328 



KNOWLEDGE . 



[Oct. 17, 1884. 



stabler offensive leagues against the feline race than ever Christian 

 emperors can against their neighbours. However, the new cat un- 

 doubtely found lovers. In due course she founded a clan seemingly 

 destined to rival the British race in number. But fate, or rather 

 nature, ruled otherwise. Continued inter-breeding did its work. 



At one time the family numbered some forty. Here the decline 

 began. Snifters, as the disease is locally and onomatopojiacally 

 called, appeared — a complaint in which, I believe, breathing 

 becomes difficult, and, as a consequence, the poor animals grow 

 thin and mangy. Eating entails torture. Awhile they linger, and 

 deaths comes, a welcome relief. 



Maimed specimens were common. Many wanted ears and tails, 

 wholly or in part (can the Isle of Man cats owe their hideous 

 deformity in any way to this ?). One had no nostrils. 



On the same farm a mare, which had been unwittingly placed in 

 a field along with a half-brother on the male side, gave birth to a 

 foal deformed in various parts. Besides wanting ears and nostrils, 

 one of the legs was only half the proper length, no hoof, but clean 

 off as if amputated and then healed. 



I mentioned Manx cats. Did it ever strike you that etymolo- 

 gists, being word-twisters, have overlooked the obvious significance 

 of the name "Isle of Man?" Why go back to the names of 

 ancient kings for the derivation ? Take the plain Anglo-Saxon 

 Man, the human race. May it not be a remnant of the truth 'i 

 May not the island have been the scene of the slow transition of 

 present man from a more ancient type ? The cats are tailless. May 

 man not have at least lost his prehensile tail in Mona's bright glens, 

 or on her bleak mountains ? Tails would be useless, for Jlona 

 sorrows in her scarcity of trees. Please don't call this a paradox. 

 Accept my wishes for the increased usefulness of Kxowledgk, and 

 for continued health to yourself. To me the greatest charm in 

 Knowledge is the close connection between yourself, your con- 

 tributors, and your readers. All form as it were a vast literary 

 co-operative society, knit together by friendship. 



Jas. Horxell. 



A PLIGHT OF HAT. 



[1464]— June 17, 1884, very fine weather, wind N.E., just strong 

 enough to turn the sails of a mill, a good deal of hay passed over 

 my house. Some fell, other lots sailed on; two large armfuls I 

 watched as far as the sea— half a mile. They took about five 

 minutes to do it, so the wind may be put at six miles an hour. 

 They did not seem any lower in the air. 



I suppose that the air, heated in the hollow stalks, and also in 

 the mass of hay, had become so much lighter than the surrounding 

 air, that, a gust or eddy having started them from some field to 

 windward of me, they could not sink. But I never saw a similar 

 occurrence in my life before. Hallvari.s. 



MIND A2s'D BRAIN. 



[1465] — May I be allowed to supplement previous letters on the 

 above subjects with a few remarks ? SumI is the Anglo-Saxon 

 word sf//, and is er(uivalent to the whole person ; it is also a term 

 used to represent animal life. Spirit is that which we breathe, and 

 contains pou-er to develope thought out of brain-substance in a 

 suitable organisation. When a man ceases to breathe he ceases to 

 think ; this proves the dependence on each other of breath and thought. 

 The thoughts that spring from a living person are common to all 

 mankind, and are as natural as the spirit (or breath) that generates 

 them or enables them to be generated. Hence, neither soul, nor 

 Ufe, nor spirit is necessarily immortal, for they are part and parcel 

 of the nature common to all created things, these remarks do not 

 apply to the " power that maketh for righteousness," which, being 

 eternal, must necessarily be the " same yesterday, to-day, and for 

 ever." j. C. H. 



[But if it be true that " when a man ceases to breathe he ceases 

 to think," a diver must be unconscious until he comes to the top of 

 the water again. — Ed.] 



BEAIN POWER. 



[1466]— Mr. W. H. Jones, in his letter (No. 1444), which 

 appeared in your issue of Oct. 10, is opening up a wide question — 

 to wit, the true nature of "genius." Is "genius" to be defined, 

 with Johnson, as implying " large general powers accidentally 

 determined in some particular direction ? " 



Is it possible to say that, with a different training, a Shakespeare 

 might have become a Napoleon, or a Titian might have developed 

 into a Bismarck ? Or shall we be nearer the mark if we say that 

 genius is always one-sided; that a man's brain is of such a nature 

 that its possessor can achieve the foremost rank in one department 

 of knowledge, and one only ? 



Surely this latter theoi'y has more inherent probability than the 



former; and if so, "the man whose brain had three parts each 

 equal to seven, but all the rest varying from one to four," would in 

 all probability "produce greater effect, be a greater genius," than 

 the " man all the parts of whose brain marked five." 



A. F. O.SEORNE. 



LETTERS RECEIVED AND SHORT ANSWERS. 



