May 12, 1870] 
NATURE 
25 
Touching the old, little need be said. Every man who has 
filled one of the above posts worthily while he had force to work 
ought to be pensioned when he gets old. The matter lies in a 
~ nutshell and needs no more words. But there will always be a 
few old men who for their eminence and their services would 
require special provision, and that not so much on their own 
account as for the sake of the younger men of their time. There 
ought to be some rewards for a scientific life, but they shouid be 
few and very carefully allotted. At all times, moreover, there 
will be a few, avery few men whose genius ought to receive plenteous 
and present recognition. Such men with the older distinguished 
men might form a small consulting body whose services in the 
way of advice would be at the command of Government, and the 
members of which would draw salaries on a scale feebly imita- 
tive of those of other Government officials. I believe the legal 
advisers of Government are pretty well paid, and yet scientific 
advice is altogether unrewarded. Such men would be then 
at liberty to work out their ideas; the best means being, of 
course, taken to choose those men only into whose soul the iron 
of science has entered, men whom it is impossible to keep 
from work. 
Two more remarks and I have done. It may be objected that 
this scheme would make scientific success in large measure 
dependent on the power of teaching, and that original work 
would thereby go to the wall. I reply that that is altogether a 
fallacy, and if I had time I could show it. 
Lastly, the question of expense of apparatus and other means 
of inquiry is altogether a secondary one. Government ought of 
course largely to provide these ; but there would be no difficulty 
in distributing them on a plan similar to that of the grant to the 
Royal Society. It is the question of “ scientific careers” that is 
the pressing one, and the one most difficult to settle. 
In Sicco 
Tails of Comets 
In NATURE of 16th December, Prof. Tait advances the opinion 
that the tail of a comet consists of nothing but meteorites ; 
mentioning in proof of this that the orbits of the August and 
November meteors have been determined, and found to be 
identical with those of two known comets. I do not question the 
importance of this most remarkable fact, but I think the older 
opinion, that the tail of a comet is gaseous, is demonstrably true. 
Sir John Herschel, in his ‘‘ Elements of Astronomy,” remarks 
with wonder how the tail, in the comet’s perihelion passage, 
is whisked round in apparent defiance of the law of inertia, so as 
always to keep pointing away from the sun. Were the comet 
an assemblage of meteorites this would be impossible ; the tail 
would, in that case, always lie parallel to the direction of the 
comet’s orbit. The fact just mentioned as to the perihelion 
motion of the tail is, to my mind, a conclusive proof that the tail 
is not formed once for all, but is a cloud which is constantly in 
process of formation, and as constantly evaporated. This view 
is supported by the fact that Halley’s Comet was seen to increase 
in apparent magnitude as it receded from the sun, in conse- 
quence, as was suggested, of the conversion of invisible vapour 
into visible cloud as the heat grew less intense. 
Dr. Tyndall’s suggestion, that the tail may be a cloud produced 
by actinic precipitation from an invisible atmosphere is, to my” 
mind, the only plausible suggestion yet made on the subject. 
JosEPH JOHN MuRPHY 
Old Forge, Dummurry, Co. Antrim, May 4 
Left-Handedness 
In reference to the letters which lately appeared in your 
periodical on ‘* Right and Left-handedness,” I beg to draw your 
attention to some remarks of Professor Hyrtl, the celebrated 
anatomist of Vienna, which were published several years ago, 
and the substance of which I now quote from the 4th edition of 
Lis ‘‘ Handbuch der topographischen Anatomie,” 2 vol. 1860. 
“It happens in the proportion of about two ina hundred cases 
that the left subclavian artery has its origin defore the right, and 
in these cases left-handedness exists, as it also often actually does 
in the case of complete transposition of the internal organs (Pro- 
fessor Hyrtl describes two cases), and it is found that the propor- 
tion of left-handed to right-handed persons is also about 2 to 100. 
Professor Hyrtl thinks that ordinarily the blood is sent into the 
right subclayian under a greater pressure than into the left, on ac- 
count of the relative position of these vessels, that in consequence 
of the greater supply of blood the muscles are better nourished 
and stronger, and that therefore the right extremity is more used. 
