110 



KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[Feb. 6, 1885. 



Mr. Felt's forbearance." I am, on the -n-hole, disposed to 

 think that if this " committee " had attempted to administer 

 such a form of lyncb-law on this side of the Atlantic — say 

 in London — something more than " much bad feeling " 

 ■would have resulted. The (ai>-called) " culprit " would 

 appear to have accepted this kind of bullying in a spirit of 

 pusillanimity merely calculated to invite a repetition cf 

 similar outrages ; and to have been apparently merely Felt, 

 but not seen, during its commission. Had a ring of English 

 photographers sought after the sign of a confrere in such a 

 fashion, most assuredly it would have had no sign given it. 



Effai'etDSf* 



It is a long time since I have visited any exhibition at 

 once so novel, interesting, instructive, and amusing, as 

 that of the .Japanese Village at Hydepark-corner. The 

 anthropologist, the student of sociological science, the artist, 

 the mechauic, and the mere sightseer, will, one and all, 

 find material for study and reflection in this reproduction 

 of everyday life in Japan. Whether we are watching the 

 screen-painters, the fan-makers, the embroiderers in gold 

 (with their noses almost touching the satin through which 

 their needles travel), the wrestlers, the graceful juggler, or 

 the unfamiliar antics of the dancers, we feel that we are in 

 a strange world, immeasurably removed, both in time and 

 space, from that which we have left outside the entrance- 

 doors of the building. The aptitude exhibited by these 

 curious people, though, renders it easier to understand the 

 plasticity of their race ; and the facility wiih which western 

 ideas and western knowledge have been assimilated by 

 them. 



The mention of the short sight of the Japanese em- 

 broiderers suggests to me to invite attention to the 

 valuable and important paper on " The Influence of Civi- 

 lisation on Eyesight," which was read last week by Mr. 

 E. Brudenell Carter before the Society of Arts. There 

 can be, unfortunately, no doubt that myopia is a visual 

 defect which is increasing in England very rapidly indeed ; 

 and that while a comparatively few years since it was 

 largely confined to the literary and professional classes, it 

 is now common in all ranks of life. A report of Mr. 

 Carter's very practical essay (for which we are indebted to 

 our contemporary the Standard) will be found in another 

 column. 



The appointment of the author of the fir.st of the now 

 almost forgotten '-Essiys and Reviews" to the Bishopric 

 of London alfords a very instructive illustration of the 

 advance of popular thought and intelligence since the 

 original publication of that absurdly-abused book. Even 

 when Dr. Temple was created Bishop of Exeter, the 

 Ritualistic papers shrieked and displayed antics akin to 

 those of monkeys quarrelling over a nut ; and now the 

 writer of the essay on " The Education of the World " is 

 to be the spiritual head of the metropolis ! Slowly, but 

 very surely indeed, are men learning the utter hopelessness 

 of attempting to sweep back the Atlantic of Science arid 

 Philosophy with the ^Irs. Partington's mop of Ecclesias- 

 tical authority. 



Two important and iuteresting cases with reference to secondary 

 battery patents in the United States have recently been decided. 

 Interferences were raised against the Sellon and Swan patents, 

 which belonged to the Electrical Power Storage Company, by Starr 

 and Brush, and in both cases the fight has been most obstinately, 

 and at great cost, contested for nearly two years, appeal after 

 appeal having been heard. The result of the last appeals are that 

 priority of invention has been awarded to both Sellon and Swan, as 

 against Starr and Bmsh. Aa against Brush, the decision on this 

 last appeal is absolutely final ; but in the case of Starr a further 

 appeal is still possible. 



LIFE IN THE DEAD PAST.* 



VT a period geologically recent, but which dates back to 

 a hoar antiquity at which the human uiind may well 

 stand in amazement, some mighty prototype of the present 

 Amazon or Ganges ran into an ocean where Xorthem 

 Europe now stands. The fluviatile and estuarine deposits 

 of this stupendous mass of water, which range in patches 

 from the (so-called) Paris Basin and the Netherlands up 

 through Hants, an area of many miles around London, and 

 so on, api arently even up.to the liorth-east coast of Ireland, 

 are known to the geologist under the collective title of the 

 Eocene Formation, With its subdivisions we have nothing 

 here to do. The first part of the noble volume nov/ lying before 

 us, forms the second portion of Vol. II. of Mr. Gardner's 

 " Monograph on the Eocene Flora," and is devoted to the 

 Gymnosperms, of which our modern Coniferfe oiler the 

 most typical representatives. Anyone who wishes to see 

 how the history of a vanished world is written and en- 

 graven in stones, need only turn over the rtally exquisite 

 plates with which Mr. Gardner's paper is so profusely illus- 

 trated, to realise his desire. They are womlerful as repro- 

 ductions of the objects they depict, and are really quite 

 stereoscopic when gazed at. 



Following this instalment of the initial monograph, 

 comes the first part of another on the British Fossil Bi- 

 valved Entomostraca from the Carboniferous Formation, 

 by Professor Eupert Jones, 3Ir. Kirkby, and Professor 

 Brady. The Entomostraca, as most of our readers probably 

 know, are minute aquatic Crustacea ; and the Gypridinad», 

 which are specially described in the volume before us, are 

 tiny bivalves, which may be rougl'.ly compared to mussels 

 with transparent and glassy shells, varying from about 

 the size of a pin's-head upwards. They are found univer- 

 sally in water ; fr,om the open sea to the poo! or clear ditch 

 on every open space ; and that they were equally common and 

 abundant in the dawn of those dim ages of the past when 

 the American swamp of to-day was prefigured by those 

 stupendous areas of vegetable growth whereon our existing 

 supply of coal had its origin, is amply evidenced by the 

 numerous genera and species figured by the authors. 



And in that stage of the earth's history immediately ante- 

 cedent to the time when the land teemed with vegetation 

 of a size and rankness of growth now almost inconceivable, 

 there continued to swim or crawl about at the bottom of 

 the shallower seas, that strange and most ancient type of 

 crustacean, known as the trilobite. To the able hands cf 

 Dr. Woodward is entrusted the description of such of these 

 creatures as lived during the time of the deposition of the 

 carboniferous limestone. It was one of which, albeit it 

 is often found in a marvellously perfect state, but com- 

 paratively little is known; one reason undoubtedly being 

 that from the way in which they have been fossilised, we 

 are absolutely ignorant of the under side of the body. 

 The minutest detail thoush of their large compound 

 facetted eyes is quite commonly preserved. The trilobite 

 could roll itself up like our own common woodlouse, and 

 is far from infrequently found in this condition. An 

 isopod dredged some few years since in the South Atlantic, 

 not far from Rio Janeiro, apparently presents more points 

 of affinity with this extinct crustacean than any other 

 living form. 



Dr. Woodward's article is followed by the third part of 

 Vol. V. of Dr. T. Davidson's monograph of the British 



* The Palfcontographical Society, Vol. XXXVIII. 

 1884. London, December, 1884. 



Issued for 



