3 66 



NATURE 



\Atigust 17, 1882 



The tamping was blown out of three or four of the holes 

 which I saw operated upon, and this is certainly not what would 

 be called an "extremely rare " occurrence. At the same time 

 it did not appear to affect the final result in any way. 



I said nothing about the probability of the process failing or 

 succeeding in its application to the mining of shales, iron ores, 

 &c, and stated no conclusion in this connection which could in 

 any way be affected by the results of the experiments which 

 Mr. Mosley says are pending. William Galloway 



Cardiff, August 14 



Science at the Victoria Hall 

 The immediate object of the Victoria Hall Committee is to 

 provide healthy amusement in place of the unhealthy sort too 

 often found in places of cheap recreation, and does not api- eal 

 specially to scientific men as such. But they have a scheme on 

 hand for next autumn to which I venture to call your attention. 

 They would like to devote one evening in the week for popular 

 lectures, and as a previous experiment they propose to have 

 durmg October and November a series of very elementary 

 popular addresses on scientific subjects of about half an hour in 

 length, to be introduced in the beginning, or middle, or end of 

 the temperance demonstrations which take place on Friday 

 evenings. It is hoped that an interest in such matters may be 

 awakened in the audience (usually numbering ten or twelve 

 hundred, or during the winter more than this), which assembles 

 at these demonstrations. It is an audience less of artisans than 

 of labourers and costermongers, among whom the demand for 

 scientific teaching must be created as well as supplied. If once 

 it can be shown that such addresses are appreciated, we have 

 good hope of efficient help in carrying them on, but we should 

 be grateful for offers of help in the pioneer course. Dr. W. B. 

 Carpenter, Dr. Kichardson, and one or two others have given 

 conditional promises, but we have not yet sufficient names for a 

 long enough series to try the experiment fairly. 



To simplify and popularise science to the utmost, without 

 lowering it, is not a task which can be performed by those who 

 have no qualification except goodwill, and as, unfortunately, the 

 Victoria Hall is not yet self-supporting, the cojmittee cannot 

 offer anything like adequate remuneration for the services of 

 competent and therefore busy men. They would gladly be 

 responsible for the expense of providing lime-light, or hiring 

 apparatus for experiment-, but beyond this they must appeal to 

 the public spirit and generosity of scientific men. 



Communications maybe addressed to the Honorary Secretary, 

 Royal Victoria Coffee Hall, Waterloo Road, S.E., or to Miss 

 C. A. Martineau, Walsham le Willows, Bury St. Edmunds. 

 One of the Committee 



Spelling Reform 



In your note last week on the United States Spelling Reform 

 Report, there is a slight misapprehension. It is said that the 

 result of adopting a phonetic spelling will be the break-up of the 

 English language. This is quite erroneous. Phonetic spelling 

 simply represents pronunciation, and if the phonetic spelling of 

 London English differs from that of Colonial English it can only 

 be because the pronunciations are different ; that is, because the 

 language has already broken up. On the other hand, if the pro- 

 nunciations are the same, the spellings will be the same, and I 

 fail to see how an identical spelling in London and Australia 

 can bring about a disruption. 



In the pre-ent state of Biblical criiicism, I rather wonder that 

 the tower of Babel should be appealed to as evidence of Hebrew 

 thought; but if the Hebrews were really so impressed with the 

 confusion of tongues, and if phonetic spelling is really so condu- 

 cive to that confusion, then let me ask : Why did the Massorites, 

 « ith that story before their eyes, go and make the originally 

 phonetic Hebrew alphabet more phonetic still by adding the 

 finest set of vowels that has ever been used ? Why, except that 

 tley knew, as Prof. Sayce and Dr. Tylor know, and the late 

 Charles Darwin knew, that phonetic spelling is the only thing 

 that preserves language and its history from utter decay. 



