Januaby 2, 1893.] 



KNOWLEDGE 



9 



difference in the size of these distant suns must be enor- 

 mous, and would lead us to the conclusion that possibly 

 the Jlilky Way may not lie so far from our system as has 

 been generally supposed. If, as has been suggested, there 

 is any extinction of light in the ether, the faintest stars 

 cannot be placed at a distance corresponding to their 

 apparent brightness. 



Sfttnrc Kotfs. 



In a letter recently received from Prof. G. E. Hale, he 



says that the contract for the Yerkes 40-inch refractor has 



been given to Messrs. Alvan Clark, and that "Sir. Clark is 



now at work upon the discs doing the rough grinding. 



Messrs. Warner and Swasey have been given the contract 



for the moimting, and they expect to have it set up in 



Chicago before the summer is over. 

 — .-♦-, — 



Mr. Burnham has definitely decided not to devote him- 

 self again to astronomy professionally, but he will be given 

 every facility for using the great instrument. 



Prof. G. E. Hale has recently obtained, at the Kenwood 

 Observatory, Chicago, a photograph of the spectrum of a 

 solar prominence, showing 74 bright lines in the ultra- 

 violet between X 3970 and A 8630. A 4-inch grating was 

 used on a 12-inch refracting telescope, with glass objectives 

 for the collimator and telescope of the spectroscope. In 

 the x^hotograph obtained all the lines are shown which 

 have been previously photographed by M. Deslandres, of 

 the Paris Observatory, with apparatus in which no glass is 

 used ; and in addition to these, 32 lines appear which 

 have not been previously photographed. 



Science Gossip contains a highly interesting paper by 

 Mr. P. L. Simmonds, F.L.S., on animal plagues. After 

 giving some statistics with regard to the enormous numbers 

 of human beings and cattle amiually lost by death from 

 snake-bites, or from lions, tigers, wolves, and crocodiles, 

 he gives an account of the rabbit plague in Australia. 

 Speaking of India, he says that in 1889, 25,204 persons 

 were killed by wild animals and snakes — chiefly the latter. 

 In Australia it is reckoned that kangaroos consume on 

 an average as much grass as sheep ; hence it is very im- 

 portant that their numbers should be reduced. But 

 rabbits (introduced by Europeans) are the chief plague. 

 The extent of the evil may be imagined from the fact that 

 15,000,000 rabbit skins have been exported from New 

 South Wales in one year ; and that in the thirteen years 

 ending with 1889, 39,000,000 rabbit skins were exported 

 from Victoria. The property destroyed by rabbits is esti- 

 mated by millions of pounds. In spite of the determined 

 efforts that have been made by colonial governments and 

 private individuals, there are some districts where it has 

 become a question whether the farmers can keep up the 

 struggle with them. The fencing off of small districts 

 with wire netting seems to be the best means that has 



been tried of keeping them out of a particular district. 

 — .-♦-, — 



Since Darwin's investigations on so-called " carnivorous 

 plants,"' a great deal has been written on the habits and 

 powers of these remarkable organisms, but the question 

 how flies, &c., were dissolved and digested seems to have 

 remained unsolved. It is now maintained that digestion in 

 the case of carnivorous plants is due to the activity of certain 

 micro-organisms, which are always present in the sap of 

 the mature plant, and that their secretions are favourable 

 to the development of such minute organisms. 



Dr. Francis Galton and other eminent anthropologists 

 have issued a circular letter on behalf of the committee 

 appointed by the British Association, for an ethnographical 

 survey of Great ]5ritain. It is proposed to take certain 

 typical villages and their surrounding districts and to 

 record the physical types of the inhabitants, their current 

 traditions, the peculiarities of dialect, the monuments and 

 other remains of ancient cultivation, and historical evidence 

 as to continuation of the race. 



A correspondent (Sereno E. Bishop) writes to Xiitnrc 

 from Honolulu (November 8th) to say that during the last 

 three weeks there has been a remarkable renewal of the 

 " afterglow.'' It seems as if the dust tioating in the upper 

 atmosphere, which produces the afterglows, had been 

 added to. Is this owing to the August eruption in Alaska, 

 which is said to have distributed volcanic ash at a distance 

 of 250 miles "? The writer says that no such afterglow has 

 been seen since 1886, or three years after the Krakatao 

 eruption. 



— •-♦-, — 



The famous German Professor Rudolf Virchow receives 

 this year the Royal Society's Copley medal for his researches 

 in pathology and prehistoric archasology, Sir Joseph 

 Hooker receives the Darwin medal, as being one of the 

 earliest supporters of the author of "The Origin of Species," 

 and Mr. .1. N. Langley receives a Royal medal for his 

 researches on the secreting glands and on the nervous 

 system. 



Norwich Castle, an ancient building of historical interest, 

 has been acquired by the committee of the Norfolk and 

 Norwich Museum with a view to the transfer of their 

 valuable collections as soon as the castle has been fitted 

 up for the purpose. When the scheme is completed, the 

 trustees are to make over the building and collections to 

 the Corporation, who have agreed to accept the trust, and 

 to hold the castle and its contents for the benefit of the 

 citizens of Norwich. It is to be hoped that the good 

 example thus set may be followed in other places. The 

 Castle Museum Committee are fortunate in having Lord 

 Walsingham for their chairman. He is an ardent naturalist, 

 whose important contributions to the British Museum of 

 Natural History are well known. 



From The Geoloi/icul Mai/azine we learn that Bristol* 

 is following on the same lines. At a recent meeting of 

 the shareholders of the Bristol Museum and Library a 

 resolution was adopted for the transference of the institu- 

 tion to the Corporation of Bristol. By a generous offer of 

 =£3000 from Sir Charles Watken, together with a small 

 endowment fund, the liabilities will be cleared off. 



The December number of T/w Field Cluh contains the 

 following story, from a correspondent, of a rat that has 

 acquired the habit of catching trout : " Within a mile of 

 where I now write, on the Braid Burn, which runs through 

 Blackford Hill public park, Edinburgh, I have seen a rat 

 — not the ordinary grey species, but the black, with short 

 head, not unlike that of a guinea-pig — dive after and catch 

 a trout, bring it to the bank, and devour it. An old quarry- 

 man, who worked by the stream, first told me of the rat's 

 habit, and together we have watched him creep along the 

 branch of an alder overhanging a small pool, sit immovable, 

 as if part of the tree, until a trout swam within his ken, when, 

 like a flash, he dived after his prey, and almost invariably 

 succeeded in his sub-aquatic chase." 



