Febkuakt 16, 18S3.] 



SCIENCE. 



35 



only 1.6 inches, the average for November hi 

 former years being 4.5 inches. Considerable 

 snow was reported from northern districts, and 

 a little from the southern states. 



Among miscellaneons phenomena may be 

 mentioned earthquake shocks, which occurred 

 on the 7th in Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and 

 Kansas, and on the 14th in Missouri. 



The most noteworthj^ feature of the whole 

 month was the remarkable magnetic storm 

 which occurred from the 16th to the 20th. It 

 prevailed, not only throughout this country, 

 but in Europe, and was characterized hy ex- 

 tensive auroral displays. It was simultaneous 

 with a large sun-spot, visible to the naked eye. 

 The Enghsh journals have contained many 

 articles upon this storm and its attendant 

 features ; but in this country extensive cloudi- 

 ness prevented as complete auroral observations 

 as would otherwise have been secured. 



NEW TESTAMENT AUTOGRAPHS. 



An interesting and important application of 

 the methods of the theory of probability to the 

 criticism of the New Testament was made in a 

 paper read by Mr. J. Rendel Harris, late a 

 fellow of Clare College and a lecturer in the 

 universitj' of Cambridge, before the Philological 

 societj^ of Johns Hopkins university, at their 

 meeting on the 5th of January : the results of 

 which investigation will, if substantiated, form 

 a new departure in textual criticism. 



Attention was first drawn to the exact equal- 

 ity' of the second and third epistles of St. 

 John, each of which occupies 29 lines of tj'pe 

 in the edition of Westcott and Hort ; and it 

 was remarked, that the text of these epistles 

 probably represented an integral number of 

 sheets of the original papyrus. 



An examination was then made of the space 

 occupied hy the various books of the New 

 Testament in the Vatican codex. This MS. 

 is written in triple columns, each containing 

 42 hues to the column. Every book begins at 

 the top of a column ; but, strange to say, 

 intead of ending according to a random dis- 

 tribution over the 42 lines of the columns, 

 thej' show a jDreference for ending at the 27th 

 or 28th lines. 



Five epistles were shown to end on the 27th 

 line, one on the 26th, and two on the 28th. 



A calculation was made which showed that 

 this was not the work of chance, but of law ; 

 and it was inferred that there was a commen- 

 surability of the books in question with one 

 another, with the whole Vatican column, and 

 the partial column of 28 lines. 



From this was at once deduced, that the Vat- 

 ican page is composed of nine smaller pages 

 of papyrus arranged in a square, so that three 

 go to a column, and three columns to the page. 

 Each of these smaller pages was represented 

 by the term V-page ; so that a Vatican page 

 is equivalent to the following notation : — 



And, since anj- deviation from the form of 

 papj-rus found in the autographs would have 

 resulted in the introduction of a random dis- 

 tribution of the endings, it was shown that 

 the V-page for the books in question was 

 approximatel}' the page of the autograph. 



A similar analysis for the Sinaitic codex, 

 which has four columns to the page, and 48 

 lines to the column, revealed the existence of 

 a smaller papyrus page employed by a number 

 of other books. This page was represented 

 by 12 lines of the Sinaitic column, and was 

 denoted by S ; so that the page of the MS. 

 was equivalent to : — 



By means of these two types the majority 

 of the books of the New Testament were 

 restored to the original sheets. 



But even more remarkable was the appli- 

 cation of the results of this inquiry to the 

 purposes of textual criticism, and to the sti- 

 chometry of the New Testament. For these we 

 must refer to the forthcoming supplementary 

 number of the American journal of philology, 

 where it will be found demonstrated, that the 

 celebrated passage of St. John in which is 

 given the account of the woman taken in adul- 

 tery is, in all probability, four lost pages of the 

 original document of the Gospel ; and that the 

 account of the agonj- in the garden, which is 

 also rejected by the critics, is a lost page of 



