“—, 
- 
Fan. 26, 1871] 
NATURE 
245 

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 
[The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions expressed 
by his Correspondents. No notice is taken of anonymous 
communications. | 
The Isolation of St. Michael’s Mount 
Mr. PENGELLY, ina letter addressed to you, and printed in 
your journal of Jan. 12, 1871, complains of my having ascribed 
to him a belief in the extreme antiquity of the Cornish language 
which he does not hold now, and which he did not hold at the 
time when he delivered his first lecture “‘ On the Isolation of 
St. Michael’s Mount,” at the meeting of the British Association 
at Birmingham in 1865. He declines to be responsible for any 
notices or report of his lecture that I may have seen in some 
newspaper or journal. 
All I can say in my defence is that even while the meeting at 
Birmingham lasted, I received not only newspaper reports, but 
letters from friends who had heard the lecture, and who asked 
me in great dismay whether it was possible that a Cornish 
name, such as Cara clowse in cowse, meaning ‘‘the hoar rock in 
the wood,” could have existed in so called prehistoric times. 
The question discussed at the meeting, so far as I could under- 
stand it from letters and the official short report in the Transac- 
tions of the British Association, was this, whether St. Michael’s 
Mount was severed by encroachment or subsidence. Those who 
held the former view required 20,000 years, those who held the 
latter were satisfied with a smaller number of years, though I 
could not find out exactly what that number was. Both parties 
maintained that Cornish must have been spoken in Cornwall 
before the severance of the Mount took place, because only before 
that severance could the Mount have been called Cara clowse in 
cowse, **the hoar rock in the wood.” 
What I wanted to show was simply this, that neither party 
could properly avail itself of the linguistic argument, whether 
for positive or negative purposes. If the Mount was severed 
20,000 years ago, it would not follow from the name Cara clowse 
in cowsé, ** the hoar rock in the wood,” that Cornish was spoken 
at that distant time ; nor would it in the least follow from that 
name that the severance could not have taken place until Corn- 
wall was occupied by Celtic speaking tribes. The linguistic and 
geological evidence can in no wise be brought to bear upon each 
other. 
Tf I said that ‘‘ Mr. Pengelly has somewhat modified his former 
opinion,” all I meant was that in his seeond paper he himself 
seems much less inclined to trust to the linguistic and legendary 
evidence. But if in his letter to you he says that the point of 
his argument was that the hypothesis of insulation by encroach- 
ment without subsidence could not be admitted because it led to 
an untenable philological conclusion, this shows that the old 
leaven is still at work. If the facts which I collected in my essay 
on the Insulation of St. Michael’s Mount are right, that hypothe- 
sis would lead to no untenable philological conclusion whatever, 
for the simple reason that the name Cara clowse i cowse, or 
“‘hoar rock in the wood,” referred originally to Mont St. 
Michel, in Normandy, if not to Mons Garganur in Apulia, and 
does not occur in Cornwall before the 16th, or possibly the 15th 
century of our era. 
If I have in any way misrepresented the exact geological 
reasoning of Mr. Pengelly, all I can do is to plead the ignorance 
of a layman, and to ask his forgiveness. : 
Oxford, Jan, 23 Max MULLER 
Earth-Currents 
In Mr. W. H. Preece’s communication concerning the earth- 
currents which occurred on the 24th and 25th of last October 
in England, published in your issue of the 3rd of November, 
just come to hand, he says: ‘‘ This is only a sample of what 
occurred simultaneously all over England, and probably the 
lobe.” 
i The following few extracts from the Log of the Madras- 
Bomhay Lines show what was taking place out here :— 
“Oct. 24, 22 hours, working Bellary with great difficulty. 
Severe iightning taps on instrument every now and then.” 
“Oct. 25, 8 hours, strong earth-currents at - times. —17 hours 
to 17°45 hours, very strong earth-currents.-—22 hours, woik- 
ing Bombay with frequent stoppages, owing to strong earth- 
currents and failure of signals.” Such is the character of the 
log throughout the 24th and 25th of October. 


The direction of the Madras-Bombay Lines (nearly east and 
west) would account for the fact of the earth-currents bein 
so strongly pronounced in them. - 
R. S. Broucu, 
Assistant Superintendent of Government 
Telegraphs in India 

Lunar Bows 
A REMARKABLE phenomenon was visible at Liverpool from 
7.30 to 7.45 P.M., on Wednesday, 4th inst. 
The moon was nearly full at an altitude of 45° or 50°, just above 
Orion, the sky was covered with a slight mist sufficiently dense 
to obscure all stars except those of the first magnitude, though 
here and there some of the lesser were visible. 
There appeared three lunar bows or halos—a8 yin sketch. a 
was nearly but not quite a perfect circle, having a slight tendency 
to an oval; it was complete. 8 was an excentric cutting aat points 

y Orion 
6 and ¢, and was incomplete, only having about go’ of its circle 
visible, being lost to sight at ¢and y, y had the zenith for its 
centre, cutting the moon; its circle was complete, intenser in the 
western sky and dimmer at its nearer proximity to the moon, 
thus forming a belt round the whole heavens, cutting off the 
upper portion. 
I venture to consider these interesting sights worthy of a space 
in NATURE, as they took up so large a space in the heavens. 
Liverpool Biel pelle 
On Wednesday evening, January 4th, while the frost still 
lasted, there appeared, about 7.25 P.M., two brilliant halos, 
of which a sketch is forwarded. Neither was perfect in outline. 
The greater spread out literally from the smaller, and made a 
circuit of the heavens, so that if an observer stood with his back 
to the moon, there was seen facing him in the N. W. an inverted 
lunar rainbow—to ali appearance. This enormous arc scarcely 
seemed a part of a circle on account of the great size: the zenith 















































































































































































































































































was about its centre. After meeting the smaller halo it was 
scarcely visible, but it produced would have passed through the 
moon’s disc. At the point of intersection towards the east, a 
faint paraselene appeared. : 
When this singular sight was seen, there was but litle cloud 
in the sky. The blue was, however, rather turbid. The pris- 
matic colours were tolerably distinct in the inner arc. The 
diameter of the large circle was about go’. There has beena 
considerable amount of rain and snow since the appeara ice. 
SAMUEL BARBER 
Aigburth, Liverpool, Jan. 9 
