May. 101. 



KN()\\Li:i)GH. 



conversion of Matter to Mind " : " Food an Interest " ; '" Why 

 do we not all think alike ? " and " Law that defeats itself." 



PHYSICS. 



Stiulies in Terrcstrinl Magnetism. — By C. ChreE, M.A., 



F.K.S. 206 pages. 43 illustrations. 9-in.X6-in. 



(Macniillan & Co. Price 5 - net.) 



Dr. Chree's object in publishing his studies is to give a 



connected account of his own original work. 



TOPOGR.M'HV. 



To flic West of Enclaud by Canal. — By Robert J. Finch, 

 F.R.G.S. 63 pages. 16 illustrations. 7-in. X4iin. 



(J. M. Dent & Sons. Price 9d.) 



This small book is one of " The Educational Journey 

 Series," and is concerned with the topography, scenery, 

 geology, as well as the works of primitive and later man, along 

 a line running from Reading to Bristol. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



THLNDERSTOKMS. 



To the Editors of '" Knowledgi:." 

 SiKS, — I see in a recent issue of "Knowledge" Mr. 

 Tankerville-Chamberlayne remarks on the curious fact that 

 one never hears of anyone who has observed a thunderstorm 

 commence overhead. No doubt it does strike one as singular 

 until >ou begin to calculate and see how often such a fact 

 would be observed. 



If we consider that any flash of lightning is more or less 

 overhead which occurs in a circle of oneanda-half or two 

 miles diameter, and that thunder can be heard probably at 

 least fifteen miles away, that is, in a circle of thirty miles 

 diameter, we see that the ratio of storms beginning overhead 

 to those not thus beginning is one to four hundred or one to 

 two hundred and twenty-five, for the area of the large circle is 

 from two htmdred and twenty-five to four hundred times that 

 of the small one. Taking an average of ten thunderstorms a 

 year, we see that on an average only once in about thirty years 

 would any individual experience the commencement of a storm 

 overhead, and any one might easily forget an event happening 

 so rarely. I see some authorities put down ten miles as the 

 limit of audibility of thunder, but in this land of far distances, 

 where you can see a storm playing o\er a kopje twenty miles 

 distant, and can thus be sure of the distance of the thunder 

 cloud, you will. I think, find that eighteen or twenty miles is not 

 too far oft" to hear thunder. Under favourable circumstances 

 I should not be surprised if I heard it even more than that. 



Cape Town. 



THEODORE B. HL.ATHW.AYT. 



PKIMITIVI-: const!:llations. 

 To the Editors of " Knowledge." 



Sirs, — .A writer on the "Primitive Constellations" is 

 responsible for this statement : — " The catalogued Tablets in 

 the K collection of the British Museum alone number fourteen 

 thousand two hundred and thirty, the far greater portion of 

 which are astronomical. Most of these have yet to be 

 examined." In the November part of " Knowledge " you 

 have given us Professor Bickerton's confession, " Astronomy 

 has become somewhat dry and arid. Official astronomers do 

 not care for theories, for the linking silken cords of correla- 

 tion." and so on. Now, I believe the astronomical knowledge 

 of the Babylonians commands our highest respect, and it is 

 quite possible that even in these enlightened days we may 

 learn much from their imperishable records. .Amidst the 

 wrangle amongst scholars, is there not one that can clear up 

 the mystery and speak with unquestionable authority on the 

 origin of the old constellation figures and what they were 

 meant to depict ? 



Are these figures pictorial representations of absurd Greek 

 myths, or are we to go beyond the times of Greece ? 



Why should this branch of astronomy be left buried in 

 the dust-heap of the ages ? Perhaps some of your readers 

 have gone deeply into these things, and could publish an 

 article that would stimulate and guide others who are 

 groping for light along these lines. 



D. S. B. SQUIRE. 



Hobsonville. 



.\uckland, N.Z. 



NOTICES. 



PH<jTO-MICRO(iR.\PHV. — We may remind our readers 

 that Mr. E. Senior's course of practical demonstrations on 

 Photo-micrography begins on May 6th, and will be continued 

 on the five following Mondays, from 7.30-9.30, at the South- 

 western Polytechnic, Chelsea. 



RESEARCH DEFENCE SOCIETY.— Sir David Gill. 

 K.C.B.. F.R.S., has succeeded Lord Cromer as President of 

 the Research Defence Society, and Lord Cromer, the Right 

 Hon. A. J. Balfour, Sir Edward Elgar, O.M., Mr. Rudyard 

 Kipling, and Lord Rayleigh. O.M.. have consented to be Vice- 

 Presidents of the Society. 



THE ROYAL INSTITUTION.— The following Lectures 

 will be given on Friday evenings at 9 o'clock during May: — 

 (3rd) "The Use of Pedigrees." by Mr. W. C. Dampier 

 Whethani. F.R.S. : UOth) "The Gaumont Speaking Cinema- 

 tograph F-ilms," by Professor W. Stirling; il7th) "High 

 Frequency Currents." by'Mr. W. Duddell. F.K.S. ; (31st) " Ice- 

 bergs and their Location in Navigation, " by Professor How.ird 

 T. Barnes. F.R.S., who will also deliver the Tyndall Lectures 

 on "Ice Formation in Canada " on Thursdays (16th and 23rd). 

 at 3 o'clock. On Tuesdays (14th and 21st) Professor Bateson. 

 F.R.S., will lecture on " The Study of Genetics." 



BEDROCK: THE NEW SCIENTIFIC QUARTERLY 

 REVIEW. — The first number of this magazine has appeared 

 and contains seven articles,' all of which are worthy of most 

 careful reading. Professor Welton's twenty pages show the 

 position and usefulness of logic at the present day. .As 



dealing with the interpretation of facts the writer points out 

 that a complete employment of logical method may be the 

 work of several minds, that the interpreter is not always the 

 observer or not alone the observer, just as he frequently is 

 not the only verifier, is never the only elaborator. Professor 

 Welton agrees with Professor Turner's insistence (Address to 

 the Mathematics and Physics Section at the British Association 

 in 1911) on exact knowledge of facts and his warning against 

 premature hypothesis, but Professor Welton urges that the 

 idea that collected facts— or records of facts — " tell their own 

 tale," may have, and often has had, disastrous consequences 



Mr. Archdall Reid devotes a good many pages of his paper 

 on Recent Researches in Alcoholism to a discussion on natural 

 selection as it aft'ects mankind. He still emphasises his 

 contention that a race must be drunk before it is sober, and 

 that it is by natural selection weeding out those who cannot 

 withstand diseases or succumb to the temptation of drugs, 

 that we get comparative immunity in a race to a particular 

 disease or a deleterious habit. Dr. Gossage in the last article, 

 when discussing " Human Evidence of Evolution," offers 

 other explanations. Professor Poulton has a good deal to say 

 in praise of the way in which Bergson has put forward his 

 theory of evolution as depending upon creative internal 

 developmental force, but, nevertheless, in the two instances 

 which are brought forward, namely, the nature of instinct and 

 the growth of a mimetic resemblance, Professor Poulton shovys 

 without difficulty that the Darwinian interpretation can explain 

 the results, whereas the Bergson solution breaks down entirely. 



