Oct, 25, 1877] 



NATURE 



565 



in sight, an incredible exhortation to the rowers and rivalry took 

 place. The ships of the barbarians indeed went faster, because 

 for a length of time they had been accustomed to the handling of 

 the oars ; but the ships of the Greeks preceded them by a smiill 

 interval ; and, having finished their voyage as quickly as possible, 

 they immediately sprang upon the strand like wrestlers ; and, 

 indeed, the leading ships of the Carthaginians attacked the after- 

 most ships of Agathocles, having come within range of missiles." 

 — DiOD. Sic, lib. xx., ch. 5, 6. 



TTJs vuxrhs, cfeXirlaTov (rtuT/;pias eVuxt- Tt; o'un-TepaCct Tri\iKa\)Tj}v 

 fK\ei\jiii> TJXiov a-vyeBv yis'((j6ai, &(TTe ^XoXfP^s ^awi)i>ai vvKTa, 

 Biu^u^ivuv Tuiv a(T7ipwv TtavTc-xov, . . . 'E^ 5'7j,ue'pas Kttl Tas t(ras 

 Ci/KTOS uvTuv -KKeviTixfTmVj dnofpaivouffris t^s €w ew, iropaSJ|&?s d 

 OTiKos riii> Kapxv^ovia.'V ovk uToflef iiv (api9r]. — DiOD. SlC, 

 Lib. XX., ch. 5, 6. 



From this narrative it can be clearly si ow 1 that Prof. 

 Newcomb is mistaken when he says that " we do not kiu .a on 

 mhkh side of SkUy lie saL'tJ." It is qui'e certain that the eclipse 

 occurred before the expedi'ion had weathered the promontoi/ of 

 Pachynus, or had made any sensible westing in their voyage. 



The total distance, on a coasting voyage from Syracuse to 

 Carthage, is 350 English miles, and the distance from Syracuse 

 to Cape Pachynus is forty miles. Now, the whole time of the 

 voyage was six days and as many nights, together with a 

 portion of a night at Syracuse, and a portion of a day near 

 Carthage (the stone quarries). Allowing six hours each to these, 

 we have : — 



Hours. 



Part of night of outset at Syracuse ... ... 6 



Six days and as many nighfs ... ... ... 144 



Part of day near Carthage before landing at 



the " Stone Quarries " 6 



156 



This is the minimum time allowable from the narrative, and 

 any longer time allowed will strengthen my argument. The 

 rate of rowing during the voyage was, therefore, 



i?^ = a'S"! miles per hour. 

 156 



At this rate of rowing it would require I7h. 4Sm. to reach Cape 

 Pachynus, a distance of forty miles ; so that if the expedition 

 sailed at midnight, it would have been off Pachynus, to the 

 eastward, at 5 P.M., which is the time assigned by Petavius for 

 the middle of the eclipse (Syracusan time). It is, therefore, 

 perfectly clear that if the expedition had got so far to the west- 

 ward as to allow of the coefficient (6'ii), the eclipse must be 

 thrown into the wrong day, which is inadmissible. 



If Delaunay is to be trusted, the expedition must have gone 

 out of the Mediterranean into the Atlantic before the coefficient 

 6'll could be verified. He says: — "Nous avons dit que la 

 duree du jour augmentait d'une seconde dans I'espace de ic ),ooo 

 ans. Mais cela se produit progressivement, de telle manieie que 

 ces augmentations successives des jours s'ajoutent, et au bout 

 d'un grand nombre de jours, font un total appreciable. Si on 

 remonte a une epoque, de 2400 ans epoque .a peu prcs, a laquelle 

 on rapporte les eclipses historiques dont on a parle, on voit que 

 I'observation de I'une de ces eclipses a du ctre faite l^'\ plus lot 

 que si le ralentissement du mouvement de rotation de la terre 

 n'avait pas existe. 



" La variation relative aux anciennes eclipses va done jusqu'a 

 l^\. Ainsi une eclipse a eteobservee a un certain moment l''|- 

 plus tut qu'elle ne I'aurait ete sans le ralentissement. 



" Prenons les trois eclipses principales rapportees par I'histolre. 

 Celle de Thales, arrivce 585 ans avant J. — C, a ete vue en Asia 

 Mineure ; sans le ralentissement du mouvement de rotation de la 

 terre, on I'aurait vue dans I'ile de Sardaigne. 



" Celle de Darisse (557 ans avant J. — C.) a ete observee en 

 Perse ; on I'aurait vue dans la regence de Tripoli, sans le 

 ralentissement. 



