less. The women were entirely 

 disfigured. My father had six children, aU vaccinated. Not one 

 of us had a single mark. The family has spread out widely, for I 

 could count on my fingers fifty or sixty first, second, and third 

 cousins. As far as I can ascertain, not one of them is marked. 

 Let all those who have passed what we consider the limit of human 

 life — let them look back, and I think they will find that mine is not 

 an exceptional case. As to the number of deaths, I am not com- 

 petent to give an opinion ; but, in the very lowest classes, half the 

 children born die under six weeks. Of cotirse, it is u-axination that 

 kills them. We have always more mouths than we can fill, but, as 

 a painter, I do not like to see God's image disfigured. 



A Very Old Man. 



MIND AND BRAIN. 



[1414] — In the interest of truth only I should like to reply to 

 Mr. Perrin's remark on Biichner's "force and matter." I certainly 

 take thought to be an " effect " of stimuli passing through the 

 brain-cells, as much as I take " colour " to be an effect caused by 

 light passing through a prism. If, therefore, I have a right to say 

 "colour" is "changed light" by the action of the prism, so I am 

 right in saying stimuU vibrations or simply motion changed by the 



