102 



KNOWLEDGE 



[May 1, 1894. 



showing a slight fogging and other small photographic 

 defects, which are most evident near to the bottom of the 

 plate. But the general nebulosity on the left hand of the 

 plate — a nebulosity which is densest where the stars are 

 most thickly distributed — represents true nebulosity as 

 shown on Dr. Max Wolfs photographs. 



The cluster near to the centre of the plate exhibits 

 several radiating and branched streams of very faint stars 

 somewhat similar to the branching streams which are 

 shown radiating from the Hercules cluster in the photo- 

 graphs reproduced in Kno^v'ledge for June, 1893, but it 

 must be remembered that this photograph is on a very 

 small scale compared with the pictures of the Hercules 

 cluster above referred to. I should like to draw the 

 reader's attention to two curious undulating streams or 

 strings of stars, which extend from the cluster towards the 

 south or left hand side of the plate. 



A somewhat similar series of curves of stars will be 

 found about two inches higlier up on the plate — that is, 

 on the preceding side of the stream of stars trending to 

 the south from the cluster in the middle of the plate. 

 Fig. 1 shows them, and also shows a brighter line or 





;.•• \'. 



Fm. 1— Triple Arch of Stars, j 



channel running alongside the strings of stars. There 

 are several such bright channels or lanes (which on the sky 

 mean dark channels) m the nebulosity, very distinctly 

 traceable in Dr. Max Wolf's photographs, and also in 

 those of Prof. Barnard. If these channels were due to a 

 photographic defect, we should expect to find a nebulous 

 band joining the star images of a stream of stars rather 

 than a breach in the nebulosity lying on one side of the 

 star stream. It is easy to conceive that, owing to imper- 

 fections of the optical image representing a star, the 

 central spot of light might be surrounded by a nebulous 

 haze, which in the case of a row of stars would merge 

 together, and possibly in a photograph cause the stars to 

 appear to be linked together by a nebulous baud. But it 

 is difficult to conceive of any optical reason for this 

 reversed effect, especially as the brighter channels are not 

 always coincident with or parallel to lines of stars. 



I would invite the reader's attention to the curious small 



bright channels, as well as streams of faint stars, in the 



region of the plate reproduced in Fig. 2. It represents an 



area near to the top of the plate 



■.vCi'v* just below the beginning of the 



k" rt*- - ■-."".■■*'''*' word " preceding." 



a-V^v"V /•^•'■••''•'^•.*'i Some of the streams of fainter 



H''- v" r\^''^\*'>* ' ^^^^^ i^ t^'S region are very 



!f:ji'': Xf'^'^i-*'''^'''' striking, and must convince the 



't. ■■ >4 .'■'*'-% ,''.:!^\''' most sceptical of their reality. 



{,• /" ■;'■■'''.■ '/"**.'■<'■«. It is possible to draw an arc of a 



'j" •' . *^ ■ circle through any three stars, and 



■ ■ a conic section through any five ; 



(Fio. 2.— Curving Streams but where we find ten or twenty 



of Stars. stars falling into line, not once, 



but in many cases, and that there is 



a curious similarity between the strange curves and 



branching streams which these phalanges of stars mark 



out on the heavens, there is no room left for doubt that 



the mind is not being led away by a tendency of the 



imagination similar to that which finds faces in the fire, or 



sees a man carrying sticks on the face of the moon. 



If it is proved that a group of stars is arranged in line 

 or marshalled in any order, it would follow that the 

 individuals of the group must be actually as well as 

 apparently close to one another, and that they form some 

 kind of system, having all of them had a common origin, 

 or been subject to some common influence. What these 

 streams and curves of stars mean, and what forces have 

 marshalled them in lines, forms one of the grandest 

 problems of the future, one that I trust I may live to see 

 unravelled. 



Scwnct Notes. 



Mr. Worthington P. Smith, in his new book, " Man the 

 Primeval Savage," summarizes in a vivid chapter the 

 surroundings and general appearance of the palaeolithic 

 men. The forests which then so extensively covered the 

 British Isles harboured animals against which they had 

 ever to guard ; the lion, wild cat, bear, wolf, rhinoceros, 

 and hysena were among the most terrible to them, and the 

 elephant, mammoth, hippopotamus, and bison were no 

 doubt also to be feared. 



From the bones that have been found it is noticeable that 

 these earliest known men were shorter in stature, broader 

 in the back, and less upright than the man of the present 

 age ; but it is not so clear how Mr. Worthington Smith has 

 discovered that the hair which covered them was probably 

 of a bright chestnut red. The forehead receded, and 

 the heavy overshadowing brow-ridges suggest a creature 

 but little removed from the arboreal ape in his habits. 



Fear of their common enemies, those animals which 

 would attack stray men who were isolated from their 

 fellows and therefore helpless, obliged them to live in 

 social communities, and to give one another aid and pro- 

 tection to some extent. But, reasoning from the condition 

 of existing savages, Mr. Smith infers that the feebler 

 among them were recognized by the rest as being useless 

 to keep and unprofitable to provide for, so that if any one 

 of their companions was badly injured by accident or 

 attacked by disease, he was hunted away by the rest for 

 the wolves to rid them of him, or deliberately killed. 



Another marked resemblance to animal habits is seen in 

 their apparent neglect of their dead, unless they burnt 

 them ; for if any deliberate burial occurred, it is singular 

 no traces have survived. Possibly, as Mr. Smith hints, 

 they were cannibals, and not only the dead but the weaker 

 living among them became at times victims to the 

 stronger. Their chief labour was the manufacture of their 

 implements of flint, which were chipped out of the stories 

 in the shape of knives, arrow heads, and such weapons. 

 It is curious to notice that these were entirely fashioned 

 by dexterous chipping, and this was a matter of consider- 

 aijle difficulty when the projected implement was to have 

 a keen knife edge ; the idea of rubbing one flake on another 

 stone to produce a sharp edge did not occur to man till 

 the neolithic time. These, with branches of trees cut as 

 sticks, formed their only tools and weapons against wild 

 animals. With such flint tools they could hunt only 

 the smaller animals for food, but would possibly also 



devour the larger ones when they found them already dead. 

 — I • I — 

 At the last meeting of the Koyal Meteorological Society, 

 Mr. Inwards, the president, gave an account of various 

 balloon ascents which had been undertaken with the 

 object of making meteorological observations. In 1850 

 Messrs. Barral and Bixio, when they had ascended to 

 twenty thousand feet, found the temperature had sunk to 

 15° Fahr., but this was in a cloud, and on emerging from 

 it three thousand feet higher, the temperature fell as 



