Fkbruaky 1, 1900.] 



KNOWLEDGE. 



39 



each side of its track. There is also another runniug 

 parallel with those on the west side of Tycho. It 

 appeai-s to me as if a ruinber of nieteoi-s swept over 

 this part of the moou iu the same direction at the same 

 time. 



Mr. Maunder speaks of Kies and Lubiniesky as 

 havirg sunk in the invasive fluid. May it not be 

 that these rings were perfect belore the rays refeiTed 

 to were formed, and that the matter thrown from the 

 meteor's track has buried these rings? 



Another group of parallel rays sweeps north westerly 

 from Kircher and Bailly, over Tycho and on to Lexcll. 

 I think Jlr. Tappendeu's suggestion that the rays arc 

 the results of meteor flights and falls may be the true 

 explanation. 



December 17, 1899. 



A. Elvins. 



S. S. CYGNI. 



TO THE EDITORS OF KNOWLEDGE. 



Sirs, — We have had a remarkable appearance of 

 S. S. Cygni dxxring the last two weeks, quite unknown 

 to our experience. For myself I will say I did not 

 believe my eyes, and sought for light, but my obser- 

 vations which are as follows have been fully con- 

 firmed : — 



The weather si^ce has been cloudy. The maximum 

 may be put on the 1st December. The star on previous 

 apparitions rose on second or third nights to about 

 8.5m. 



David Flanery. 

 Memphis, Tenn., U.S.A., 



9th December, 1899. 



©tituarg. 



— ♦ — 



John Ruskin, whose death, on the 20th Januaiy, 

 1900, we regret to record, was born in 1819, the son of 

 a wine merchant in London, and was educated privately 

 and at Christ Church, Oxford, carrying off the New- 

 digate Prize. His love of art found expression in his 

 early attempts at painting, and in the pamphlet written 

 by him in defence of Turner and his method, which was 

 afterwards expanded into the great work — " Modern 

 Painters," the five volumes of which, illustrated by 

 himself, appeared between 1843 and 1860. " His 

 besetting sin," says Frederick Harrison, " as a master 

 of speech, may be summed up in his passion for profuse 

 imagery and delight in an almost audible melody of 

 words.' Indeed, it is generally conceded that Ruskin 

 not only surpassed every contemporary writer of prose, 

 but called forth out of our English tongue notes more 

 strangely beautiful and inspiring than any ever yet 

 issued from that instrument. " No writer of prose before 

 or since has ever rolled forth such mighty fantasies, or 

 reached such pathetic melodies in words, or composed 

 long books in one continued strain of limpid grace." 

 " All my life," he once said, " I have been talking to 

 the people, and thev have listened not to what I had 

 to say, but to how I said it ; they have cared only for 

 the manner, not the matter. For them the kernel is 

 nothing; it is the shell that attracts. In 1849 



appeared his " Seven Lamps of Architecture," followed 

 bv "The Stones of Venice," 1851-53; "Lectures on 

 Ai-t," 1859; "Unto This Last," 1862; "Ethics of tho 

 Dust," and "Sesame and Lilies," 1865; "Crown of 

 Wild Olive," 186G, and others. Ruskin was Slade Pro- 

 fessor of Art at his own University, and Rcdc Lecturer 

 at Cambridge, llis autobiography, under tho name of 

 " Prae'erita," appeared in parts a few years ago. The 

 venerable Dean of Westminster offered to tho relatives 

 a space in Westminster Abbey in Poets' Corner for 

 the entombment of tho great critic and philosopher, 

 but, adhering to Mr. Ruskin's previously exjjressed 

 wishes, the distinguished man of letters now rests in 

 the churchyard at Coniston. 



It is wdth much regret that we have to record the death 

 of Dr. P]lliott Coues, the well known American Zoo- 

 logist, who died at Baltimore, on December 25th, aged 

 57. Dr. Coues began life as a surgeon in the U.S. 

 Army, in which position ho had unu.sual opportunities 

 for travel. Tho results of his collections of birds and 

 animals made during these expeditions were published 

 in various scientific journals. In 1872 he published a 

 most valuable " Key to i.>orth American Birds." 

 Among his other works may be noted, " Birds of the 

 North-West," " Field Ornithology," " Birds of the 

 Colorado Valley," and iu conjunction with Mr. J. A. 

 Allen, " Fur-Bearing Animals." Dr. Coues was best 

 known as an ardent and accomplished ornithologist, 

 not only in America but also all over Europe. As 

 a man he was most genial and affable, and his loss will 

 be a great one, as well to his friends as to the scientific 

 world at large. 



j^otictg of Boofeg. 



A System •;/■ Ethics. By Friedrich Paulsen. Edited and 

 translated from the fouith German edition by Frank Thilly. 

 (Kegan Paul.) 18s. net. Since, as Matthew Arnold wrote, 

 " Conduct makes up three-quarters of life," the science con- 

 cerned with studying and formulating the laws which govern 

 right conduct is of the very highest importance. AVe welcome 

 Professor Thilly's translations of Professor Paulsen's valuable 

 contribution to this study, because being written primarily for 

 those who are personally interested in the problems of practical 

 philosophy and not for the philosophical expert, it can be 

 easily understood by the ordinary intelligent person who reads 

 carefully. The translator has used a wise discretion in omitting 

 certain sections of the original treatise which only possess a 

 more or less local interest for the German public. The first 

 portion is devoted to the historical development of the con- 

 ceptions of life and moral philosophy from the times of the 

 Greeks down to the present ; the ne.xt examines the funda- 

 mental questions of ethics ; while the third division of the book 

 is concerned with the application to daily conduct of the prin- 

 ciples previously discovered. It will serve to indicate roughly 

 the author's philosophical position if some of his views on 

 crucial questions are] briefly stated. He is an advocate of the 

 <f/fo/o(//'c«^ as opposed to theybcm«//.si(V view of the difference 

 between good and bad — that is to say, from Professor Paulsen's 

 point of view, " acts arc called good when they tend to presei-ve 

 and promote human welfare ; bad when they tend to disturb 

 and destroy it." To the question, " What is the end of all 

 willing V" ihn edcriilstk s.nA not the /«v7oh«/''- answer is given. 

 " Not pleasure, but tho • objective content of life ' is the highest 

 good at which the will continually aims." " The highest good 

 of an individual as well as of a society consists in the ]ierfect 

 development and exercise of life." Nor is the author a 

 pessimist ; in one place he .says, "philosophical pessimism is not 

 a proved theory, whose propositions can lay claim to universal 

 validity, but the expression of individual feelings, and as such 

 can be merely subjectively true." Or, again, " inasmuch as we 

 have no statistics on the happy and urdiiqipy lives, the successes 

 and failures, I am for the present inclined to put as much faith in 



