566 



SCIENCE. 



[\oT.. VIII., No 202 



Alaska, and the personal experience to which he 

 refers, to avail himself of the observations of another 

 in a different though adjoining region ? We are of 

 course aware that a considerable similarity exists as 

 between the manners and customs of the various 

 Indians of the north-west coast; but to transplant 

 observations made in one specific district bodily to 

 another is a proceeding utterly repugnant to any one 

 with a regard for scientific precision — or truth. 



George M. Dawson. 

 Geological survey of Canada, 

 Ottawa, Nov. 2". 



The best reply to make to a criticism like Mr. 

 Dawson's is to let a few facts bearing on the case 

 speak for themselves. Let me take the case of com- 

 plaint cited by him, — the rotten fish and roe feast. 

 In 1865-66. twelve and thirteen years before he knew 

 any thing about the subject, I witnessed and smelled 

 my boat's crew of Haida and Stickeen Indians oi3en 

 and eat rotten salmon and herring roe, and rancid 

 fetid Aalachan fat, at a dozen different camping- 

 ])laces between Stickeen Mouth, Alaska, and Port 

 Essington, B.C. My notes and drawings were made 

 then, which appear in my recently published work. 

 These notes and drawings were re-written and se- 

 lected, and all in the hands of my publisher Feb. 26, 

 1886. I never saw Mr. Dawson's work, or even 

 knew of it, until the middle of April, 1886 ; then my 

 attention was called to it by Professor Mason, who 

 has the only eoj^y known to this establishment. He, 

 at that time being at work on a collection just re- 

 ceived from British Columbia, incidentally alluded 

 to it, and, finding I had never seen it, asked me to 

 read it. 



' Our arctic province ' was not written for the ej^e 

 or ear of scientific sisecialists : were it so conceived, 

 its covers could not be expanded wide enough to em- 

 brace the subject ; and it would, if so written, be an 

 titter failure as a popular and pleasant book to han- 

 dle on the qiaestion. Hence all this detail, con- 

 troversy, and citation has been justly eliminated 

 from it. Henry W. Elliott. 



Smithsonian institution, Dec. 10. 



Star rays. 



In the oldest pictures in which the sun, or stars, 

 or burning candles, are features, these objects are 

 represented as surrounded with rays, or points, or 

 brushes of light; and the coventional figure of a 

 star is to-day a pentagon, with its sides extended to 

 an intersection so as to form five pointed projections. 

 It is evident that this manner of rei3reseuting lumi - 

 nous bodies is due to the fact that such appendages 

 have their counterparts, to a greater or less degree 

 of correspondence, upon the retina of the eye, when 

 such bodies are viewed. But it has never been sup- 

 posed by any one that such points or rays were 

 actual emanations of luminous matter from the ob- 

 jects, nor the converging of their light into these 

 forms by the atmospheric medium through which 

 they are viewed. Such impressions have always been 

 considered so simple and constant as not to deserve 

 any notice on the jaart of scientific inquirers, as far 

 as I have ever heard ; and it is because my curiosity 

 has been excited to know their cause, that I appeal 

 to the readers of Science for more light upon the 

 subject. 



In the case of the electric light, now so common in 



our streets, I have been able to account for the prin- 

 cipal feature of their apparent radiations. The very 

 long rays, which, if the carbon points were at the 

 same distance as is the sun, would be many millions 

 of miles long, I find are nothing more than the re- 

 flection of the light from my eyelashes ; as is proved 

 by the fact of their changing their 230?ition to corre- 

 spond with ever j'^ change I make in the position of my 

 eyelashes, and of their total disappearance when I 

 intercept the light by my fingers or other screen. 

 But I cannot by any iDractical means thus get rid of 

 the great body of minor raj's which seem to interlace 

 with each other, and which sparkle with the pris- 

 matic colors. The experiment with the longer ones, 

 however, forces upon me the conclusion that these 

 are due to some other part of my optic apparatus 

 which is out of vaj reach. '^^^ 



I have also gazed iipon the full moon, and, while 

 doing so, have at different times, and with different 

 conditions of the ej^es. and with different positions 

 of the eyelids, observed with great distinctness near- 

 ly every form that I have seen published, represent- 

 ing the solar corona as observed by the astronomers 

 during an eclipse of the sun, and especially those 

 rifts in the corona which extend to the very surface 

 of the luminous orb, — features which, in the case of 

 the sun, utterly disprove every hypothesis that has 

 been advanced to account for the existence of the 

 corona. 



If the corona is an emanation from the general 

 surface of the sun, or the illumination of a circum- 

 ambient atmosi^bere of matter, how are we to ac- 

 count for these rifts, which imply immense long and 

 narrow vistas, following great circles of the sphere, 

 which constantly shift their position on its surface so 

 as to coincide with the line of view of the observer 

 on the earth, through all the movements of solar ro- 

 tations and of the earth in its orbit ? 



Mr. Proctor suggests that the corona is the more 

 highly illuminated centre of an hyjjothetical stratum 

 of stellar substance, to which the orbits of the earth 

 and other planets are confined, and which gives out 

 the zodiacal light. If this were so, those immensely 

 long projections should radiate from the equatorial 

 zone of the sun. But the zone from which they pro- 

 ject is alwaj^s perpendicular to the line of view of 

 the observer. 



What quality can be assigned to a homogeneous 

 atmosphere, either upon the moon or the earth, 

 which is capable of perverting the light of the sun 

 into siTch fantastic shapes as have been observed, 

 and what can induce such changes in that quality to 

 correspond to the manifold changes in the forms re- 

 corded ? 



Considering the complete failure of every hypoth- 

 esis to account for the phenomenon, and during 

 the pause which seems to have overtaken this in- 

 quiry, may it not be excusable for those who are 

 ignorant to inquire whether sufficient attention has 

 been given to the possible effects of the structure of 

 the lenses and tubes of the telescopes through which 

 the observations have been made, and whether it 

 may not be possible to abolish the corona in the 

 same way that the ' black drop ' has been abolished ? 

 If reflections from my eyelashes and eyelids can pro- 

 duce such figures ujaon the retina, may not reflec- 

 tions from the tubes or other parts of the telescope 

 produce them upon the photographic plate ? 



Rd. Randolph. 

 Baltimore, Md., Dec. 10. 



