April 19, 1906] 



NA TURE 



583 



Friday) the king and queen, decked with daffadowndillies, 

 were led out to the Newton Moors, where they were 

 solemnly interred in graves dug side by side in a sandy 

 knowe. Hands were clasped through a hole bored in the 

 sand between the graves. 



The burial ceremony had disappeared by the time ray 

 mother went to school, but the selection of a king and 

 queen still persisted, though in a degenerate form. The 

 pupil who presented the largest sum of money to the 

 teacher on Candlemas Day was crowned king or queen, 

 an<l the royal health was drunk in toddy provided by the 

 schoolmaster. 



I append a list of some of the festivals in vogue in my 

 mother's childhood. Some of them survived until within 

 thirtv years ago, but all, with the exception of New Year's 

 Day, are now practically extinct. 



Hogmanay (December 31). — Presents demanded. 



New Year's Day. — First-footing; exchange of visits; 

 carousal. 



Hansel Monday (first Monday after January 1). — Ex- 

 change of presents. 



Candlemas. — Election of school-king. 



Huntygowk [Hunt the Gowk = Cuckoo] (April 1). — Fools' 

 errands, &c. 



May Day. — Washing of face in dew to keep freckles 

 away. 



St. John's Eve. — Firing of guns by sailors over captains' 

 houses. 



Midsummer Fair. — Great cattle-fair on main street of 

 Newton. On this evening, or some other about this 

 season, the herds in the neighbouring village commune of 

 Prestwick built a great bonfire. 



Kipper Fair (first Friday after August 13). — Procession 

 of " whipmen " on gaily caparisoned horses. Horse races 

 and gala on Newton Sands. Publication of lampoons. 

 Feasting on kippered salmon and ale. 



Hallowe'en (October 31). — The great saturnalia of the 

 year. Stealing of kale-stocks ; smashing of doors with 

 same ; smoking-out of house dwellers ; disguises ; turnip 

 lanterns ; diving for apples ; eating from one common dish ; 

 burning nuts, and many other fortune-telling rites. 



Martinmas. — Killing of the mairt or mart, the animal 

 the carcase of which was salted down for winter use. 



Christmas, Good Friday, and Easter were not observed. 



I have not included hiring fairs, ordinary cattle and 

 horse fairs, &c, or the fast days which were quite modern 

 ecclesiastical institutions. I ought, perhaps, to have in- 

 cluded the Queen's birthday (May 24), for, even in my 

 boyhood, that day was honoured in such a boisterously 

 loyal manner as compared with the non-observance of the 

 anniversary in most Scottish towns, that I cannot help 

 thinking the bonfire raisers may in part have inherited their 

 enthusiasm from the traditions of some ancient festival. 

 The progress of a blazing boat through the streets of Ayr 

 and Newton was the crowning episode of the day. The 

 boat was stolen from the Newton fishermen, and no com- 

 bustible property was on that day safe from confiscation. 



W. Semple. 



Dumfries, Scotland, March 1. 



Chemistry in Rural Secondary Schools. 



Prof. Meldola has raised an important question on 

 Mr. Dunstan's letter. Speaking of two rural secondary 

 schools, he says that chemistry (with physics) " has been 

 taught with the greatest success " and is " of distinct 

 value in after life." It would be useful to have inform- 

 ation about the careers of the individual boys on which 

 he bases his opinion, and the character of the science 

 teaching in the two schools referred to. My experience 

 with young farmers in Essex has led me to think that the 

 chemistry taught in many rural schools has had too little 

 bearing upon the problems of rural life to be of much 

 practical use, and school life is too short to admit of a 

 science being taught as a means of mental discipline unless 

 at the same time the pupils are building up knowledge that 

 is essential to future progress. 



The county institution at Chelmsford to which Prof. 

 Meldola alludes includes schools of horticulture and agri- 



NO. I903, VOL. 73] 



culture. Though not secondary schools, it may be useful 

 to state that, while in teaching horticultural students the 

 biologist found it quite possible to get on without the 

 chemist, in teaching agricultural students the chemist could 

 make little progress without the biologist. It was not that 

 chemistry and physics were not taught to all the students, 

 but that the biologist, qua biologist, necessarily possessed 

 both chemical and physical knowledge, while the chemist, 

 gild chemist, knew no biology. In rural secondary schools 

 biology should be an important subject of instruction, 

 most rural industries being more or less biological. But 

 no progress in biology can be made without an adequate 

 knowledge of chemistry and physics, so that it is not a 

 question of whether these sciences should be taught— there 

 can be no possible doubt about that— but how they are 

 taught. The teacher needs to be essentially a biologist, or 

 at any rate to have studied science in a biological atmo- 

 sphere, e.g. in an agricultural college, in order to be able 

 to teach chemistry as a natural science and build up a 

 knowledge of its principles by the study of substances and 

 phenomena that come within the experience of rural life. 



To give a concrete case. A common subject of instruc- 

 tion in the chemistry of a rural school is Weldon's process 

 for the recovery of manganese in the manufacture of 

 chlorine. To not one bov in a thousand is the knowledge 

 of this process likely to be useful in after life, unless as 

 cram for an examination. The underlying principles could 

 be just as well illustrated by a study of the process of 

 liming land to neutralise acidity and promote oxidation, 

 a better subject educationally because coming within the 

 boy's own range of experience, and affording knowledge 

 which might be useful to every boy in the school. But 

 how many of the existing rural school science masters 

 possess the knowledge of natural science necessary to deal 

 with it? T. S. Dvmond. 



Savile Club, W., April 15. 



Diurnal Periodicity of Ionisation of Gases. 



In the course of some experiments on the spontaneous 

 ionisation of air and other gases in closed vessels, Mr. 

 N. R. Campbell and I have detected a well marked perio- 

 dicity in its value. It has two maxima and two minima 

 in each twenty-four hours, the maxima occurring between 

 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. and between 10 p.m. and 1 a.m. 

 at night while the minima occur with great regularity at 

 or near 2 p.m. and 4 a.m. The form of the curve drawn 

 for the observations of any single day is, as a rule, 

 sufficiently well marked for the maxima and minima to 

 be apparent, while if the mean of the observations for 

 several days be taken, the form of the resulting curve is 

 unmistakable. 



The cause of this periodicity has not, as yet, been deter- 

 mined. A continuous record of the temperature of the 

 laboratory was taken, and it was found to have a simple 

 daily period with a maximum during the day and a very 

 regular minimum at 7 a.m. The temperature fell steadily 

 from 6 p.m. until seven o'clock the following morning, 

 and, as during this interval the ionisation rises to a 

 maximum, falls to a minimum, and then rises to a maxi- 

 mum again, it does not seem possible to connect the 

 variations with temperature. 



On the other hand, the variations of atmospheric potential 

 show some striking parallel features. This quantity has a 

 double daily period. Its maxima, like those of the ionisa- 

 tion, are not very well defined, and occur about the same 

 time's. The minima in both cases are remarkably constant, 

 and occur at exactly the same hours— 2 p.m. and 4 a.m. 

 The irregularities in the atmospheric potential curves are 

 less marked during the night than during the day— an 

 observation which holds also for the ionisation curves. 

 Lastly, this diurnal variation of the atmospheric potential 

 is most marked in February, and it was in the ionisation 

 curves for Februarv that the periodicity was first noticed. 



This and other possible causes of the periodicity are at 

 present being investigated, and although the research is 

 necessarilv a" slow one, we hope soon to be in a position 

 to publish a full account of the work. Alex. Wood. 



Cavendish Laboratorv, Cambridge, April 9. 



