November 17, 1S98] 



NA TURE 



55 



Mr. Strong's suggestion is very ingenious, and I must 

 admit that, granting his premises, the chance production of an 

 unUmited quantity of a single asymmetric compound is conceiv- 

 able. I had not thought of the possibility of one asymmetric 

 molecule acting as a catalytic agent in the way he suggests. It 

 would, however, have been perhaps simpler and more in accord- 

 ance with the behaviour of enzymes, with which class of 

 ferments he compares this supposed catalytic agent, if he had 

 represented the second stage of the process as a hydrolysis ; in 

 which case, of course, the asymmetric group of the resulting 

 compound would have contained hydro.xyl in place of 

 hydrogen. 



Mr. Strong admits that the process is " purely hypothetical." 

 I think I should go further than this, and say that, considered as 

 an actual process occurring under chance conditions, it is 

 grotesquely improbable. 



The "volcanic explosion" carrying " one molecule" of an 

 asymmetric compound into "a certain pool of water," seems 

 to be a reproduction (on a reduced scale) of Prof. Errera's 

 "vortex" which whirls "one simply asymmetric particle" 

 into a particular " planet " (see Nature, vol. Iviii. p. 6l6, 

 col. 2). F. R. JAPP. 



The University, Aberdeen, November 5. 



Mental Calculations of a High Order. 



There are probably among your readers some who are in- 

 terested, by curiosity or for scientific purposes, in freaks of 

 memory. I am not sure that what my memory has done is 

 remarkable, although it is quite novel to me. 



For many years I have been in the habit of using some use- 

 less exercise in mental gymnastics to divert my mind from the 

 occupations of the day, and so get quickly asleep. Sometimes 

 it would be extracting the letters of the alphabet successively 

 from some passage in prose or poetry, keeping the number of 

 each letter in mind, and finally counting all the letters in the 

 passage, to make sure that I had allowed no letter to pass by 

 me unnoticed. Again, I would try to think of all the famous 

 poets, or generals, or sovereigns, or statesmen of all time, whom 

 I could recall, in alphabetical order. Whatever might be the 

 task I undertook I resumed it night after night, beginning as 

 nearly as possible where I left off, and continue until I had 

 completed it. 



About a year ago the fancy took me to see how far I could go 

 in raising, by mental process only, the number 3 to its high 

 powers. At the beginning I would not have believed it possible 

 to remember fifteen figures in their order. To my surprise I 

 succeeded in raising 3 to the 44th power, making, if I remember 

 rightly, a number of 22 figures. I did it by successive multi- 

 plications by 3, and without shortening the process in any way. 

 I did not put a figure on paper until I had reached the 24th 

 power ; but always proved every result as far as I could by the 

 nine test — a safeguard against substantially every error save 

 those that might arise from transposition of figures. At the 

 point mentioned I set the product down, and performed on 

 paper this short process : 



3- = 9 ; 3^ = 81 ; 38 = 6561 ; 3" = 6561 x 6561 x 6561. 



As my mental result was wrong in four or five figures in the 

 middle, so to speak, I knew that I must have transposed two 

 figures somewhere between power 15 and power 20, so I went 

 back and began over again. At the 24th power I was right, 

 and so I was when I reached the 44th power. 



That seemed to be as far as it was worth while to go, and I 

 then began a more difficult exercise : to ascertain, as in permut- 

 ations, the product of the numbers from one upward as far as I 

 could go. I have carried the process up to, and including the 

 number 37. The product is a number of 44 figures, whereof 

 the last eight are o's, which do not add to the effort of memory 

 to retain them. To remember 36 digits in their correct order 

 may not be a wonderful feat ; it is so easy to me that I do not 

 suppose it is unusual. But I can now remember, and have 

 to-day written down and then repeated to my stenographer, 

 successively, the product of the numbers to 35, to 36, and to 37, 

 having respectively 33, 34 and 36 figures, beside the eight o's 

 with which each number ends, or 103 figures in all. How much 

 further I could carry the process I do not know ; I do not 

 purpose attempting to ascertain. 



I will add some facts that may be interesting. 



(I) I verify my result after each multiplication: first, by 

 proving that the sum of all the digits is a multiple of 9 ; 

 iecondly, by dividing it by 7, 11 and 13, not attempting to 

 NO. I 5 16, VOL. 59] 



remember the quotient, but only the successive remainders, to 

 be sure that the number divides evenly. 



