Dec. 1, 1882; 



• KNOVVTLEDGE ♦ 



425 



j >^ MAGAZINE OF SOENCE"^ 



[_PLAINLY \f ORBED -£XACT I^DESCRIBED J 



LONDON: FRIDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1882. 



COJTTEKTS OP No. 57 



Sdence and Art Gossip 425 



lieaming Languages. By B. A. 



Proctor 427 



Onr Chemistry Column. ByWilliam 



Jago, F.C.S 427 1 



Corset - Wearing. By E. A. 



Proctor 429 



The Comet's Path in December. 



ilUmlrattd.) 430 



The Aurora 431 



The Great Sun-Spot. [nhistraM.) 431 

 The Fuel of the Son 432 



Has the Moon an' Atmosphere ? (II- 



Electro-Motors 



Correspondents . 

 Mathematical Column , 



■Whist Column 



Chess'Colnmn 



^tiimt anil art (iosisiip. 



The comet seems to be a fruitful subject of error — or, 

 at least, of change of opinion. Prof. Chandler, 'who out- 

 Heroded the sensation-mongers by saying the comet had 

 actually gone through the sun, no'w sits in judgment on 

 Prof. Smyth and the rest, 'with a new orbit, showing no 

 coincidence with the orbits of the comets of 1843 and 

 1880. He seems nearer the truth this time, and we give 

 the deduced path of the comet, with Hind's estimate for 

 November for comparison. 



Dr. Siemens' theory is getting rather roughly used. 31. 

 Faye has given one of the many proofs of its incorrectness. 

 M. Hirn follows with three, one being that which the 

 Editor gave in these columns immediately after the theory 

 'was published (we shall translate his paper for next week). 

 Dr. 'Tommasi gives yet another disproof, ending with the 

 remark that the hypothesis " would lead to perpetual 

 motion, and therefore to absurdity." Those who recognised 

 this at the outset should have spoken as plainly as we did. 

 It would have saved much wasted time, and much mis- 

 apprehension among the inexperienced. 



The Electric Storm. — One of the most remarkable 

 features attending the electrical disturbances to which we 

 made reference last week, was that in two wires running 

 side by side, one going about two miles further than the 

 other, currents were travelling in opposite directions simul- 

 taneously. 



America appears to have had a stronger visitation than 

 'was observed at home. The effect upon electrical appa- 

 ratus in various parts of the States was very great. A 

 supreme joke appears, however, to have been played upon 

 the New York correspondent of one of our daily contem- 

 poraries, who wired that " Bangor worked a message a 

 distance of 700 miles without a battery. At Milwaukee, 

 by means of the storm alone, an electric light, requiring 

 eight horse-power, was kept burning for some time." This 

 is very rich. What will the gas folk say to it 1 



It is a noteworthy fact that every electric storm noticed 

 recently has occurred at a time when spots of a greater 

 or less magnitude are observed on the sun. 



At a meeting of the City (London) Commissioners of 

 Sewers, held on Tuesday week, a prolonged discussion took 

 place on a report by Mr. W. H. Preece on the subject of 

 electric lighting, and it was ultimately resolved by 22 to 

 21, " That while the Commission was in favour of electric 

 lighting in the abstract, it was advisable to allow all 

 further experiments to be conducted at the risk of the 

 lighting companies, and not at the expense of the rate- 

 payers." 



Artificial turquoise are made in Paris and Vienna that 

 cannot be distinguished by external appearances from the 

 natural product, and when artistically made can only be 

 distinguished by means of the file, being usually softer. 

 The .Scientific Amet-icnn says they are made from phosphate 

 of alumina and phosphate of copper mixed together, and 

 subjected to hydraulic pressure. Even in chemical compo- 

 sition it resembles the natural mineral, which is a hydrated 

 phosphate of alumina with 2 per cent, of oxide of copper. 



A cop.EESPOXDEKT sends us the following letter from Mr. 

 Darwin, in 1873, to N. D. Doedes, a Dutch gentleman, who 

 wrote to ask him his opinion on the existence of a God. 

 Mr. Darwin wrote : — It is impossible to answer your 

 question briefly ; I am not sure that I could do so, even if 

 I 'wrote at some length. But I may say that the impossi- 

 bility of concei%-ing that this grand and wondrous universe, 

 with our conscious selves, arose through chance, seems to 

 me our chief argument for the existence of God ; but 

 whether this is an argument of real value, I have never 

 been able to decide. I am aware that if we admit a first 

 cause, the mind still craves to know whence it came and 

 how it arose. Nor can I overlook the difficulty from the 

 immense amount of suffering through the world. I am 

 also induced to defer to a certain extent to the judgment 

 of the many able men who have fully believed in God ; but 

 here, again, I see how poor an argiunent this is. The 

 safest conclusion seems to be, that the whole subject is 

 beyond the scope of man's intellect ; but man can do his 

 duty." This interesting letter was published first in De 

 Dagerand, a Dutch Freethought paper, and has just been 

 sent to Dr. Aveling by a Dutch Freethinker. 



With the six large Edison dynamo-machines in the New 

 York central installation, each driven by engines indicating 

 from 120 to 1"'0 horse-power, it has been found, says the 

 Engineer, that if one machine falls in speed, the currents 

 from the other macliines short-circuit themselves through 

 the machine which has dropped in speed, and thus over- 

 power the engine driving it. 



At a meeting of the Royal Dublin Society, Dr. G. 

 Johnstone Stoney made a communication " On 'the energy 

 expended in propelling a bicycle." Dr. Stoney referred to 

 a bicycle match of twenty-six competitors between London 

 and Bath, in which the winner did 21 1 miles in twenty- 

 four hours, and fourteen others travelled over 1 50 miles 

 a-day each. A bicyclist travelled from London to John 

 o' Groat's House in thirteen days, being at the rate of 7G 

 miles a-day. These were the performances of athletes, but 

 an ordinary young person could travel 60 miles a day, 

 and a man between 50 and 60 years of age, 30 

 miles a day. The result of his experiments showed 



