NATURE 



Jnly I, iSSo] 



notice on the Hydrographic Department which appeared in 

 Nature, vol. xxii. p. 86, on the grounds advanced by him in 

 the first paragraph of his letter. 



Our readers will scarcely receive Lieut. Temple's statement 

 tliat that department has deliberately given dangerous publicity 

 to errors. This would be contrary to the traditions, and certainly 

 to the interests, of any public office connected with the practical 

 and working world. But however this may be, is not the Hy- 

 drographic Department pursuing a prudent course in causing a 

 revision to be made of Lieut. Temple's compilation by another 

 authority ? In the interests of navigation we think it is ; for on 

 a great stretch of coast like Norway, which, from its sinuous 

 and broken character, can be reckoned by thousands of miles of 

 sea-board, it is clearly unadvisable that dependence should be 

 entirely placed on the efforts of one individual. 



We are the more confirmed in this belief from a significant 

 letter which lately appeared in the Shifputg and Mercantile 

 Gazette and in the Daily Kr.i'S from the Koyal Norwegian Geo- 

 graphical Survey Office, dated Christiania, the i6th inst., written, 

 as the writer alleges, "in order to correct the erroneous state- 

 ments contained in Mr. Temple's paper (read at the Society of 

 Arts) respecting the charts and descriptions of the Norwegian 

 coast now existing." — Ed.] 



Curious Electric Phenomenon 



At about 4.30 p.m. this day a severe thunderstorm with a 

 deluge of rain came up from the north-west and lasted about an 

 hour. At 5.30 my wife was standing at the window watching 

 the receding storm, which still raged in the south, just over 

 Leicester, when she observed, immediately after a double flash 

 of lightning, what seemed like a falling star, or a fireball from 

 a rocket, drop out of the black cloud about 25° above the 

 horizon, and descend perpendicularly till lost behind a belt of 

 trees. The same phenomenon was repeated at least a dozen 

 times in about fifteen minutes, the lightning flashes following 

 each otlier very rapidly and the thunder consisting of short and 

 sharp reports. After nearly every flash a fireball descended. 

 These balls appeared to be about one-fifth or one-sixth the 

 diameter of the full moon, blunt and rounded at the bottom, 

 drawn out into a tail above, and leaving a train of light behind 

 them. Their colour was mostly whitish, but one was distinctly 

 pink, and the course of one was sharply zig-zagged. They fell 

 at a rate certainly not greater than that of an ordinary shooting 

 star. I have never witnessed a phenomenon of this kind myself, 

 but my wife is a good observer, and I can vouch for the trust- 

 worthiness of her report. F. T. MOTT 



Birstal Hill, near Leicester, June 22 



Meteor 



On Friday, June 1 1, at 8.5 p.m., while the sun was still shining, 

 I saw due east as near as I could judge, and about 30° above the 

 horizon, a bright white meteor pass across about 10° or 12° from 

 right to left with a slight downward course. Two or three hours 

 later I saw a small one take a parallel course, but the other side 

 the zenith. W. Odell 



Coventry, June 14 



Minerva Ornaments 



During a recent visit to England I spent a considerable time 

 in the Museum at -South Kensington, and Dr. Schliemann's col- 

 lection of antiquities was one of the objects in that museum 

 which I was most desirous to see. 



I should like to call attention to one point in regard to this 

 collection of relics. Among others I saw a number of flat 

 rounded pebbles, which, by chipping at the middle on both edges, 

 have been brought into something like the shape of an hour-glass. 

 These are marked "Minerva Ornaments." There are several 

 other relics, the titles on which seemed to me to be, speaking 

 within bounds, somewhat imaginative; such, for example, as the 

 small pieces of gold plate on the ttXc ktt; d^oStV/tr), or headdress, 

 wliere Dr. Schliemann sees the owl's head and two large eyes, 

 "which cannot be mistaken"; but to name these flat pebbles 

 " Minerva Ornaments " seems to trespass not a little beyond the 

 due limits of the imagination when applied to science. 



