October 31, 1884.] 



SCIENCE. 



413 



■ for their duties as teachers and translators, or worse 

 than incompetent. We are, in effect, given to under- 

 stand that they have either mistaken or purposely 

 misrepresented the meaning of certain important 

 pronouns, which they must have heard and used con- 

 stantly for many years, and on which, to a great extent, 

 the life and force of the language depend. If this is 

 the fact, their scriptural and other translations, and 

 their tracts and other original works, in the Iroquois 

 language, which conform strictly to this system of 

 grammar, must he all wrong. Furthermore, it must 

 be considered that the English missionaries among 

 the western Iroquois (the Mohawks) have, during 

 the last hundred years, published several scripture 

 and other translations in that language. These, 

 though made altogether independently of the French 

 versions, and with a very different orthography, are 

 based on the same system of grammar; and if Mrs. 

 Smith is right, these versions are, of course, errone- 

 ous. Still further, several scripture translations 

 have been made by educated Indians among both 

 the eastern and the western Iroquois. These follow 

 the same grammatical method. That Indians, writ- 

 ing for Indians, would use their language incor- 

 rectly, is a supposition which Mrs. Smith herself will 

 perceive to be inadmissible. This simple fact is 

 therefore decisive of the question, and shows clearly 

 that the missionaries are in the right. 



If your respected correspondent has any doubt 

 about the correctness of the statement now made, 

 she can readily satisfy herself by reading and analyz- 

 ing the translations referred to. She has assuredly 

 no desire to do injustice to any person; and she will 

 therefore be pleased to have her attention drawn to 

 this easy and satisfactory test. In justice to Mrs. 

 Smith herself, it should be remembered that the 

 Iroquois is one of the most difficult of languages, re- 

 quiring years of study to master it. That a beginner 

 in this study, however intelligent and zealous, should 

 be occasionally at fault about a point of grammar, is 

 both natural and pardonable; but that learned mis- 

 sionaries, who have had forty years of practice in the 

 language, who speak and write it as fluently as they 

 do their own, and some of whom are accomplished 

 philologists, should be mistaken on such points, is 

 simply incredible. 



To say that it is ' hazardous ' for one who is not 

 perfectly familiar with a foreign speech to undertake 

 to expound its niceties to those who are adepts in it, is 

 merely to hint a friendly warning. Nothing, indeed, 

 can be more ill-advised than such an attempt. When 

 a distinguished French writer rashly suggested that 

 the name of the ' Frith of Forth ' was probably a cor- 

 ruption of the 'first of the fourth,' his readers were 

 inclined to measure from this absurd suggestion the 

 extent of his knowledge of the English language, and 

 perhaps did him much injustice. The reporter. 



Points on lightning-rods. 



Mr. A. B. Porter's letter in relation to points on 

 lightning-rods {Science, iv. p. 223) suggests the pro- 

 priety of calling attention to the fact, that, inasmuch 

 as the ' power of points ' in neutralizing the electrical 

 charge of the cloud depends upon the convective 

 discharge of the opposite kind of electricity from the 

 point of the rod, it is evident that it requires time 

 for the rod to effectually perform its true function 

 of disarming the cloud, and thereby averting the 

 disruptive stroke. If a highly charged cloud is 

 rapidly driven towards the point of the rod, the latter 

 may not have time to neutralize the electricity of the 

 cloud, and the rod may receive the disruptive stroke 



of lightning: this seems to have been the case with 

 Mr. Porter's rod. If the cloud had slowly ap- 

 proached the pointed conductor, it would have been 

 silently neutralized, and the stroke averted. The 

 significant point is, that convective neutralization is 

 a gradual process, requiring time (see Nature, xxiii. 

 p. 386). A familiar class-experiment will illustrate 

 this point. If a charged Leyden-jar is held in one 

 hand, while a sharp-pointed needle is held in the 

 other hand, and the point of the needle is slowly 

 brought towards the knob of the jar, no shock will 

 be experienced when the point of the needle touches 

 the knob: the charged jar is silently neutralized 

 during the gradual approach of the point. On the 

 contrary, if the point of the needle is rapidly brought 

 towards the knob, a visible spark will pass to it, and 

 a more or less severe shock will be experienced by 

 the experimenter. John LeConte. 



Berkeley, Cal., Oct. 7. 



A wider use for scientific libraries. 



Tour remarks in Science (iv. 335-338) on a wider 

 use for the libraries of scientific societies, give me 

 occasion to mention at least two societies which 

 make such use of their libraries. I think you would 

 do a service by collating a list of such societies, and 

 making a statement of their rules for the loan of 

 books. A brief standing notice, or one occasionally 

 inserted, would be of service to your readers. Cer- 

 tainly the societies not deriving a revenue from 

 these loans should not be expected to advertise at 

 their own expense. 



The constitution of the American association for 

 the advancement of science provides that all books 

 and pamphlets received by the association shall be 

 catalogued, and that members may be allowed to call 

 for such books and pamphlets to be delivered to them 

 at their own expense ; but as yet the books are not 

 available, as the catalogue has not been made. The 

 Cambridge entomological club allows subscribers to 

 Psyche the use of its library under certain restric- 

 tions, — a library containing about a thousand titles. 

 On the other hand, the American entomological so- 

 ciety provides that " no books presented to the society 

 shall be loaned from the hall under any pretence or 

 for any purpose whatsoever." 



The publishers of the Revue etmagasin de zoologie, 

 at Paris, conducted for many years a circulating li- 

 brary amongst the subscribers to the magazine, and 

 reported that they had never sustained the loss of a 

 single volume. Will not other societies or periodicals 

 copy these practices ? B. Pickman Mann. 



Washington, D.C., Oct. 21. 



A possible danger to mariners. 



During the whole of the night of Aug. 23, 1884, the 

 lantern of the lighthouse at Cape San Antonio, the 

 westernmost point of the Island of Cuba, was sur- 

 rounded by a cloud of winged insects, almost entirely 

 of a bright red hue, their presence causing the light to 

 assume a decided red color. The wind was moderate 

 and from the south-west ; the sky was overcast. A 

 few of these insects have been sent to this city by 

 Francisco Bautista, the keeper of the light, and 

 identified as Dysdercus sanguinarius Stal, the cotton- 

 stainer. Though other insects have been observed 

 to fly towards lights, this is the first time that this 

 species has been so reported. It is to be hoped that 

 such dangerous action will not prove chronic with 

 this brilliant and beautiful hemipteron. L. S. F. 



New York, Oct. 23. 



