336 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. VI., No. 141. 



20 seconds, with a series of small north and south 

 oscillations. My daughter, who was sitting in the 

 second story of my house, at the same time (as 

 proved by her mantel clock) felt the floor quiver, and 

 heard the windows rattle. As the explosion, accord- 

 ing to the New York papers, occurred at 11.13 ± 

 some uncertain number of seconds, ai^d as the seis- 

 mpscope registered no other shock between 11.00 and 

 11.20, when traffic was resumed, there can be no 

 doubt that we caught the explosion wave, which was 

 much more vigorous than I had expected, at a dis- 

 tance of fully 50 miles. I suppose we did not get 

 the beginning of the disturbance, which probably 

 began gently and rose to a maximum like any other 

 earthquake. 



The delay of 13 minutes at New York was very 

 unfortunate, and caused the total or partial loss of 

 many valuable observations. One cannot suppose 

 that it was intentional ; but it put all other observers 

 at a great disadvantage, as compared with those of 

 the engineer corps, who received a telegraphic signal 

 from the firing key. The officers in charge, knowing 

 of the elaborate preparations made for observations 

 along other lines than the two occupied by their own 

 men, ought to have taken great pains to prevent it. 



C. A. Young. 

 Princeton, N. J., Oct. 12. 



False report of the fall of a meteorite in western 

 Pennsylvania. 



On the afternoon of Saturday, September 26, at a 

 little after four o'clock, loud detonations were heard 

 oyer a considerable area of western Pennsylvania, and 

 circumstantial reports were subsequently given in the 

 press of the fall of a large meteorite, which was de- 

 scribed as being half buried in the ground and visited 

 by numbers of people. On examination, these latter re- 

 ports appeared to me to be unfounded, and I should 

 have given the matter no further attention but for the 

 numerous inquiries which are being addressed to this 

 observatory with requests for specimens. To settle 

 the question, I sent a competent observer, Mr. J. E. 

 Keeler, to the scene of the alleged fall near the West 

 Virginia boundary in Washington county. After an 

 investigation on the spot, he finds that no meteorite 

 has been found. A meteorite undoubtedly passed 

 over, and was seen by Mr. Buckston and others to 

 burst in a southerly direction from the town of In- 

 dependence. The report, according to Mr. Buckston, 

 was heard a minute or more after the explosion was 

 seen, and from this and the apparent height at which 

 he saw the meteor burst, Mr. Keeler infers that the 

 actual explosion occurred twelve or fifteen miles to 

 the southward, when the meteor was still two or 

 more miles above the earth. In spite of statements 

 to the contrary, no fragments are as yet known to 

 be found. 



S. P. Langley. 

 Allegheny, Oct. 7. 



Spectrum of the great nebula in Andromeda. 



A week or two since, the finding of bright lines in 

 the spectrum of the great nebula in Andromeda, 

 found place in your columns. Since then by the aid 

 •of the spectrum of j3 Lyrse and y Cassiopeiae certain 

 results have been obtained. 



The line described in the last notice as crossing the 



spectrum is H (3, and is due to the brightening of the 

 aurora as a whole. 



The two lines described as appearing as bright 

 knots have wave lengths 5312.5 and 5594.0. Thus 

 agreeing well within the limits of error with 1250 

 420 and 1474 of the solar corona, lines which are 

 also found in the auroral spectrum, and in the spec- 

 trum of a solar protuberance (Schellen. 2.136). 



In spite of the uncertainties natural to the obser- 

 vation and identification, the resulting suggestion of 

 a similar origin for the light of the new star is not 

 without considerable interest. O. T. S, 



Yale college observatory, Oct. 5. 



Science in common schools. 



Your notes on teaching science to children need 

 qualifying, so far as inference is concerned. The 

 boy of nine years was evidently badly managed, but 

 a boy of nine with a good head is capable of com- 

 prehending physiology, botany, geology, biology, if 

 properly taught. The chief difficulty with the case 

 in hand was that his information led to a cuteness 

 of intellect. He would be set down for a ' smart ' 

 boy. Of all the text-books for the young the one 

 that best suits me is Shaler's ' Geology for begin- 

 ners.' This I have allowed ray nine-year-old to use 

 during the past summer. He has talked over each 

 chapter with me, and we have discussed matters as 

 if both were boys, using simple words, but no tricks 

 of illustration, such as your boy seems to have been 

 indulged with. Occasionally he has been exercised 

 in an attempt to tell the contents of a few pages 

 where these together make one picture. In no case 

 has he verbally memorized, except to clearly compre- 

 hend the division of protozoa, mollusks, articulates, 

 vertebrates, and that of orders, species, etc. Having 

 once finished a chapter, we reviewed it to call out 

 new points and illustrations. This book has been 

 his story book ; he will not read an ordinary story 

 when such material is at hand. To say he fully com- 

 prehends the theories advocated by Professor Shaler 

 is not to say too much. As he is four-fifths of his 

 time out of doors or working with his tools, it has 

 been easy to make the soil and the stones under foot 

 illustrate his book. Now, if any one will write as 

 good a biolog}-, the nine-year-old shall have that next; 

 then botany and physiology. I am suspicious of pen- 

 work at this early age. It is a precocious, unnatural 

 cramping of a boy's knowledge into formal artistic 

 shape. It involves the art of expression and the 

 art of restraint, or a skill in leaving out as well as 

 putting in. The boy would best be left to talk the 

 subject over in free language. 



But when shall pen work begin ? Later ; at about 

 about twelve years or fourteen. Then let the lad 

 have a portfolio and write something on any topic he 

 is thinking about each day of his life. Nothing 

 spoils a mind so quickly as composing, as nothing so 

 assists if wisely managed. I should decidedly prefer 

 that the first efforts of composition should be in the 

 dramatic form. Let him set his characters talking, 

 and put in their mouths the notions he has of them. 

 For instance. Garibaldi, King Victor, Cavour, Louis 

 Napoleon, or President Cleveland and his cabinet 

 talking over the Indian question. Contemporaneous 

 history being his regular historical study, his charac- 

 ters should be living characters, or mainly so. 



The composition on iron ores is, however, a most 

 excellent specimen of descriptive writing for a very 



