November 30, 1893] 



NA TURE 



lOI 



vancing the settlement of the question. In my opinion, there is 

 no improbability inherent in the assumption that hydrogen is 

 but a secondary product, resulting from the interaction of the 

 primary products — ^water and either carbon or carbon monoxide. 

 The rate at which the interactions take place in flames are such, 

 and the conditions are such, that the products collected are prob- 

 ably far from being \.he products of the initialinterchanges, as in- 

 deed Prof. Smithells himself admits to be the case. It is scarcely 

 likely that the settlement of such a question can ever be achieved 

 by direct observation. Our ultimate views on the nature of the 

 changes occurring in flames must depend on the gradual growth 

 of a true understanding of the nature of chemical interchanges 

 in general, and especially in gases. 



I am inclined to take the same view with reference to Davy's 

 explanation of the luminosity of flame. If eventually, as is not 

 improbable, we come to regard the expressions chemical inter- 

 change and electrolysis as interchangeable equivalent terms, 

 much more will have to be said on behalf of Frankland's hy- 

 pothesis. I had the good fortune to attend the philosophic 

 lectures at the Royal Institution in which Frankland, in 1868, 

 first fully stated his views on this subject, illustrating his ar- 

 guments by a series of most striking experiments. No course of 

 lectures ever impressed me more, and to the present day I have 

 the most vivid recollection of all that passed. An account af 

 the lectures was published in the yotirnal of Gas Lighting at 

 the time of their delivery. It has always appeared to me that 

 Frankland's arguments are of a most weighty character, and 

 that owing to their appearance in an obscure publication they 

 have never yet been sufficiently widely considered. 



The study of flame affords problems of the highest interest 

 and importance, but of proportionate complexity and difficulty. 

 There is little doubt, however, that we are inclined to take too 

 narrow a view of this as of many other inquiries — that we have 

 an unreasoning belief in what we are pleased to call facts, for- 

 getting that these same "facts" are but phenomena interpreted 

 by our own limited intelligence; On studying the views that 

 have been taken at various times, it is only too obvious that 

 fashion is not confined only to garments, nor is dogma the ex- 

 clusive privilege of theologians ; and it is time that we 

 realised that very many of our conclusions regarding chemical 

 interchanges are but the crudest dogmas, based on a thoroughly 

 superficial consideration of the phenomena. If we are to de- 

 serve the title of scientific workers — workers exact in deed, 

 thought, and word — we must be far more careful in the choice 

 of our language, and guarded in our conclusions. 



Henry E. Armstrong. 



" Geology in Nubibus." 1 



Sir Henry Howorth wishes to continue the discussion of 

 glaciation in the pages of Nature, but I find in his last letter 

 very good reason why this cannot be done. No discussion can 

 lead to definite results unless the parties to it accept as data 

 what they themselves have recently and deliberately admitted. 

 But when I stated that the Rhone glacier did reach the Jura, 

 and deposit on it erratic blocks between Geneva and Soleure, I 

 did so because it was one of the data already admitted by Sir H. 

 Howorth. In his " Glacial Nightmare," pp. 169-173, he gives a 

 full summary of Charpentier's first memoir on the erratic blocks 

 of Switzerland, describing the glacial phenomena exhibited 

 along the whole course of the old glaciers from the Alps to the 

 Jura, and showing that they " even climbed that range and went 

 over to the other side of it." Sir H. Howorth then says : "I 

 have quoted at considerable length from this excellent memoir, 

 because I look upon it as having definitely applied inductive 

 methods to this question with results which are for the most part 

 sound and unanswerable.'" (Italics mine.) In the same 

 chapter (pp. 195-202) Charpentiers second memoir is sum- 

 marised still more fully, and his general conclusion is thus 

 quoted : " It goes without saying that not only all the valleys of 

 the Valais were filled with ice up to a certain height, but that all 

 lower Switzerland, in which we find the erratic debris of the 

 Rhone valley, must have been covered by the same glacier. 

