220 



KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[March 13, 1885. 



himself to it, an endeavour which survives in the symbol 

 y of the almanacks ; and how, finally, by universal consent, 

 it obtained the appellation of Urauu?, are matters of 

 history. Up to the date of its discovery, six planets 

 proper were all that were known. Since then 246 more 

 have been discovered. 



Some one writes to the newspapers to say that he has 

 heard the nightingale. White, in his "History of Selborue," 

 speaks of its advent "in the neighbourhood of London," 

 on April 12. What a pity that the gentleman who was so 

 exceptionally favoured did not succeed in putting a pinch 

 of salt on the tail of his unique specimen ! 



I FE.\K that by my reference to the (alleged) " Faith ' 

 healing cases wrought by the Hanley " Salvation Army," 

 on p. 176, I may seem to have conferred a factitious im- 

 portance upon a very sorry piece of humbug indeed. In 

 another column will be found a reprint (from our contem- 

 porary the Medical Press and Circular), of the report of 

 a scientific expert on the asserted quasi-miraculous cures. 

 From this it would appear that the grain of salt with 

 %vhich I took the original account of the healings might 

 much more appropriately have been a bushel ; and that, 

 in fiict, the entire exhibition is of a more distinctly mounte- 

 bank character than I even imagined it to be. Bartlemy 

 Fair and little Bethel are met together. The Clown and 

 the Evangelist have kissed each other. 



I HAVE received a little pamphlet on " High-pressure 

 Education," by Dr. Churchill, the surgeon to the Victoiia 

 Hospital for Children, from which, at a merely nominal 

 cost, information and hints of a valuable character may be 

 gathered by all concerned in the intellectual (and physical) 

 training of the rising generation. Its author not only 

 pleads earnestly for the wretched little victims of the 

 Mundella craze in Board Schools, but also puts in a word 

 for lads of a higher social grade, who, under the present 

 detestaVjle system of " cram," are loaded up to the muzzle 

 like experimental guns, and (let off, as it were, in the 

 examination, for which they have been stuffed with know- 

 ledge which they cannot assimilate) are left, after its 

 discharge, as empty as drums. As Dr. Churchill attends 

 weekly an average of over one hundred Board School 

 children at the Victoria Hospital, he maj', perhaps, 

 advance at 'east as strong a claim to speak ex catltedra, as 

 the doctrinaire gentlemen, who so gaily s:atter the liardly- 

 earned money of the metropolitan ratepayers in their 

 palatial house on the Thames Embankment. 



Among the most recent suggestions for the application 

 of a scientific process to an economical use that I have 

 come across, is one for checking the takings of tram-car 

 conductors by photographs of the interior of the car taken 

 at frequent intervals ! The ingenious inventor of this 

 adjunct to the observance of the Eighth Commandment 

 does not tell us whether the occupants of the car are to bs 

 photographed consciously or unconsciously. At any rate, 

 half-a-dozen people designedly or innocently fiiigety might 

 frustrate the whole scheme, and, by converting themselves 

 into Cerberi (not to say Hydrte) upon the plate, slightly 

 impair its value as a record of the persons pre>ent at any 

 given instant. One thinks of the negro farm-servant, who, 

 having been asked by his master if he had counted the 

 pigs, rejoined, " Yes, massa, I count 'em all but one little 

 black pig, and he jump about so dat I couldn't count 'im." 



Edmund Beckett. A most amusing letter, which every 

 one should read, upon the New Time, ajipears from his 

 pen in this month's Uoroloijical Journal. 



Probably no man in England is better entitled to speak 

 ex catlicdrd on a purely horological subject than Sir 



SOME BOOKS ON OUR TABLE. 

 The Neanderthal Skull on Evolution. ... . — By the 

 Eev. BouEcniER Wn.w Satile, M.A. (London : Long- 

 mans t Co. 1885). — Our first impulse was to treat this 

 utterly nonsensical fairago seriously, and to point out the 

 fitness of a writer to teacn anybody, who quotes the 

 dicta of Canuing, Lord Beaconsfield, and Carlyle as authori- 

 tative in connection with the discussion of a question of 

 pure science. Upon reflection, however, we feel tliat it 

 will be more courteous and very much more charitable to 

 Mr. Savile simply to close his book and say nothing further 

 about it. The sooner such sorry stufi' is forgotten the better 

 (or the literary reputation of its author. 



Hot-water Engineering. Hon: to Prevent Explosions. 

 By F. Milan and J. Shaw. ( Huddersfield : J. Broadbent 

 ^t Co.) — Is simply a description of a patent mercurial 

 indicator, designed to prevent kitchen boilers from blowing 

 up. 



Cruise of the "Alert " (1878-1882). By W. R. Coppinger, 

 M. D.,Statr-Surgeon, R.N. (London: W. Swan Sonnenschein, 

 & Co. 1885.) — During the autumn of 1878 the Lords of the 

 Admiralty despatched the Alert (already famous as the 

 ship which had so far attained a higher northern latitude 

 than any other) to survey various regions in the southern 

 hemisphere, commencing in the Straits of Magellan ; on 

 the completion of her woi k there, to proceed to the north 

 coast of Australia ; surveying that, to go on to Singapore 

 to refit, and return vio- the Cape of Good Hope ; stop- 

 ping en route at the Seychelles, Amirante Islands, and 

 Alozimbique ; to fix astronomically the positirin of the 

 Amirante group, and to take such soundings as they might 

 be able on the east coast of Africa. The Alert sailed from 

 Plymouth on this mission on Sept 25, 1878, and re-entered 

 the Sound there on Sept. 3, 1882, after an absence of 

 nearly four years. The story of this interval is told in 

 the volume before us by Dr. Coppinger, who was surgeon 

 and naturalist to the expedition, and who contrives in 

 telling it to impait a very considerable amount of informa- 

 tion indeed on natural history and ethnology, in a chatty, 

 agreeable, and interesting manner. Truly, accoriling to his 

 account, the Fuegians mujt be in very proximate relation 

 with " the missina link ; " as it is not easy to conceive how 

 any race or species much more degraded could legitimately 

 be regarded as " human " at all. The student of pre- 

 historic archa;ology will read with interest our author's 

 'account of the manner in which one of these .«avages manu- 

 facluied a spear-head out of a broken pickle-bottle, in his 

 presence. At Tahiti, whither the Alert [roceeded after 

 leaving Terra del Fuego, a singular contrast must have 

 been pre>ented by the graceful, half- Frenchified,, and wholly 

 immoral natives. The aborigines of Qu^enshind .«.eemingly 

 occupy a mediate position. There is given, by the way, 

 a curious plate of facsimiles of drawings h\ the native 

 Australians. We have referred to Dr. Coppinger's d-,scrip- 

 tion of two or three of the various races of men amongst 

 whom he and his shipmates were thrown. It would be 

 impossible to make a similar precis of his multifarious 

 observations of every form of animated life. We trust 

 that we have said enough to send tlie re ider to the book 

 itself for more, and, with the expression of this hope, will 

 conclude our notice of it. 



