July 27, 1SS3.] 



SCIENCE. 



109 



vapor, that would produce a rain of more than 

 thirty inches per annum all over the earth, must 

 annually pass out past the earth in order to 

 supply fuel to be dissociated by the heat that 

 annually passes the earth ; and why we can 

 see the stars, althouirh most of the solar radia- 

 tions are absorbed within some reasonable dis- 

 tance of the sun." 



It can 1k' hardly looked on as a strong 

 answer to tiie lirst question, that " the gases, 

 being for the most part hydrogen and hydro- 

 gen compounds, have a low specific gravity 

 as compared with the denser gases forming the 

 permanent solar atmosphere. On flashing into 

 flame in the piiotospliere, their specific gravity 

 would be vastly diminished, tluis giving rise to 

 a certain rebound action, which, coupled with 

 their acquired onward motion and with the 

 centrifugal impulse they receive bj- frietional 

 contact with the lower atmosphere, constitutes 

 them a surface-stream flowing from the polar 

 to the e<iuatorial regions, and thence into 

 space." It is certainly hard to understand 

 why the atmosphere of any member of the 

 solar s\'stem should not be made up of the 

 gases of interplanetary space in the same pro- 

 portions in which they may exist in such space, 

 if there is the' free circulation called for by 

 Siemens' theory. 



Faye objects that the presence of such a 

 resisting medium in space as the vapors is 

 not to be acce])ted, with our present knowledge, 

 and that the centrifugal force at the sun's 

 e(iuator is far too small for the action required. 



Ilirn, starting with tlie supposition that the 

 sun's temperature is 20,000^ C, writes, that, 

 although the dissociated gases might unite in 

 the chromosphere, they would, on passing down 

 through the sun's atmosphere, be again disso- 

 ciated, and absorb as much heat as thej- had 

 given out on combining. To this, Siemens 



might have answered that the gases would 

 again combine on passing off at the equator. 



The discussion of the theory at the time of 

 its first statement was most earnest; but, in 

 spite of the ingenuity displa3'ed in its elabora- 

 tion, it as j-et cannot be accepted as probable. 



INSPIRED SCIENCE. 



Eureka ; or, The golden door ajar, the mi/xteries of the 

 world mij.iteriouMi/ revealed. By Asa T. Green. 

 Cincinnati, Collins, 18S3. 141 p., portr., cuts. 

 16°. 



The publisher acts as editor of this book, 

 interspersing his own chapters among the 

 author's in an odd fashion. The florid periods 

 of the one form a curious setting for the rough, 

 ungrammatical language of the other. 



The author has • revelations ' of a • wonder- 

 ful knowledge ' which he obtained, partly in the 

 woods, and partly- in Oil City, and desires to 

 impart them to scientific men. We will offer 

 them a bit. 



" If we would lay a telegraph-wire down down {sic) 

 from every point of the earth, and of water, and all 

 points telegraph at one time to a given point, the re- 

 sult would be to find that the atmosphere was going 

 as fast as the earth, and the earth :is fast as the at- 

 mosphere. Thus you see it is the atmosphere that 

 carries the earth around. . . . 



"Third reason why the earth is round; namely, 

 because the mountains are up. If the earth was Hat, 

 the mountains would be just as liable to be down as 

 up, but as the curvature of the earth is up, hence the 

 mountains are up. . . . 



" If sound travels by vibration, as science teaches, 

 and science teaches that vibration creates heat, that 

 if a cricket should stand on one end of a solid slab- 

 stone and rub his wings together, why is it that the 

 vibration with the particles of stone does not com- 

 pletely melt the stone in ten minutes '.' I deny the 

 hypothesis." 



• Wonderful knowledge,' indeed I 



WEEKLY SUMMARY OF TEE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. 



MATHEMATICS. 



Points of inflection. — I-el U = x'^y^z'' + ku^ = 

 be an equation in homogeneous co-ordinates; x, y, z. 

 are the sides of the triangle of reference, and 

 u = ax + by + cz ; a, j3, y. li, are integers such that 

 a + j3 + } = 6; a, b, c, are given qu.antities, and k a 

 variable parameter. For a — l3 = y = 1, this equa- 

 tion gives a system of cubics having, as is well 

 known, their points of inflection distributed by threes 

 upon three right lines; viz., the three real points of 

 inflection upon u, and the remaining six points, in 

 threes, upon two imaginary lines. 



The author, M. A. Legoux, proposes to consider the 

 general case of curves of the order i. The three sides 

 of the triangle of reference are tangents to all the 

 curves of the system in the points where these sides 

 meet the line v. The order of contact is i! — 1 : it (5 is 

 even, the curve in the neighborhood of Ihe point of 

 contact lies on one side of the tangent; if i' is odd, the 

 rurve here cuts the tangent, giving a point of inflec- 

 tion of a higher order. M. Legoux shows that the 

 proposed curves have imaginary points of inflection, 

 which are distributed upon two conjugate imaginary 

 right lines which are independent of the value of it. 

 If d is even, there are no other inflections: but, if i is 



