Dec. 22, 1882.1 



• KNOWLEDGE • 



475 



MAG''>.iNEoF^SqENCE'^ 



y^ LAINirVfORDED -EXAC TIT DESCK1BED^__ 



LONDON: FRIDAY, DECEMBER 22, 1882. 



CONTKNTS OP No. GO. 



PASB PAGB 



Science snd Art Gossip 475 The Dove Flower. {Illuttrated) ... HI 



AX«tnralisf3Te«r. ni.— Misleto* Forests and Climate *92 



il'-^h. ByGrantAllen 477 Lominons Paint. By TV. H. Hyatt «2 



Bio . '.es and Tricycles: What The AurorK „ iSi 



En.roTisKequiredtoDriveTheni. The TrypoKraph -Kia 



Bro Kn Bromiing 478 Retikws : Poker— TheParallelNew 



Corse. ; •losophy 478 Testament 4''4 



Staved y. ^kness". BvE. A. Proctor 479 Cobbbspoxdbnce -. Saturn's Eing,&c. 485 



TheGn.t Comet (mxittrated) .... 4S0 , Ansvrers to Correspondents 486 



DestmcUi n of Bare Animals and j Our Whiat Column 487 



Plants. By E. Leigh, M.E.C.S.... 4S1 ' Our Chess Column 488 



^titmt anil Srt (Sos^i'p. 



A COXTEMPORARY takes US to task, though not unkindly, 

 for saying that the death of a novelist is a more serious 

 calamity than many about which more is said. But is it 

 not true '? We said in reality the death of such a man, not 

 meaning a novelist specially, because the death of a great 

 historian, dramatist, poet, man of science, actor, singer, and 

 so forth, belongs to the same categorj-^unless death comes 

 in the fulness of a man's years, when all his work has been 

 done. Are there not men much higher in position, whose 

 death causes much more talk, who yet pass away and are not 

 missed at all by the world at large ? A great statesman's death 

 may, like Cavour's, be seriously felt by a nation, yet not 

 often. A king dies and another succeeds, the only change 

 generally being that the boot^lickers transfer the virtues of 

 the dead to the living, and suddenly find the dead king 

 was not so very good or great after all. The " first gentle- 

 man in Europe " is recognised (first by the dust-swallowers, 

 ahrays) as rather low-lived, to say the least of it, while one 

 who had been thought less than little of becomes " our 

 gallant sailor king ;" he dies in turn, and a Greville pub- 

 lishes three volumes describing a half-crazed person, father 

 of a large family, yet " no son of his succeeding." But 

 when a Thackeray dies who can replace him, who can even 

 complete his last unfinished work ■! When even a Garriek 

 dies, it can be truly said that " the gaiety of nations " is 

 eclipsed. 



Mr. Rcskin' has said that our English middle and lower 

 classes — we are not sure he has not e.xtended the remark 

 to the upper classes — behave like boors, while the peasantry 

 of some continental countries have the bearing of noble- 

 men. It may be true, though possibly he should not have 

 said it Anyway, mere bearing is not a mattiT of so much 

 importance as kindliness of heart We wonder, though, 

 what he would have thought of the bearing (not so 

 much boorish as brutal) of a number of persons, disguised 

 as gentlemen, who proposed to attend his lecture on 

 " Cistercian Architecture " at the London Institution. 

 The lecture-room was full nearly an hour before the 

 lecture began, and many ladies, a few gentlemen, and 



the persons we refer to, were unable to gain admittance. 

 Three ladies fainted, and an appeal was made to those who 

 stood in the passages to make way while they were carried 

 out. But while the few gentlemen jiresent did all they 

 could to assist these ladies, the more numerous brutes 

 wilfully blocked up the way, which it was easily within 

 their power to have cleared. They also talked and 

 laughed and disturbed the audience so disgracefully, that at 

 last the doorkeepers had to do what (with a knowledge of 

 the ways of this set, they shoidd have done earlier) to close 

 the doors, and deprive the ladies and gentlemen outside of 

 such small satisfaction as they might have had in hearing 

 the lecturer's voice. 



Doctor Henry Draper's death has caused much sorrow 

 among his fellow-workers in science in America. That he 

 was not appreciated at his full worth here is shown by the 

 fact that when his name (among the very worthiest) was 

 recommended for an Associateship of the Astronomical 

 Society, it was rejected in favour of some certainly not 

 worthier. It should be known, however, that the opposi- 

 tion came from a dique who seem to think that the 

 recognition of skill or success in solar research in any 

 but the high-priest of the sun-spot religion, and still more 

 the admission of a discovery inconsistent with his views, 

 would be most blameworthy. 



As with poor Buckle, so with Henry Draper. He 

 sorrowed most in death for the work he had to leave un- 

 finished. " I have fought hard," he said, "but it is of no 

 use : I must go." For many a long day science will feel 

 the premature loss of this zealous worker. 



Mr. R. H. Mushens, Secretary of the Sunderland Provi- 

 dent Dispensary, writes to us that he has submitted to the 

 principal railway companies an Ambulance Emergency Case, 

 " specially designed to meet the requirements of railway 

 accidents," but, as yet, the result has been n U. It would be 

 well if a law were passed ruling that in every train three 

 cases containing splints, lint, plaster, sponge, tourniquet, 

 bandages, itc, should be carried (under certain penalties 

 in case any accident occurred, and injured passengers suf- 

 fered for want of these things). The cost of such cases 

 would be little, their value great 



"The interviewer," writes Mr. Freeman, in j.,.,. ,,/,.(,< ,^ 

 Magazine, "who questions you simply in order to print 

 your answers in a newspaper, is, as far as my experience 

 goes, purely American. Tlie process is not always plea- 

 sant ; for tlie questioning consists largely in asking for 

 one's impressions on various American matters, and espe- 

 cially on points of likeness and unlikeness between America 

 and England. It is certainly odd that, when so many 

 American papers are always assuring the world that they 

 do not care for British opinion, they should still be so tin- 

 tiringly anxious to find out what British opinion is. And 

 the questioning on these points sometimes puts one in an 

 unfair dilemma. If one blames anything, one, of course, 

 runs an obvious chance of giving offence. And if one 

 praises anything, one runs the chance of giving offence on 

 the subtler ground of being thought ' condescending ' and 

 ' patronising.' " 



" On the whole, 

 Freeman proceed 

 moral portrait 



lole, I got used to the interviewers," Mr. 

 ;ds ; " and I was specially charmed with the 

 of me which was given by one of them at 



