June 2, 18S2.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE • 



LONDON: FRIDAY, JUNE 2, 1882. 



>^ 



Contents of No. 31. 



Science it the KoT»l Academy 



m'as Rameses II. the Pharaoh of 



the OppresaioD? Bv Amelia 1). 



£dvards. I.— The Argument of 



DeRooRe 



The Seaside Health Resorts of 



England. Bv Alfred Hariland. 



fopulation of the Earth 



Our Anccatora. IV.— The Final 



Milture. Bjr Grant Allen 



Winning Wagers. Bv the Editor . 

 round Lints. Part Vll. By Dr. 



Andrew WiL=on, F.E.S.E., F.L.S. 



Home Cures for Poisons 



Amateur Electrician (IllurtnileJ) 



The Eclipse 



Butteraies an i M • , I' \'. J 

 H.Clark 



Ma«andWci-t. i 1 



MuchBrai^-^\.M\ 1' , ■ 1 . 1- 



Weather Charts t.ir \\ et-k Kndiii 



; Monday. May 2a 



I Correspondence 



i Answers to Correspondents 



' Our Mathematical Column 



I Our Chess Column 



I Oor Whist Column 



THE EOYAL ACADEMY. 



TO the lovers of the old-fashioned style of landscapes, 

 with subdued mahogany as the prevailing tint, few 

 |>aiutings in this year's exhibition will he more charming 

 than Mr. Leader's " Morning : the Banks of the Ivy, O ! " 

 No. 550, Gallery '\'I. The painting is, in fact, very 

 pleasing, but it is not often that these tints are seen in 

 nature. Certain French, Flemish, and Dutch paiiiters 

 affect them, and we presume they must have seen them ; 

 we have not been so fortunate ourselves. Facing this 

 picture is one which will grievously offend all those who 

 think that art should set the fa.shion to nature, Mr. 

 Charles Stuart's " .Sunny Autumn," No. 627. Vi'e have 

 «eldom seen finer and less exaggerated light than there is 

 in this really charming picture. We have not a blaze of 

 light in which all details are lost, as in so many of Turner's 

 landscapes, nor have we staring contrasts, but a gentle 

 light seems to shine through the landscape. The tender 

 Autumn glow is rendered perfectly. Certain optical effects 

 .are erroneously presented, however. The vertical reflec- 

 tions (very faint, it is true) in the water, do not coiTe- 

 spond to any feature in the landscape which in nature 

 would cast such reflections. At an earlier or later time 

 than that shown in the painting, when the shadows 

 were more marked, they may have been seen, but not 

 Otherwise. However, this painting is really so beautiful 

 that we feel loth to touch on what is, after all, a very 

 trivial fault. No. 5.")7, " Winter and Eough Weather," by 

 3Ir. Moore, seems intended as a parody on Turner at his 

 wildest. In passing, we notice again a picture in the same 

 i-oom to which we have already referred, — "E.xtremes ^leet," 

 by Mr. Alfred Strutt — to explain that when we spoke of 

 incorrect drawing, we referred not to tlie dogs but to the 

 background. Considered apart from the background, the 

 big fellow is a very tine dog, and the little " toy " beside 

 him only duly small : but, considered with reference to 

 tlie background, botii dogs look smaller than they should be. 



We must notice some of the portraits in tlie galleries of 

 painting and of sculpture. But we are told that there is 

 a great pressure on space this week, so we leave this to 

 another occasion. 



We may, in passing, consider some of the water-colour 



paintings. "The Dying Day," by Walter E. Stocks, is 

 \ ery finely painted, tiie etl'ects of the dying lights being 

 well caught. Miss Kate Macaulay, in "Scotch Herring 

 Trawlers," No. 804, and "A Sea Cliff," No. 9U, represents 

 a very curious substance, on which boats are placed as they 

 might be placed on the sea ; but it is not sea — nor have we 

 any idea what it is — it is like nothing we have ever seen 

 outside this lady's paintings. Mr. Arthur Croft, in Nos. 902 

 and 906 — the latter a magnificent painting — has admirably 

 dealt with the difficulties involved in the correct delinea- 

 tion of misty air in water-colours ; while in the "Port of 

 Algiers, Africa," No. 917, he as skilfully represents the 

 effects of an exceptionally pure atmosphere. In No. 1,056, 

 " Hill-side at Assisi," ilr. Henry Goodwin tries to repre- 

 sent a rainbow! " Coneysthorpe," No. 1,062, by Sir. 

 Walter F. Stocks (it was hardly necessary to add to our 

 last sentence that Mr. Goodwin utterly fails in represent- 

 ing a rainbow), is a painting in the old-fashioned style, but 

 very charming, too. We must ask Mr. Proctor about the 

 moons in Nos. 1,09-1 and 1,099. The horned moon in the 

 latter, "An August Evening," by Mr. Walter F. Stocks, 

 is certainly unlike the homed moon as we have ever seen 

 it on an evening when the air is so pure, — the horns 

 being fluff\- in a clear sky. But can the line joining 

 the horns of the setting moon in autumn be nearly up- 

 right '] we always thought that they were at right angles 

 to a line from the sun. [.So they are. We have seen 

 both this moon and the moon in "Cairo from the Mo- 

 hattam Hills," by Tristrsim Ellis (No. 1,094), (gibbous near 

 the place of sunrise at early morning), and both are, in an 

 astronomical sense, utterly wrong. Of the artistic qualities 

 of either painting we would not venture, of course, to 

 express an opinion. But we can see no earthly, or 

 heavenly, reason why the hea\enly bodies should not be 

 correctly represented in paintings, — even by Royal Aca- 

 demicians. Is there anything inartistic in correctness T 

 On the cover of the two first thousand of our " Easy Star 

 Lessons " there was a sort of parody on Orion, and we 

 were told, when we remarked on its utter inaccuracy, that 

 it was meant to be artistic. Is the real Orion of the skies 

 u';fortunately inartistic ! We note that iu the painting of 

 " The Saving of the Capitol " — we have not our artist by 

 us to tell us the number and painter, and the printers are 

 waiting — there is a sort of attempt to represent certain 

 familiar star-groups ; but the painter seems to have been 

 afraid lest there might be something inartistic in putting 

 in the stars as they exist in reality (or, it occurs to us as 

 possible, he may think they have altered since tlie time of 

 ancient Rome). It would be as artistic, I should say, to 

 represent limbs and muscles incorrectly as tlie stars which 

 garland tlie heavens. There is nothing essentially artistic 

 in incorrectness. — Ed.] 



WAS RAMESES II. THE PHARAOH 

 OF THE OrPKESSION? 



Bv Amelia B. Edwakd.s. 



L— THE ARGUMENT OF DE ROUGE. 



f^piIE busy, practical world does not, as a rule, concern 

 .1. itself very warmly in matters of arclia>ological re- 

 search, aiul rarely indeed has any discovery of a purely 

 arclui-ological character taken so jxjwerful a hold upon the 

 attention of the general public as did the recent dis- 

 covery at Thebes. The first announcement of the decipher- 

 ment of tlie Deluge Tablets by the late George Smith 

 can alone be compared with it iu this respect ; but the 



