442 



♦ KNOWLEDGE 



[May 22, 1885. 



THE FACE OF THE SKY. 



Feom Hay 22 to June 5. 



By F.K.A.S. 



THE Sun should still be examined on every clear day, as spots 

 and faculas continue to appear. Maps V. and VI. of " The 

 Stars in their Seasons " exhibit the aspect of the night sky. There 

 will, by the way, be no real ni^ht in any portion of the United 

 Kingdom during the next fortnight, as twilight persists from sunset 

 to sunrise. Mercury is a morning star, but is indifferently placed 

 for the observer, as although he attains his greatest western elon- 

 gation (24° 45') on the 25th, he even then rises almost in broad 

 daylight. Venus, in the sense of southing after the Sun, is an 

 evening star, but is too close to him to be visible to the amateur 

 for whom these notes are intended. Mars, Saturn, and Neptune 

 are invisible, for cognate reasons. Jupiter is rapidly approaching 

 the west, and should be viewed as soon as he is fairly visible. The 

 twilight, and his approach to the western horizon, render the obser- 

 vation of many of the phenomena of his Satellites very doubtful. 

 Of such phenomena the following will happen during the succeed- 

 ing fourteen days. To night (22nd) the shadow of Satellite IV. 

 will pass off Jupiter's disc at lOh. 4m., and Satellite I. will reappear 

 from eclipse at lOh. 22m. SSs. On the 26th Satellite II. will 

 begin its transit in bright twilight at 8h. 10m., and at 

 lOh. 41m. its shadow will follow it. The Satellite itself will 

 quit Jupiter's opposite Umb at llh. 6m. On the 27th Satellite 



III. will be occulted at 9h. 57m. On the 2Sth Satellite II. will 

 reappear from eclipse at 8h. 39m. 13s., and the transit of 

 Satellite I. begin at llh. 37m. On the 29th Satellite I. will be 

 occulted at 8h. 46m. and reappear from eclipse ISh. 3m. after mid- 

 night. It is questionable how far either of these phenomena will 

 be fairly observable — a remark which may be extended to the 

 egress of Satellite I. at 8h. 25m., and the reappearance of Satellite 



IV. from occultation at 8h. o6m. on the 30th. The egress of the 

 shadow of the first sateUite will occur at 9h. 40m. It may be 

 doubted whether the egress of the shadow of Satellite III. will be 

 fairly seen at 8h. 36in. on the 31st. On June 2 the transit of 

 Satellite II. will begin at lOh. 50m., and on June 4 the same 

 Satellite will reappear from eclipse at llh. 14m. 19s. Finally, on 

 June 5, Satellite I. will be occultated at lOh. 43m. Uranus may still 

 be seen to the west of rj Virginis. The Moon is full at 8h. 30m. Os. 

 p.m. on the 2Sth, and enters her first quarter 48 minutes after mid- 

 night on June 5. No occultations visible during the working hours 

 of the night occur during the period covered by these notes. The 

 Moon is in Leo when they begin, but passes into Virgo at midnight. 

 It is not until 5h. 30m. a.m. on the 26th that she has completed her 

 passage across this constellation and passed into Libra. In her 

 passage through Libra she, at 6h. a.m. on the 2Sth, arrives at the 

 boundary of the narrow northern strip of Scorpio, which, at 

 4 o'clock the same afternoon, she quits for Ophiuchus, from which, 

 at 2h. p.m. on the 30th, she enters Sagittarius. At 4h. a.m. on 

 June 2 she crosses into Capricornus, which in turn she quits for 

 Aquarius at midnight on the same day. She is in Aquarius up to 

 midnight of June 5. 



"Wheee to find ferns?" is a question that will be answered by 

 pictures as well as by words in a cheap little volume by Mr. Francis 

 George Heath, to be published immediately by the Society for 

 Promoting Christian Knowledge. The book will include, besides 

 drawings of the ferns described, the novel feature of illustrations of 

 fern habitats. 



