Sept. 



♦ KNOAA^LEDGE ♦ 



239 





MAGAZINE OF SCIENCE 



PL AINLY^QRDED -EXACTDf DESCRIBED 



LONDON. ■ FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER S, 1882. 



Contents op No. 45. 



Science and Art Go6sip 239 Has the Moon an Atmosphere ? — II. 



The BriHsh Association. By the I {Ilhtilrated.) By Mr.RanTard ... : 



Editor 240 Science in Canada. By the ^Editor ; 



Professor Boyd Dairkins on River I New Views un Cricket 



Drift Man 242 i The Use of Opium : 



Was Rameses II. the Pharaoh of Butterflies and Moths 



the Oppression. — VIII, By Miss ; Our Paradox Comer 



Ameba B. Edwards 244 Correspondence : — Alcohol and 



The Scat of War in Egypt 244 Brain-work — Fairy Rings— Vari- 



Science in its Application to | cose Vein^ and Cycling, &c ; 



Domestic Life. By Percy Answers to Corresp'ondents : 



Russell ;. 245 Our Chess Column : 



^titmt aiiti girt (iosisip. 



Tuis week, owing to pressure on our space from British 

 Association matter, we omit the Wf'p.ther Charts, Our 

 Mathematical Column, and Whist. With regard to the 

 first, we may note that many readers complain of the space 

 occupied by these charts, " which tell us, after all," they 

 write, " only of past bad weather." The charts were in- 

 tended to form a collection of weather records, convenient 

 in form, and useful for future reference. Their scale, in- 

 deed, is rather small ; but no more space could be spared. 

 For our own part, we should be only too glad to devote the 

 space they occupy to other matter. We shall leave our 

 readers to decide. If we tind that far the larger portion 

 would prefer that these charts should be omitted and other 

 matter replace them, we shall attend to their wish. Only a 

 certain amount of space, of course, can be spared (on the 

 a\-erage) for weekly illustrations. If these charts disappear, 

 other illustrations, probably more useful, will replace them. 

 Of one thing our readers can be assured ; we wish to meet 

 their wishes, so far as is consistent with our scope and 

 purport, to the utmost of our power. Our power is 

 limited to some degree by our price ; but we do not propose 

 to increase it by any change in that direction. Still we 

 must note that some of our readers ask us to do much more 

 thaji could be afforded without such a change. We adhere 

 as far as we can to our original plan and purpose. We 

 warmly tliank those who have helped to increase tlie circu- 

 lation of Knowledge ; but when many write saying that 

 the new subscribers they have obtained want " more 

 astronomy," say some, " more electricity," say others, 

 more chemistry, biology, Ijotany, entomology, metallurgy, 

 geology, lie, ic, Ac., and more illustrations, and when we 

 tind that a weekly as large as one of our monthly 

 magazines would barely meet all these views — we find 

 ourselves rather at a loss what to do for the best 



A joke fifteen months old has but now come to my 

 knowledge. When I purchased from Messrs. Smith, Elder, 

 it Co., their rights m my three books— " The Borderland 

 of Science," "Science By-ways," and "The Poetry of 

 -Vstronomy " — they sent me (September 2) their collection 



of the press criticisms of those books, mostly new to me. 

 By the merest accident (for life is too short to read press 

 criticism) in turning these over I came across the following 

 odd illustration of the profundity of the Saturday Revieic, 

 and the wide reading of the learned writers who " do " its 

 criticisms. The Satun/ai/ Review for May 28, 1881, 

 dealing with my "Poetry of Astronomy," questions whether 

 I can be a ji;dge of poetry, for this solitary and also 

 singular reason — " Of the fineness of Mr. Proctor's ear, we 

 may to some e.xtent judge," it says, with fine irony, " from 

 his selecting for quotation a specimen of rhyme so exquisite 

 as — 



expanse of liquid, pure, 

 Transparent elemental air." 



It takes the Saturday Review to explain how badly Milton 

 rhymed in the " Paradise Lost ! " We can imagine a 

 criticism of that work two centuries ago, if the Saturday 

 Review had but existed then : — " We learn that the author 

 is blind ; he must be deaf, too ; at any rate we may to some 

 extent judge of the fineness of his ear from a specimen of 

 rhyme so exquisite as 



But, unfortunately for Milton, there was no Saturday 

 Review to teach him how to write poetry, as they have 

 taught Browning and Tennyson. 



In the report of the Anthropometric Committee of the 

 British Association (presented by Sir Rawson Eawson), it 

 is stated that the greatest stature is found in Scotland and 

 the Nortli of England, and the shortest in Wales, the Welsh 

 border counties, and the south-west of England. The 

 counties inhabited by men of more purely Saxon descent 

 are of medium stature. Allowing for the ethnological dif- 

 ference just mentioned, the inhabitants of elevated districts 

 possess a greater stature than those of alluWal plains. The 

 highest stature in the country is "0 inches, and the lowest 

 66. Sir Rawson Eawson added that the average stature of 

 the Scotch people is 68 71, of the Irish 67 90, of the English 

 6736, and of the Welsh 6666 in. The average of the 

 United Kingdom is according to this 67-66, or 5 ft. 7|in. 

 From observations made by Dr. Baxter and others in 

 America, it has been found that the average height of our 

 transatlantic cousins is just about the same as ours. Gene- 

 rally, it might be saicl that not only in England, but in 

 Europe, stature seems to diminish with the latitude of the 

 race. Professor Roberts said he considered that the size 

 and activity of the brain have much to do with physique : 

 others suggested that the use of tobacco arrests growth : 

 and Mr. Sclater-Booth remarked that climate, elevation, 

 distance from sea, occupation, diet, and smoking modify 

 growth. 



" Great dill'erence exists," said Professor Leoni Levi at 

 the late meeting of the British Association, " in the classes 

 of crimes and offences in England, Scotland, and Ireland 

 respectively. Honour and property are safest in Ireland ; 

 the person is safest in Great Britain ; drunkenness is worst 

 in Ireland. Geographically crime is least in the north, 

 midland, and south-eastern counties, and most in the north- 

 western. The agricultural counties have less crime than 

 the manufacturing and mineral. Crime following the 

 density of population, the bulk of our criminals consist of 

 persons having no occupation and common lal>ourers, whose 

 means are precarious ; hence the relation of crime to savings 

 and wealtli is very intimate. The number of persons com- 

 mitted for trial in England and Wales in 1880 was 19 per 



