526 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[Dec. 2G, 1884. 



Oregon has also made the best day's run on record, on 

 April 19 last covering 472 miles in twenty-four hours, an 

 average of 19| maritime miles, or 22 /^ land miles, an 

 hour. A sea mile is 6,080 running feet, and a land mile 

 5,280 feet. 



The following table will .show at a glance a comparison 

 of speed of each vessel, and also the quickest trip which 

 each vessel has made both ways : — 



Steamera. 



Line. 



Oregon Canard . 



America National 6 



Alaska Gnion G 



Anrania Cunard 6 



Servia Cunard 7 



City of Eorae... Anchor 7 



Arizona Gnion 7 



Britannic White Star... 7 



Austral Anchor 7 



Umbria Cunard 



Germanic Wliite Star... 7 



City of Berlin. ..Inman 7 



GaUia Cunard 7 



Kew Tork 



to 

 Queenstown. 



d. h. m. 



6 10 10 



6 14 18 



G 18 37 



R 22 50 



00 55 



1 00 



3 38 



12 41 



00 



Queenstown 



to 

 New York, 

 d. h. m. 

 12 54 

 15 41 

 21 40 

 21 55 

 2 

 2 

 G 



15 17 

 15 48 

 18 32 



27 



00 



7 



7 11 

 6 00 

 11 00 

 11 37 

 14 12 

 16 32 



Speed 

 per 

 hour. 



18-5 

 180 

 17-5 

 171 

 16-9 

 16-9 

 166 

 lG-4 

 IGl 

 159 

 158 

 15-6 

 15-5 



The average distance made to and from Queenstown and 

 New York is 2,8.50 miles ; to and from Southampton, 

 -3,100 miles; to and from Plymouth, 2,980 miles; to and 

 from Havre, 3,150 miles; to and from Antwerp, 3,250 

 miles. 



In Norway and Sweden accnmulationa of moss, often more than 

 a foot thick, and half decomposed, serve to make paper and mill- 

 board, as hard as wood, blocks of which, formed by the hydraulic 

 press, may even be turned in the lathe and polished. This sub- 

 stance is said to possess the good qualities of wood without the 

 defects, such as warping and splitting, bo that it is suitable for 

 making doors and windows. Plant has, it is said, been laid down 

 in Sweden for working np these deposits of a hitherto waste sub- 

 stance into a useful material. 



Telephone SrEscEipxioxs. — According to L'UlectHcih', the 

 following, are the rates of subscription to the telephone exchanges 

 in the following European cities and countries :— London, £20 ; 

 Paris, £24; Riga and Odessa, £25 ; Austria, £9 to £15 ; Germany, 

 from £10, with an increase of £2. 2s. for every kilometre (1-24 

 mile) over two ; Italy, varying from £4. 12s. to £7, with the towns ; 

 Norway, £4 to £8, according to distance; Sweden, £6. 8s. to 

 £10. lUs.; Holland, £10; Portugal, £15 for traders and £7 for 

 private mdividuals; Switzerland, £4 to £10. 



INTERN.4TI0NAL INVENTIONS EXHIBITION. — With a vieW to 



giving further protection to the inventions of exhibitors, a new 

 ■certificate has been granted by the Board of Trade to the effect 

 that "The International Inventions Exhibition, proposed to be 

 heM at South Kensington, S.W., in the county of Middlesex, from 

 March 1, 1885, is an international exhibition," and by this means 

 all the protection accorded from May 1 to inventions under 

 original certificate (dated August 15) will be secured in addition 

 from March 1 till May 1, i.e., during the time in which the exhibits 

 will be received and arranged. A printed copy of the extracts 

 trom the Patents, Designs, and Trade Marks Act, 1883, bearing 

 on this subject, may be obtained on application to the secretary. 

 International Inventions Exhibition. 



iSfbteiiJiS* 



CUSTOM AND MYTH.* 



By Edward Clodd. 



[second notice.] 



HEAVEN (Uranus) and Earth (Grea) were husband 

 and wife, and their many children all hated their 

 father for concealing them between the hollows of their 

 mother's breasts, so that they were shut out from light. 

 Gsea sided with them and provided Cronus, the youngest, 

 with an iron sickle, wherewith he unmanned Uranus and 

 separated him from Grea. Cronus married his sister Rhea, 

 and, at the advice of his parents, swallowed his children one 

 by one as they were born, lest they grew up and usurped 

 his ]ilace among the immortals. But when Zeus was born 

 and he asked for the child, Rhea deceived him Vjy giving 

 him a stone wrapped in swaddling bands. When Zens 

 grew up he gave his father an emetic, whereupon the 

 children were all disgorged and with them the stone, 

 which became a sacred object at Delphi. There is no 

 such being as Cronus in Sanskrit, but what may be called 

 the Vedic variant of the myth is that in which Dyaus 

 (Heaven) and Prithivi (Earth) were once joined and sub- 

 sequently separated. 



In New Zealand myth Rangi (Heaven) and Papa 

 (Earth) are the parents of all things, and as Heaven lay on 

 the E^rth all was darkness, .so that their unhappy children 

 could not see. 



These took counsel together, and all — one excepted — 

 strove to rend their parents apart. They toiled in vain, 

 save lutenganahan, who, despite the entreaties of Rangi 

 and Papa, severed the sinews which united them. Then 

 the children abode in light, only one of them, the Storm- 

 god, remaining faithful to his father — as in the Greek 

 myth did Oceanus. 



In China we find a legend of " a person called Puang- 

 Ku, who is said to have separated the Heaven and 

 the Earth, they formerly being pressed down close to- 

 gether"; and, as one might expect, such a transparent 

 nature-myth of the rending asunder of the world and sky 

 is widespread. 



The solar mythologists were perplexed at its presence 

 among the refined and cultured Greeks. " How can we 

 imagine that a few generations before the time of Solon the 

 highest notions of the godhead among the Greeks were 

 adequately expressed by the story of Uranus maimed by 

 Cronus, of Cronus eating his own children, swallowing a 

 stone, and vomiting out alive his own progeny. Among 

 the lowest tribes of Africa and America we hardly find 

 anything more hideous and revolting. So the moral cha- 

 racter of the Greeks and the exclusive comparative method 

 of Professor Max Miiller and his adherents were vindicated 

 by the discovery that, as Cronus means time, the apparently 

 repulsive myth simply means that time swallows up the 

 days which spring from it ; " and," remarks Sir G. W. Cox, 

 in his " JIanual of Mythology," " the old phrase meant 

 simply this and nothing more, although before the people 

 came to Greece they had forgotten its meaning."! 



Cronus is a more than usually troublesome crux to the 

 etymologists'. Max Miiller, Knhn, Prelier, and Brown 

 each have their theories, the details of which not even Mr. 

 Lang can make attractive. And, happily, we may leave 

 the scholars to settle their differences, since they do not 

 aflfect the fundamental idea resident in the myth. The 



* "Custom and Myth." 

 1884.) 

 t P. xvi. 



By Andrew Lang, M.A. (Longmans, 



