442 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XIV. No. 360 



eral writers now travelling in Europe ; " Mrs. Harrison in the 

 White House," — a paper telling of the daily life of the President's 

 wife, — authorized by Mrs. Harrison, and written by one of the 

 attaches of the White House ; " Mary J. Holmes's Travels Abroad," 

 in European capitals and countries. Articles by such writers as 

 Mrs. Lew Wallace, Elizabeth B. Custer, Blanche Willis Howard, 

 Julia Ward Howe, Harriet Prescott Spofford, Susan Coolidge, Dr. 

 William A. Hammond, Anna Katharine Green, Mrs. Henry Ward 

 Beecher, Grace Greenwood, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Margaret J. 

 Preston, Rev. Robert Collyer, D.D., and Kate Upson Clarke, will 

 be features of each number. The new regular department by Rev. 

 T. De Witt Talmage, D.D., we have already referred to. In this 

 the famous preacher will talk on all subjects of interest to woman. 

 The department will be called " Under my Study Lamp." Fif- 

 teen departments for woman's daily life will be sustained by the 

 journal, including " Side-Talks with Girls," " Practical Housekeep- 

 ing," " Artistic Needlework," " The Latest Fashions," " All about 

 Flowers," " Facts for Mothers." 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



■iter's 



* ^* Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. The 

 in alt cases required as proof of sood faith. 



The editor ivill be glad to publish any queries consonant with the character of 

 the journal. 



On request, twenty copies of the number containing his communication will be 

 furnished free to any correspondent. 



Is Man Left-Legged ? 

 In view of the subjoined facts and remarks, we would seem jus- 

 tified in awaiting the presentation of more statistics and investiga- 

 tions, before giving an affirmative answer to the above query. 



1. Of over fifty men questioned by the writer, every one answered 

 that he would kick a foot-ball with his right foot, e.xcept two, one 

 of whom was left-handed, the other ambidextrous ; and out of forty 

 boys interrogated by the school superintendent here, thirty-eight 

 kicked with the right foot, and the two others equally well with 

 either foot, both being ambidextrous. 



2. About half of those asked took the spring, in leaping, from the 

 right foot, and alighted on the left ; the other half, the reverse. The 

 strain and force required in either case seem about equal. 



3. EveVy shoe-merchant of this place testified that nearly all 

 their customers preferred trying a new boot or shoe on the right 

 foot, considering that one the larger, especially in breadth. 



4. Standing on either leg, and using it more, would rather tend to 

 consolidate the bone, and develop the muscle, of that leg : hence the 

 somewhat increased length of the left leg, indicated by Dr. Sibley, 

 might denote comparative weakness. Besides, if the greater length 

 of the leg is admitted as evidence of left-leggedness, by parity of 

 reasoning, we should find the right arm, on right-handed people, 

 longer than the left ; which, from such evidence as the writer has 

 been able to obtain, is not the case. 



5. The recruit is taught, at the word " forward," to throw his 

 weight on the right foot; and, at the word "march," to step off 

 with the left. This position, in olden warfare, would be favorable 

 for the use of the shield, the spear, and the cross-bow, and in 

 modern times is equally appropriate for a bayonet charge or for 

 firing, by right-handed men. In dancing, the instructions are in- 

 variably to begin the " chassez," and similar movements, with the 

 right foot. Piano and harp pedals, besides various treadles for har- 

 vesters and other agricultural implements, etc., are usually made 

 to accommodate the right foot. 



6. That man is naturally right-handed, is stated to arise from a 

 physiological cause (see Bell's " Bridgewater Treatise on the Hand," 

 or McClintock's " Biblical Cyclopsedia," when commenting on the 

 ambidextrous Benjamites); and the same cause would.be likely to 

 strengthen the whole side, including leg and foot. 



