396 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[May 8, 1885. 



€1) I to rial (So 2! 2! I p. 



Everyone who has visited that most novel, instructive, 

 and interesting exhibition, the Japanese Village, at Kuiglits- 

 biidge, will hear with sincere regret of its total destruction 

 by fire lasc Saturday morning. That the Village itself, 

 constructed of such inflammable materials as bamboo and 

 paper, should have speedily succumbed to the "devouring 

 element " of the penny-a-liner, need excite no surprise, but 

 a subsequent result of the conflagration aflords a curious 

 illustration of the justice of my remarks on p. 2-13. For 

 so, comparatively, inefficient were " twenty steamers and 

 several stand-engines " in checking the progress of the 

 flames that the roof of the Humphrey's Mansions, "sup- 

 posed to be lire-proof (!)," was actually burned off. The 

 plain English of the matter is that our existing fire-engines 

 are simply the glorified squirt of Louis XIV. maguified so 

 many times in linear dimensions. 



Everyone interested in the subject of Technical Educa- 

 tion should invest 6d. in a copy of the "Journal of the 

 Society of Arts," for April 2-i, and study the paper by Mr. 

 Henry Cunynghame on '' Technical Education with refer- 

 ence to the Apprenticeship System," and the instructive 

 discussion which followed its reading. 



I SEE it stated that certain doctors Ln Valencia have been 

 experimenting by inoculating people with " the choleraic 

 virus." What this " virus " is the report omits to state ; 

 hence it may be an infusion full of Koch's bacillus — or 

 anything else. If this is being put forth as a prophylactic 

 against cholera and the inoculated patients should succumb 

 to that dread malady, if subsequently attacked by it, 

 doubtless the occasion will be seized to attempt to discredit 

 the imperishable and invaluable labours of Pasteur in an 

 allied field. We have, however, yet to learn whether the 

 Spanish experiments have the same firm basis as those on 

 which the results of the great French physiologist rest. 



A MOST valuable and indispensable table of reference 

 for all students of those mysterious bodies the variable 

 stars, appears in the current volume of the Proceedings of 

 the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, in the shape 

 of a paper by Professor Pickering, entitled " Observations 

 of Variable Stars in 1884." It contains a mass of obser- 

 vations made in America, England, Austria, Germany, and 

 Sweden, and is, as I have said, really indispensable to all 

 engaged in the study of that branch of astronomy to which 

 it belongs. 



I .\M not at all surprised to find that Mr. "W. T. Lynn's 

 capital little book " Celestial Motions " has already run into 

 the third edition, which lies before me. 



It appears from a report in the newspapers that a man 

 has been committed to gaol for a month for interrupting a 

 public auction, and that in the course of the case the 

 auctioneer described him as " the leader of a knock-out." 

 Inasmuch as a good many students of science often attempt 

 to pick \ip books and instruments cheaply at sales, it may 

 not be uninstructive to give here the result of inquiries as 

 to what "a knock-out" sigr.ifies. It would seem, then, to 

 mean a conspiracy among all the brokers attending an 

 auction not to bid against each other, but to i-un up any 

 lot for which there is anything apjiroaching keen competi- 

 tion, so as to force the intending purchaser to pay an 

 inordinate price for it. In every case, however, in which 



no outsider intervenes very actively, there is not, as I 

 have said, any real competition whatever, and the article, 

 whatever it may be, is knocked down at a nominal sum to 

 one of the gang. At the conclusion of the sale, however, 

 all the things so purchased are privately put up afresh 

 among the brokers themselves, when, of course, each 

 fetches its approximate value. Armed with this informa- 

 tion, and a tolerable knowledge of the value of the lot or 

 lots which he may desire to purchase, it is to be hoped that 

 the novice in science who " has brains but no money " 

 maybe in a better position to counteract such unscrupulous 

 and dishonourable conduct as that to which I have been 

 referrin?. 



Efbiftos. 



SOME BOOKS ON OUR TABLE. 



Heroes of Science : Mechanicians. By T. C. Lewis, M.A. 

 (London : Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. 

 188-1.) — Pleasant in style, and crowded with interesting 

 incident, Mr. Lewis's book cannot fail to becouie popular 

 with boys of all ages. Of his ten chapters, the first is 

 devoted to a sketch of the history of the steam-engine 

 prior to the appearance of James Watt, the biography of 

 whom occupies chapter two. This is followed in succession 

 by the lives of George Stephenson, Richard Arkwright, 

 Samuel Crompton, Henry Maudsley, Joseph Clement, 

 .James Nasmyth, Joseph Whitworth, and Charles Babbage. 

 Where all is excellent, and where such an even vein of 

 interest (itself, though, diverse enough) runs through the 

 lives of the chief of those who have so materially helped to 

 place England in proud preeminence as a manufacturing 

 nation, it is not easy to make any selections for special 

 mention ; but perhaps the biographies of Sir Joseph Whit- 

 worth and of Charles Babbage are as instructive in their 

 several fashions as any. Certainly they may be read with 

 profit by the seniors of those for whom the work is jjrimarily 

 intended. In Whitworth's case the extraordinary apathy 

 and indifl'erence exhibited by the Government to the value 

 of his immense improvements in the implements of war, 

 must strike the most casual re.ider. Babbage is, we are 

 inclined to think, treated somewhat too leniently by his 

 biogropher. He was a man of almost supernal conceit, 

 who was firmly persuaded that he alone was right, and 

 that the whole of the nation were in the wrong. He will 

 always remain as a striking example and warning of the 

 ineradicable evils incident on the Endowment ol Research. 



Essays on Economical Subjects. By Hibersiccs. 

 (Dublin : E. Ponsonby ; London : Simpkin, Marshall, iSc 

 Co. 1885.) — Many of the theses of political economy have 

 been so often reiterated that they have by this time come 

 to be regarded by a large proportion of people as axiomatic, 

 and originality is so little looked for in their treatment 

 that writers or compilers are content to go on copying 

 from one another like children at a Board School doing a 

 writing lesson. Hence we welcome a work like the one 

 before us, in which the author dares to think for himself, 

 and to assail some of the economical fetishes of the day, 

 with a freshness of treatment which makes him always 

 readable and amusing, even if his arguments do not always 

 compel assent. In his very first essay, for example, on 

 " Free Trade and Fair Trade," he reasons in a way that will 

 at all events possess the charm of novelty for those who 

 think that the sole efl'ect of taxing impoits must be to 

 impoverish the consumer. He is equally heterodox, too, on 

 the Malthusian doctrine, and assails Mr. George's lanting 

 nonsense with much vigour and efl'ect. His theory of renti 



