28 i 



KNOWLEDGE . 



[Oct. 3, 1884. 



came in, and we were then sfanding at the door of a compartment 

 which 1 intended to enter, and in which were two or three ladies, 

 one seated close to the door. I then said, " What became of that 



beauty, Miss , who married ? " naming a very pretty 



but fast young lady. Instead of answering me, he walked quietly 

 away, and, on my joining him, said, " That was her in the carriage 

 close to you, and she must have heard yon." 



I had heard of her marriage soon after I left England, more than 

 forty-one years before, and, about four years after, I heard of her 

 husband's death. From that time I had not heard of her, neither 

 did I know if she was living. 



Does not this strange coincidence prove that " truth is stranger 

 than fiction ? " S. 



Moral, Ang. 22. 

 [1427] — Apropos to the numerous coincidences reported in your 

 columns, I send you a true story, which, however, hardly comes 

 under the term coincidence. At Darjeeling, early in 1864, a few of 

 us banded together and formed a club, the main object of which, 

 barring social intercourse, was to play upon an ancient and chroni- 

 cally. frozen wooden billiard-table. As the Derby drew on it was 

 proposed that we should have a lottery, and settle matters finally 

 on a future day. As I cared not an atom for racing, 1 had no 

 intention of joining; but, strange to say, that night, and the one 

 following, I had the same dream or revelation most vividly im- 

 pressed upon me — "Join the lottery, and you will draw Cam- 

 buscan." I thought this so strange that I mentioned it to my 

 friends in the club, stated my determination to join the lottery, 

 and my fixed expectation of drawing Camboscan. Of course, my 

 vaticination was greeted with credulity or derision, and more so 

 when the drawing-day came, and I declared my determimation to 

 draw last, in fall confidence that my ticket would bear Cambuscan. 

 So it was ; each drew, and one paper remained in the hat, which I 

 took, and it bore the name " Cambuscan." "I'll give you R300 for 

 your ticket," cried a member. " No, thank you, I expect the whole 

 lottery," I greedily answered. But Cambuscan did not win the 

 Derby, but ran second. K. F. H. 



GIVING DP THE GHOST. 



successive intermediate modes of fpelling bo as to carry ns over 

 the inevitable transition state — whether these are beneath notice 1 

 must leave you to determine. 



I would not claim that the Reform must grumble if crowded 

 out, nor yet if opposed by fair debate ; but to be treated witli 

 contempt, based merely upon misapprehension, by one po impartial 

 as yourself, demands an effort to remove the misunderstanding, 

 which yon will, doubtless, approve. J. Geeetz Fisube. 



[1428] — Mr. Lodge in his ghost story [1379], recorded in a re- 

 cent issue of your useful publication, states that in America General 

 Winyard beheld at the same hour as his brother died in England, a 

 " figure " that " bore the strongest resemblance " to him. 



Allowing for the difference of time, if Mr. Lodge's story be " A 

 Fact," as stated, the ghost must have appeared in America at 

 least more than four hours before the General's brother died in 

 England. 



Did the General's brother know beforehand the precise hour he 

 should die ? Could his ghost (supposing he had one) have crossed 

 the Atlantic several hours before his death ? 



Can ghosts at one stride cross over thousands of miles ? Can 

 they from afar discern the one they seek and instantaneously 

 appear to hina ? If so, who would not be " a ghost ? " 0. E. 



THE BEAN-FLOWER. 



[1429] — I shall be glad if Mr. Grant Allen can inform me what 

 insect it is which pierces a hole through the calyx of the bean- 

 flower on its upper side and close to the junction with the recep- 

 tacle. I thought at first it might be bees; so watched, and saw 

 several bees visit flowers, but in all cases they rejected those which 

 were unpierced, and sucked the honey through this hole. What 

 insect frequents the bean-flower, and so fertilises it ? I have 

 always been told that bees are very fond of this flower, but, for 

 my own part, I have never found them visit the bean except as 

 above stated. E. W. 



PHONETIC SPELLING. 



[1430] — I am much obliged to yon for going 60 far in the 

 direction of qualifying your previous opposition to the improvement 

 of spelling. May I say that it would have been most unreasonable 

 on my part had I urged the adoption, or even the partial introduc- 

 tion, of improved spelling in your journal. Its discussion, how- 

 ever, is another matter. The study of phonetics is unquestionably 

 a branch of the great domain of science, and as such would, 1 sup- 

 pose, come within the scope of your publication. Even the practical 

 ijuestions of the e.arly invention of alphabetical writing on phonetic 

 principles by a gradual evolution from a hieroglyphical system, the 

 improvements naturally necessitated by its transference to fresh 

 languages, and the degradation and restoration of the forms and 

 values of the letters, would also appear to merit consideration. 

