49o 



NA TURE 



\_Sept. iS, 1884 



fossils are to be found here, nor can I hear of any having been 

 found elsewhere. 



"With reference to the suggestion of the Rev. J. E. Tenison- 

 Woods (Nature, May 22, p. 76), that the tin is probably derived 

 from below the gneissose formation and above the granite, this 

 seems to me a most probable conclusion, although I have 

 seen no more of the clay-slate than water-worn blocks mixed with 

 the blocks of quartzose granite in this mine ; but I do not feel 

 quite certain that the so called laterite is derived from this clay- 

 slate formation, as it contains very much quartz sand, and, so 

 far as I have seen here, nothing that resembles a sand resultant 

 from the decomposition of the clay-slate. 



I was over in Kintah the other day, and heard of a hot spring 

 at a village called Samban, near Ipoh ; there are, I believe, 

 several others about in the peninsula, and I understand that sul- 

 phuric acid is emitted from the bottom of some of the mines at 

 Lahot, especially M. De la Croix'. These are the only signs 

 of volcanic action since the granite that I have heard of or 

 seen. 



In conclusion I cannot help indorsing the Rev Tenison- Woods' 

 opinion that there "are great quantities of tin here only waiting 

 to be worked. A. Hale 



Ulu Bakow, Perak River, July 25 



Repulsion 



Sir W. Thomson, in his address at Montreal, asks: "May 

 it not be that there is no such thing as repulsion, and that it is 

 solely by inertia that what seems to be repulsion is produced?' 1 

 And he proceeds to illustrate this by the case of two mutually 

 attracting bodies approaching, then dashing past one another in 

 sharply concave curves round their common centre of gravity, 

 and so flying asunder again. He adds that this idea was sug- 

 gested to him thirty-five years ago by an observation of Sir II. 

 Davy. And I think one may gather that his impression is that 

 it is one that has not presented itself to other minds in the 

 interval. 



I cannot but think that such an idea must have been "in the 

 air," among mathematicians, from the time wdien first any simi- 

 larity was thought of between the action of molecules and 

 masses. At any rate, I certainly never read Davy at first hand, 

 and yet, in 1S74, I published an " Elementary Exposition of the 

 Doctrine of Energy," intended for schools (which I fear fell dead 

 from the press), and in a section on "Molecular Theories" I 

 wrote as follows : — 



"Two bodies subject only to their mutual attraction, if their 

 motions at any one moment are not in the same straight line will 

 never come in contact. . . . The orbit may be like a comet's, 

 very nearly a straight line in the greater part of it, turning sharp 

 round at each extremity, . . . at the nearest with enormous impetus. 

 This shows that what we call elasticity in a mass may, wholly 

 or in part [this was meant to exclude the case of direct collision, 

 as to which Sir W. Thomson also enters a caveat], be the result 

 oi attractive force combined with motion. A blow given on the 

 surface of the solid mass drives the particles inwards ; but the 

 result may lie a pirouette round some of their inner neighbours, 

 and an equally strong outward impetus driving back the hammer 

 with an energy proportionate to that which it had given." 



My intention in that section was to excite thought in school 

 teachers and apprehensive and energetic scholars ; but I did not 

 imagine I was starting a novelty. He who propounds a working 

 hypothesis of .molecular action in which this idea plays a part 

 will have the whole credit. D. D. Heath 



Kitlands, Dorking 



Fellow-Feeling in House-Flies and Swallows 

 The moral feelings of animals being as interesting as their 

 intelligence, perhaps the readers of Nature would care to hear 

 of a curious instance that I just now witnessed of fellow-feeling 

 in the common house-fly. A number of them had collected in 

 the top of a window, and I was about to open it to let them 

 mil, when I saw a wasp seize one, as I have seen many seized 

 this year, bin never before, though 1 have often en hem feed 

 greedily on maimed bees. The wasp was about to sever the 

 head from the body of Ids victim, when a fly — by no means a 

 large one — flung itself violently against the captured one, trying 

 apparently to knock it away from the wasp ; it did not attack 

 the wasp. This was done again and again, whether by the 

 lly or another I could not tell, the action was 50 rapid ; 



last the body of the fly was knocked away, but the wasp retained 

 the head and devoured it. It then grasped another, and again 

 a lly dashed at it, and another, and another, though they were 

 all evidently afraid of the wasp ; and no wonder ; it seemed very 

 fierce and hungry. The action of the flies was quite unmistakable. 

