166 BEES AND BEE-KEEPING. 



error in the logarithmic table he was using. Cor- 

 recting his table, his results came into exact agree- 

 ment with Maraldi's measurements. Some, like 

 Lord Henry Brougham,* who shows much more of the 

 advocate than the philosopher, have, in consequence, 

 in a triumphant tone, asserted that bees have so 

 absolutely solved a most recondite mathematical 

 problem, that their work has actually corrected a 

 mathematician's press error. A story such as this, 

 once started, is certain of repetition, since, however 

 absurd, it has some sort of superficial prettiness, but, 

 like untruths generally, it degrades what it professes 

 to exalt; so let us examine its claim on our belief. 

 The difference of 2min. of a degree means a divergence 

 so small, that two lines forming this angle would 

 travel 144ft. before separating iin. from each other. 

 The length of the side of the rhomb being barely 

 •§-in., a divergence of 2min. on the whole length would 

 be about T 4 ^ 00 in., an amount so small that a ^in. 

 objective would be required to give it visibility ; but 

 the field of such an objective is about g^in. in dia- 

 meter, and in it not more than the tenth of each side 

 of the rhomb could be seen at once, upon which 2min. 

 would give only ^o^op in., a distance which the mag- 

 nificent quarters now produced, even under the most 

 favourable conditions, would be hopelessly unable to 

 resolve. The conditions, however, are most adverse, 

 while the comb, as a manufactured article, is ex- 

 tremely rough, and, under a quarter, as irregular in 

 surface as the mud wall of barbarism. That Maraldi, 

 with the poor appliances of his day, did measure 

 *" Tracts, Mathematical and Scientific." Griffin, Glasgow, 1866. 