 Whether the double invention (1) of a suSiciently complete alphabet 

 for the representation of our speech by separate signs for each 

 Tvell-marked sound, and (2) the devising of a graduated series of 



PHOSPHORESCENCE OF THE SEA. 

 [1431] — On Sunday, Sept. 2, during a passage from Hnll to 

 Antwerp, I witnessed a brilliant display of the above phenomenon. 

 On the day mentioned we were in the midst of a severe cyclonic 

 storm, and as night closed in, the waves, which were of considerable 

 proportions, became luminous to a remarkable degree. So bright 

 were these lights that our pilot, knowing that we were near the 

 coast, but being unable to detect the Dutch lights from amongst 

 so many, and afraid of venturing nearer, anchored until daybreak. 

 Are such brilliant displays of rare occurrence in the North Sea? 

 Am I correct in thinking that the luminosity in question was 

 caused by myriads of Noctilnca miliaris ? A. Peaeson. 



TRANSPORT OF PUMICE-STONE BY OCEAN CURRENTS. 



[1432]^ — Here, at a missionary station, whither news does not 

 arrive with much speed or regularity, 1 have jnst read in your isene 

 of April 18, an article on "The Spread of the Krakatoa Dust- 

 Cloud," which gives the astonishing rate of 1,700 miles a day for 

 the conveyance of hght dust in the air from east to west. 1 am 

 able to supply an analogous fact with regard to the rate of the 

 associated pumice-stone, probably from the same eruption, through 

 the water. Late in June, I was at Zanzibar, when the western 

 coast was suddenly observed to be lined at high-water mark with 

 great quantities of this substance, of all sizes up to that of a child's 

 head, extending for at least four miles south of Zanzibar, and 1 

 think I heard of it twenty miles north. Hearing Java suggested 

 as the source of the phenomenon, I made a rough calculation of 

 the intervening time and distance by ocean current, which ap- 

 peared to give a rate of about twenty miles a day, or less than a 

 mile an hour — a rate almost as surprising for its slowness as that 

 of the aerial dust for its rapidity, but I suppose by no means in- 

 consistent with it. I crossed the channel to the mainland a few 

 days ago, and expected to find a similar lining along this coast at 

 Payani, which is about 1° N. of Zanzibar (i.e., 5° S. of Equator) ; 

 but I only found a single small specimen. 



In February last, I noticed green halos round the moon, which 

 was itself similarly tinted. Tours faithfully 



A. H. Hamilton. 



Mkuzi, East Africa, July 24, 1884. 



IS COLOUR OBJECTIVE? 



[1433] — The contention in my letters was not for a change of 

 common parlance, but of scientific language ; nor do I see how yon 

 can consistently object to that, as you have by your own admission 

 found it necessary to impress the non-externality of colour on the 

 readers of Knowledge. My contention was, that the erroneons 

 conception of the externality of colour has led to endless mistakes 

 in attempts to expound the theory of the harmony of colour, and 

 notably on that special point of the so-called primaries and 

 secondaries. 



The belief in the externality of colour has led artists and writers 

 to imagine that the student has to study some outer objective 

 harmony, some relations of the prismatic spectrum, instead of the 

 laws of his own sentient nature. It has also led to the phenomena 

 of the accidental colours of the ocular spectra being treated even 

 in professedly scientific works as external realities when they have 

 no externality whatever, and to many other mistakes too nnmerons 

 to mention. It is from the aesthetic point of view that the nomen- 

 clature of the text-books on colour are so misleading. Men who 

 are accustomed to abstract reasoning do not require the fact, on 

 which I have laid so much stress, to be repeatedly pressed home to 

 them, but with the artist it is a different matter. Even quite 

 recently I met with a painter lecturing on colour, who was as 

 confident of its externality as of that of the canvas and frame of 

 his picture. 



But to resume my argument in respect to primaries and 

 secondaries, it must be clear that we cannot treat the sensations 

 themselves — those which we name red, green, and violet — as 

 primaries. It must be something in the nature of the wave- 

 lengths, which cause those sensations, that wonld give them the 

 right to this distinction. But Brewster affirms that no single wave 