.Stones of precisely the same shape and size, and cut in the 

 same way, are common in this country, where Minerva t\ as " an 

 unknown goddess " before the arrival of the Christians. They 



19: 



are picked up on the banks of the rivers, and when placed in 

 collections are ticketed " net-sinkers." I cannot doubt that Dr. 

 Schliemann's "Minerva Ornaments " are only Trojan net-sinkers 

 formed as those of the aboriginal inhabitants of this country, 

 because the savage miud seems to have run in the same channel 

 all over the world. E. W. Claypole 



Antioch College, Ohio 



A Snake in Kensington Gardens 

 I WAS considerably surprised this evening at finding the life- 

 less body of a snake about one hundred yards to the south-east 

 of Kensington Palace. A policeman informed me that he had 

 killed it there last Thursday as it \\as rapidly moving over the 

 ground. The head and neck had been utterly destroyed, 

 most likely by stampings of the policcn^an's foot, but the 

 remainder of the body was perfect. In length it was' about 

 twenty inches, the body, from the thickness of a little 

 finger, gently tapering to a tail ending in a fine point. Regular 

 scales, brownish-black in colour, clothed the back, the scales 

 along the sides being yellowish-green. A distinct fringe, or 

 prolonged fin, stiflly standing erect, of about one-quarter of an 

 inch in height, ran down the centre of the back, in colour the 

 same as the rest of the body in that region. I trust this descrip- 

 tion may enable some of your readers learned in snakes to 

 identify the species. Then I would ask. Is this animal a native 

 of these parts, or had it been introduced, or had this specimen 

 most likely escaped from captivity to meet with its untimely 

 end? J. Harris Stone 



II, Sheffield Gardens, Kensington, W. 



THREE YEARS' EXPERLMENTING IN 

 MENSURATIONAL SPECTROSCOPY 



By a New Hand thereat 



IT was in 1S76 that the experimenter,' of whom the 

 following notes have been requested, clearly per- 

 ceiving that it would not do any longer, even in his 

 private w'ork, to be content with merely a little direct- 

 vision, ready-made, purchased, spectroscope and the few 

 scale points offered by reference to lamp-flame lines — set 

 about making up a tolerably large spectroscopic instru- 

 ment to satisfy his own ideas, wants, and aims. 



Now the leading desire with him herein, was, in suit- 

 able return for H.M. Government having then recently- 

 changed the locahty of his official residence from a low^ 

 sunk position, where and whence little but other houses 

 could be seen, to an elevated site half-way up the northern 

 side of the Calton Hill, commanding an excellent view of 

 the northern, north-eastern, and north-western horizons, 

 together with the best and brightest parts of almost all 

 auroral displays, whenever they occurred — it was his desire, 

 as a decorous and appropriate tribute, to render some 

 respectable spectroscopic account (over and above any- 

 thing that the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, and its 

 more pmcly astronomical instruments could do) of those 

 sometimes nocturnally luminous, but generally fitful, 

 evanescent, and not yet fully explained, phenomena of the 

 skies, the Aurora Polarcs. 



To this end the nascent spectroscope, mounted before a 

 window in an upper chamber, assumed the form of a large 

 flat telescopic box, almost five feet long, two broad, half 

 a foot deep, supported on a stout alt-azimuth stand, with 

 powerful screw motions. The box carried a gathering 

 telescope in front, v.^hose objective, as well as those of the 

 internal collimator and inspecting telescope, were, like 

 those of a "night-glass," large, /.<'., 2-2 inches in diameter ; 

 and short, i.e., 17 inches, in focal length. An extensive 

 and easily read scale for any prism's minim.um deviation 

 positions, and a long, but very easily worked, micrometer- 

 screw motion for the telescope eye-piece were supplied, 

 also an illuminated pointer. An electric reference spec- 

 trum of hydrogen lines above and below the fiducial 

 central zone of the field of view was caused to be ever 



' Prof. Piaiii Smyth, Astronomer-Royal for Scotland. 



