Dec, 19, 1884.] 



KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



611 



iHiEfrrUnnfa. 



The Soeiete Internationale des Electricieus Ijas decided that an 

 exhibition sliall te hold in January, 1885, on the occasion of its 

 tirst general assembly, not only to bring into prominent notice new 

 ajipliances up to date, but also to Bum up the progress made by 

 means of lectures given by eminent electricians. 



ilK. Cabpf.nier is reported to hare stated, in a lecture delivered 

 at tlie Victoria Coffee Hall, in the beginning of this month, that 

 '■ Sun-spot maxima .... are accompanied by a maximum rain- 

 fall all over the world." He can hardly have read the report of 

 the Astronomer Koyal to the Hoard of Visitors of the Royal Obser- 

 vatory on June 12, 1884, before making so very questionable — not 

 to say baseless — an assertion. 



. The organisation of the whole of the Paris pneumatic postal 

 service is now completed. This great work, costing more than a 

 million francs, and involving over 60,000 metres length of pipes, 

 was inaugurated by II. de Cochery. The charge for carrying a 

 letter to any place within the fortifications has been fixed at 3d. 

 The two extreme points in the service are about 11,000 metres 

 apart, and the time required for the delivery of a letter to the 

 remotest place in the most unfavotu'able circumstances, and in- 

 cluding its conveyance from the nearest station, will be withm one 

 hour. 



Overhead Wires.— Sir Charles Dilke attended last week's 

 meeting of the Chelsea Vestry, of which he is a member, and 

 authorised a statement to be made with reference to overhead 

 wires. The vestry of St. George's (Hanover-square) had addressed 

 to the Local Government Board a memorial urging that Board to 

 bring the erection and maiutenaiice of overhead wires under due 

 control by some adequate local authoritj', and expressed the hope 

 that Chelsea would concur with them in the matter and adopt a 

 similar course. Sir Charles gave the Hon. Conrad Dillon per- 

 mission to mention that the Local Government Board were 

 pledged to move for a committee on the subject of overhead wires, 

 and it was hoped that on the report of that committee a bill would 

 be brought in by the Government earlv next session. 



Criminal Ph:mbixg. — The trial of "Thomas C. Holland, plumber, 

 of this city (New York), for criminally negligent work, was held 

 before Special Sessions, November 6, and resulted in the imposition 

 of a fine of 250 dels. In default of payment Holland was sent to 

 prison. Dummy rent-pipes from washbasin traps had been run 

 into partitions and there terminated. The ends of these vents had 

 been roughly battered together, but were, of course, not tight, and 

 allowed foul air to escape into the partitions. The whole arrange- 

 ment was designed simply to deceive the Board of Health inspec- 

 tors ; and, to assist in carrying out the deception, a dummy ter- 

 minal-pipe, supposed to be the end of a ventilating pipe, was 

 fastened to the roof. The dummy ,had no connection with any 

 hond-fide pipes iuside the house. — Scientijic American. 



International Inventions Exhibition. — It is stated that the 

 applications for space have now all been examined hy sub-com- 

 mittees of the Council, and a selection has been made of the most 

 promising. The number of applications has been so great that it 

 has been decided to limit very strictly the admissions in those 

 classes which may be considered to have been fully represented in 

 the Exhibitions of the present and past year. The Council will, 

 therefore, be obliged to refuse many valuable exhibits in such 

 classes as those relating to food, clothing, and building construction. 

 It will even be a difficult matter to accommodate those which have 

 been selected, and it is feared that the list will have to be still 

 further reduced. As soon as possible information will be sent to 

 those who have applied for space ; but the enormous number of 

 applications, far in excess of what was expected, have made it 

 impossible to do this up to the present. The guarantee fund now 

 amounts to £48,280, a sum considerably in excess of that subscribed 

 for the Health Exhibition, or for the Fisheries, the amount for the 

 former being £26,518, and that for the latter £26,656. 



