1882.J 



* KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



207 



"1 



AN lUyilRATED ^^Jpl 



MAGAZINE OF SOTNCE 



PLAlNLYlfQRDED -£XACTLY-B£ SCRIB£D 



LOXDOX : FRIDAY, AUGUST 25, 1882. 



Contents op No. 43. 



PiGK I PIGI! 



The British Association 207 I Butterflv Printiag. By E.S.Parker 213 



Science and Art Gossip 207 1 Has the Moon an Atmo-iphere ? 



Cloud in the Air (iHiirfra^ai). Bv > {Iltu.trattd) , By Mr. KanTard . . 21 1 



the Editor :. 208 , Eeviews .' 21B 



A Glass of Wine. By Dr. Eaton I Weather Charts for the Week 



I«we, M.A 209 : The PubUc Health 



Eneliah Seaside Health - Kesorts : i Butterflies and Moths 



Cflaasification. Bv Alfred Havi- Correspondence : — Mr. Matthe< 



land. M.E.C.S.," F.E.M.C.S. Arnold on Knowledge 



Lond 211 Answers to .Correspondents. 



Hectric Lightinj and its Risks 2'i , Our Whist Colnmn 



X«armng to Swim. By Natator ... 212 1 Our Chess Colomn 



^titmt anil art 6oggip. 



Southampton, Aug. 22, 1882. 

 If we may judge from some of our daily and weekly 

 contemporaries, the proper thing at this juncture would 

 be to occupy live or six columns of Knowledge with 

 matter more or less carefully compiled from a South- 

 ampton guide-book. As. however, we do not see in what 

 way this would be useful to those of our readers who are 

 not visiting Southampton, while those who are will probably 

 provide themselves with one or other of the various guide- 

 books sold here, we will not inflict on our readers disser- 

 tations on Cerdic the Saxon, the Danish irruptions into 

 Hampshire, Bevis of Hamptoune, and other subjects not 

 strictly pertinent to science or art, or even to tlie British 

 Association, except as aflfording matter for gossip during 

 the excursions with which the committees propose to lighten 

 the work of science. As to the Association itself, it is known 

 to our readers that Dr. Siemens will preside, as successor to 

 Sir John Lubbock, that Professors Thomson, Moseley, and 

 others will deliver lectures, and that there will be the cus- 

 tomary sectional gatherings. Whatever of interest may 

 transpire on these occasions we shall describe, without 

 technicalities, and as clearly and succinctly as possible, to 

 the readers of Knowlf-doe. noting that, as on former 

 occasions, the bulk of the yearly volumes issued by the 

 Association has not always afforded an exact measure of 

 the matters of real novelty and interest brought before the 

 members and associates, so it may be that we shall not find 

 it necessary to describe, even in abstract, every single com- 

 munication which may on this occasion be brought under 

 the notice of the Association. In thus endeavouring to 

 separate the wheat from such chaff" as may possilily come 

 under the action of our winnowing fan, we believe we shall 

 be rendering as useful a service to our reatlers as in sub- 

 stituting, as far as possible, the words of ordinary discourse 

 for the technicalities of scientific verbiage. 



Several correspondents ask that there sliould be 

 more astronomy, and especially that the papers sliould 

 be resumed and extended in which monthly notice 

 was given of celestial phenomena. When these were 



in progress, several complained that there was too much 

 astronomy, and the editor (himself naturally prefer- 

 ring to have as much astronomy as readers would stand) 

 yielded to their wishes. He proposes, however, after 

 British Association matters have been disposed of, to 

 resume and extend (but with care to attain compactness) 

 the astronomical notes, which seem to have proved of real use 

 to amateurs. Among the plans which he intends to carry 

 out, is the monthly issue of a map of some constellation 

 favourably placed for observation, with the places shown of 

 all double stars of interest in Mr. Webb's " Celestial Objects 

 for Common Telescopes," accompanied by drawings of ten 

 or twelve of those objects. He trusts thus to form a collec- 

 tion which will prove of interest and value to amateur 

 telescopists. A series of views of the northern heavens 

 as seen from southern latitudes, which will be in reality 

 views (for the same hours) of the southern heavens as seen 

 from northern latitudes (a problem which we present for 

 the amusement and study of the flat-earth men) will also 

 appear monthly in Knowledge. Our geological contri- 

 butor has not hitherto been able to fulfil his promises, but 

 we trust he will shortly do so. 



A Max of Great Brain. — The heaviest brain ever 

 weighed in the United States was taken from the skull of 

 James H. Madden, who died in Leadville on July G. The 

 doctor who attended him during his last sickness had 

 observed the immense frontal and lateral development of 

 his head, and determined to weigh the brain, but his 

 astonishment was great when it brought down the scales 

 at sixty-two and a quarter ounces. Cuvier's brain weighed 

 sixty-four and a half ounces — considerably surpassing all 

 other records — but the brains of Napoleon, Agassiz, and 

 Webster, though phenomenally heavy, were much liu'hter 

 than Madden's. It is an interesting circumstance that 

 Madden was not a naturalist, a soldier, or a statesman, 

 but a gambler. 



Measurements of the winter movement of a large 

 glacier in North Greenland (the Fjord of Jacobshavn), 

 have been recently made by Herr Hammer, and the 

 siuumer observations of Herr Helland on the same glacier 

 in 187.5 can be compared with them. The velocity is 

 much the same, apparently, in summer and in winter ; 

 about fifty feet in twenty-four hours may be taken to re- 

 present the rate in the middle of the glacier, where it is 

 greatest. 



LTpiiE.wiNO or Land. — The Finnish newsp.apers record 

 a striking instance of the extent to which the land on the 

 shores of the Gulf of Bothnia is being gradually upheaved. 

 It appears that on June 2-">, 17 •'>•'>, a land-surveyor named 

 Erik Klingius, residing in the parish of Bergo, between 

 the town of Nikolaistadt and Kaskii, made an excavation 

 in the smooth rock at an elevation of two inches above the 

 level of the sea. On being lately measured, the present 

 height was found, after the lapse of 127 years, to be six 

 feet five inches above the sea-level. 



W.\TER FROM Wood. — By thrusting the ends of green 

 scrub wood — " mallec scrub " — in the firt>, and catching the 

 sap driven out at the other end in a bark trough, an 

 Australian supplied himself with water and saved his life 

 while crossing in a waterless region. He says that a dozen 

 malice sticks, 4 ft long and 2 in. or 3 in. in diameter, would 

 give a pint of water in an hour, and suggests that the 

 same device may possibly be found of vital importance to 

 other bush-rangers and travellers in arid regions. 