In cases of anomalous origin of the left subclavian, &c., the re- 
verse occurs, and therefore the left hand is employed in prefer- 
ence. 
Kensington, May 3 ADOLF BERNHARD MEYER 
Strange Noises heard at Sea off Grey Town 
IN submitting the following to the notice of your readers, I 
am guided only by the desire of seeking a solution of what to 
me and to many others appears a very curious phenomenon. The 
facts related can be vouched for by numbers of the officers and 
crews of any of the R. M. Company’s ships. 
I must premise that this phenomenon only takes place with 
iron vessels, and then only when at anchor off the port of Grey 
Town. At least, I have never heard of its occurring elsewhere, 
and I have made many inquiries. 
Grey Town is a small place, containing but few inhabitants, 
situated at the mouth of the river St. Juan, which separates 
Nicaragua from Costa Rica, and empties itself into the 
Atlantic, lat. 10° 54’ N., and long. 83° 41’ W. In this town 
there are no belfries or factories of any kind. 
Owing to a shallow bar, vessels cannot enter the harbour or 
river, and are therefore ; obliged to anchor in from seven to 
eight fathoms of water, about two miles from the beach, the 
bottom consisting of a heavy dark ‘sand and mud containing 
much vegetable matter brought down by the river. Now, 
while at anchor in this situation, we hear, commencing 
with a marvellous punctuality at about midnight, a pecu- 
liar metallic vibratory sound, of sufficient loudness to awaken 
a great majority of the ship’s crew, however tired they may 
be after a hard day’s work. This sound continues for 
about two hours with but one or two very short intervals. It 
was first noticed some few years ago in the iron-built vessels 
Wye, Tyne, Eider,and Danube. It has never been heard on 
board the coppered-wooden vessels Zrent, Thames, Tumar, or 
Solent. These were steamers formerly employed on the branch 
of the Company’s Intercolonial service, and when any of their 
officers or crew told of the wonderful music heard on board at 
Grey Town, it was generally treated as ‘fa yarn’ or hoax. 
Well, for the last two years the company’s large Transatlantic 
ships have called at Grey Town, and remained there on such 
occasions for from five tosix days. We have thus all had ample 
epportunity of hearing for ourselves. When first heard by the 
negro sailors they were more frightened than astonished, and 
they at once gave way to superstitious fears of ghosts and 
Obeihism. By English sailors it was considered to be caused by 
the trumpet fish, or what they called such (certainly not the 
Centriscus scolopax, which does not even exist here). They in- 
vented a fish to account for it. But if caused by any kind 
of fish, why only at one place, and why only at certain 
hours of the night? Everything on board is as still from two to 
four, as from twelve to two o’clock, yet the sound is heard 
between twelve and two, but not between two and four. The 
ship is undoubtedly one of the principal instruments in its 
production. She is in fact for the time being converted into 
a great musical sounding board. 
It is by no means easy to describe this sound, and each 
listener gives a somewhat different account of it. 
It is musical, metallic, with a certain cadence, and a one-two- 
three time tendency of beat. It is heard most distinctly over 
open hatchways, over the engine-room, through the coal-shoots, 
and close round the outside of the ship. It cannot be fixed at 
any one place, always appearing to recede from the observer. 
On applying the ear to the side of an open bunker, one fancies 
that it is proceeding from the very bottom of the hold. 
Very different were the comparisons made by the different 
listeners. The blowing of a conch shell by fishermen at a 
distance, a shell held to the ear, an zolian harp, the whirr or 
buzzing sound of wheel machinery in rapid motion, the vibration 
of a large bell when the first and louder part of the sound has 
ceased, the echo of chimes in the belfry, the ricocheting of a 
stone on ice, the wind blowing over telegraph wires, have all 
been assigned as bearing a more or less close resemblance ; 
it is louder on the second than the first, and reaches its acme 
on the third night; calm weather and smooth water favour 
itsdevelopment. The rippling of the water alongside and the 
breaking of the surf on the shore are heard quite distinct from it, 
