16 



KNOWLEDGE. 



[Jantjart 2, 1899. 



treatment and disposition of facts, the admirable illustrations and 

 precise instructions for rerifying the fundamental principles of 

 physical science are suiHcient to commend the work to the preceptors 

 in our schools and colleges. 



Frorident Societies and Industrial Wet/are. By E. W. Bra- 

 brook, C.B., Chief Registrar of Friendly Societies. The Victorian 

 Era Series. (London : Blackie & Son.) 2s. 6d. An experience 

 which is unique, and a sympathetic treatment, born of long and 

 intimate acquaintance with the facts, are the iuraluable aids which 

 Mr. Brabrook brings to bear upon the subject on which he writes so 

 well. There is no more honourable record in our history than that 

 of the industrial population of our country in regard to proyident 

 societies and sayings banks, and the official position of the author of 

 this inyaluable work will really tend to make the book a sort of 

 informal State document, dealing in a most eoniprehensiye manner 

 with a subject of the highest importance. 



Fhotograms of lS9f^. Illustrated. Is. net. (Dawbarn & Ward.) 

 This well-known annual from the editors of the Photogi-am contains 

 a careful and well-judged selection of the year's work in photography. 

 The bulk of the yolume consists of a collection of beautiful photo- 

 graphs, which are duly criticised in the text. One or two general 

 articles complete a capital photographic record of 1898. 



Mow to make Lantern- Slides. By S. L. Coultliurst. Is. (Daw- 

 barn & Ward.) To those who really require a new handbook ou the 

 aboye subject, we can recommend this one, wliich is up-to-date and 

 clearly expressed. We might remark that twenty or so of its pages 

 are filled with yarious deyelo]")iug formul;^. 



The Seliquari/ and Illustrated ArcTiieologist. (Bemrose. ) 12s. 

 net. We haye in former years had occasion to point out the many 

 claims to our regard of this quarterly journal and revien-, the bound 

 volume of which for 1898 is before us. We haye nothing to retract 

 from what we then said, and can only reiterate with, perhaps, more 

 pronounced emphasis, that the journal is worthy of the attention of 

 all persons interested in the study of the early pagan and Christian 

 antiquities of Great Britain, media>yal architecture and ecclesiology, 

 the deyelopment of the arts and industries of man in past ages, and 

 the suryiyals of ancient usages and appliances in the present. The 

 wide margins, superb printing, and beautiful illustrations in wood 

 and reproductions from photographs, all combine to make the yolume 

 a choice possession. 



First Stage Inorganic Chemistry (FracticaV). "By F. Beddow, d.sc. 

 (Cliye.) Illustrated. Is. Dr. Beddow's book is" one of the many 

 inspired by the innoyations made in the syllabus of the Science and 

 Art Department. It is a neat, cheap, and excellent little manual in 

 eyery way for its purpose, and if the many branches of chemistry 

 dealt with in the space of some one hundred and sixty pages are, so 

 to speak, an attempt to make the less contain the greater, tliat is the 

 fault of the Department rather than the author, who has managed 

 the business of compression with skill, and succeeded in making intelli- 

 gible a wide range of tacts which would tax the powers of most authors 

 with much more space at their disposal. The ordinary operations of 

 fitting up apparatus, preparing gases and compounds, qualitatiye 

 analysis and quantitatiye analysis, all come in for a share of the 

 author's attention, and any one who carefully works through the 

 book will acquire a sound knowledge of the groundwork of chemical 

 manipulation. 



All photographers should obtain Mr. W. I'ylar's 1898 Catalogue 

 of Photographic Specialities and Appliances. Price 6d. The 

 Catalogue consists of over two hundred full and well-illustrated pages, 

 containing, amongst other information, full particulars of many 

 noyelties and improved patterns. 



BOOKS EECEIVED. 



Annals of the Lowell Observatory, Vol. I., Observations of the 

 Flanet Mars during the Opposition of 1894-0. By Perciyal Lowell, 

 Director of the Observatory. (Houghton, Mifflin & Co., New York.) 



Quaro : Some Questioi.s in Matter, Energy, Intelligence and 

 Evolution. By Dr. James II. Keeling, f.b.c.s. (For Private Circu- 

 lation.) 



Whitalcer's Almanack, 1899. 2b. 6d. 



Earth Sculpture. By James Geikie, p.b.s. (Murray.) Illustrated 



63. 



The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll. By Stuart Dodgson 

 Collingwood, b.a. (Unwin. ) 78. fid. 



