Atigiist 12, 1880] 



NATURE 



539 



Strange Method of Crossing a Torrent 



Having seen something very Iil-:e, if not quite identical with, 

 the following in the Himalayas, I am anxious to know if it is 

 not a commoner device under similar conditions than is generally 

 supposed everywhere. I'he story occurs in Gerard Boole's 

 (Doctor of Physick) "Inland's Natural History," p. 59, and is 

 related on the authority of "one Theophihis Buckworth, a 

 Bishop of Dromore," in whose presence the feat was performed. 

 His description of it runs as follow?. After mentioning that the 

 brook or river "that passeth by that town was greatly risen," 

 he adds that "A country fellow who was travelling that way 

 having stayed three days in h-)je that the water would fall, and 

 seeing that tlie rain continued, grew impatient, and resolved to 

 pass the brook whatever the danger was, but to do it with the 

 less peril and the more steadiness he took a great heavy stone 

 upon his shoulders, whose weight, giving him some firmness 

 against the violence of the water, he passed the same without 

 harm and came safe to the other side, to the wonderment of 

 many people who had been looking on and given him up for a 

 lost person." W. CuRRAN 



Warrington 



Intellect in Brutes 



Not having seen any reference to Cowper's famous hares in 

 any of the notices under this heading that have appeared in 

 Nature, I am induced to refer to them, the more so as the 

 creature is rarely credited with much gratitude or intelligence. 

 My information is from Tegg's edition of " The Life and Works 

 of William Cowper," p. 633. Describing, at this place, the capers 

 of his favourite hare named "Puss," who "would suffer me to 

 take him up and to carry him about in my own arms," our poet 

 adds that "he was ill three days, during which time I nursed 



him, kept him apart from his fello\^'s and by constant 



care, &c. , restored him to perfect health. No creature could be 

 more grateful than my patient after his recovery, a sentiment 

 which he most significantly expressed by licking my hand, first 

 the back of it, then the palm, then every finger separately, then 

 between all the fingers, as if anxious to leave no part of it un- 

 saluted ; a ccnmony which he never per/or?ncd hut once again 

 upon a similar occasion. Finding him extremely tractable, I 

 made it my custom to carry him always after breakfast into the 



garden I had not long habituated him to this taste of 



liberty before he began to be impatient for the return of the time 

 when he might enjoy it. He would invite me to the garden by 

 drumming upon my knee and by a look of such expression as it 

 was not possible to misinterpret. If this rhetoric did not imme- 

 diately succeed, he would take the shirt of my coat between his teeth 

 and pull it with all his force." He " seemed to be happier in 

 human society than %ihen shut up with his natural companions," 

 and if these trails do not betoken something more than instinct, 

 it is hard to say where this ends and intellect begins. 



Warrington W. Curran 



Anchor-Ice 



Having lately read with much interest "several letters to 

 Nature on the subject of the formation of anchor- or ground- 

 ice, I beg leave to inform your readers that it forms here every 

 season in the Rock Island rapids of the Upper Mississippi 

 River ; any one desirous of studying its mode of formation would 

 here have a good opportunity. .Some observations of mine upon 

 this phenomenon may be found in vol. ii. of the Proceedings of 

 the Davenport Academy of Natural Sciences, p. 349. 



