August 2, 1883] 



NATURE 



3*9 



earth's magnetism, according to the method described by Mr. 

 Andrew Gray (Nature, vol. xxvii. p. 32), might not be without 

 interest to some readers, as showing the amount of accuracy 

 which can be obtained. The experiments were made by one of 

 my students at this College about four months ago. 



The form of reflecting galvanometer which lends itself best to 

 these experiments is one devised by Prof. Stuart, in which the 

 needle is centrally situated between two rectangular pieces of 

 wood carrying the coils. To the sides of these, two boards can 

 be easily attached by brackets, so as to be in the same plane as 

 the needle, and quite horizontal, and in this position do not 

 interfere with the light falling upon or reflected from the mirror. 

 The reflecting magnet is then north or south of the needle, and 

 perpendicular to it. 



The magnets were made from thin knitting needles (about 

 No. 19, B.W.G.), cut to the proper length, and made glass 

 hard. They were made in two lengths, 8 '5 and 1 2 5 cm., but 

 the longer ones were slightly warped in hardening, and did not 

 give concordant results. The scale was at a uniform distance of 

 62 '5 cm. from the mirror, and in reading the deflections four 

 observations were made and again repeated after noting the 

 times of oscillation, as described by Mr. Gray. Each of the 

 deflections given below is therefore the mean of eight observa- 

 tions. 



The following are the details of the experiments : — 



Denomination of magnet. A. B. C. 



Length 8'5 cm. ... 8-5 cm. ... 8"S cm. 



Weight o - §76ogrm. ... o-6924grm. ... crogoogrm. 



Time of oscillation.. 4'88 sec. ... 4' 7 1 sec. ... 476 sec. 



Deflection at 15 cm. 7"I cm. ... 7-7 cm. ... 7'6 cm. 



'3 



lo'6 cm. 



,11'S cm. 



.11 "2 cm. 



From these results we obtain, by aid of the formula : — 



If-- 



V 



ir- l-;,j 



3 (r- + /»)! T- tan B 



the following values for H: — 



0-17705 

 0-17635 

 0-I7S28 

 0-17754 

 0-17725 

 0-17770 



Mean = 0-17736 ± 000048, 



showing an amount of accuracy which may, I think, be com- 

 pared with that obtained with much more expensive and delicate 

 apparatus. T. S. HUMPIDGE 



University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, June 27 



The Lachine Aerolite 



The most remarkable fall of an aerolite that has yet been 

 recorded took place at Lachine, about eight miles from Montreal, 

 on Saturday, July 7, 1883. I give the following account from 

 the Montreal Daily Star of July 1 1 : — 



"The fall of the aerolite transpired during a rain shower on 

 the forenoon of Saturday, and there were no premonitory indi- 

 cations to show that the air was more than usually charged with 

 electricity. The person who witnessed the fall of the aerolite 

 more clearly than any one else was Mrs. Popbam, wife of Mr. 

 John Popham, insurance agent. Mrs. Popham was seated in 

 her house up stairs sewing, when all of a sudden the apartment 

 became illuminated with a blinding flash of light, 'the lady 

 instantly glanced out of the window, when to her astonishment 

 she beheld a huge mass of fire descending towards the earth in 

 a diagonal direction. This brilliant body had a solid nucleus 

 that appeared to the eye about four feet square, and a strange, 

 indescribable noise was caused by its flight through the air. 

 Simultaneously, as it seemed to Mrs. Popham, she received a 

 paralysing shock that affected her from head to foot, as if the 

 entire contents of a highly-charged battery had been discharged 

 into her body at once. The astonishing brilliancy of the meteor 

 caused a temporary loss of sight, and it was fully half an hour 

 before the lady could distinguish surrounding objects. When 

 Mrs. Popham first beheld the falling mass she fancied that it was 

 about to strike the house, and is still nf the opinion that it must 

 have passed alarmingly close. The lady took several hours to 

 recover from the shock, and when Mr. Popham returned home 



several hours after he found her partially prostrated from its 



"Mr. McNaughton, a brother of Mrs. Popham, was sitting 

 down stairs reading when the flash came. He jumped up, and, 

 looking out of the window under the trees towards the river, he 

 plainly saw the fiery ball strike the water at a little distance 

 from the shore, causing a mountainous upheaval and sending 

 splashes in every direction. 