John Fenton 



Spelling Reform Association, S, John Street, Adelphi, 

 W.C., August 14 



Possible Sound Organs in Sphingid Pupae 

 In recently characterising the pupa of Sphinx catatper, Boisd., 

 for my report as entomologist to the Dejartment of Agriculture, 



I was struck with the occurrence on the anterior border of each 

 of the larger movable abdominal joints (viz., abdominal joints 

 5, 6, and 7) of a peculiar elongate concavity, a structure not 

 mentioned by Westwood, Burmeister, Kirby and Spence, Girard, 

 Clemens, Harris, Graber, or any modern author whom I have 

 been able to consult. There is an approach to it in the pupa of 

 Ceratomia amyntor, and it occurs in that of Sphinx harrisii in 

 similar position and form as in S. catalpa. In Maerosila 5- 

 maeulata it is somewhat above the spiracles, and that on the 

 fifth abdominal joint has a second larger ridge running around it 

 posteriorly. It does not occur in any of the species of the 

 genera Se.-ia, Tbyreus, Darapsa, Deilephila, Philampelus, and 

 Smerinthus in my collection. It has no internal connection with 

 the respiratory or circulatory systems, and its function is probably 

 sound-producing by friction with the posterior margin of the 

 preceding joint. This organ may, in fact, throw some light on 

 the method by which the noise is produced which the pupa of 

 Sphinx atropos is capable of. Unfortunately, I have no pupae 

 of that species for examination. 



I shall be glad to learn from any of your Lepidopterological 

 readers if they are familiar with this structure on any other pupae 

 or know of any record of it. C. V. Riley 



Washington, D.C., U.S.A. 



Meteorology of the Antarctic Region 

 It is well known that on the Antarctic lands perpetual 

 snow descends much lower than in corresponding latitudes of 

 the northern hemisphere. The chief cause of this is, no doubt, 

 the difference of climate due to the preponderance of land in the 

 northern hemisphere and of water in the southern. But there is 

 another cause, of sensible magnitude, which I have not seen 

 mentioned. In high southern latitudes the barometer stands 

 permanently nearly an inch lower than in corresponding northern 

 latitudes, and this must cause a permanently lower temperature 

 in the Antarctic regions. That is to say, a depres-ion of an 

 inch in the barometer corresponds to about 1000 feet of moun- 

 tain ascent ; and any station in the Antarctic region must there- 

 fore be as much colder than a corresponding one in the Arctic 

 region, as if the Antarctic station stood 1000 feet higher above 

 the sea- level than the Arctic one. 



The cause of the barometric depression in the Antarctic region 

 is probably the centrifugal force of the west winds, cr " counter- 

 trades," which, as Maury remrrks, surround the South Pole with 

 " an everlasting cyclone on a great scale." 



Joseph John Murphy 

 Old Forge, Dunmurry, Co. Antrim, August 8 



Rector (whose appeal for help in protecting a granite boulder 

 in his country parish we inserted in No. 663) requests us to 

 acknowledge with many thanks the following contributions : — 

 Saxo, 2s. bd. ; William S. Layman, 2s. 6d. ; J. W. A., $s. 



SUN-SPOTS AND MARKREE RAINFALL 



DY aid of R. Wolf's series, 1 I have been endeavouring, if 

 -D possible, to trace the effect of the different state of 

 the sun's surface, as shown by the extent of its spots, on our 

 climate. I distributed the annual rainfall, registered here 

 1 833- 1 863, into ten classes, according to the corresponding 

 values of "the relative numbers" r, as exhibited in 

 Table I. These relative numbers have Leen determined 

 by Prof. Wolf from a discussion of the registered number 

 of spots and groups of spots on the sun, and are supposed 

 to be proportional to the area covered by spots on the 

 sun's surface. The mean rainfall M, the average of the 

 thirty-one years, is 37'254 inches, o is the rainfall regis- 



1 " En de'signant par g le nombre des groupes de taches nus un jour quel 

 conque sur le soleil, une taclie isolee comptant pour un groupe ; parole 

 nombre des taches contenue dans tous les groupes, nombre que j'estime 

 approximativement proportionel a la surface tachelee ; et par k un coefficient 

 dependant de l'observation et de son instrument, et de'dutt d'ebservations 

 correspnndantes, en supposant ce coefficient egal a l'unite pour mai et pour 

 le grossissement 64 d'un Fraittihofer&e 4 pieds. je pose: ?- = £(/+ io£"), et 

 je nomine He nombre relatif de ce jour. La moyenne de tvus les nombres 

 relatifs appartenant a la meme anne'e donne le nombre relatif de l'annce. " 

 R. Wolf. Me'moire sur la Pe'ncde commune a la Frequence des Taches 

 Salaireseta la Variation de la De'dinaisi n Magnetique (Memoirs of the 

 Royal Astronomical Society, vol. xlii. , 1877, Part vi ). 



