Feb. 5, 1880] 



NATURE 



323 



America, and we believe the Filices are also to be 

 included. 



We are pleased to see that at the conclusion of the 

 work it is announced that an introductory volume will be 

 given containing an account of the physical features of 

 the country and a series of maps. No specially faunistic 

 work should be issued in these days without a map, and 

 in that map moreover all the localities mentioned in the 

 letterpress should be inserted. Furthermore care should 

 be taken that the names of the places should be spelt alike 

 in the letter-press and in the map — a point which in 

 several instances that have come before us, has not been 

 sufficiently attended to. 



We are, however, fully aware that in the present case 

 our authors are well acquainted with the value of geography 

 — one of the two "faces Zoologies?" as the late Prince 

 Bonaparte called it, and we do not fear that they will 

 even spell their names of places incorrectly. And on the 

 whole it may be fairly said that the " Biologia Centrali- 

 Americana," if carried, and we doubt not it will be carried, 

 to its promised extent, favoured as it is by the co-operation 

 of some of the most accomplished naturalists of the day, 

 will not only remain a lasting testimony to the learning 

 and munificence of its editors, but will also equal in 

 completeness and finish any geographical work on natural 

 history ever published. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 

 [ The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions expressed 

 by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake to return, or 

 to correspond with the writers of, rejected manuscripts. No 

 notice is taken of anonymous communications . 

 [The Editor urgently requests correspondents to keep their letters as 

 short as possible. The pressure on his space is so great that it 

 is impossible otherwise to ensure the appearance even of com- 

 munications containing interesting and novel facts.] 



Visualised Numerals 



It may interest those who have read my memoir in Nature, 

 vol. xxi. p. 252, on visualised numerals, to learn some of the 

 principal results obtained thus far through its publication. I 

 have received several new diagrams more or less similar to those 

 already j ubUshed, so that I have now about thirty of them in 

 all. My new contributors are of the same classes as before. 

 There is only one high mathematician among them ; the re- 

 mainder are pursuers of science, authors of various degrees of 

 reputation, per.-ons engaged in tuition, students at Oxford and 

 Cambridge, some other adults, and one schoolboy. If my col- 

 lection becomes still further increased, I have grounds for belief 

 that 1 shall be able to classify the cases, and to extract more 

 meaning out of them than has hitherto been feasible. 



It has been a satisfaction to me to receive emphatic acknow- 

 ledgment of its correctness from the author of the curious shaded 

 diagram (Fig. 5) in the memoir. The sketch sent to me was 

 draw n w ith evident painstaking, but it was rubbed and faint ; 

 the engraver, however, succeeded in justly interpreting it, and 

 supplying its defects of tone. Fig. 4 is unfortunate, and I am to 

 blame. I stated in the accompanying text that I had compiled 

 it from a large diagram, much as a map-maker would compile a 

 small map from an elaborate itinerary. However, my map 

 proves to be a failure, so I withdraw it. The other diagrams 

 were almost exact reductions of plain drawings ; their truth has 

 been acknowledged in one group of cases, and I have no 

 grounds for doubt as to the remainder. Francis Galton 



42, Rutland Gate, London 



A Psychological Aspect of the Vortex-Atom Theory 



It is a very generally accepted fact that the phenomena of 



thought are at least connected with a physical basis, however 



difficult it may be at present to trace the connection. The 



dependence, however, of mental attributes and sensations upon 



brain-structure, is too notorious a fact to admit of doubt by 

 competent judges. This view is illustrated well by a remark of 

 Prof. Huxley's in his essay "On the Physical Basis of Life," 

 viz. : "And if so, it must be true in the same sense and to the 

 same extent that the thoughts to which I am now giving utterance 

 and your thoughts regarding them are the expression of molecular 

 changes in that matter of life which is the source of our other 

 vital phenomena" [Fortnightly Review, i86S). 



It becomes evident in view of this that the phenomena of 

 thought would be enormously influenced by the changes or 

 permutations of which the molecules of matter were capable. 

 Under the old theory of perfectly rigid molecules, it would seem 

 difficult to conceive permutations enough to act as an accompany- 

 ing physical basis to the phenomena of thought, for according to 

 this theory, the mere motion or change of place of the molecules 

 among each other would be the sole permutations of which they 

 could be capable. But the modern theory of vortex-molecules 

 shows molecules to be clastic bodies, which are consequently 

 " ca[ able vi infinite changes of form" 1 — as the late Prof. Clerk 

 Maxwell remarks [Encye, Brit. 1S75, Article" Atom"]. It would 

 therefore follow that according to the modern theory, the permu- 

 tations of the physical accompaniment of thought would be 

 absolutely infinite, in analogy with the infinite variety and range 

 of thought itself. Possibly this may be a point of interest, if 

 indeed it has not already been reflected on by others. 



London S. TOLVER Preston 



A Speculation Regarding the Senses 



On examining the modes of action of the senses we find a 

 series of advances in refinement. Beginning with touch, we 

 find it has primarily to do with solids which come into direct 

 contact with the organ. In taste a liquid medium is necessary. 

 In smell we have minute particles earned by a gas. In hearing 

 we have vibrations (longitudinal) in a gas. In sight, finally, we 

 find transverse vibrations transmitted by a finer medium, the 

 ether. 



Now, whatever views may be taken of the doctrine of evolu- 

 tion, there can be no doubt of the progress of the human race in 

 what we may generally here term power. And it is interesting 

 to look into the future and inquire whether future developments 

 of the relations between the ego and the non-ego may net, in 

 time, take such forms as will be equivalent to the acquisition of 

 new- senses. 



Guided by the gradation above referred to, I would throw 

 out the suggestion that the molecular vibrations in the brain 

 accompanying thought, may affect a surrounding medium, and 

 throifh that, other brains at a distance, awaking in these corre- 

 sponding vibrations and thoughts. The medium might be sup- 

 posed, perhaps, one of different nature from that in which light- 

 vibrations occur, or (not to multiply ethers) the same as the 

 so-called luminiferous etlur ; and in the latter case we might 

 suppose the vibrations such as not to be appreciated through any 

 of the present senses of ordinary persons. 



A person of high refinement and delicate organisation has a 

 wonderfully exalted power (as compared, say, with a country 

 bumpkin) of interpreting the tout ensemble of external appear- 

 ance and bodily motions of another person in his presence, 

 thereby perceiving at a glance much of the thought of that other, 

 as it arises. But the kind of action I have referred to is of a 

 still more delicate kind, and may be supposed to obtain when 

 the eyes, and perhaps other avenues of sei se, are closed. It 

 might be termed a kind of induction of thought. 



This speculation is not, I think, without some encouragement 

 in actual fact. It is a familiar experience that two persons who 

 are together will discover themselves to have been thinking of 

 the same thing at the same moment ; and this without any 

 apparent cause in what one sees in the other, or in association of 

 ideas in conversation. The ascertained facts of clairvoyance 

 and mesmerism, however, are what I have more specially in 

 view, and the light in which I would place them is that of a 

 natural development of human faculty, at present appearing 

 only sporadically and in few persons, but destined, perhaps-, 



« The molecules of matter, according 10 this theory, th ugh indestructible 

 (like the molecules of the ancients), an nevertheless e'astie, or capable of 

 distortion or changes of form (much in analogy with larger scale elastic 

 sohds). the molecule always tending to recover its natural symmetrical shape 

 when released from constraint. These changes of form may of course be 

 conceived infinite in variety, without the total amount 1 f distortion itself 

 being at any time great. This elasticity possessed by molecules is sufficiently 

 proved by the vibrations of varied periods which the spectroscope shows them 

 to be capable of executing. 



