1G 4 
NATURE 
[ Voz. 25, 1869 
town of Ismailia, the half-way stopping place for travellers 
on the Canal. Here anchored the flotilla during the pro- 
gress of the opening, and the dark-skinned children of the 
Prophet were seen mingled with throngs of fair-com- 
plexioned Giaours in friendly rejoicings. 
Ismailia is an important place, for it is the pumping- 
station of the fresh-water canal which was first made in 
order to supply the thousands of labourers with drink, 
and water for their works. On this pumping-station all 
the country between Lake Timsah and Port Said depends 
for its supplies of the precious element. 
The hollow of the Bitter Lakes, six miles wide in the 
widest part, is believed to have been at one time con- 
nected with the Red Sea. The level of the water in 
these lakes has been brought up to that of the sea by a 
re-opening of the connection. In March of the present 
year, all preparations being complete, the water was 
admitted, and a great stream, pouring in from the Mediter- 
ranean and from the Red Sea, gradually rose upon the 
arid saline slopes of the deep and desolate basin. For 
some wecks the flow went on, until, as was estimated, two 
thousand million cubic metres of water had flowed in, and 
the level was established. The area of the lakes will be 
largely increased by this contribution from the two seas; 
and it will be interesting to watch whether in connection 
with the two canals—the salt-water and fresh-water—any 
modification of the climate of the Isthmus may be pro- 
duced. Much has been said, too, about the loss that will 
take place by evaporation under the sun of Egypt: the 
amount is so great as to be almost incredible. ‘This loss 
will have to be provided for ; as also the effect of blowing 
sands, which will accelerate the tendency of the bottom to 
grow towards the surface, always observable in canals. 
Up to the last moment predictions from various 
quarters have been heard that no big ships would ever 
effect the passage of the canal. But while we write these 
lines, telegrams from the East inform us that L’Azg/e, 
the French yacht, with her Majesty the Empress on 
board, had got through, and was anchored in the Red 
Sea. From the same source we learn that the Peninsular 
and Oriental steamer De/fa, drawing 154 feet of water, 
had arrived at Ismailia from Port Said, but had touched 
ground a few times on the way. The Egyptian vessel 
Lattif attempted the passage, but for want of sufficient 
depth had to return; difficulties occurred with: other 
vessels, and the banks of the Canal were much damaged. 
But the Khédive has invested M. de Lesseps with the 
Grand Cross of the Order of the Osmanli, and the 
Emperor Napoleon has appointed him to the rank of 
Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour. We may there- 
fore hope for the best in all that appertains to the Suez 
Canal, and that foreigners will believe that Englishmen 
are too ready to admire good work to feel jealous of the 
energetic hearts by whom it has been accomplished. 
LEDLERS LO Les DLO R. 
[The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions expressed 
by his Correspondents. | 
The Meteor of November 6th 
METEORS being in season just now, all facts respecting them 
will, I presume, be acceptable. The public have lately been 
treated to a great number of letters in newspapers descriptive of 
the remarkable meteor of Saturday, November 6th—perhaps I 
should rather say @ instead of ¢e remarkable meteor, because, 
from the discrepancies as to the time of the appearance and the 
differences in the description, I am inclined to believe that more 
than one meteor of unusual splendour was seen on that evening. 
I need hardly say how important it is to have observations of the 
visual direction of these bodies as viewed from stations widely 
separated from each other, because it is only observations of this 
kind which can afford data for judging of the distance of a 
meteor. In the hope of contributing information which may 
assist in clearing up this interesting question, I venture to add 
another letter to the many which have already appeared. 
At five minutes before seven on Saturday evening, November 
6th, while walking with my back towards the south, near the 
village of Rothbury in Northumberland, I was startled by a 
brilliant light behind me, and on turning I saw a magnificent 
meteor descending from the eastward at an angle of about 45° to 
the southern horizon. Its colour was a bluish-white, and it left 
a train which looked exactly like that of a large rocket, but 
which did not remain visible to my view for more than about 
fifteen seconds. The meteor did not appear to me to burst, 
although pieces seemed to separate from it before it expired. 
At the moment of extinction it was about 12° or 14° above the 
horizon, and its direction was then S.S.W. Iam quite sure as 
to the time of the occurrence to within a minute, because, 
although I could not see to read my watch at the moment—a 
chronometer on which I can depend, and which I know was right 
—T hastened to the nearest light, about four hundred yards distant, 
where I ascertained that the time was one minute to seven, 
which, allowing about four minutes for walking the four hundred 
yards, would make the time of the appearance five minutes to 
seven. So far as I have seen, there is but one describer of this 
meteor whose record of the time exactly agrees with mine, and 
as it is incredible that two such unusual meteors should occur 
in the same minute, it is almost absolutely certain that he and I 
saw the same. My co-observer was the writer of a letter in 
the Zzmes, signed J. A. Cayley, dated from the neighbourhood of 
Bristol, where he witnessed the phenomenon at a distance of two 
hundred and sixty miles from where I saw it in Northumberland. 
As viewed by him, it appeared to descend from the zenith to 
about 20° above the westerz horizon, while I, as already stated, 
saw it in the sout#. His description of the meteor differs from 
mine only in regard to the train, which is described as continuing 
visible to him for fifteen minutes, a difference which may be 
attributed to its being nearer and more overhead to him than 
to me. 
I will not hazard even an approximate calculation of distance 
from the data I have given, but I confess my inability to 
reconcile the different angles under which this object was 
seen at opposite ends of a base-line having Bristol at one 
end and Rothbury at the other, with the supposition that its 
height did not exceed that which is ordinarily assigned to the 
atmosphere. At all events, if the atmosphere exists at the 
height of this meteor, it will befmore attenuated than in the 
exhausted receiver of the most perfect air-pump, and it is 
difficult to conceive how air so rarefied can so oppose the flight 
of a solid body as to produce the intense ignition exhibited in a 
meteor. Yet it seems impossible to attribute the incandescence 
of these bodies to any other cause than the resistance opposed by 
the atmosphere to their prodigious velocity. 
W. G. ARMSTRONG 
Newcastle-on-Tyne, Noy. 22, 1869 
Lectures to Ladies 
No one can appreciate more heartily than I do the excellent 
article on ‘‘ Lectures to Ladies” which appeared in NATURE 
No. II.; but I feel far from sanguine of success attending the 
efforts there referred to. If we put aside the impulse of dilet- 
tantism and the spirit of rivalry as against men, there will, let us 
hope, be left a very fair residue in the shape of love of learning, 
for learning’s sake, as a reason for attendance; and it is only this 
pure love of learning which can make such lectures in the long run 
successful. It cannot, however, be such a love which brings to the 
lectures of the University College Professors, Lady Barbara, who 
sneers aloud when the lecturer wisely lays a sure foundation of 
elementary facts and ideas ; or which carries to South Kensington 
the Hon. Miss Henrietta, who tosses her head when she finds 
the great Mr. Huxley paddling about in that common river the 
Thames, and treating his audience as if they were little girls at 
the Finsbury Institution. 
I very much fear that the Lady Barbaras of the present gene- 
ration are beyond redemption, and that many earnest men are 
wasting their strength in trying to win the minds of intellectual 
coquettes. 
There is an order of women, however, haying in their number, 
as I know full well, some of the brightest and best of the women 
of England, to whom such lectures would be as manna in the 
wilderness. To women struggling, as many of us are, to get their 
daily bread by the hard task of teaching, and in the struggle 
getting glimpses of the sweetness and the light of real knowledge, 
the chance of listening to real teachers would be an inestimable 
boon. ‘These are the women to whom, it must be remembered, 
