194 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



[Mar. 2, 1 8 



hibernation of swallows in ponds, and the possibility of 

 getting them out during the winter in clusters and thaw- 

 ing them to life ! And in the same book we find an 

 account of the Holloway Sanatorium for the scientific 

 treatment of the insane, and the Holloway College for 

 the promotion of the higher education of women. Let 

 us hope that the pill owners who have made such 

 unseemly use of these institutions by dragging them 

 into the advertisement will not carry into their manage- 

 ment the views of medicine and of science which it 

 represents. 



Sir John Lubbock on Free Libraries. — Sir J. 

 Lubbock, in presiding at a meeting held at Tunbridge 

 Wells in support of the proposed free library, urged 

 that hours of leisure should not be hours of idleness, 

 and that the free library would prove a useful school 

 for the grown-up. He remarked also that the litera- 

 ture of England was the birthright and inheritance of 

 every Englishman, and that England had produced, and 

 was producing, many of the greatest poets, philosophers, 

 and men of science. No country could boast a brighter, 

 purer, or nobler literature, richer than our commerce, 

 more powerful than our arms, the true pride and glory 

 of our country. As regards the cost of free libraries, 

 he doubted very much whether they would cost the 

 ratepayers anything, and he thought they would 

 indirectly save more than the penny rate. 



SCIENTIFIC TABLE TALK. 



By W. Mattieu Williams., F.R.A.S., F.C.S. 



On page 103 of this magazine is a reference to the 

 " Spectre of the Brocken," as seen on Arthur's Seat lately, 

 and to the editor's experience on the summit of the 

 Milleschauer in Bohemia. I have seen it twice on 

 Arthur's Seat, the first time quite unexpectedly when a 

 student in Edinburgh. I was on the summit just before 

 sunset. The city and surrounding country was en- 

 veloped in a mist or ground fog which reached nearly to 

 the top of the hill, and seen from where I stood, had 

 the appearance of a white billowy ocean stretching on 

 all sides to the horizon. Presently I saw a gigantic 

 ghostly figure suddenly start up before me, and as sud- 

 denly vanish. Then another and another apparition, 

 and disappearance. Two boys were playing near, and I 

 called them to stand beside me, and look to the eastward. 

 In a few minutes three ghosts started up, the largest with 

 waving arms — they were mine. The boys were 

 frightened, and ran away. 



I remained to study the conditions, and found that the 

 spectre appeared whenever a waif of mist rose high 

 enough to envelope me. A shadow of myself was then 

 thrown not upon it, as on a screen, but bodily through it. 

 The gigantic stature of the shadow was an illusion. Care- 

 ful examination showed that it was no taller than 

 myself, and no broader, but its horizontal dimensions 

 were very great ; it extended a long way through the 



mist, the legs appearing greatly magnified in length, as 

 the feet of the shadow began at my feet, and all the rest 

 extended forward as well as upward. Presently the sun 

 set, and, of course, the show was closed. 



The second time was some years after this. I was 

 in the city on a misty day, but the mist intercepted very 

 little light, and, therefore, could not extend far upwards. 

 About an hour before sunset I climbed the hill with the 

 express purpose of renewing my acquaintance with the 

 spectre, and was not disappointed, though it was less 

 vivid than on the first occasion, and permanent ; this 

 time the mist rising generally rather higher than the 

 summit of the hill, and intercepting some of the sunlight. 

 The horizontal projection was, however, still more 

 plainly shown. 



I have no doubt that it may be seen on this or other 

 isolated peaks several times in the year, but is not seen, 

 for the simple reason that people do not climb such hills 

 in misty weather. But tourists make a mistake in not 

 doing so. No landscape can be finer or more curious 

 than the effect which is displayed after climbing through 

 an ocean of cloud and emerging suddenly into clear blu^ 

 sky and sunshine. The illumination of the cloud tops is 

 at times most brilliant, and the scene is always weird 

 and curiously suggestive of transfer to another planet, to 

 an inverted world, where the cloudy sky is below and 

 the clear blue ocean above. 



We are an extravagant people in most things. We 

 waste our fuel most recklessly and shamefully, so shame- 

 fully that ere long we shall be one of the poorest nations 

 of the world as regards coal supply. We shall have 

 finished our best and most available coal seams when 

 our neighbours will have fairly started the working ot 

 theirs. " An Englishman's fireside is a disgrace to 

 the nation; a barbaric grating set in a hole in the wall, 

 consuming one of the greatest of our physical blessings, in 

 such wise that eighty per cent, of the heat passes up the 

 chimney to warm the clouds. The wife of a French 

 peasant feeds her husband and family at little more 

 than half the cost expended upon feeding the same 

 number in the household of an English artizan, and 

 feeds them better, by her more skilful and economical 

 cookery. 



But the worst extravagance of all is that of pouring 

 into the rivers and the sea all the sewage of our towns. 

 The raw material of our food is twofold : one portion 

 is the water and carbonic acid which the plant by 

 means of its leaves obtains from the air. This we return 

 to the air by respiration ; we do not waste it, simply 

 because we cannot. 



The other is the mineral and nitrogenous matter ob- 

 tained from the soil by the roots of the plants. Un- 

 like the atmospheric material, the natural supply 

 of this is severely limited, and should be religiously 

 economised. Therefore we deliberately and elaborately 

 waste it. 



The old cesspools were very bad, but the material 

 they contained was buried in the earth, to be utilised at 

 some future time somehow. Now we drench it with 

 ] water, and at great cost fling it all into the sea beyond 

 reach of recovery, and in doing so we commonly pollute 

 all the natural channels to the sea. The rivers, that 

 should be pellucid and beautiful, and teeming with fish, 

 are made filthy, hideous, and barren. We perpetrate 

 this criminal folly in spite of the fact that a simpler and 

 better way has been clearly and fully demonstrated, a 

 way by which all that has been taken from the soil may 