" Enfin, celle d'Agathocle (310 ans avant J. — C), signalee 

 pres de Syracuse, aurait dfl se montrer pres de Cadix." 1 



STRIDULATING ORGANS IN SCORPIONS 



A T the September meeting of the London Entomological 

 ■'*• Society, Mr. J. Wood-Mason announced the discovery of 

 tridulating organs in scorpions. While recently working at the 



anatomy of a species allied to S, afer, he had met with structures 

 which, from his familiarity with the analogous ones in other 

 arthropods, crustaceans as well ?s insects, he had at once with- 

 out hesitation determined to be sound-producing apparatus — • 

 even before he had found that sounds could be produced by them 

 artificially by rubbing the parts together or accidentally in the 

 mere handling of alcoholic specimens. He hid, however, been 

 enabled to pb.ce the matter beyond all doubt, for while at 

 Bombay waiting for the steamer, he had obtained, by a happy 

 chance, from some Hindustani conjurors, two Urge living scor- 

 pions belonging to another species of the same type ; these, 

 when fixed face to face on a light metal table and goaded into 

 fury, at once commenced to beat the air wiih their palps and 

 simultaneously to eiiit sounds which were most distinctly 

 audible not only to himself, but also to the bystanders, above 

 the clatter msde by the animals in their efforts to get free, and 

 which resembled the noise produced by continuously scraping 

 a piece of i-ilk woven fabric, or, better still, a stiff toolh-brush 

 with one's finger-nails. The species — a gigantic one from the 

 Upper Godaveri district — in which he had first observed stridu- 

 lating organs, had these organs more highly developed than in 

 the one experimented upon at Bombay, and must stridulate far 

 more loudly, for by artificially rubbing the parts together in a 

 dead alcoholic specimen he could produce a sound almost as 

 loud as, and very closely similar to, that made by briskly and 

 continuously drawing the tip of the index-finger backwards 

 and forwards in a diiec'.ion transverse to its coarse ridges, 

 over the ends of the teeth of a very fine-toothed comb. 

 The apparatus, which, as in the My^ak, is developed on 

 each side of the body, wjs situated — the scraper upon the 

 flat outer face of the basal joint of the palp-fingers ; the rasp 

 on the equally flat and produced inner face of the corre- 

 sponding joint of the first pair of legs. On separating these 

 appendages from one another, a slightly raised and well-defined 

 large oval area of lighter coloration than the surrounding chitine 

 was to be seen at the very base of the basal joint of each ; these 

 areaa constituted respectively the scrapir&ni the ras/> ; the former 

 was tolerably thickly but regularly beset with stout, conical, 

 sharp spinules curved like a tiger's canine, only more towards 

 the points, some of which terminate in a long limp hair ; the 

 latter crowdedly studded with minute tubercles shaped like the 

 tops of mushrooms. He had met with no stridulating organs in 

 this position in any scorpions besides S. afer and its allies ; but 

 in searching for them in other groups he had come to the con- 

 clusion that the very peculiar armature of the trenchant edges of 

 the palp-fingers in all the AnJroctonoiJiF, and in some at any 

 rate of the Paiidinoid^c (no TelegjnoiJie or V jovoUie had yet 

 been examined), was nothing but a modification for the same 

 purpose, for the movable finger of this pair of appendages when 

 in the closest relation of apposition to its immovable fellow could 

 most easily be made to grate upon it from side to side so as to 

 produce a most distinct crepitating sound ; but when separated 

 from it ever so little appeared to be incapable of the slightest 

 lateral movement. It was his intention on his return to India to 

 endeavour to determine this question, as well as many others 

 relative to the species in which the presence of sound-producing 

 apparatus had now been demonstrated by careful observation 

 and experiment upon living animals. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE 



O.XFORD. — Mr. Thomas Whittaker, from the Royal College 

 of Science, Dublin, has been elected to a Natural Science 

 Scholarship at Exeter College. 



At Jesus College the following elections to Welsh scholarships 

 have been made : — In mathematics, Mr. David Davies, from 

 the College, Llandovery ; in science, Mr. William Williams, 

 from Dolgelly Grammar School. 



The Commissioners commenced their sittings at the Clarendon 

 Hotel on Monday. The proceedings of the Commissioners were 

 of a formal character, but Tuesday, it was understood, they 

 would proceed to take evidence. 



Cambridge. — The master and seniors of Gonville and Caius 

 College will proceed in December to elect a prelector in che- 

 mistry, in succession to the late Mr. Richard Apjohn. The 

 duties of the prelector will be to take charge of the college 

 laboratory, to prosecute original research, to instruct in chemis- 