Davenport, Iowa, U.S., July 10 R. J. Farquharson 



Depraved Taste in Animals 



While in Australia I kept at different times several koalas — 

 all taken young. Of these three were inordinately fond of 

 tobacco in any form. They would chew and swallow the strong 

 Victorian black tobacco with the greatest gusto, and one, to 

 which I gave a foul clay pipe saturated with tobacco oil, de- 

 voured the whole of the stem. Sitting on the nape of my neck, 

 his usual place when I was writing or reading in the evening, 

 " Ka-koo" would frequently stretch out one hand, take the pipe 

 from my mouth, and begin to chew it if not promptly interfered 

 with. During the day he passed most of his time rolled up on 

 the rafters of the roof, bush houses being devoid of a ceiling, 

 and on hearing the clinking of glasses, which betokened the 

 preparation of the evening glass of grog, hurried down from 



his perch to receive his modest share of whisky and water. If 

 a spoon were dipped in the raw spirit and given to him, he 

 would take it in both his paws and lick it dry with manifest 

 appreciation, and could only be prevented from making a raid 

 upon every glass on the table by being tied with a handkerchief 

 by the leg to the back of a chair. No ill effects ever followed 

 these indulgences. Arthur Nicols 



THUNDERSTORMS 1 



WHEN I was asked to give this lecture I was also 

 asked to give a short list of subjects from which 

 your directors might select what they thought most fit. 

 I named three. Regarded from the scientific point of 

 view, one of them was to be considered as fully under- 

 stood in principle, and requiring only additional experi- 

 mental data to make it complete. This was the Conduction, 

 of Heat in Solids. Another was to a certain extent 

 scientifically understood, but its theory was, and still is, 

 in need of extended mathematical development. This 

 was the popular scientific toy, the Radiometer. The third 

 was, and remains, scarcely understood at all. Of course 

 it was at once selected for to-night. I might have 

 foreseen that it would be. You may well ask, then, why 

 I am here. What can I say about a subject which I 

 assert to be scarcely understood at all ? A few years ago 

 no qualified physicist would have ventured an opinion as 

 to the nature of electricity. IVIagnetism had been (to a 

 certain extent, at least) cleared up by an assumption that 

 it depended on electric currents ; and from Orsted and 

 Ampere to Faraday and Thomson, a host of brilliant 

 experimenters and mathematicians had grouped together 

 in mutual interdependence the various branches of electro- 

 dynamics. But still the fundamental question remained 

 unsolved, W/tnt is dfctricity? I remember Sir W. 

 Thomson, eighteen years ago, saying to ine, "Tell me 

 what electricity is, and I'll tell you everything else." 

 Well, strange as it may appear to you, I may now call 

 upon him to fulfil his promise. And for good reason, as 

 you shall see. 



Science and Scotland have lately lost in Cleric-Maxwell 

 one of their greatest sons. He was, however, much better 

 known to science than to Scotland. One grand object 

 which he kept before him through his whole scientific life 

 was to reduce electric and magnetic phenomena to mere 

 stresses and motions of the ethereal jelly. And there 

 can be little doubt tkat he has securely laid the foundation 

 of an electric theory— like the undulatory theory of light 

 admirably simple in its fundamental assumptions, but, like 

 it, requiring for its full development the utmost resources of 

 mathematical analysis. It cannot but seem strange to the 

 majority of you to be told that we know probably as much 

 about the secret mechanism of electricity as we do about 

 that of light, and that it is more than exceedingly probable 

 that a ray of light is propagated by electric and electro- 

 magnetic disturbances. It is one of the most remarkable 

 advances made during this century. 



But to know what electricity is, does not necessarily 

 guide us in the least degree to a notion of its source in 

 any particular instance. We might ^know quite well ii.'hat 

 is electricity and yet be, as I told you at starting we are, 

 almost entirely uncertain of the exact source of atmo- 

 spheric electricity. 



To come to my special subject. I am not going to try 

 to describe a thunderstorm. First, because I am certain 

 that I could not do it without running the risk of over- 

 doing it, and thus becoming sensational instead of 

 scieii'tific'; and secondly, because the phenomenon must 

 be quite familiar, except perhaps in some of its more 

 singular details, to every one of you. 



Science has to deal with magnitudes which are very 

 much larger or smaller than those which such words as 

 huo-e enormous, tiny, or minute are capable of express- 

 ing! ' And though an electric spark, even from our most 



■ Abstract of a lecture, delivered in the City Hall, Glasgow, by Prof. Tait. 



