376 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[May 1, 1885. 



(eiiitoiial (§oS£(ip. 



It is rarely indeed that I trouble myself in any way 

 about the Royal Astronomical Society, but a circular has 

 just reached me to which, I think, I may not unprofitably 

 invite the especial attention of such Fellows of that Society 

 as may read these lines. It is issued to convene a special 

 meeting at 9 p.m. on Friday, May 8, on a requisition which 

 has seemingly been sent in by eight of tUe Fellows, to 

 consider the question of permitting absent Fellows to vote 

 at the annual elections of the officers and Council on verifi- 

 cation of their signature, and to vote, either personally or 

 by proxy, on any business brought before annual or general 

 special meetings. Also, incidentally, to discuss a suggested 

 change of the hour of the ordinary evening meetings. Now 

 it seems to me that every Fellow of the Society who is dis- 

 satisfied with the existing mode of election of the officers 

 and Council of the Society, or who really wishes to 

 exercise some influence, and make his opinions heard at 

 meetings which he is, perforce, prevented from attending, 

 should take especial care to be personally present next 

 Friday night ; as upon the aggregate of votes then recorded 

 will depend whether for the future the members of the 

 Council are to elect, as heretofore they practically have 

 •elected, themselves. A correspondent of a contemporary 

 has called attention to the recurrence, year after year, of 

 the same names on the Council-list, and of the wholly un- 

 worthy juggle by which the spirit of the 6th byelaw is 

 annually systematically evaded. This, however, is not to 

 be rectified by ivriting on the subject ; but, as I have said 

 above, by actual personal attendance and voting at the 

 meeting. The inconvenience of remaining in London for a 

 single night may enable many a country Fellow hereafter 

 to exercise his due influence at Burlington House without 

 quitting his own study in a remote part of the kingdom. 



The pretty old custom referred to by Pepys in his "Diary" 

 of women going forth into the fields to bathe their faces 

 with May-dew, with the idea of making themselves beauti- 

 ful, has unhappily died out. As a prescription, it was 

 undoubtedly more efficacious than all the Kalydors and 

 cosmetics ever invented. 



Apropos of the first of May, it is curious to think that 

 one of the huge permanent Maypoles which were erected 

 ia various parts of the metropolis and its immediate 

 environs, was still standing close to Kennington-green 

 ninety years ago, and that milkmaids used to dance 

 round it. 



The Liverpool Astronomical Society has just issued a 

 capital number of its Journal for March. A paper by 

 Dr. Hermann Klein (of " Hyginus N " celebrity) on " The 

 True Nature of the Black Spots on the Moon," one on 

 "Photographic Observations of the Great Nebula in 

 Andromeda," and another on that rare phenomenon, "An 

 Equatorial Sunspot," by the Rev. T. E. Espin, the Pre- 

 sident, and Miss E. Brown respectively, may be singled out 

 rather for their comparative novelty amid a mass of equally 

 interesting material. 



Lord Onslow seems to be much exercised in his mind 

 about cremation. The overwhelming proportion of people, 

 who are ignorant of his very existence, will probably pay 

 infinitely more deference to the opinions of such experts as 

 Sir Lyon Playfair, Sir Spencer Wells, Sir Joseph Fayrer, 

 and Dr. Cameron than they will to anything he may have 

 to say on this subject. When it is proposed to burn the 

 noble Earl himself, it will be ample time for him to protest. 



Jdst as poor Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr. Burke 

 had to be immolated before any effective steps were taken 

 to cope with the Dublin scum, so, I suppose, our own in- 

 efiable Home Secretary will be blown up ere eflFectnal 

 means are devised to stop the dynamite outrages in London, 

 which are such a scandal and disgrace to our vaunted civilisa- 

 tion. The way is not far to seek. For every Gallagher in the 

 conspiracy there are two Careys ; in fact, if he could only 

 receive assurance of his personal individual safety, there 

 is scarcely a man among these gallant and courageous 

 "patriots" who would not cheerfully sell his own father 

 or brother to the authorities. An adequate system of 

 espionage and a little judicious expenditure would soon 

 stamp out this iniquity from our midst. But, of course, to 

 watch or entrap a murderer in posse would be un-English ; 

 and it is so much better that the lives of a few score innocent 

 men, women, and children should be sacrificed than that 

 that reproach should be levelled at us ! By all means let 

 us give notice to the followers of the slinking hound who 

 grovelled and shrieked for mercy before an English girl 

 armed with a toy pistol ! that we are playing a game ac- 

 cording to rigid rules, of which they shall have due notice 

 beforehand. 



SOME BOOKS ON OUR TABLE. 



Myths and Dreams. By Edward Clodd. (London : 

 Chatto k Windus. 1885.) — In the empty pride of his 

 heart, man has pictured his original progenitor as springing 

 into life fully armed, like Minerva from the brain of 

 Jupiter, the all but deified lord of a world for which the 

 whole of the rest of the visible universe was and is created. 

 Long fostered as this fond illusion was by ecclesiastical tradi- 

 tion, it is only in these latter days that the true history of 

 man's advent upon earth and subsequent development has 

 been made known, and his insignificance in the cosmos 

 become apparent. Between the primitive savage ancestry 

 of our race, however, and a Newton, a Shakespeare, a 

 Milton, an Airy, a Tennyson, or a Thomson, how great and 

 seemingly impassable a gulf is fixed ; and hence the study of 

 the steps by which this gulf has been bridged can scarcely fail 

 to be of the most absorbing interest. How current ideas 

 of the supernatural have had their origin in the myths and 

 dreams of man in an early stage of his history, Mr. Clodd 

 sets himself to tell in the work before us, which is an 

 expansion and enlargement of a few essays on the same 

 subject which originally appeared in Knowledge. To 

 those who have read that portion of Mr. Clodd's volume 

 here, his charm of style and closeness of reasoning will be 

 already familiar, and they will possess themselves of his 

 completed work in order to follow out his argument in its 

 entirety. To all to whom this notice may serve to introduce 

 the volume before us we can promise an intellectual treat 

 of a high order in its perusal, and the acquisition of sounder 

 views of man's actual place in nature and sources of belief 

 in the supernatural than they possessed prior to reading it. 

 The Cheinislry of Cookery. By W. Mattieu Williams. 

 (Loudon : Chatto i Windus. 1885.) — Here is another 

 work, of which a portion has appeared in these columns, 

 and which will be welcomed by all who wish to see the 

 subject of the preparation of food reduced to a science. 

 For no one will contend that anything worthy of the name 

 of culinary science had any existence up to within a com- 

 pjiratively recent period. If here and there a man like 

 Count Rumford did make an effort to formulate a theory of 

 certain operations, his knowledge remained practically 



