262 
Meteor at St. Thomas 
Tue enclosed reached me from a meteorological correspondent 
in St. Thomas. The records of such phenomena must be rare ; 
there may be something peculiar in this one ; I therefore forward 
it to you. Rawson RAWSON 
Government House, Barbados, Dec. 30, 1872 
‘©Qn November 30, 1872, at 82 10" P.M. a beautiful large 
meteor was observed, which passed from west to east with great 
brilliancy, and exploded in the zenith in numerous little stars. 
It lasted about three seconds. A little after a rumbling noise, 
like distant thunder, was heard. It is reported by the watch- 
man of the floating dock, which lies at present on the eastern 
beach of Long Bay in eight feet water, for repairs, that he was 
sleeping on the platform under an awning ; he awoke from the 
heat and the strong light which passed close to him through the 
lattice work ; and some ashes fell on the dock which he found 
but did not collect, not knowing that it was of value. As is well 
known, aerolites travel at the rate of 10,000 feet per second.” 
Brilliant Meteor 
Last night about 10.0, the moment after leaving the room in 
which I had been lecturing, at Wordsley, near Stourbridge, the 
ground about me was lighted up as by the sudden flash of a near 
Jantern or the emergence of the full moon from a bank of cloud, 
On looking up at the sky, I saw a rocket-like object shooting 
down with a slightly zigzag motion like that of a fish, and leav- 
ing behind it a trail of mingled and mingling tints of green, 
purple, and yellow of nearly the semi-diameter of the moon. 
After a first thought about fireworks, I felt sure it was a meteor, 
and looked about for the constellations, so that I might be able 
to describe its path. The sky, however, was covered with 
clouds, only a star here and there being visible, and the moon, 
though easily seen, presenting a very hazy appearance. From 
inquiry at the Rectory as to the aspect of the schoolroom from 
which I had just come out, I judge that the course of the meteor 
must have been from north-west to west. When I first saw it, it 
was about 40° or 50° above the horizon, and it traversed about 
half the remaining space before disappearing, occupying, I esti- 
mate, about six seconds in doing so. Its path formed an angle 
of about 40° with the horizon. 
From the fact that the sky was covered with clouds and that 
the meteor illuminated the ground with a light superior to that 
of the ‘‘half” moon shining at the time, I judge that the meteor 
was between the clouds and the earth. This nearness, would, 
of course, be an element in its great apparent size (which would 
be added to by the zigzag motion) ; and as it would also prevent 
its being seen at great distances and by many observers, I have, 
after some hesitation, penned this record of my very imperfect 
observations. GEORGE ST. CLAIR 
London, Feb. 4 
The Antinomies of Kant 
My attention has been directed by a friend to an address by 
Prof. W. K. Clifford, in AMacmillan’s Magazine for this month, 
containing a curious misrepresentation of Kant’s teaching, and 
therein an instructive instance of ultracrepidism. The professor 
remarks: “The opinion that at the basis of the natural order 
there is something which we can know to be zveasonadble to 
elude the process of human thought . . . is set forth first by Kant, 
so far as I know, in the form of his famous doctrine of the anti- 
nomies or contradictions, a later form of which I will endeavour 
to explain to you.” ** This doctrine,” he continues, ‘‘has been 
developed and extended to the great successors of Kant, and 
this unreasonable, or unknowab'e, which is also called the abso- 
lute and the unconditioned, has been set forth in various ways as 
that which we know to be the true basis of all things.” 
