Dec. 1, 1882.] 



KNOV\^LEDGE 



441 



ments the angles B, C, A all equal— Q.E. non D.— J. A., Stockport, 

 wishes to know how old oil paintings, having a thick, hard coating 

 of dirty varnish, can best be restored.— S. R. C. (1) Comet's 

 nncleus has not passed over any star. (2) " Things divine " to one 

 man may be blasphemies to another, and vice rer^'ii, what this last 

 reverences the other may abhor. If I should tell you it " hurts 

 my feelings" to hear men talk of a Being who must be not only 

 Almighty, but All wise, as if he could bo an unreasonable 

 despot of the Oriental type, to be propitiated by fetislies, I 

 hope you would " take the remark in the kindly way in 

 which it is meant." I wonder, by the way, whether yon 

 can view Darwin's rejection of the idea of a jealous God 

 with a tithe of the horror with which he, probably, viewed 

 that idea, regarded as an explanation of one of the saddest 

 of nature's laws. (3) I take it you do not jjlay whist. Let me 

 recommend it to you as a valuable rest after hard mental work. 

 (4) Instructions for making a sun-dial would occupy too much 

 space just now. Subjects crowd in so, and our price so limits our 

 space, what can be done but to omit some ? — P. C. G. Not in our 

 line.— T. S. B. Neither is your subject.- F. W. Fo.ster. All others 

 greatly approve of his articles. — Harry Sweeting. Feeling your- 

 self " able to perform that original piece of work," you offer full 

 explanations of optical illusions, in a series of papers " probably 

 going through a whole year of Knowledge." In the first you will 

 explain a common looking-glass, in the nest Pepper's ghost and the 

 living head. "There are plenty of diagrams." You "hope that 

 we will help you to become a popular science writer," and 

 in a jiostscript, you " could write equally well on any 

 other scientific subject." We will help you as far as we 

 can, by advising you to wait until you have learned to 

 write unequally well on different scientific subjects. ^ — C. 

 Gray, M. Morrison, J. Hargreate, and many others who have 

 written about aurora — many thanks. — T. W. BoswoETn, Septimus 

 B., and others. Know nothing personally of Mr. Stanley, the 

 African explorer. — P. Ebbctt. Pressure of correspondence pre- 

 vented. — J. Greenfield. (1) Yes, Mr. Fothergill's view is as in- 

 consistent with the narrative as the narrative with scientific 

 possibilities. (2) If the earth reversed her rotation for 10 degrees, or 

 evenstoppedrotatingfor a second, the heat generated would melt most 

 of her globe. Imagine a mass at the equator travelling more than 

 1,000 miles an hour brought suddenly to rest ! In latitude 60 north 

 half that rate ! Where we are, about twenty mUes a minute ! How 

 would you Uke if you were in an express train, going only one mile a 

 minute, to be brought suddenly to rest ? Did I say that if a" planet 

 were to reverse its orbit no change would take place ? I must have 

 been dreaming. I meant to say (and think I did say) that if a 

 planet bad ohanced to have had a retrograde iastead of an 

 advancing course, I believed (Laplace notwithtasnding) the 

 solar system would have been quite as stable as it is. Those 

 other subjects must really not be dragged in. Those who 

 crave most to hear what science has to say about them, are just 

 those who get angriest when science does speak her mind. Perhaps 

 the truest thing science can say is De »« mi iHiS — de rninimi.i iniiii- 

 morum — non curat scientia. — J. C. S. Thanks. Will try to find 

 space. Questioner asked for a HI/ solution. — E. M. Rites. "Thanks; 

 a clerical error. — R. R. Baldrev. Emphatically no, I say with you ; 

 the creature you refer to is an idol, and a very hideous one. — H. C. 

 (1.) Subject nearly done with ; it was originally to have been more 

 briefly dealt with. (2.) Darwin meant simply that science has 

 only to give its own teachings, net to concern itself with other 

 matters. People who want to show that Buddhism, or Mahoiu- 

 medanism, or any other ism, can or cannot be reconciled 

 with science, are perfectly free to do so. It is no affair 

 of science. (3.) So many things are possible in the sun. 

 (4.) Cremation rather an undesirable subject. So few care 

 about it. For my own [lart, I care nothing what is done with my 

 body when I have done with it. If chessmen were made of my 

 bones, that were about as much as I could want, and more also. — 

 J. Fraskr. Have no room for your theory of comets' tails ; quite 

 inconsistent with tho evidence. — F. Barrett. Much gratified. 

 Star maps naturally concluded with ended year. Tho stars come 

 year after year the same, Knowledge must not do so. In ConihUl 

 Magazine for November, there is an account of comet. — J. L. Have 

 given as much space as can afford to rain-band spectioscope. — Ex- 

 I'ERTo Crede refers J. to "A sequel to fiist six books of Euclid," 

 Longmans, p. 152. — Osborne Pkanglev. Thanks. Subject vciy 

 difficult. Touched on further in my book on " Sun." Doubt if 

 anything known to us helps towards solution. — Sogn. Christian 

 Commonicealth is not a paper we see, unless sent to us ; so wo have 

 no means of knowing what they may have replied to the criticism 

 they invited. If their response pleased you, they evidently know 

 for whom they write. Your letter about Orkney auroras is not 

 written quite so clearly as we could wish, or it should 

 appear. Perhaps you form your style on the Co»imonirea(t/i. 



