472 



KNOWLEDGE • 



[Dec. 



1884. 



must have stood a strong chance of being smothered as well as 

 throttled. 



As to Datchery's resemblance to Edwin (in Mr. Foster's mind) 

 there is great ingenuity, but nothing sufficiently " commonplace " 

 to make the resemblance rational. Would a few months' mental 

 and bodily suffering change Edwin — the thoroughly English Edwin 

 — into a vindictive, calculating avenger ? And could he return to 

 Cloisterham, where he had been pretty well known, and assume a 

 very striking disguise of manner, speech, gait, and appearance 

 without expecting shortly to be exposed, and without being so 

 exposed ? Mr. Foster seems to make light of the fact that 

 Datchery's personal appearance is calculated to draw marked 

 attention, which attention must have discovered Edwin immediately. 



Whereas a detective might happen to have a strange and striking 

 appearance — having reached a certain period of life — without 

 finding it interfere with his watching of Jasper. Indeed, it seems 

 to me that the open and persistent watching of the supposed mur- 

 derer is a means to frighten confession from his guilty conscience. 



Fancy Edwin sauntering about Cloisterham with a large grey 

 wig on ! 



That Datchery knows the Deputy's name to be " Winks " is not 

 surprising if Datchery is a detective ; he may also know the queer 

 names of a good many more persons who frequent the Traveller's 

 Rest. Mr. Foster contends that no one ever speaks of Edwin as 

 dead ; but then no one knou-s him to be dead. His death is only 

 assumed because his watch and other trinkets have been found, 

 while his body has not. When a person is missing, even under 

 strong presumptive evidence of foul play, or of suicide, his friends 

 long hesitate to speak of him as dead, or to acknowledge the proba- 

 bility of his fate. Rosa's conduct, and the silence of those around 

 her, is an instance of this. 



I agree with " H. E." as to the illustrations which Mr. Foster 

 has produced. They prove nothing; for if they represent Edwin's 

 escape from his uncle's attempt on his life, Charles Dickens would 

 not have published them. Fearing — as we now know — that the 

 story was being unfolded too rapidly, would Dickens have assisted 

 his readers by showing at a glance what he would prefer to reserve 

 for several hours' reading ? As to Grewgious' manner, it was at 

 no time genial, excepting, perhaps, where Rosa is immediately 

 concerned. Of course, he cannot make up his mind about Landless. 

 He knows him to be a bad-tempered young man, who has savagely 

 quarrelled with Edwin. Of the two persons last seen with Edwin, 

 Landless is proved innocent : suspicion, therefore, is obviously to 

 be fixed on Jasper, and Grewgious, naturally enough, tests that 

 person in a deliberate and open manner. The result of the test in 

 the celebrated interview is that Jasper conclusively proves to his 

 keen opponent that he is the guilty man. 



There is no reason why Deputy should not have betrayed Jasper 

 eventually ; but if Jasper was betrayed immediately after the crime 

 had been committed, he could not possibly have escaped. Before 

 Edwin — under the most favourable circumstances — could have 

 recovered sufficiently to intercede, Jasper would have been pointed 

 out as the would-be murderer, and would be locked up immediately. 



Finally, if a murder is supposed to have taken place, how long 

 will the police and the press and the local busybodies permit 

 suspicion to fasten on an innocent man without sifting the matter 

 thoroughly ? 



Even in Edwin Drood's time public opinion in all its branches 

 was not unknown, and nothing but the knowledge that the police 

 had not forgotten the crime, nor despaired of discovering the 

 criminal, would cause the matter to be so patiently treated by 

 Landless. 



As to Edwin's reddening (to hark back a moment) when he 

 (see Mr. Foster's theory) heard the opium woman mention his 

 name, would not any man of Datchery's age and build redden when 

 he stooped ? J. B. 



THE LUNAR ECLIPSE OF OCTOBER 4. 



[1528] — May I be allowed to say, in connection with the 

 editorial remark on p. 446, that it was not I, but M. de Boii him- 

 self, who calculated the position of the Cordilleras with reference 

 to the earth's limb at the instant illustrated in the diagram in my 

 letter (1451) on p. 325. It never occurred to me to check the 

 results of one whom I knew to be so able a mathematician as my 

 learned Belgian friend. William Noble. 



Forest Lodge, Kov. 28, 1884. 



NOAH'S RAINBOW. 



bow, and I have been asking ever since withont ever once coming 

 across one who was not ready to swear to having seen plenty. 



This morning, at 6.30, I saw a complete bow with my own eyes. 

 Now, whom am I to believe ? I may add that not even the negro 

 children showed any astonishment at the sight. E. Nankivell. 



P.S. — At 2.15 p.m. to-day (Nov. 5) I saw a succession of nearly 

 perfect rainbows. — E.N. 



Port Royal, Jamaica, Oct. 27, 1884. 