(2) Almost every product has some peculiar combination of 

 numbers. For example, in the 35 result there are four 6's 

 together ; in the 36 the figures 67S9 occur ; the first six figures 

 of the 37 product are 137,637 ; and so on. 



(3) The work is done in groups of three figures, and almost 

 every new factor in the multiplication gives some short process 

 of multiplying. Before I begun with 37 it seemed impossible 

 to multiply 34 figures by such a number, odd, large, and a prime 

 number. But the fact that 37x3=111 soon suggested the way 

 to make the process easy. The last nine figures (omitting o's) 

 of the 36 product are 481,508,352. Now 352 = 36o(3x I2x 10) 

 - S. Then we have III x 12= 1332 x 10= 13,320. 37 x 8 = 296. 

 13,320—296=13,024. The multiplication of the next group is 

 easy. 37x500=18500; add 296 (37x8)4-13 ("carried") 

 = 18,809. The next group, 4S1, is taken as =500-204- 1, and 

 the number with the 18 "carried" from the last multiplication 

 becomes 17,815,809,024. 



(4) Does this exercise put me to sleep ? O, yes, very quickly ! 

 Boston, U.S.A., October 24. E. S. 



The Leonids in 1868. 



I WITNESSED the magnificent shower of Leonid meteors on 

 the night of November 13-14, 1866. But I do not recollect 

 seeing any published account of such a display in England in 

 1868. It occurs to me that the following observations may be 

 worth publishing. 



On November 5 in that year I was in ^'enice. Returning 

 through Milan, I crossed the Alps in a sledge by the St. Gothard 

 in a terrible snow-storm on the 7th, and reached Calais at mid- 

 night on the 13th. Neither sun, moon, nor stars had been 

 visible since I left Venice. The Calais boat started for Dover 

 about ih. 30m. on the morning of the 14th. As we were leaving 

 the port the clouds suddenly cleared off, and a splendid display 

 of Leonids was visible. I judged the shower to be in every 

 respect equal to that of 1S66. Some of them were as bright as 

 Jupiter, and left long trails in the sky which took two or three 

 minutes to dissolve. The display kept up until w-e were within 

 a couple of miles of Dover, when the clouds suddenly came on 

 again and the sky was completely obscured. 



Coventry, November 12. Wm. Andrews. 



The Smell of Earth. 



" See, the smell of my son is as the smell of a field which 

 the Lord hath blessed." Thus poetically spoke the Patriarch 

 Isaac. The man of modern science tells us, prosaically, that the 

 odour of moist earth is due to a bacterium, named Cladothrix 

 odorifera. I write to ask if any one has yet accounted for the 

 well-known and peculiar odour, yielded by clay and clayey 

 rocks when breathed upon. This odour can scarcely be due to 

 bacteria, for it is manifested by cabinet specimens more than 

 twenty years old. Pure alumina appears to be odourless. 



Leeds, November 12. C. T. Whitmell. 



Breath-Figure of Spider's Web. 



A few mornings ago I noticed in my bath-room a spider's web 

 spun right across one pane of the window, but not in actual 

 contact with the glass, there being room for a house-fly to buzz 

 up and down the pane without touching the meshes. My 

 morning ablutions giving rise to some considerable quantity of 

 vapour, I observed a very distinct breath-figure of the spider's 

 web upon the glass. I accordingly removed the web and the 

 spider. Next morning, in the absence of the web, on the 

 renewal of the vapour conditions the breath-figure reappeared. 

 I then wiped one half of the window dry with a towel. Now, 

 after five mornings, the breath-figure is quite distinct upon the 

 half which was not touched, and can be faintly seen on the 

 wiped portion. Osw.^ld H. L.\tter. 



Charterhouse, Godalming, November 13. 



A Second Crop of Apples. 



I THINK perhaps it may be worth noting that apple-blossom 

 was gathered in the neighbourhood of Exeter last week. Still 

 more remarkable is the fact that a second crop of apples has 

 made fair progress, as some at the farm of (Jr.-is Lawn, close to 

 the city, some " Red Ouaranders " have been gathered, nearly 

 the size of walnuts. Two of these, now somewhat shrivelled, 

 are enclosed. James Dallas. 



Exeter, October 14. 