Know nothing better than Todhunter. — S. Grove. A 

 good idea. — T. Smith. They would fall in same time. — Scalpel. 

 Bicycling is said to be good for chest. I doubt it, noting the atti- 

 tude of bicyclers at top speed. Word " knickerbocker " has no 

 meaning ; simply derived from Washington Irving' s story. — J. W. B. 

 " Instantaneity " is the right way. — Pl-er. You surprise me. In 

 America they clear and fill a car quickly enough. — J. Alston. Only 

 moderate rowing ; tricycle better for most. Cannot remember any 

 microscope at stated price. — H. G. Pinfield. Usually called 

 " power 2 linear." They talk of 6,000 magnifying power, but 

 it has never been attained. — J. A. Ollard. Thanks. On last 

 point, I doubt whether it is wise to study Euclid without 

 the letters. My own experience is that the more you 

 ease the work in such matters the better the progress in 

 geometry. — Ignoramus. Question would open door to too much 

 gratis advertising.— A. Crevasse. No time to solve problems. 

 The offices wliich Knowledge can discharge are Umitcd, 

 — amongst them private tutorial work is not now included. 

 — Cairngorm. Has that theory of comets' tails (viz., that comets 

 are transparent bodies, and tail shows the track of solar rays 

 through finely-divided matter) been suggested ? Not by more 

 than ton milUon persons, I should say ; but certainly more 

 than two millions. It is hopelessly wrong. — A CoEBESPONDENr 

 notes that the book mentioned by Mr. Fothergill, p. 407, is the 

 "Green Hand," not the "Green Land." 'Tis true. It is also 

 true that the "Green Hand" is one of the cleverest books (sea- 

 books) ever written. What a disappointment Mr. 6. Cnpple's next 

 sea-book, "The Two Frigates," was! — A. McLean. That would 

 be the only way to make the Star Maps useful in Southern 

 Hemisphere. Comet's path not looped, though much twisted. 

 Account of comet rather too long and too full of less im- 

 portant details. — Upsala. (1) Are the diameters major and 

 minor of the axes of cometic orbits so very distinct ? If 

 yon can draw us a picture of, say, the orbit of Venus — one 

 foot in diameter, to show without close measurement, the difference- 

 of the diameters, we will have a steel engraving made of it. (2.) 

 Does that Gossip note read like anger ? Then it very little repre- 

 sents our meaning. Pardon me, but the inter-planetary (not 

 planitary) theory we were dealing with wanted hydrogen and 

 water vapours. Yours (if you have one) possibly does not. Whea 

 we sit on that theory it will be time to correct our mistaken notions 

 respecting it. Oliver Goldsmith's remark that "mathematics 

 seems a science to which the meanest intellects are equal," repre- 

 sents a favourite idea of those whose intellects —if this view is- 

 correct — cannot be among the meanest, because they find mathe- 

 matics too many for them. — H.iMLET Electratob. " As all things 

 have emerged from darkness, what would they become if they 

 returned thereto ? " Would they not be " in the dark ? " We are, 

 as to your meaning. Give us an easier one next time. — Step. 

 H. Saxby. Many thanks. — S. E. W. Eoouda van Eysinga. 

 We will consider about Scientific Pn 

 orbit would not be appreciably nft'ici 

 helion. — John Donald. It is uin|iir.- 



fact that a person weighs raorc altir a meal than before 

 one, strange though it may seem. Moreover, incredible though 

 it may be deemed, " the air in the stomach which food 

 displaces" is not "the heavier." — Wm. Moon, Jun. Thanks 

 for Mr. Barber's theory of the hollowness of the planets. 

 But what nonseuse it all is ! — M. Doeette Walker. The biochemio 

 treatment of disease is not a suitable subject for these pages. — 

 C. F. W. The sun was eclipsed (visible at Babylon) ou .■Vpril 19, 

 481 B.C., Oct. 2, 479 B.C., and on Feb. 17, 478 B.C., the second being^ 

 tho most important of tho three. — W. B. Clarke. Such questions 

 must bo addressed to publishers. Editor cannot forward copies j 

 has none by him to begin with, and, by tho way, to finish with, too. 

 — J. W. Stainforth. Thanks. — B. A. Brain" troubles pom-ing itt 

 on us. That "of" for "have" is a common mistake among the 

 uneducated ; you or 1 could hardly fall into it, except when ill. — 

 Ge. Boon a misprint, I should say, for eozoou. Certainly organie, 

 tho foremost geologists say. 



EGYPTOLOGY. 

 Tho figure was one of the kind called in Egyjitian " Shabti " or 

 " Ushabti," i.e., "respondents." These figures were conventionally 

 supposed to represent the deceased as ouo of tho blessed become- 

 ono with Osiris — the justified dead being always styled " The 

 Osirian M or N." These porcelain-faced clay ushabti were buried 

 with the dead to act as his representatives — to respond for him, in 

 fact — in the under world, and to do work for him (which otherwise 

 he would have to do for himself) in tho fields of Aahlu, where 

 certain labours of sowing, ploughing, reaping, &c., had to be gone 

 through as part of the probationary work to bo done in the under 

 world before tho final translation of tho deceased to the heaven of 

 heavens. These figures are represented with the flail, sickle, and 



A. F. O. The- 



ihape near peri. 



a physiological 