"Mr. Horace Baby also saw the glare caused by the flight 

 of the meteor, although he did not actually see the body itself. 

 He svud that he felt a tremendous shock, and that he could feel 

 the electricity oozing out of his finger-ends for some time after. 



"Mr. C. P. Davidson, Q.C., was sitting down to lunch at the 

 time, and describes the crash as being tremendous. The Raw- 

 hngs family also felt the shock severely, as indeed did half the 

 village. Mr. Popham's cottage stands about seventy feet from 

 the water's edge at Stony Point, and it is thought that the aerolite 

 fell into the stream about twenty or thirty yards from the shore, 

 in about twenty feet of water. Owing to the high Hinds since 

 the occurrence the water has been so muddy that it has been 

 irr possible to locate the whereabouts of the meteor. An attempt, 

 however, will shortly be made to bring it to the surface." 



I will send further details when they come to hand. 



XT , E. W. Claypole 



New Bloomfield, Perry Co., Pennsylvania, July 15 



Cold and Sunspots 



Your correspondent, Mr. C. J. B. Williams, is wrong in the 

 statement he makes in Nature, vol. xxviii. p. 103, concerning 

 the cold in California in the month of March. The month was 

 the warmest March we have had for some years, the mean tem- 

 perature being 3°'5 above the average, and 2°'S above the aver- 

 age for the whole of the Pacific coast. February, on the con- 

 trary, was a very cold month, the mean terni erature being 3°6 

 below the average. I believe it will be found that the mean 

 temperature of a hemisphere is not affected by sunspots. That 

 the seasons, however, are influenced by the state of the sun's 

 surface I have no doubt, but this only in a secondary manner. 

 In a paper read before the California Academy of Sciences in 1S70 

 (see Proceedings, vol. iv. p. 128), I pointed out that our extreme 

 seasonal climates were caused by the prevalence of broad belts 

 of north and south winds which would extend continuously from 

 east to west for 1500 or 2oco miles, and would blow over the 

 same surface for months together, causing extreme seasons with 

 temperatures above the average where the south current pre- 

 vailed, and cold winters where there was a northerly current. 



As a general rule when there is a cold winter on the Pacific 

 coast the winter in the Eastern States is mild. The following 

 figures taken from the U.S. Meteorological Reports will 

 illustrate what I mean : — 



Mean Temperature for February 1883 



Below the Average „ Above the Average „ 



North Pacific States ... -4-3 North Atlantic States +2-2 



Middle Pacific region -4-3 Middle Atlantic States +4-3 



South Pacific region ... -2 - l Florida +6'3 



Thus while on the whole of the Pacific coast the temperature 

 of the whjle was from 4°'3 to 2°-i below the average, on the 

 Atlantic coast the temperature was from 6°"3 to 2°"2 above the 

 average. 



Towards the end of February the north current that had been 

 prevailing over the western regior.s of the continent during the 

 whole of the winter shifted to the east, and this change of longi- 

 tude was accompanied by some of the worst cyclones that have 

 visited the central and middle State* for years. 



During the month of March, whilst we were under the regime 

 of a south current, the temperature in the Eastern States was 

 low, the temperature in Massachusetts for March being 7°'3 

 below the average. 



My own belief is that the connection between the character of 

 our seasons and sunspots will have to be w orked out through the 

 influence of the sun on the regional distribution of air currents. 



San Francisco, Cal., July 3 James Blake 



Intelligence in Animals — Can a Viper Commit Suicide ? 



Having occasionally caught a viper, and kept it for a time 

 in a glass case, one of the platelayers called me last Thursday 

 and said " there was a fine ' Long Cripple ' (a local name for a 