51k. a. Tvlok read a paper before the Linnoeau Society on Dec. 4, 

 " On the Growth of Trees and Protoplasmic Continuity," his chief 

 object being to show the principles that underlie the individuality 

 of plants, and to prove that plants hare a dim sort of intelligence, 

 and are not merely an aggregation of tissues responsive to the direct 

 intluence of light. Not only this, but that the tree as a whole 

 knows more than its branches, just as the species knows more than 

 the individual, and the commimity than the unit. The result of 

 Mr. Tylor's experiments, which have extended over many years, has 

 been to show that many plants and trees can adapt themselves to 

 unfamiliar circumstances, such as avoiding obstacles artificially 

 placed in their way, by bending aside before touching, or by alter- 

 ing the leaf arrangement so that, at least, as much voluntary power 

 must be accorded to such plants as to certain lowly-organised 

 animals. Finally, Mr. Tylor contends that a connecting system, by 



means of which combined movements take place, is to be found in 

 the threads of protoplasm which unite the various cells, and that 

 this connecting s^'stem is found even in the new wood of trees. He 

 has observed that most new wood points upwards, but year after 

 year it changes its position, showing great mobility even in old 

 wood. 



" Let Knowledge grow from more to more." — Aweed Tekntsob. 



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

 serted. Correspondtnti mvst not le of ended, there/ore, Bhovld their 

 letters not appear. 



All Editorial ccmmunications should be addressed to the Editoe of 

 Knowledge j all Business communications to the Publishers, at the 

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

 delays arise fob which tee Editor is kot besfonsible. 



All Rimittcnces, Cheques, and Post Office Orders should ie made 

 payable to Messes. Wvman & Sons. 



The Editor is not responsible for the cpinicfis of correspondents. 



No coumcmcatioks are answered by post, even though stamped 

 and directed envelope be enclosed. 



IS TEA INJURIOUS ? 



[1537] — Instead of three weeks only, as suggested by Professor 

 ■Williams (for which I beg to tender him thanks), I have abstained 

 three months. Without filling up your valuable space with details, 

 suffice it to say that I find myself so much batter without this 

 beverage, that I have resolved never again to return to my " first 

 love ; " this in spite of my former strong attachment. 



Mr. Liddle's [1524] facts are hardly convincing, for who has not 

 heard of old folks who have been habitual " tipplers " all theii 

 lives ? Cocoa, when only taken occasionally, has a tendency to 

 cause biliousness, but soon loses this effect when used frequently. 



A. Gacbeet. 



WINE, TEA, Ac. 



[1538] — Doubtless your correspondent's gi-andmother (" J. 

 Liddle," p. 471) and millions of other people's grandmothers, as 

 well as ten times the number of healthy men and women all over 

 the world, have, during the greater part of their lives, consumed 

 tea and coffee and wine and beer with impunity — and with ad- 

 vantage. But nowadays, because there is, here and there, a 

 wretched being who has no command over his own appetite, who 

 never knows when he has had enough, all these millions are to dis- 

 continue — forsooth ! the use of everything that is pleasant to the 

 taste, as if the human body was a mere machine, to be kept going 

 with the smallest possible quantity of the cheapest fuel that can be 

 found. It is not as if excess and drunkenness were on the increase — 

 the reverse is the fact ; our forefathers undoubtedly drank to 

 excess ; but such a thing as a gentleman the worse for liquor is a 

 sight almost unknown at the present time, and those who assert 

 that drunkenness is on the increase among the lower orders forget 

 that this impression is probably produced by the faciUties afforded 

 by the telegraph and cheap newspapers of knowing things which, 

 forty years since, were unheard of beyond their immediate localities. 

 I have often been struck with this fact in noticing the large number 

 of deaths from lightning that we read of in late years. It is not 

 that lightning has now a habit of striking people more frequently 

 than formerly, but, in old times, the news of such occurrences 

 never reached us. 



In Australia especially, the common drink of the settlers is tea, 

 of which they consume immense quantities, and in the most objec- 

 tionable form (i.e., without milk), yet we never hear of any ill- 

 effects of tea-drinking among the colonists. 



Now if the faddists — who, for some inscrutable reason, prefer 

 water which has generally come through miles of pipes, and is 

 loaded with all sorts of impurities — would blow off their super- 

 fluous steam in endeavouring to get the adulteration laws properly 

 carried out, they would do some good to their kind. Our fore- 

 fathers, who survived their hard drinking, did so because they had 

 pure liquor. There is the great secret. There is one comforting 

 reflection, that these people, who wish to regulate our diet on the 

 principle of the fox who had lost his tail, disagree among them- 

 selves to that extent that sane people may safely take the average 