T am sure I should not be allowed, in the columns of NATURE, 
sufficient space to point out in detail the misapprehensions in- 
volved in these remarks. It is plain to me that Professor 
Clifford has approached the very difficult subject of Kant’s Anti- | 
nomies from the system of Sir William Hamilton. To start with | 
Hamilton, however, is to be handicapped in the pursuit, and to 
augment the difficulties to be surmounted. In truth the doctrine 
Professor Clifford expounds is simply that of Hamilton; but 
Hamilton did not either develop or extend the Antinomies of 
Kant, He never understood them, but carved his little system 
out of .a few splinters he gathered by the way. All Hamilton’s | 
characterisations of Kant are ludicrously false. This doctrine | 
NATURE 
of the Antinomies does not answer, either, to Professor Clifford’s 
touch. The Antithetic is not ‘*‘ zsreasonable,” nor does it ‘* elude 
the processes of human thought ;” for, though it presents an un- 
avoidable z//usion, Kant has used reason, with matchless power 
and subtlety, to show that reason is master of the position, can 
solve every Autinomy, and can therefore guard against the very 
possibility of delusion. It is not any “natural order” of 
thought or things, that is found to be unreasonable, but the 
offence against coon logic which is involved in every attempt 
to prove the thesis or antithesis of an antinomy. I refer all who 
care to sce the thing for themselves to Kant’s K. r. V., Element. 
ii. Th., ii. Abth., ii. Buch., 2 Hauptst., 7 Abschnitt: Kritische 
Entscheidung des kosmologischen Streits der Vernunft mit 
sich selbst + e¢ seg. C. M. INGLERY 
Athenzeum Club, Jan. 21 
The Source of the Solar Heat 
Ir gave me great pleasure to find that Captain Ericsson has 
taken the same views as myself with regard to the Source of the 
Solar Energy; but there is a certain part of his article in 
NaTuRE, vol. vi. p. 539, which I do not quite understand. 
My views on this subject were sent to the Royal Astronomical 
Society, and were published in the Monthly Notices for April 
1872, where it was easily shown that if E be the total energy 
destroyed in a given time by the crushing-in of the sun’s mass— 
E=$7 fo p% Ay 
where g, is the force of gravity at the sun’s surface, 
p the density, supposed constant, i 
7, the sun’s radius, 
z, the contraction of that radius in the given time; all 
corresponding to the present epoch. 
To find s, we must express E in thermal units by means of the 
dynamical theory of heat, and equate the result to the total 
amount of heat radiated by the sun ; and it is easy to show that 
z, must be 129 ft. per annum; and since Captain Ericsson finds 
the eontraction to be 121 ft., we are so far in agreement. 
But 4 7 p 7,3 is the mass of the sun, and g, varies inversely as 
7°, hence we may write ‘ 
E=CZ 
R? 
where C is a constant, and R, Z, the valves of the radius and ot 
the contraction at any other epoch of time. Now there is no 
connection between Z and R ; if Z varies as R, then E is con- 
stant ; if Z varies as R, which I believe to be the most probable 
assumption, then E varies inversely as R, and the total solar 
radiation must be slowly increasing ; but I see no reason what- 
ever for supposing that Z varies directly as R*, so that the solar 
radiation must be diminishing in proportion to the square of the 
sun’s radius. MAXWELL HALL 
Jamaica 
The Twinkling of the Stars 
THE phenomenon observed and described by G. F, Burder in 
NAtuwRE of Jan. 23, p. 222, does not, as I understand it, accountin 
any way for the twinkling of stars, seeing that, by means of any two 
lights (gas lamps for instance) at the distance of a few hundreds 
of yards, the same effect may be observed, and this quite irre- — 
spective of the angle at which they are placed with reference to 
the horizon or the ‘‘ blind spot” of the observer's eye. 
THos, HAWKSLEY 
Meteorological Cycles 7 
THE following observation may possess some interest in con- 
nection with the subject of recurring meteorological cycles. It 
is found at the conclusion of Mr. Consul Wallis’s report on the 
trade and commerce of Costa Rica for 1867, dated June 1, 1868 
(Parliamentary Papers for 1868-69, vol. lix. p. 520) :—‘* In the 
state of the public health there is a marked and satisfactory im- 
provement to report. t 
large number of epidemic disorders which have afflicted this 
country for the last ez years and since the visitation of the 
cholera, nor for the improvement which took place in the eleventh — 
ear.” 
London, Jan. 2 
Feb, 6, 1873 
No reason can be assigned here for the 
