Jan. 1G, 18S5.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



57 



she completes her path through Pisces and enters Aries. She is 

 travelling throajrh Aries until G n.ni. on the 25tli, when she crosses 

 the boundary into Taurus, passing tluoughthe last-named constella- 

 tion, and arrivinsr at the western edge of the narrow strip of the 

 northern part of Orion at Hi. 30m. in the afternoon of the 27th. 

 She takes approximately 12 hours to cross this and emerge in 

 Gemiui. At ip.monthe 29th she quits Gemini for Cancer. She 

 is in Cancer up to midnight on the 30th. 



" Let Knowledge grow from more to more." — Alpeed Tenntsor. 



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 t»rted. Correspondents mvst not le of ended, therefore, should their 

 letters not appear. 



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The Editor is not responsible for the opinions of correspondents. 



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 AND DIBECTED ENTEtOPE BE ENCLOSED. 



THE WEIGHTS AXD MEASURES ACT A^'D A NEW 

 DECIMAL COINAGE. 



£1561] — A report has recently been presented to Parliament by 

 the Board of Trade, relating to the Weights and Measures Act. It 

 contains matter for much thought and consideration, especially for 

 those who have given the subject any attention. We have only 

 recently got into working order a standard wire-gauge, and now we 

 find many persons are anxious to see our system of the two-foot 

 rtile displaced for the metric craze, which, moreover, is not a mea- 

 Eure with any certainty. We have it stated that in 1844- there were 

 4535924277 grammes to the imperial pound ; but it is to be 

 -453-59265 from 1884. The mbtre, which was 39 37027 in., is to be 

 39'37079. We may expect in a few yeais hence to see these metric 

 standards corrected again, when it is found that the North Pole is 

 more or less distant from the Equator. If the Continental nations 

 that have legalised the metric system had taken their gauge from 

 some certain aliquot part of the British standards, it would have 

 been much better for them, and they could at any time have verified 

 and tested their accuracy. There can be no doubt that our own 

 system is complicated, and the great variety of weights and 

 measnres need very much to be simplified and put into a fixed and 

 proper order. 



Oar coinage is far from being satisfactory. There is no reason 

 why a decimal system might not with great advantage to British 

 commerce and the public be adopted, provided it could be effected 

 without loss on the one hand or gain on the other. The change 

 might be made, I think, without very materially disturbing the 

 present coinage. The manner in which this could be carried out 

 is the following : — To use the sovereign, half-sovereign, florin, 

 penny, halfpenny, and farthing, also to issue a coin to represent 

 the tenth part of a florin, which might be called a " mite," being 

 the smallest sized coin. There would be three columns of figures 

 in keeping accounts, as at present. It would necessitate the with- 

 drawal of crowns, half-crowns, shillings, sixpences, fourpences, and 

 threepences. We would require for current nse the following 

 coins : — 



Gold sovereign = 10 florins. 



„ half-sovereign = 5 ,, 



Silver florin = 25 pence. 



„ tenpence = 10 „ 



,, fivepence = 5 ,, 



„ mite = 2J „ 



Bronze penny = 1 „ 



„ halfpenny — i ,, 



„ farthing = i „ 



The bronze coinage would suffer a loss of 4 per cent, on account of 

 the sovereign being equal to 250 pence. This, however, makes no 



real dilterencc to the normal value of accounts ; the amounts remain 

 the same undisturbed. Take the following as examples : — 



Old Style. Now Stylo. 



£. s. d. £. f. d. 



59 18 9 equal 59 9 3G 



5 15 5 J ,, 5 7 71 



17 G 2i ,, 37 3 10 



1 19 11 J „ 1 9 99 



These examples will show at a glance how any sum of money may 

 be changed from old to now style without much menlul effort. It 

 will bo always needful to have double figures in tlie pence column. 

