s 
4 
P 
not absolutely straight lines, it does not necessarily follow that 
the sum of its angles is equal to w: tor Euclid himself is quite 
ready to admit that. No: Prof. Clifford must have meant that 
those three sides, though adsolutely straight to us, creatures who 
can only imagine a homaloidal tridimensional space, are curved 
in a sense (thanks to a fourth dimension) which vitiates the 
Euclidian law. 
Of course he may disclaim this interpretation: or he may 
assert that in the case supposed the three sides are both straight 
and curved, or neither straight nor curved, if such be his view. 
But until I see his disclaimer I shall hold that he meant to sug- 
gest to his audience that straight lines (proved to be so by the 
standard of straightness which is alone imaginable by creatures 
constituted as we are) are in another sense really curved, and as 
such afford jan observable exception to the Euclidian Law. 
Now I say that, constituted as we are, we could have seen 
straight lines only as straight, and therefore we simply cou/d not 
see those sides otherwise than as verifying that Law; and 
so we could never bring to the test of observation the ques- 
tion raised by the great qua’ernion of geometers ; and therefore 
must for ever remain in absolute ignorance whether the space, 
in which we ‘‘ live and move and have our being,” be (in another 
relation) something different from what we find it to be in rela- 
tion to our faculties. ~  C, M. INGLEBY 
Athenzum Club, Feb. $ 
Earthquake in Pembrokeshire 
I HAVE received a letter from the west part of Pembrokeshire, 
dated February 3, from which the following is an extract :— 
**Last Saturday, at 7A.M., my bed shook twice under me; 
and at the same time the servant went into the dining-room, the 
fire-irons rattled and the room shook ; an hour later, ——’s bed 
shook twice.” 
I do not know whether any notice has been taken of the 
occurrence elsewhere. I have paid some attention of late years 
to the indications of earthquakes in this neighbourhood, and am 
inclined to think that slight tremulous movements take place 
more frequently than may have been supposed or recorded. 
They would naturally be unnoticed in the daytime, and their 
detection would depend upon accidental wakefulness ac night. 
Hardwick Vicarage, Feb. 8 T. W. Wess 
Meteorology of the Future 
Ir is with some satisfaciion that I have read in NATURE of 
December 12, 1872, the very interesting paper of Mr. J. Norman 
Lockyer, entitled ‘‘ Meteorology of the Future,” giving adhesion 
and the support of his name to the discovery of Mr. C. Meldrum, 
of acycle of 11 years in the recurrence of the maximum of 
cyclones and rainfall in the southern hemisphere ; a cycle corre- 
sponding with that already recognised in the maximum of sun- 
spots. But I have been somewhat surprised to see that my name 
has not been mentioned by Mr. Lockyer in reference to Mr. 
Meldrum’s paper, as I have also published a paper on the con- 
nection of sun-spots with rainfalls, storms, cyclones, &c., prior to 
the first paper of Mr. Meldrum, which appeared in NATURE, 
October 24, 1872. Thinking that my paper has escaped your 
notice, and trusting that you might have some interest to see it, 
I take the liberty to forward it to you with this same mail. It 
was published in the Boston Daily Advertiser, November 2, 1871. 
Overa year has elapsed since its publication, and few are the days 
on which I had no opportuni y of seeing the sun and scrutinising 
its spots with especial care, with the aid of telescope and spectro- 
scope ; and to-day I do not see the neccssity of changing a word 
of the conclusions which I had come to in that paper. Only it 
appears that, in addition to the laws which I have drawn out, 
the position of the moon will have to be taken in consideration 
as a complicating element ; as it seems that the conjunction and 
opposition have a tendency to increase the influence of the spots 
on our atmosphere, while the quadrature diminishes it in a certain 
measure. I could make some other remarks taken from my 
greater experience on the subject, but they are of secondary 
importance, and I will wait for another opportunity to publish 
them. 
