482 



• KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[June 5, 1885. 



his visits to London were less frequent than of yore. The 

 last tirue T p' or saw him was in the library of the Royal 

 Astronomicu,! society, at Burlington House. 



In another column will be found an extract from a letter 

 addressed to the Laumrston Examini r, by Mr. A. B. Biggs, 

 giving details of his observations of the lunar eclipse of 

 March .30, as seen in Tasmania. The points of interest to 

 be noted are the opacity and slaty tint of the earth's 

 shadow, utterly obliterating all detail on that part of the 

 moon's surface which it covered, and the entire absence 

 of that copper-colour which had become so familiar to 

 observers as to be regarded by them as almost the normal 

 hue of the earth's shadow. Now, it is noteworthy that 

 this red tint was coospicuoua by its absence on the occasion 

 of the eclipse of the moon, on Oct. 4 last; whence it would 

 seem that the terrestrial atmospheric conditions then 

 existing must still persist 



Certainly the strange kind of haze surrounding tlie 

 sun does, as may easily be seen by any one who, on the 

 ■clearest day, will just hide the sun with his h.and so as to 

 be able to regard that part of the sky in which he is 

 situated. With this precaution the illumination of some- 

 thing in his neighbourhood will become instantly most 

 apparent ; the blue sky 90° from him offering a very 

 marked contrast indeed to it. Learning furthermore that 

 the glorious afterglows (which are obviously connected in 

 some way with this exaggerated pseudo-coronal eflect), have 

 returned in their pristine splendour in South Africa, one 

 is again tempted to speculate upon the nature of the very 

 obscure and unusual forces which must have been so per- 

 sistently at work to produce these joint effects. When I 

 remember, too, that Mr. Neison, the Government Astro- 

 nomer at Natal, was actually making water-colour sketches 

 of these afterglows in February, 188.3, and that now, in 

 May, 188-5, they are as beautiful and marked as ever, I 

 would humbly venture to inquire whether it is not 

 almost time that the Krakatoa humbug was given up 1 



In speaking last week of the curious paucity of cuckoos 

 this year, I quoted from a newspaper the remarkable asser- 

 tion that "Between -lo" .")5' W. Longitude and 41° 44' X. 

 Latitude (!) unusual and dangerous quantities of ice are 

 floating just." (1) Since then this very much more defiuite 

 statement has appeared : — 



Ice in- the Atlaxtic. — Washington, Slay 29. — According to the 

 records of tfie Hydrographic Office, the amount of ice and the 

 number of icebergs which have appeared in the path of European 

 steamers during the past month is unprecedented. 



Of course, eveiy possessor of a telescope must have 

 noticed the indications of activity (including one really 

 splendid spot) which have been visible upon the sun's face 

 during the past month. I wonder how long it will be ere 

 the Committee on Solar Physics — of cour.se, for the benefit 

 of the ignorant — jiromulgate the doctrine that icebergs are 

 the outcome of great Solar disturbance ^ 



OuK readers will be pleased to learn that the School of Submarine 

 Telegraphy and Electrical Engineering, of which we have on two 

 or three occasions spoken favourably, has been highly compli- 

 mented by the veteran electrician, s'ir William Thomson LL.D., 

 F.E.S., in a testimonial dated IGth ult. A glowing article 

 describing the Institution appeared in Friday's Daibi News. 



ilrbirtDS* 



SOME BOOKS ON OUR TABLE. 



T/ie Geology of Genesis. — By E. Colpitts Robinson, 

 F.R.G.S. (London : Elliot Stock. 1885.)— Reverently 

 but most tolerantly written, and often exhibiting a con- 

 siderable amount of ingenuity in its argument, we can only 

 say with regret of Mr. Robinson's work that it adds one 

 more to the total failures to reconcile the plain, straight- 

 forward details given in Genesis of an imaginary sequence 

 of events, with the irrefragable facts of modern science. 

 Concerning his theology we are perforce silent. No similar 

 reticence, however, is incumbent on us in dealing with his 

 remarkable geology and palaeontology and even more re- 

 markable physics. No detailed examination of the work 

 before us is possible within the limits of this notice ; nor is 

 it needful, inasmuch as a very few examples taken almost 

 at random wOl suffice to show the character of what its 

 author mistakes for reasoning. In limine, in connection 

 with Genesis i., 2, " And darkness was upon the face of the 

 deep," Mr. Robinson says, " Our world in its infancy 

 existed in a semi- molten state, covered by a universal 

 ocean, and surrounded by mineral vapours (the italics 

 are ours) and clouds of steam ; " and proceeding to the con- 

 sideration of vv. 3—5, goes on to add, " As the globe became 

 less heated and the surface cooler, so the dense vapours 

 standing above the ocean would become less and less heavy. 

 First of all the vapours of the heavier metals settled and 

 solidified ; then the lighter metals would cease to exist as 

 vapour ; and lastly, the volatile compositions of sodium, 

 phosphorus, and the lightest minerals would assume their 

 metallic form, leaving above and around the world a cloud 

 composed for the most part of steam or vapourised water. 

 At some time during the process of lessening vapour, the 

 clouds would become just sufficiently pellucid to admit of 

 the rays of light falling upon the face of the great deep, 

 hitherto icrapped in total darkness" (again we italicise). 

 It is in a kind of blank amazement that we ask whether, 

 before penning this stuff, its writer ever heard that 

 platinum fuses (i.e., becomes not vaporous but merely 

 liquid) at 3,082 Fah. ; iron at 2,912 Fah. ; gold at 2,282 

 Fah., and so on ? Darkness upon the face of the deep ! 

 Why the whole surface (such as it was) of the earth under 

 the conditions postulated must have shone with an 

 efiulgence lit some sort comparable with that of the sun 

 himself. Again he repeats the hundred times ex- 

 ploded paralogism about the " day " of the narrative 

 being a geological period or epoch, in which he has 

 been anticipated by Mr. Kinns in his notorious work on 

 the game subject. Whatever may be asserted in the nine- 

 teenth century, it is abundantly evident that the narrator 

 of the legend believed that " the evening and the morning" 

 were ordinary ones ; and that it was upon this belief that 

 the reason given in Exodus xx., v. 11, for keeping the 

 Sabbath was founded. The quibble about seasons and 

 years being "contained " in the fourth day (p. 73) is whoUy 

 unworthy of the author. His ideas concerning prehistoric 

 man, the nature of Eve's sin, ic, if not original, possess a 

 certain amount of freshness ; but when he speaks of Adam's 

 predecessors possessing " only an animal nature ' like the 

 beasts of the field,' " we can only come to the conclusion 

 that he must be in sublime ignorance of the fifth chapter of 

 so easily accessible a book as Joly's " Man before Metals." 

 We had marked other passages for comment, but our 

 review has already exceeded its prescribed bounds. It 

 would have pleased us to record our belief that Mr. 

 Robinson had proved his thesis. It only remains to regret 