[1529] — In Mr. Garbett's letter in your issue of June 13 he says : 

 " I never met a Jamaica negro who had seen a rainbow, or had 

 more conception of it than snow." After reading this statement 

 I began asking some Jamaica negroes if they had ever seen a rain- 



LETTERS RECEIVED AND SHORT ANSWERS. 



G. St. Ci.AiE. Tour pamphlet does not lack ingenuity; but the 

 idea of more than one white is one which I fear 999 of every 

 1,000 studcLti of physical optics must hopelessly fail to grasp. — 

 Alfred Sa.nuers kindly supplies the information that Darwin's 

 "Biographical Sketch of an Infant" was published in the number 

 of " Mind" for July, 1877. — Isidore. No; " the thought has " not 

 "occurred to" me "that if the Electric Light is persisted with 

 and becomes a general illuminant it will eventually bring about 

 darkness and destruction." Whether any of my " brother scien- 

 tists " have suffered under such an hallucination I am unprepared to 

 say. — E. A. Tixdall. There are difficulties in the way of increasing 

 the size of the star maps. With reference to your other criticisms the 

 general plan was decided on after very full consideration. To 

 adhere to a definite scale of magnitudes appeared the only con- 

 sistent way of proceeding. You will see that the pupil photometer 

 has been received. — P. A. R. Wood is petrified by the infiltration 

 of silica (the base of flint) into its tissues, which are replaced by 

 the mineral, just as in the case of other fossils. This is a process 

 which has gone on at a comparatively recent geological date at 

 or near the earth's surface. Coal has been formed by the bitu- 

 minous fermentation of vast masses of vegetable matter under great 

 pressure. Peat, cannel coal, Bovey coal, and the like, represent 

 stages in the formation of true coal. — NAxrRALisT. See MajTiard'a 

 " Manual ,of Taxidermy," sold by Triibner & Co., reviewed on 

 p. 292 of our last volume.— H. F. A. Young's " Strains on Girders, 

 Arches, and Trusses," published by Macmillans, ought to suit yoo. 

 See Knowledge Vol. V., p. 482. — Zero. When the moon is on the 

 horizon her angular diameter, as measured with a micrometer, is 

 actually less than it is when she is high up in the heavens. If yon 

 draw a diagram you will see that under the latter circumstance she 

 is really nearer to the spectator than under the former condition. 

 The whole thing is an optical illusion. In the open vanlt of the 

 sky you have nothing to compare ike moon with. When she is on 

 the horizon you have, as a rule, numerous objects of known size in 

 juxtaposition with her. A balloon affords just the same illusion. It 

 looks a very little thing as it goes overhead, but an enormous object 

 as it approaches the earth ; albeit it may descend at a considerably 

 greater linear distance. — J. Gillespie. Read any elementary 

 work on physical geography. Did it ever occur to you that the 

 melting of the snow on the equatorial ranges of Mils near the 

 source of the Nile had anything to do with its rise ? — A Reades of 

 '■ Knowledge." The (inappropriately) so-called " Harvest- Moon " 

 is the full moon which happens the nearest to September 21st, and 

 this can obviously never occur in August. Whenever the moon is 

 pretty close to the first point of -Vries, which, of course, is the case 

 during part of every lunation, she rises on each of two or three 

 nights running a very little later than she did on the previous one. 

 No one notices this when she is a crescent, bat when she is full it 

 becomes more striking. Now she is only full in Pisces and Anes 

 at the time of the autumnal equinox ; hence the harvest-moon. — 

 W. H. Greene. Shall receive immediate attention. — S. J. H. I 

 regret that you should have had the trouble of sending an answer 

 to Letter 1398 all the way from India, when I have already 

 excluded some quires of repUes from English correspondents. — 

 W. Aston. The projection of a solar echpse is very much too 

 complicated and operose a matter to be popularly explained, and 

 would occupy considerably more space than can be spared. More- 

 over, unlike an eclipse of the moon, it must be calculated separately 

 for every fresh station. — BiRD-STrFFER. A design for sticking 2,000 

 postage-stamps on to a fire-screen is more in the way of ilyra's 

 Journal than in that of a professedly scientific periodical like 

 Knowledge. — L. A. W. If the rays round the star disappear after 

 a little gazing, the fault is obviously in yotir own eye, and not in the 

 object-glass at all ; but, as you describe the image as only " tolerably 

 clear" after all, the objective may be faulty too. Too low a power 

 gives indifferent and glaring images of stars. Nothing surpasses the 

 admirable "Celestial Objects for Common Telescopes" of the Rev. 

 Prebendary Webb as a catalogue of all interesting objects. Neptune 

 is in a very blank region of the sky just now. The only direction I can 

 give yon for finding him by means of " The Stars in their Seasons" 

 is to refer you to Map I. of that work. On this yon must draw 

 a line joining S Arietis and 5 Tauri, find the middle of it, and fish 



