Nov. 21, 1882.] 



KNOWLEDGE 



411 



>^I^V AN ILLiiSXR^TED 



V^ M & n i 7fMFnr^JFMl 



MAGAZINE OF SOENCE^' 



j__PLAlNL \iyORDED -£XACTI^ 1)ESCRIBED 



LONDON: FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1882. 



Contents of No. 56. 



Science and Art Gossip 411 



The Great Comet. By T. W. Webb -113 



The Keiiew. By the Editor 413 



The Libraries of Babylonia and 



Anti-Corset Philosophy and History 415 

 The Fuel of the Sun. By W. 



Mattieu WilUams 416 



Transits of Venus. (lUuttraled .) 



by R. A. Proctor 418 



The Great Sun-Spot. (lUutlraUd.) 419 



PiOH 



The Aurora 



Saturn's Rings 420 



Has the Moou an Atmosphere? By 



W. Mattieu WilUams 420 



Butterflies and Moths. By W. J. H. 



Clark 431 



CoESESPONDENCB : Self-Inoculation 



of Hydrophobia, &c., &c 422 



Answers to Correspondents 42:i 



Our Whiat Column 423 



Our Chess Column 421 



Science miH 9ivt <gO£(Sip, 



We hear with extreme regret of the death of Dr. Henry 

 Draper, Professor of Physiology at the University of New 

 York. It has followed very soon after the death of his 

 father. In Dr. H. Draper science loses an honest and 

 zealous worker ; one who has devoted time without promise 

 of reward to his scientific work, nay, has expended more 

 money in his free gift of labour to science than 

 some advocates of the Endowment of Research have 

 begged for. The discovery that oxygen, and probably 

 nitrogen, exist in the atmosphere of the sun, is due to 

 Dr. Draper, and would of itself suffice to keep his 

 memory green. Scarcely less important, however, was 

 his success in photographing the spectra of stars and 

 planets, of Wells's Comet, and the great Orion nebula. The 

 zeal and devotion with which he discussed the photographic 

 methods available for observing the transit of Venus in 

 1.S74 were fully recognised by his fellow-workers in science, 

 and even, wonderful to relate, by the Government. 



The Poet Laureate seems to find it difficult to believe 

 lie is not a dramatist. Perhaps this is because some unwise 

 critics described his first play as equal, af /caat, to Shake- 

 speare's "Henry YIII." (so much of that play as may be 

 Shakespeare's). " Queen Mary," where every character 

 comes in with his label, saying at the outset in eSect, " 1 

 am a clever person," or " Here you have a hypocrite," or 

 "Behold in me the chief villain," should have shown every 

 one of any critical judgment that our deservedly eminent 

 poet has no dramatic power wliatever. From bad to worse 

 and worst, has brought us the " Promise of May," where the 

 jioet's idea of what a freethinker ought to be (but what no 

 freethinker ever was or will be) is brought out in company 

 with an utterly impossible plot, the climax of the unnatural 

 being reached when a wretched girl, who returns to ask 

 for pardon from her father, seems to jest (though the poet, 

 no doubt, meant otherwise) at the words which sliow his 

 mind is wandering : — " Take me out, little maid," he says, 

 "this is one of my bad days:" there is a touch of true 

 pathos here, though rather poetic than dramatic, — and she 

 says, as he retires, " This is like to be the last of mi/ bad 

 days." 



The Postmaster-General, in reply to a question in the 

 House of Commons on the 9th inst., said that, taking a 

 radius of one mile from the Post-office, the proportion, of 

 underground to overhead telegraph wires was 1,822 miles 

 underground, as compared with 58 miles overhead. By far 

 the greater number of overhead wires belonged to telephone 

 and other companies, and not to the Post-office. In one 

 thoroughfare there were 97 overhead wires, only three of 

 which belonged to the Post-office. 



Among the proofs of the development of civilised races 

 from savage tribes are the lighting instincts, which the 

 reason rejects as unworthy, but which most of us feel none 

 the less. We suspect even Mr. Herbert Spencer, who 

 speaks with such contempt of these instincts, if he OQce 

 began a fight, would hold out while he could see or stand. 

 Many who hold (as we do) that all save defensive wars 

 degrade the nation that begins them, have in them fighting 

 instincts altogether independent of any question of right 

 or wrong ; instincts that once roused transform the whole 

 nature, or rather show our nature as we had not before 

 known it. So, too, " the pomp and circumstance of glorious 

 war," which reason holds in supreme contempt, affect the 

 calmest and the wisest. The fact is we are none of us so 

 wise as we think in these matters. " We must pay soldiers 

 to defend us, " said a " white-bearded fellow " at the march 

 past last Saturday ; " but it is not a noble employment," 

 2ind so H-eiter. A little lat«r the band struck up, the 

 martial pageant began, and lo ! our wise man was cheering 

 with the loudest. And why not ? If we must (and we 

 7nust) have fighting, those who do it for us deserve our 

 heartiest thanks, even though they are paid so many pence 

 a day for the work. And though military pomp no longer 

 ■ moves the more reasoning among us, one does not much 

 envy the man who can see a torn war-stained flag, and, 

 thinking what those rags and tatters mean, feels no thrill 

 as it is borne past him. 



A CORRESPONDENT who approves of our objections to the 

 publication of a private letter by Darwin's correspondent, 

 expresses further the opinion tliat while Darwin's views 

 about matters scientific must necessarily be of weight, his 

 views about religious matters cannot be equal in value to 

 those of men who liave given their whole life to the study 

 of revelation. We doubt if this would apply to his 

 opinion whether there has been a revelation. I5y parity of 

 reasoning the opinion of a Christian theologian should be 

 regarded as of no weight against the views of a learned 

 Buddhist respecting the validity of what /«• held to be 

 revelation. All that any theologian can do is to acquire 

 intimate and perfect knowledge of what those books teach 

 which are sacred to Jiim. Against the whole life of a 

 Christian, Maliommedan, or Buddhist theologian devoted 

 to the study of what he regards as a revelation (and two 

 out of the three mxs/ be mistaken), may very fairly be set 

 the whole life of another man devoted to study on a line 

 consistent, perhaps he may have thought with only a 

 material revelation. 



Ai'TKU a heavy storm of wind and rain, which terminated 

 yesterday wet^k, there was experienced the most severe 

 " magnetic storm " ever recorded. It commenced early last 

 Friday morning, and continued at irregular intervals until 

 Monday. The aurora was distinctly visible, and earth- 

 currents traversed the telegraph wires throughout the 

 country. The currents varied considerably in strength 

 and alternated in direction very rapidly, although the 