E. SwiNN. From the bending of the sun's rays within the 

 shadow cone by refraction in the earth's atmosphere. — Ax U.vdee- 

 GRADL'ATE. TouTs is One of the seventy or eighty letters which 

 have reached me contending that no one can be said to be dead 

 who is susceptible of resuscitation. Mathematics take their turn 

 with other subjects, as K.nowledge addresses a very large clientele 

 of the most diverse possible tastes. Thanks for friendly wishes. — 

 Protea. It is very probable indeed, though not absolutely certain, 

 that Dr. Huggins has succeeded in photographing the corona of the 

 uneclipsed sun. The strongest piece of corroborative evidence is, I 

 tliink, to be found in the occurrence of a rift in one of Dr. H.'s 

 photographed coronae, which was seen during an eclipse which was 

 elsewhere total at the time the photograph was taken. It is im- 

 possible in the existing state of our knowledge to say what is the 

 mass of the 250 planetoids already discovered, and, a fortiori, 

 of those which still remain to be found. The total mass, 

 however, must be relatively very small. — Thomas Thomas and 

 J. Kexxedy Esdaile. Forwarded to publishers. For the 

 twentieth time, the Editor does not supply copies of this journal. 

 — J. W. Keartox. Your otherwise excellent and thoughtful 

 letter does not help much towards the solution of the difficulty. 

 — F. S. L., Q. T. v., W. J. W., and others continue to send solutions 

 of Mr. Sidder's figure-puzzle. — W. A. The calculation of each 

 eclipse requires a considerable amount of mathematical knowledge, 

 and is very operose indeed, involving the taking out of whole 

 columns of logarithms. If a sufficient number of readers cared, how- 

 ever, for an explanation of a graphical method of approximately pre- 

 dicting the details of a Lunar Eclipse, I might perhaps give it in these 

 columns. — Jas. N. Kirbt. "Tricycling for Ladies " is published by 

 Iliffe & Sod, 98, Fleet-street, London. — May Kexdali. Many 

 thanks for your really charming translation of the Prologue to 

 " Faust," but the mere press of scientific matter on these columns 

 would prevent the insertion of poetry at present, even were such inser- 

 tion customary. — W. J. W. Your hint about barometric indications 

 shall be considered. — A. C. M. T. Write to E. W. Maunder, Esq., 

 Royal Observatory, Greenwich. — The Ghost of a little Dog. Tonr 

 jeu d'esprit leaves the formidable objection of " C. R." quite 

 untouched. — T. E. Welleh. Narrating the experience of a 

 brother who was drowned and resuscitated, says that, lying at the 

 bottom of the water, the drowning man seemed to be surrounded by 

 coruscations of light prior to becoming insensible. This is one of 

 the most familiar sensations attendant on congestion of the brain, 

 and is said to occur in a certain £tage of intoxication, and in 

 hanging. I have experienced it myself while inhaling chloroform 

 for experimental purposes, and we all know how a blow on the head 

 causes its recipient to " see stars." — W. Jerome Harrison, F.G.S- 

 Received with thanks. The pressure on our space just now, 

 though, is so tremendous (we have a hundred columns of matter up 

 in type waiting for insertion) that it must, perforce, be some time 

 before it can possibly appear. — Halltabds. Two letters of yours 

 of scientific interest are marked for insertion; to reproduce the 

 rest of your curiously miscellaneous matter would almost necessi- 

 tate a supplement. I am more in accordance with you on the 

 question of Royalty than you think. Your American friend who 

 stated that the conductor of this journal is not a Cambridge 



graduate told you a deliberate (Well, let us say it may bo 



expressed by a Saxon word of three letters). Thanks for your 

 vindication. The paragraph to which yon take exception dealt 

 with much more than a mere misprint. Read it again. I hope that 

 you haven't been overburdened with poetry in Kxowledge lately. 

 I have received very different criticisms to yours on the Fontenellc 

 papers. As to reproducing the Almagest '■ the laborious work of 

 Copernicus, or Kepler's wild dreams and fantasies here — where is 

 the space to come from ? " Venus in Sole Visa " has already been 

 well translated, and appeared in a compendious form in English. 

 I have noticed a few of your points, but am rapidly emptying my ink- 

 bottle too. — S. W. Goodeve's volnme in Longmans' " Text-books of 

 Science" ought to suit you. You will also find a quantity of useful in- 

 formation on the subject of mechanics generally in "The Student's 

 Mechanics," by the late lamented Walter R. Browne. I have not seen 

 Prof. Cotterell's book.— T. W. Cave. Quot homines, tot sententia. I f 

 you can elucidate the subject from a scientific point of view, you 

 need not fear that your letter will remain unread. — Ekasmvs 

 Betxox suggests, with reference to the case of a man insensible 

 from drowning, illness, Ac, that, as the brain is, pro tempore, non- 

 recipient, so it can give nothing out ; can have no new sensation to 