 Consequently all the country between the Alps and the Jura, 

 and between the environs of Geneva and those of Soleure has 

 been the bed of a glacier." Agassiz and other writers are 

 quoted as giving further evidence of the same kind. Nowhere 

 in the whole of this chapter can I find a single objection to the 

 conclusions of the chief writers quoted, and the concluding 

 paragraph, at p. 208, frankly accepts them. It declares that 



NO. 1257, VOL. 49] 



they are supported by "every form of converging evidence," 

 and that — " So far there is no question at issue." Yet, when I 

 take these same conclusions of Charpentier as admitted data, 

 Sir H Howorth says : "This form of dogmatic argument is 

 assuredly incomprehensible ! " Charpentier's proof that the 

 Rhone glacier reached Soleure, was, a year ago, " sound and un- 

 answerable," and was an example of " definitely applied induc- 

 tive methods " ; but when I accept these same results as some- 

 thing to reason upon, I am told that I am making use of 

 " hypotheses outside the laws of nature." I have now justified 

 my opening statement that a discussion carried on in this manner 

 can serve no useful purpose. Alfred R. Wallace. 



Correlation of Magnetic and Solar Phenomena. 



In Mr. Ellis' letter on this subject (Nature vol. xlix. pp. 

 30), he says : — 



" To sum up, the points of the matter may be thus stated : — 

 (i) The solar outburst in 1859 was seen independently by two 

 observers : the fact of its occurrence seems therefore undoubted. 

 (2) The corresponding magnetic movement was small. (3) 

 Many greater magnetic movements have since occurred. (4) 

 No corresponding solar manifestation has been again seen, 

 although the sun has since been so closely watched." 



Now, in the year 1882, I was acting as assistant to the 

 Solar Physics Committee, and on November 17 there was a 

 dense fog, so that it was not possible to take the usual solar 

 observations. Mr. Lockyer was present in the morning, and 

 then left for some reason ; after he had gone, a telegram came 

 for him : he returned late in the afternoon, and sent for me, 

 told me the telegram was from Mr. Preece, of the Post Office, 

 asking him whether there was a solar disturbance, as there was 

 such a violent electrical storm raging, that communication had 

 been cut off from the continent, and that it was difficult to 

 maintain communication in England. I at once went to the 

 instruments, and as the fog cleared just before sundown, was 

 able to ascertain that there was a large group of spots near the 

 sun's meridian, attended with most violent uprushes of luminous 

 matter ; indeed, if my memory serves me aright, it was the most 

 violent disturbance I saw during the whole of my observations, 

 extending from 1879 to 1886. On reporting to Mr. Lockyer, 

 he said we should probably see an aurora in the evening ; and 

 as soon as it was dark, there was a most brilliant auroral display 

 that exhibited some quite new features (Nature, vol. xxvii. 

 pp. 82 et seq.) Doubtless, had this spot been kept under 

 observation, luminous outbursts similar to those observed by 

 Carrington and Hodgson would have been seen ; indeed, Mr. 

 Whipple's letter (loc. cit. p. 83) seems to contain such an observa- 

 tion. 



I believe, but am not quite sure, as the records of the observa- 

 tions are in Mr. Lockyer's possession, that it was in this spot 

 that he and I first noticed that some of the so-called 

 iron lines in the spot spectrum were in motion, while others 

 were not. H. A. Lawrance. 



Gunnersbury, November 19. 



New Variable Star in Andromeda. 

 A STAR that should be added to the list of variables is 

 -f 26°43, of t^he Bonn Durchmusterung, in which work its mag- 

 nitude is given as 87. In reply to a letter of mine, in which I 

 expressed a doubt as to this star's existence. Dr. Kiistner, of 

 Bonn, informed me that although he had on the 7th of this 

 month looked in vain for the star with the 6-inch refractor of 

 Bonn Observatory, yet it seemed pretty certain that a star had 

 twice been observed in the specified place in September, 1855. 

 I have subsequently been informed by Sir Robert Ball, that the 

 star was twice observed at Cambridge (England) in 1878. The 

 dates and places of the various observations, as well as the esti- 

 mated magnitudes, are : — 



Sept. 7, 1855, Bonn, 9-0 (but perhaps 9'2). 



Sept. 10, 1855, Bonn, 83. 



Nov. 29, 1878, Cambridge, 87. 



Dec. u, 1878, Cambridge, 87. 



The star's mean place for i894'o is 



R.A. oh. i6m. S^-'Z^- 

 Decl. -f26° 24' 27" 



Thomas D. Anderson. 

 21 East Claremont Street, Edinburgh, November 22. 



