54 



NA TURE 



[Nov. 20, 1884 



tion (my own of course included), so that we may still consider 

 the instrumental investigation of earthquakes far froai a settled 

 matter, and one to be more fully worked out. 



Naples, November 10 II. J. Johnston-Lavis 



Autumn Flowering 



Referring to your article on autumn flowering (p. 13), I may 

 mention that my garden primroses are now flowering again, and 

 a laburnum is in flower in the garden of one of the houses on 

 this road. I was in Paris in September 1861, and saw many 

 horse-chestnuts in flower. The summer of 1S61 was unusually 

 warm and dry on the Continent, though I believe not in the 

 British Islands. Joseph John Murphy 



2, Osborne Park, Belfast, November 14 



The Northernmost Extremity of Europe 

 "A Norwegian" (Nature, p. 17) says that my descrip- 

 tion of Knivskjserodden as a low glaciated tongue of rock is 

 hardly correct. As Norwegians ought to, and generally do, know 

 more about their own land than do foreigners, I will quote 

 Tonsberg, whose " Norge " is admitted as a high authority 

 by all. Describing the scene displayed from the edge of the 

 precipice of the North Cape, he .says : " Beneath you at a 

 distance of one-eighth of a mile, you see the long low Knivs- 

 kjaelodde, which is undeniably the most northern fart of 

 Norway." The picture in his book (from a photograph) shows 

 the northward extremity of this projection as washed over by the 

 waves and its ■western side precipitous, as I saw it. 



I sailed round it twice, more than ten years ago, halting in 

 front of the North Cape for half an hour, and can only smile at 

 the attempt to claim the northward supremacy of Knivs- 

 kjaerodden as a new discovery or one demanding further 

 verification. In my copy of Munch's map (1852) it is shown as 

 projecting a little further north than the North Cape. 



Tonsberg further confirms my statement concerning the eleva- 

 tion of the neighbouring Arctic headlands, which "A Nor- 

 wegian " also contradicts. Sverho'.tklubben, according to Tons- 

 berg, is twenty-four Norsk feet higher than the North Cape. I 

 should have added that the measurement I gave was in Norsk 

 feet. Measured in English feet, the height of the North Cape 

 is 1004 feet ; Uial of Sverhultklubben 1029 feet at the edge of 

 the cliff. There are about a dozen other headlands of similar 

 magnitude between North Cape and the Varangerfjord. 



W. Mattieu Williams 



Breeding of the Quadrumana 

 Have any of your readers any experience of the production 

 in captivity, of a scend generation of any of the quadrumana ? 

 At least twelve out of about eighty species kept in the Zoological 

 Gardens have bred during the past thirty years — the lemurs 

 forming a large proportion — and the Rhesus more frequently 

 than any other monkey. I presume that even a first genera- 

 tion of any of the anthropoids is unknown — except possibly 

 of the gibbon (?). The disposition and moral character (in the 

 widest sense) of no species of monkey whatever approaches that 

 of the do;;. May not this be due to the absence of inheritance 

 (to which the dog owes so much) of the gradually accumulate'! 

 cultivation of these qualities through association with man? 

 The dog has enjoyed all these advantages. The monkey can- 

 not, owing to (he impossibility of rearing a succession of gener- 

 ations in captivity. Does the experience of your readers, who 

 may have studied a first generation of monkeys, point to any 

 improvement on the parent stock in dis osition and character? 