KoY.lL ViCTORU H.ALL (Waterloo-road).— On Tuesday, the 12th 

 inst.. Dr. Dallinger gave a lecture at this hall on " Things we don't 

 see ; or, What the Microscope shows us." The lantern illustrations 

 were drawings of extreme beauty, taken through the microscope 

 by the lecturer himself. The point of the lecture was that beauty 

 is as universal and as marvellous in the smallest natural objects as 

 in the largest. Beginning with comparatively large and familiar 

 objects, the lecturer threw on the screen drawings of a spider's 

 foot, a flea, a mosquito's sting, and a wasp's sting, showing in each 

 case how higher magnifying power revealed greater detail and 

 greater beautv. In contrast with the wasp's sting was shown the 

 jagged, poker-like outline of the point of a very fine needle, proving 

 how unfit manufactured articles were to stand the same test. Eggs 

 of minute insects were then shown, and organisms invisible to the 

 naked eye, such as the fine powder to which Barbadoes chalk is 

 reduced by boiling in acid. These grains of powder were many of 

 them shaped like elaborately-carved crowns and crosses. In con- 

 clusion, the bacteria of putrid water were shown, of which fifty 

 million can swim easily in a space nc bigger than a pin's head, and 

 an account was given of the method by which their size is 

 measured. 



" Let Knowledge grow from more to more." — Alfred Tenntbow. 



Only a small proportion of Letters received can possibly he in- 

 ierted. Correspondents must not he ofended^ therefore, should their 

 letters not appear. 



All Editorial communications should he addressed to the Editor ot 

 Knowledge; all Business communications to the Publishers, at the 

 Office, 74, Oreat Queen-street, W.C. If this is not attended to 



DELAYS ARISE FOR WHICH THE EDITOR IS NOT RESPONSIBLE. 



All Remittances, Cheques, and Post Office Orders should be mad 

 paya])le to Messrs. Wyman & Sons. 



The Editor is not responsible for the opinions of corresptjndents. 



No COMMrNICATIONS ABE ANSWERED BY POST, EVEN THOUGH STAMPED 

 AVD DIRECTED EN'VELOPE BE ENCLOSED. 



THOUGHT-EEADING. 



[1710] — History repeats itself; and the record of human super- 

 stition in the remote past is not without its parallel in these days 

 of so-called enlightenment. 



Why should we ignore the fact ? The doctrine of transmigra- 

 tion has again taken root in European soil, and is really quite a 

 thriving plant. Sceptics, indeed, talk about bunk-um being the 

 order of the day, and there are not wanting hints that plants of 

 the fungoid type may be known by their early maturity, habitat, 

 and physical characters ; but the true believer cherishes none the 

 less the conviction that the phenomena of thought-reading are of 

 a spiritual nature, and capable only of a spiritual interjiretation. 



Doubtless they scoff in turn at the old notion of the human soul 

 playing its part in the lite-history ot an animal which it most 

 resembled while in the flesh, but they seem to find no obstacle to 

 the belief that this may take place during life between individuals 

 who happen to have an affinity to one another. 



For example, the soul A (or a part of it) enters the mortal tene- 

 ment of B, and holds friendly intercourse with the same, the result 

 being that B communicates to A the whereabouts of a pin, the 

 letters of a name, or some such trifle which may have come within 

 the sphere of its observation. A (or its process) then wings its 

 way back to its house of clay and proves the accuracy of its 

 knowledge by finding the pin or writing the word. And so on. 



We do not question the accuracy of the results which have been 

 witnessed at the *' thought-reading" seances so familiar to every 

 one. To cavil at facts because they are strange is, it need hardly 

 be said, as injurious to the growth of true knowledge as to expose 

 a tender seedling to the burning rays of the noontide sun ; and that 

 in the greater number of instances we are dealing with facts can- 

 not be doubted by any one who chooses to examine the phenomena 

 of thought-reading in the spirit of sober and unprejudiced 

 criticism. 



But while the fact stands out clear and decided, we are open to 

 entertain any theory which to our mind may best accord itself with 

 the results obtained, and the question therefore arises, Is the fore- 

 going explanation the only feasible one ? Is there an actual trans- 

 mission from the "medium" to the oracle of an entity called 

 thought, or is some other vehicle employed to convey the desired 

 information ? 



In attempting to answer this question, we bring under notice 

 two theories, each of which aims at supplying us with a rational 

 explanation of the facts in question. 



One we may call the fluid theory, the other is known as the 

 muscle-reading theory. 



The former labours under one of the disadvantages of the spiritual 

 hypothesis in supposing the results to be due to the action of an 

 agent the existence of which as a separate factor has been any- 

 thing but proved. On the one hand, the agent is the faculty of 

 thought ; on the other, it goes by the somewhat fanciful name of the 

 Odic or Psychic force, which is supposed to resemble electricity in 

 some degree, and to be collected in the great ganglia of the body, 

 from whence it passes along the nerves to the surface of the body, 

 and finally may enter the system of another individual, producing 

 changes in his conscious states. 



The production of mesmerism, or artificial sleep-walking, by 

 gazing into the eyes of the subject and gently fanning his face with 

 the hands, is thus ascribed to this agent, and at one time we held 