Perhaps I did not guard myself sufficiently in my paper, and 
have not explained with a sufficient amount of clearness, that 
though the effect of sun-spots on the weather is general all over 
the globe, yet the result cannot be expected to be abso- 
lutely the’ same; as local causes, very numerous, like mountain 
NATURE 
chains, forests, rivers, coasts, oceans, and climates, have an in- 
dependent influence on the distribution of rains and the direction 
of winds, &c. But local causes are of a secondary order, and 
will be easily determined when once we are sure that the primary 
cause of atmospheric disturbances is te be found in the solar 
spots L, TRoUVELOT 
Cambridge, Mass., Jan. 27 
Deep Wells 
SINCE the question of the supply of water to deep wells was 
touched uponin Narure (vol. vii. p. 177), in connection with the 
rainfall of 1872, I have been in hopes each week of seeing the sub- 
ject thoroughly and scientifically discussed. It will be recollected 
that while we were all sneezing and spluttering, and thoughtlessly 
complaining of the long-continued wet, Mr. Bailey Denton de- 
precated the premature interference of the Archbishop of Canter- 
bury with the rain, on the ground that the deep wells were not 
yet filled. This raised a great deal of discussion ; people lost 
their tempers over the rain; and the country seemed to be 
divided into three bitterly hostile parties—the supporters, the 
opponents, and the suppliants of Providence. But still the 
geologists held aloof, and no one even answered the question, 
** What is a deep well?” but continued to talk as if wells were 
oe into two classes, deep and shallow, by a hard and fast 
ine. 
I therefore venture to hope that some geologist will take up 
the question in your columns, and give us a few facts instead of 
opinions. Meanwhile, I will state the ca-e as it appears to me, 
With the exception of chalk and limestone formations, deep 
wells are, I believe, unknown in hiils. In the side of a hill 
water comes naturally to the surface in a spring. Wells are only 
required—or, at all events, deep ones—at a distance from hills. 
They derive their water from water-bearing strata supplied in all 
cases either directly from hills, or indirectly from hills through 
the leakage of river-beds. No amount of rain falls upon culti- 
vated, and therefore comparatively low-lying, land in Europe, 
sufficient to penetrate to even a shallow well through the earth 
immediately around it, This, at least, I presume to be the 
case, for 33 per cent. of their own bulk may be taken as an 
average amount of water for average soils to be able co retain 
and hold, so that ifa well were 15 ft. deep to the top of the 
water it could not be affected by less than 5 ft. of rainfall, and 
when we deduct the enormous proportion of the 5 ft. that would 
be lost by evaporation and intercepted by vegetation, it is mani- 
fest that even 5 ft. of rain could not penetrate 15 ft. through any 
ordinary average soil. How, then, could any rainfall penetrate 
to a “deep” well of, say 100 or 200 ft. in depth? 
Feb. 9 W. Hope 
THE GRESHAM LECTURES ON PHYSIC 
ee Hilary Term Course of Lectures on Physic were 
delivered at the Gresham College, Basinghall 
Street, by Dr. Symes Thompson, on the evenings of the 
17th and r8th ult., and the subject of the discourses upon 
this occasion was the important and interesting one of 
Contagious and Infectious Diseases. The professor 
started on his career of familiar explanation by describing 
two recent instances of outbreak of infectious disease in 
rural districts, in which the introduction and march of the 
fell agent of communication through the ranks of the. 
small community could be distinctly traced. In the one 
case, the infection of scarlet fever was brought to the 
village of Flindon, in Hampshire, by a girl who came from 
Worthing, and served in a small general shop which was 
resorted to by all the villagers. Only two houses in the 
village that had children in them, escaped from the 
disease. In the other case, enteric fever was taken to 
Whitchurch, in Hampshire, by a young woman from 
Basingstoke, who returned to Basingstoke to die, after 
only six days’ sojourn in Whitchurch. The fever, never- 
theless, spread from the house in which she stayed, and 
within the next seven months there were seventy cases of 
enteric fever in a small community numbering only 1,450 
people. The instance at Whitchurch acquired especial 
importance and interest, because it was made the ground 
for an investigation and report by the Local Government 
