5H 



NATURE 



[April 2, 1885 



From a letter addressed by the Rev. Edward Reynolds, of 

 Rowland, Limestone County, Alabama, United States, dated 

 September 23, 1S84, to the Krakatoa Committee of the Royal 

 Society, we take the following extract :— "Soon after becoming 

 acquainted with the zodiacal light, I began to notice red sunsets. 

 After a few years I noticed that they invariably followed the 

 commencement of the zodiacal light, and continued about the 

 same length of time— that is, about -two or three months. I 

 seldom failed to call the attention of my friends and neighbours 

 to these phenomena. Until this last display of the zodiacal 

 light, and its invariable attendants, the red.sunrises and sunsets, 

 I have always accounted for the redness by supposing it to be 

 caused by the oblique passage of the sun's rays through his 

 nebular train. But this season I have been obliged to give up 

 that theory, because the redness has continued after the dis- 

 appearance of the zodiacal light. It is now more than ten 

 months since their commencement, about November 13. They 

 still continue to show no signs of abatement, but rather increase 

 in vividness. Hence, I infer that the immediate cause of the 

 redness is within the atmosphere, rather than in the distant and 

 invisible nebulous train of the sun. We have not this season 

 had a single day nor hour of clear, blue sky, such as is common 

 in ordinary years. We have had plenty of cloudless days, but 

 none of the pure blue. There is a yellowish, creamy whiteness, 

 especially far and wide about the sun, even at midday. In 

 looking across a forty-acre lot there is, at all times of the day, a 

 peculiar blueness in the atmosphere, whilst at night not more 

 than a third or half of the stars can be seen. The freer from 

 clouds the heavens are, the more distinctly do the red sunrises 

 and sunsets appear ; and so of the other appearances of the 

 atmosphere I have mentioned. During the evenings following 

 November 13 last I was able to see the zodiacal light bul 

 times, and then very indistinctly. I watched long for an 

 opportunity to show it to my friends and neighbours, but fail j I 

 to find an evening when it could be seen by unpractised 1 

 It lias never been so before, since my attention was called 

 -abject forty-four years ago."' 



The following account, we learn from Science, of unusual 

 phenomena was received, March 10, at the Hydrographic Office, 

 Washington, from the branch office in San Francisco. The 

 barque Tnnerwich, Capt. Waters, has just arrived at Victoria 

 from Yokohama. At midnight of February 24, in latitude 37" 

 north, longitude 170° 15' east, the captain was aroused by the 

 male, and went on deck to find the sky changing to a fiery red. 

 All at once a large ma->s of fire appeared over the vessel, com- 

 pletely blinding the spectators ; and, as it fell into the sea some 

 fifty yards to leeward, it caused a hissing sound, which was 

 heard above the blast, and made the vessel quiver from stem to 

 stern. Hardly had this disappeared, when a lowering mass of 

 white foam was seen rapidly approaching the vessel. The noise 

 from the advancing volume of water is described as deafening. 

 The barque was struck flat aback ; but, before there was time 

 to touch a brace, the sails had filled again, and the roaring white 

 sea had passed ahead. To increase the horror of the situation, 

 another " vast sheet of flame " ran down the mizen mast, and 

 " poured in myriads of sparks " from the rigging. The strange 

 redness of the sky remained for twenty minutes. The master, 

 an old and experienced mariner, declares that the awfulness of 

 the sight was beyond description, and considers that the ship 

 had a narrow escape from destruction. 



The United States Bureau of Education have printed and 

 distributedoan address, by the Rev. A. D. Mayo, on the subject 

 of education in the South, which, balloon-like, may raise some 

 heavy hearts by its very inflation ! He urges the folly of casting 

 upon the ignorant mass of either race the responsibility of edu- 

 cating itself, and he tries to rouse enthusiasm like his own among 

 Southerners who are educated ; urging the first call upon local 



taxes to which education is entitled ; the amount of voluntary 

 effort which may be made by >th males and females, who 

 appreciate hts views and will qualify themselves for teachers ; 

 arid the small importance of buildings, books, or apparatus, 

 where a school has been commenced from the '•soul end," 

 good teacher. 



It is unquestionable now that the new trigonometrical survey 

 which has been made in the Netherlands (especially by the late 

 Mr. Stamkart) for the European Commission since 1864 is not 

 sufficient for the purpose for which it was undertaken, and the 

 second chamber of the " Staten Generaal " has lately voted the 

 money required for doing the work over again. Strange to say, 

 it was the Minister himself who objected to this item, saying 

 that as long as Mr. Stamkart lived, his colleagues (the other 

 Dutch deputies to the European Commission) had made no 

 objection to his work, and consequently he feared that perhaps 

 later it might be said that the survey now proposed would also 

 have to be done over again. Though it is to be regretted that 

 such is the case, we cannot wonder at the Dutch Government 

 objecting to such an expense, after its experience both in the 

 Netherlands and in the Dutch East Indies. 



There is a curious analogy in China to the English custom 

 of burying suicides at cross-roads, with a stake through their 

 body. The body of the felo de ic who is so irreverent as to 

 commit self-destruction within the precincts of that portion of 

 Peking in which the Imperial Court is situated, is solemnly 

 brought to some public place, such as a bridge, and there 

 flogged. 



The inaugural address of the President of the Leicester 

 Literary and Philosophical Society on the jubilee of the Society, 

 which has been published separately (Leicester : Clarke and 

 Hodgson) is characterised by a circumstance which is probably 

 unprecedented in the history of societies. The President for the 

 year is Dr. George Shaw, who was .the President, and who 

 delivered the first address to the Society fifty years ago ; the 

 same President of a society at its formation and at its fiftieth 

 anniversary is a coincidence of peculiar .interest. Dr. Shaw was 

 naturally retrospective, for he described the labours of the 

 founders, and the progress which has been made in the half 

 century. The little pamphlet should be of use to all interested 

 in steering young societies through the rocks and shallows which 

 beset all enterprises in the earlier stages of their existence. In 

 the case of the Leicester Society the stages were : (1) the papers 

 were too dry ami abstruse, and no one attended — learning was 

 suffocating the infant ; (2) they became popular, less philo- 

 sophical, and more literary, to the detriment of severer study — 

 the infant's constitution was being destroyed by sweets ; (3) 

 popular public lecturers began ,to be employed in an increasing 

 ratio, and their presence was indicative of a want of energy 

 amongst its members. After his biography of the Society, Dr. 

 Shaw discusses the spirit of the present age, and the members 

 of the Leicester Philosophical and Literary Society were to be 

 congratulated if their presidential address fifty years ago were 

 anything like so vigorous, encouraging, and abreast of time a-. 

 that-on their jubilee. 



Mr. Adam Sedgwick has in preparation a new book, to be 

 entitled "The Elements of Anim.il Biology," which is intended 

 to serve as an introduction to the study of animal morphology 

 and physiology. Messrs. Swan Sonnenschein and Co. are to be 

 the publishers. 



Dr. Buller, of Wellington, New Zealand, is preparing for 

 the press a new and enlarged edition of his " History of the 

 Birds of New Zealand." The "history" will comprise a 

 general introduction on the ornithology of New Zealand, a con- 

 cise diagnosis of each bird in Latin and English, synoptical lists 