Michael Faraday: His Life and Work. By Prof. Silvanus 

 Thompson. (Cassell. ) Portrait. 38. 6d. 



The Way the World Went Then. By laabeUa Barclay. (Stanford.) 

 Illustrated. 48. 



On the Springing and Adjusting of Watches. By F. J. Britten. 

 (Spon.) Illustrated. 3s. 



The Magic Lantern — Nutshell Series. (lUffe.) 6d. ' 



Flashlights on Nature. By Grant Allen. (Newnes.) Illustrated. 6s. 



A New Astronomy. By Dayid P. Todd. (Sampson Low, Marston 

 & Co.) Illustrated." 78. 6d. net. 



The " Mechanical World " Focket Diary and Year Book, 1899. 

 6d. 



London Vniverxity Guide and Calendar, 1S9S-9. (Univ. Corr. 

 Coll. Press.) Gratis. 



Tutorial Algebra : Advanced Course. By W. Briggs and G. H. 

 Bryan. ( Clive.) 6s. 6d. 



Der Ursprung der Afrikanischen Kulturen. By L. Frobenius. 

 (Borntraeger, Berlin.) 



Trigonomelry at a Glance. By G. W. LTsill and F. J. Browne. 

 (Philip & Son.) 2s. net. 



The ■• Queen" Almanack, 1899. Is. 



A Determination of the Ratio of the Specific Seats at Constant 

 Pressure and at Constant I'olunie for Air, O.vygen. Carbon-dioxide, 

 and Hydrogen. By 0. Luminer and E. Pringsheim. (Smithsonian 

 Collection.) 



♦ 



[The Editors do not hold themselveB responsible for the opinions or 

 statements of correspondents.] 



THE NEW OBSERVATORY AT KODAIKANAL. 

 To the Editors of Knowhedge. 



Sirs, — The readers of Knowledge will perhaps be 

 interested with a short account of a visit I made yesterday 

 to the new observatory which is building at Kodaikanal. 

 On my way to Shang-hai, I could not help breaking the 

 voyage to pay a visit to the observatory of old repute at 

 Madras, where the late Mr. Pogson did, during so many 

 years, such valuable work in planet discovery, as every 

 astronomer knows. Mr. Michie-Smith, now in charge of 

 the Government Observatory, kindly suggested that on 

 my way back to Tuticorin I should pay a visit to the new 

 buildings at Kodaikanal, where he intends going himself 

 in January nest, when the astronomer's house will be 

 ready to receive both his apparatus and himself. As many 

 amateur astronomers already know, the new observatory 

 will stand on the highest point of the Pulney Hills, a 

 branch of the Southern Ghats, protruding on the western 

 part of the Madura district in the Presidency of Madras. 

 Its geographical co-ordinates are, approximately, Lat. 10° 

 14' N., Long. 77" 33' E. The distance from the 

 Ammayanayakanoor station, on the S. I. R., to the foot 

 of the Pulney Hills is thirty-one miles. The trip is made 

 in about seven hours in the Indian cart. The long two- 

 wheeled vandy is indeed mounted on springs, but these 

 springs are oftentimes of very little use to diminish the 

 pitching and tossing one has to suffer more or less on every 

 Indian highway. The sturdy little buUocks, however, do 

 their work well. From the " Tope " at the foot of the 

 hills up to Kodaikanal, another twelve miles, is done on 

 horseback in about four hours. The fatigue this old- 

 fashioned style of travelling necessarily implies is splendidly 

 recompensed when one reaches the dam of the lake, and 

 still more when some hundred or a hundred and fifty feet 

 higher one gets a general view of the lake itself and of 

 the siirrounding groves and villas. Owing to its high level 

 above the sea, ranging from seven thousand to seven 

 thousand eight hundred feet, this delightfully cool hill- 

 station becomes more and more every year a favourite 

 sanitorium for European residents of South India. Many 

 of the cool-breeze seekers took their afternoon walk this 

 year, I am told, in the direction of the new observatory. 



The observatory stands a good mile distant from the 

 west end of the basin-shaped valley, the bottom of which 

 has been transformed by a dam into a handsome irregular 

 lake. From the site chosen for the observatory, which is 

 reported to be seven thousand seven hundred feet high, 

 one has an extensive view of the plains of Madura in the 

 east, where at sunset on fine days the elevated gopurahs 

 of the great Vedic Temple may be clearly distinguished. 