 So far as I have been able to judge from individuals in public 

 collections, the mere mental power of these animals con-picuously 

 exceeds that of any others. I should be glad to know whether 

 this opinion is shared by those who have had more extended 

 opportunities of observation. ARTHUR Nicols 



Fly-Maggots Feeding on Caterpillars 

 Your correspondent, Dr. E. Bonavia (p. 29), is mistaken in 

 supposing the flies bred from his butterfly-chrysalis were " house- 

 flies." They belong to the sub-family Tachininee, which is of 

 very large extent, comprising several hundreds of species in 

 Europe alone, and all probably parasitic in other insects. The 

 " house-fly " belongs to the sub-family Muscince. The mistake 



is very pardonable, for there is often great external similarity in 

 form, colour, and size, and it is one frequently made in this 

 country. R. McLachlan 



Clarendon Road, Eewisham, S.E., November 14 



It might interest Dr. E. Bonavia (November 13, p. 29) 

 to know that it is not an unusual circumstanee to find the 

 larvae of the house-fly in the nests of Vespa vulgaris and 

 /". germanica feeding upon the live bodies of the larva? and 

 pupa; of the wasps. Occasionally I have found nests in the 

 summer-time quite deserted by the wasps, all the pupx- in the 

 cells having been eaten by the maggots of house-flies and other 

 Diptera, F. W. ELLIOTT 



Buckhurst Hill, Essex, November 18 



The Sunday Question 



The announcement that, " after opening the Free Library on 

 Sundays for two months, the Town Council have resolved to 

 close it again in consequence of the small number of visitors," 

 seems to indicate that the Town Council of Chester were as wise 

 in deciding to close the Library as they had previously been in 

 giving the people of Chester an opportunity of spending a por- 

 tion of their day of rest in the Public Library, where those who 

 do not possess libraries of their own can obtain access to the 

 wi=dom of the ages as stored in books. 



If the facts are as stated, no one can complain of the action 

 of the Chester Town Council, though some would have been 

 glad to have seen a little more patience with people who for so 

 long have been compelled to spend their Sundays when not at 

 home either in the church, the public-house, or the streets, all of 

 which may be attended with advantage and profit by free and 

 intelligent men and women ; but when men are driven to either 

 of these places, what should be a blessing becomes in too many 

 cases a curse. 



However, as I have said, we have no right to complain of the 

 Town Council of Chester closing the Public Library on Sunday 

 if there is no considerable number of the people of the town 

 desirous of using the institution on that day. In civilised 

 communities representative authorities such as town councils and 

 parliaments are only justified in spending public money on in- 

 stitutions when at least a considerable section of the community 

 desires it. 



The Sunday Society bases its claim for the Sunday opening 

 of the British Museum, the South Kensington Museum, the 

 Natural History Museum, the National Gallery, and the Bethnal 

 Green Museum on the ascertained fact that very large sections 

 of the community do desire to visit them on Sundays, and if it 

 be replied that there are more people who have no such desire 

 and therefore these institutions should be closed, I answer that 

 that argument would close the whole of them on every day in 

 the week, for m one will for a moment contend that a majority 

 of the people of the United Kingdom have visited, or can pos- 

 sibly visit, these national exhibitions of the wonders of the 

 universe and what we call its highest product — man. 



But the benefit of these institutions is not confined to those 

 who actually visit them. The sermon of the Puritan divine and 

 the lecture at the mechanic's institute are alike indebted to the 

 British Museum and the other institutions named. 



Let the trustees of the British Museum follow the example of 

 the Town Council of Chester and open the Museum on Sundays 

 for two months, and the question, so far as the Sunday Society 

 is concerned, will be settled for ever. I will venture to say that 

 after such an experiment the British Museum would never again 

 be closed on Sundays, and with such an example in the centre 

 of the metropolis, no Sunday Society would be longer needed to 

 advo-ate the opening of museums, art galleries, libraries, and 

 gardens on Sundays. 



The statement that at Keswick the " Sunday-opening experi- 

 ment had been tried and abandoned "is true, but it should be 

 explained that the Library at Keswick is not a public institution 

 in the sense of being supported by rates and taxes, and is under 

 the sole control of the vicar of the parish. It was the late vicar 

 who closed the Library on Sundays, and I have the pleasure of 

 announcing the fact that the Sunday-closing experiment has been 

 tried and abandoned. The present vicar, the Rev. J. N. Hoare, 

 did not decide to do this on his own authority, but he convened 

 a.jspecial meeting of the Committee to consider the question, 