7. In the West, our race-courses, quite as often as otherwise, 

 are so arranged as to make the horse and rider, or sulky driver, 

 curve to the left. Circus-riders invariably follow the left-hand 

 curve, in order to mount and dismount on the near side. The 

 reason for generally mounting on the left is obvious. Every right- 

 handed man, in going to battle, has his sword in scabbard on his 

 left side, and seizes his bridle-rein with his left hand : hence the 

 necessity of mounting from the near side, and placing the left foot 



in'the stirrup, but all^the^weight comes on the right stirrup, when 

 wielding the sabre, battle-axe, or lance ; and the lunge with the 

 foil or small-sword is made with the right foot, by right-handed 

 men. 



8. As in dancing the lady is on the right of her partner, natu- 

 rally in " hands round " or " balance all," or in the first movement 

 of the waltz, the turn is to the right ; but in each case the circle 

 pursued is a left-hand curve : so that the argument on that point 

 seems to have little force. 



9. Backwoodsmen state, that, when lost in the forest, they 

 usually find they have wandered in a left-hand curve, and come 

 back nearly to the place of starting; and experiments in wheeling 

 a wheel-barrow when blindfolded usually result in the stronger 

 right leg gaining on the left, thus producing an inclination to the 

 left hand. 



If the officers of athletic college-clubs at Harvard, Yale, 

 Princeton, etc., would be kind enough to report to Science the 

 percentage of those students who kick the foot-ball with the right 

 foot, and the comparative measure between the right and left leg 

 in circumference around the muscular portion, it would aid much 

 in arriving at the truth, especially if the small percentage kicking 

 with the left proved to be either left-handed or ambidextrous. 



Richard Owen, M.D. 



New Harmony, Ind., Dec. 20. 



On Physical Fields. 



When the physical state of a body re-acts upon the medium 

 that surrounds it so as to produce in the medium a state of stress 

 or motion, or both, the space within which such effects are pro- 

 duced is called the " field " of the body. When a body is made 

 to assume two or more physical states simultaneously, each state 

 produces its own field independent of the existence of the others : 

 hence two or more fields may co- exist in the same space. For in- 

 stance : if a magnet be electrified, both the magnetic and the elec- 

 tric fields occupy the same space, and each as if the other did not 

 exist. 



Property of Various Fields. 



/. The Electric Field. — Suppose a glass rod be electrified with 

 silk or cat skin. It is experimentally known that other bodies in 

 its neighborhood are physically affected by its mere presence with- 

 out contact, and various motions result which are commonly at- 

 tributed to electric attraction or repulsion. The phenomena are 

 explained as due to the stress into which the neighboring ether is 

 thrown by the electrified body, the stress re-acting upon other 

 bodies, and moving them this way or that as the stress is greater here 

 or there. Suppose an electrized mass of matter remote from any 

 other matter, in free space. The field, or the stress that constitutes 

 it, is found to vary in strength inversely as the square of the dis- 

 tance from the body in every direction about it, which shows that 

 the effect upon the ether is uniform in all directions, and that for such 

 a stress under such conditions the ether is isotropic. Experiment 

 shows that this kind of a stress travels outwards with the velocity 

 of 186,000 miles a second, or the same as that of light, which 

 shows that the velocity of motion in the ether depends solely upon 

 the properties of the ether, and not at all upon the source of the 

 disturbance. If this assumed electrified mass of matter were the 

 only matter in the universe, then its electric field would be as ex- 

 tensive as the universe, and any electric change in the mass would 

 ultimately re-act upcn the whole of space, and be uniform in every 

 direction. If, however, there be another mass of matter in prox- 

 imity to the first, the disposition of the stress is altogether differ- 

 ent ; for instead of being disposed radially, as in the first case, 

 the field is distorted by the re-action of the stressed ether upon the 

 second body. The so-called " lines of force " bend more or less 

 towards the second body, and the field stress becomes denser be- 

 tween the bodies at the expense of the field more remote. If this 

 advancing stress in the ether from an electrified body be called 

 radiation, and it seems to be an action of that kind, then it appears 

 that the direction of such radiation depends upon the existence of 

 other bodies in the ether. It is truly rectilinear no further than 

 the shortest distance between the two bodies. 



The electric field thus produced, and thus re-acting upon an- 