 I called another person to watch it with me, and she was as much 

 surprised as I was, and inclined to kill the wasp ; but I thought 

 we could spare a few flies, notwithstanding this unexpected dis- 

 covery of fine feeling in them, and I would not let her disturb 

 the balance of Nature. 



I was once a delighted witness of a still more curious instance 

 of fellow-feeling in some young swallows. Six of them were 

 sitting on a low roof, and were being fed by the old bird, who 

 flew by from time to time, and put something into one or two of 

 the open beaks. Each time, as soon as they saw the parent 

 coming, which was some time before I did, they all stood up, 

 whirring their wings and chattering ; all, that is, except the last 

 but one, and that seemed to be weak and unable to rise, and so 

 got nothing. At last the two that flanked it, after a great deal 

 of chattering over it, managed to raise it up by putting their 

 beaks under its little white bosom ; and then and there the dear 

 little brotherly things wedged it up between them with the 

 prettiest air of compassion and patronage, so that it had a fair 

 chance with the others. And it seemed quite a chance which was 

 fed, yet all sat down apparently perfectly contented and good- 

 humoured afterwards. It was a pretty sight, and I was grieved 

 when, some boys coming by, they took to flight. 



Sidmouth, September 13 J. M. H. 



Rainbow on Spray 



The appearance noticed by " G. H." in last week's Nature 

 (p. 464) is a well-known sight at sea under certain conditions. 

 I first saw it from the deck of the Anchor Line s.s. Bolivia, 

 about two hundred miles east of Cape Cod. It lasted for half 

 an hour between 10 and 11 a.m. The sea was going down after 

 heavy weather : the sun was shining brightly in a clear blue 

 sky, with light, fleecy clouds scudding along. A fresh westerly 

 breeze cut the tops off the rollers and cast the spray high in the 

 air. When the procession of waves passed through an area 

 more or less opposite to the sun, their crests took up beautiful 

 rainbows ; there were thousands of them, and as the steamer 

 rolled and pitched, the changing angle caused the spray on some 

 waves to take more of one or other primary colour, seeming 

 now blue, now red, and again yellow golden. 



Leeds, September 13 Frank E. Cane 



JAPANESE EDUCATION 



nPHE Japanese Government, having decided to take a 

 •1 more prominent part in the Health Exhibition than 

 they did last year in the Fisheries — due, we believe, in 

 the latter instance to the fact that they had a Fisheries 

 Exhibition of their own in Tokio at the same time — have 

 appointed a Commission to superintend the Japanese 

 Section, among the members of which is Mr. S. Tegima, 

 the Curator of the Tokio Educational Museum, who has 

 been specially appointed to superintend the Educational 

 Section. To accompany the exhibits in this Section the 

 Government have published a little hand-book, which has 

 been reproduced in the China Telegraph, and which con- 

 tains the most exhaustive account of modern Japanese 

 education, its system, and results, that we have seen in 

 any European language. The Annual Report of the 

 Minister of Education is little more than a mass of sta- 

 tistics ; the number of children attending primary, 

 secondary, &c, schools for some years past is carefully 

 given, but we are left to guess at the subjects taught and 

 the course of instruction in these establishments. We 

 are not grumbling at the Report on this ground ; it is what 

 it professes to be ; we merely desire to point out the 

 special interest of the present little work. The Japanese 

 can look back with pride on a large — a very large — por- 

 tion of the national work of the past fifteen years ; and 

 in education, whatever it may have been in other depart- 

 ments, there has never been the slightest faltering or 

 doubt as to the wisdom of extending the benefits of an 

 improved system to every village and hamlet in the Em- 



