108 



KNOWLEDGE, 



[May 1, 1899. 



expressly that the Christian man who takes to divination 

 by the moon has forfeited his faith. 



He equally repudiates a delusion which is very widely 

 current even at the present time, namely that the position 

 of the moon's horns when crescent betokens the kind of 

 weather that is to come. " If the sun lights him from 

 above then will he stoop, if she light him right through 

 then he will be equally homed." (The sun, of course, in 

 Anglo-Saxon is always feminine, the moon masculine.) 

 " Now argue some men who do uot know this reason that 

 the moon turns him as the weather shall be in that 

 month ; but never from his nature will weather or un- 

 weather turn him." On the other hand he fully believes 

 " that trees hewn down at the full moon are both harder 

 against worm-eating and longer lasting than those hewn 

 at the new moon." 



Similarly he evidently regards eclipses, whether of the 

 sun or moon, as perfectly regular instances in the order 

 of the universe and not in the least as portents to alarm 

 men. He carefully explains the causes of both kinds of 

 eclipse, and mentions that the moon's orbit does not coincide 

 with the ecliptic, but that he goes both to the north of it 

 and to the south, and that it is when he is new and when 

 his track coincides with that of the sun, that he is able to 

 eclipse her. Then comes the remark so common in all 

 the ancient notices of eclipses, " and the stars appear as 

 at night." It should be remembered that total eclipses 

 of the sun were by no means so unknown in England in the 

 Saxon period as they have been for the last seven hundred 

 and fifty years. There were no fewer than five which had 

 occurred in the four hundred years preceding the publica- 

 tion of this little manual. One, indeed, had taken place 

 during the lifetime of our author, but seems to have been 

 total only for Cornwall, which was not then jart of 

 England. It is very curious that in all these ncient 

 records, whilst we find absolutely no notice of that which 

 strikes our attention so forcibly in eclipses nowadays — 

 namely, the shining out of the corona — we are told of the 

 appearing of stars, a phenomenon which by no means 

 forces itself on the attention, unless perchance, as in the 

 eclipse of last year, Venus or Jupiter happen to be near 

 the sun. Can it be that the corona was less conspicuous 

 then? 



There are several other points of interest in our treatise. 

 For instance, his explanation of leap year is a model of 

 brevity and clearness, and he is careful to explain that it 

 has nothing whatsoever to do with Joshua's miracle. He 

 fixes the day of the vernal equinox as St. Benedict's Day, 

 March 21st, and not Lady Day as some considered it to 

 be. One little bit of traditional superstition shows itself, 

 when be says that " the equinoctial day was the fourth 

 day from the shaping of this world. On the fourth day 

 from the shaping of this world, the Almighty Shaper made 

 the Sun and set her in early morning in the mid east, 

 where is told the equinoctial circle. The same day He set 

 the moon full in the evening in the east, together with 

 shining stars in the course of the harvest equinox." Of 

 course he overlooked the fact that if the sun was suddenly 

 called into existence at any moment of time, it would be 

 rising in the east only to places on one particular meridian. 

 But the oversight was a very venial one in the Saxon, who 

 wrote at a time when the known inhabited world was not 

 only confined in latitude to the north temperate zone, but 

 also in longitude to no more than six hours at the very 

 outside. Then, again, though they might have reasoned 

 it out that local time must differ from meridian to 

 meridian, yet they had absolutely no means of determining 

 it. Nor have we any reason to exalt ourselves against our 

 forefathers when we see in our own day — a day of chrono- 



meters and watches, of standard and railway time, and of 

 telegraphs — that precisely the same superstition, with the 

 solitary substitution of the autumnal equinox for the 

 vernal, has attained an immense circulation in the writings 

 of sundry quack soi-dkant chronologists. 



We cannot give equal space to the other points that are 

 still worthy remark. ^ElMc— if ^Elfric it was — explains 

 exceedingly clearly the cause of the moon's phases, and 

 points out that no matter how little or how much of her 

 surface is illuminated she always in truth remains a perfect 

 orb. Here, however, analogy leads him into a serious 

 mistake. For recognizing that the moon and planets 

 shine by reflected sunUght, he generaUzes hastily tlaat the 

 stars owe their light to the same cause. 



This mistake is partly the reason why he attains to what, 

 imder all the circumstances, we must consider a very 

 advanced view of the size and distance of the sun. Seeing 

 that the stars shine at night, and believing that they 

 receive their light from the sun, he is compelled to think 

 " that her light ascends by the side of the earth, and lights 

 up the stars above us." He infers, therefore, that "the 

 sun is exceeding great ; all as broad she is as all the whole 

 compass of the earth, but she seems to us very narrow 

 because she is very far from our sight. " " Also the stars 

 that seem little to us are very broad, for they might not 

 send any light to earth from the high heaven if they were 

 so small as they seem to our eyes." Then he argues that 

 the moon must also be very great. Inasmuch as in a total 

 ecUpse he hides the sun. It is, however, far less distant from 

 us than the sun, for " soothly the moon's year has seven 

 and twenty days and eight hours. In that time he nnder- 

 runs all the twelve signs that the sun goes under in twelve 

 months. The sun's running is very wide because she is 

 very high up ; the moon's running is very narrow, for of 

 all the planets he runs the nethermost and to the earth 

 the nearest." The brevity of his treatise does not allow 

 him much indulgence in analogy or illustration, but on 

 this one occasion, to make his point quite clear, he 

 continues, " now that thou mightest understand, that a 

 lesser going around hath the man who goes about one 

 house than he who goes round all the burgh, so also the 

 moon hath his running quicker run out on the lesser 

 circuit than the sun hath on the greater." May we not 

 see in this little analogy the germ of that wealth of 

 illustration, metaphor and anecdote with which the 

 Lowndean Professor makes the science of astronomy so 

 vivid and delightful to his audiences to-day ? 



iitttcvg. 



[The Sditon do not hold themselTea responsible for the opinions or 



statements of correspondents.] 



• 



THE NEED FOR A BETTER IXTERCHANGE OF 

 SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



To the Editors of Knowledge. 



Sirs, — Startling as it may appear, it is yet a fact that 

 the term "specialist" implies ignorance — ignorance of 

 many things. There are but twenty-four hours in a day, 

 throughout some of which " No man can work." 



Further, since the modern tendency is for us all to 

 become speciahsts, one is led to fear that there must be a 

 growth of ignorance. Better so perhaps than that we 

 should find ourselves contented to jog along as " Jacks of 

 all trades." Let us, however, look the possibilities of 

 danger in the face. Is it conceivable that a time will 

 come when our mere dabbler in various sciences must be 

 regarded as a man of great importance '? It seems so, for 

 a time will surely come when we and our descendants will 