 The first may be read as mites, the second farthings. In the first 

 cxiimple you may read 3 mites farthings, or 'M i'artliings. There 

 will be less disturbance to make the coinage of the decimal system 

 by the method I propose than by any previous jilan ; in fact, wo 

 have the whole thing nearly ready to our hands. Wo require 

 fewer pieces of coin in circulation than there are at present, viz., 

 13. I propose nine as being ample, and no coin could be mistaken 

 for another in kind or value. I feel certain tliat tr.ado would 

 receive an impetus and accounts would be much easier kept if the 

 charge were made from tlio present unsatisfactory method of 

 pounds, shillings, pence, and farthings, with a relative bearing to 

 one another by 4, 12, and 20, to a system where 10 would serve for 

 each. It will bo seen from the above that the American dollar 

 and the French franc are duly represented by two florins and ten- 

 pence respectively. — Yours, ic, Jonathan Pickeuixg. 

 Globe Works, Stockton-ou-Tees, January, 1SS5. 



THE P.ECENT GREAT SUN-SPOT. 



[15G2] — I observed in Knowledge, of this week, that a corre- 

 spondent had seen, by the naked eye, with a smoked glass, a 

 splendid sun-spot. Here, on the 23rd, and in Edinburgh on the 

 28th, I saw it most distinctly, without much effort; also by the 

 naked eye, without any smoked glass ; the sun being finely shaded 

 with thin clouds. 



That the maximum is past we have reason to believe, but tliis 

 same fact, when known, makes many of our observers more careless, 

 as the interest is not the same ; consequently, spots, such as the 

 above, may come and go, few kuowing anythiug about them, and 

 some of those would rather be silent about them. 



On the 19th, when drawing the fifth rotation of a group — tliree 

 of which, by your favour, appeared in Knowledge — I chanced to 

 see this gi-oat spot. I say " great," because it appeared larger than 

 any I saw last year. 



I got fair drawings of it on the 20th, 21st, and 24th, which I 

 enclose for your inspection. A marked change will bo observed 

 between them. 



The one drawn with a direct eye-piece seems as if I had inverted 

 it to compare them better ; but this is not the case. 



22, Nilson-place, Stirling. G. L. BnowN. 



[Three well-executed drawings accompanied Mr. Brown's letter. 

 —Ed.] 



THE SENTIENT WORLD. 



[15G3] — Dr. Robert Lewins has not quite apprehended the 

 purport of my wonder that " metaphysicians Iiave made so little 

 use of the fact that light and colour have no external existence 

 whatever, but as mechanical vibratory action." For metaphy- 

 sicians I ought rather to have written theologians. All men 

 accustomed to abstract thinking are, of course, conversant with 

 Berkeley's unassailable position, that we can only know the pheno- 

 mena of our inner consciousness — that the existence of matter is 

 but a belief, for which it would be preferable to substitute the 

 belief in the immediate causation of a divine nous. But there is 

 something more for the human mind to ponder over than that which 

 occurred to Berkeley. Light, colour, sound, heat, cold, pain, 

 pleasure, tastes, odours, feeling, thought, life, are all vital expe- 

 riences that appear to me to have no analogues in the frigid mate- 

 rialist concept of external existence. Colour and sound are not 

 images of external things, of mechanical vibrations. Nor are pain 

 and pleasure images of material existences, &c., &c. Here, then, 

 we perceive that we have a world of sensuous experiences that 

 have no resemblance whatever to our conception of outer things 

 a world of experiences which neither resemble object nor subject ; 

 a world of experiences that science cannot analyse ; a world of 

 experiences that seems to justify the exclamation, "There is more 

 in heaven and earth, Horatio, than is dreamt of in your philo- 

 sophy." 



After writing the letter 1533 ante, referred to by Dr. Lewins, I 

 find that I made the following note : — " It does appear to bo some- 

 what cruel to interfere with tlio -iTilgar attribution of externality 

 to light and sound. And yet one cannot believe otherwise than 

 that every step forward towards truth will bring us nearer to some 



