IT

At 10 o'clock.........October 22. At 9 o'clock.. .....October 26. At 9 o'clock.........October 30.

EARTHQUAKES.

BY RICHARD A. PROCTOR.

T is related in the Timæus of Plato that the ancient Egyptians held the world to be liable to occasional widely-extended catastrophes, by which the gods checked the evil propensities of men, and cleansed the earth from guilt. Conflagrations, deluges and earthquakes were the instruments of the wrath of the offended gods. After each catastrophe mankind were innocent and happy, but from this state af virtue they gradually fell away, until

At 8 o'clock.........November 14. At 8 o'clock.........November 18. At 8 o'clock.........November 22.

their accumulated offences called for new judgments. Then the gods took counsel together, and unable to bear with the multiplied iniquities of the human race, swept them from the earth in some great cataclysm, or sent a devouring flame to consume them, or shook the solid earth until hills and mountains fell upon and crushed the inhabitants of the whole world.

One can understand how the confused records of great catastrophes, in which all, or nearly all, the inhabitants of wide districts were destroyed, led in the course of time to the formation of such views as Plato has described. And, indeed, it is not in one nation alone that

of Menu the Hindoos are taught that at the end of each of those cycles of ages which are termed the "days of Brahma," all forms of life are destroyed from the earth by a great conflagration, followed by a deluge which inundates heaven itself. The mythical legends of the Chinese refer to similar views, which appear also in the Babylonian and Persian cosmogonies. The Chaldeans taught that when the planets are all conjoined in Capricorn the earth will be overwhelmed by a flood, and that when a conjunction of this sort takes place in Cancer the earth will be destroyed by fire.

In the present age when the network of telegraphy brings all parts of the earth into close intercommunication, we are not likely to trace, even in the most widespread disasters, the approaching destruction of our globe. The same day which brings the intelligence of some desolating catastrophe brings evidence also that the devastation is but local. We are seldom informed of simultaneous, or nearly simultaneous, events happening in widely-separated regions of the earth's surface. Accordingly, we are seldom led to dread the occurrence of any widely-devastating series of catastrophes.

We have heard a great deal lately of certain speculations-recently ventilated by an American philosopherwhich threaten the earth with complete annihilation. According to these views there is one great danger to which we are at all times liable-the risk, namely, that some large volcanic vent should be formed beneath the bosom of ocean. Through this vent the sea would rush into the interior of the earth, and being forthwith converted into steam by the intense subterranean heat, would rend the massive shell on which we live into a thousand fragments.

Whether it is possible or not that such an event as this should take place, I shall not here stay to inquire. Let it suffice that the risk-if there be any-is no greater now than it has been any time during thousands of past

years.

But certainly, if there is any source from which the inhabitants of the earth may reasonably dread the occurrences of widely devastating catastrophes, it is from earthquakes. It is related that for full six months after the great earthquake of Lisbon, Dr. Johnson refused to believe in the occurrence of so terrible a catastrophe. "He spoke half jestingly," Macaulay thought-it is not easy to see on what grounds. To us it seems far more probable that Johnson heard with natural wonder and awe of the destructive effects of this fearful convulsion; and that for awhile he could scarcely believe that the extent of the disaster had not been exaggerated. It would be well if, indeed, the powers of earthquakes were less tremendous than they have been repeatedly shown to be. "There is," says Humboldt, "There is," says Humboldt, no other outward manifestation of force known to usthe murderous inventions of our own race includedthrough which, in the brief period of a few seconds or minutes, a larger number of human beings have been destroyed than by earthquakes." Lightning and storm, war and plague, are but weak and inefficient agents of destruction in comparison with the earth's internal forces.

And as earthquakes surpass all other phenomena as agents of sudden destruction, so the impression which they produce on those who for the first time experience their effects is peculiarly and indescribably awful. Men of reputed courage speak of a feeling of "intolerable dread" produced by the shocks of an earthquake, “even when unaccompanied by subterannean noises." The impression is not that of simple fear but a feeling of

absolute pain. The reason seems for awhile to have lost the power of separating real from imaginary causes of terror. The lower animals, also, are thrown into a state of terror and distress. "Swine and dogs," says Humboldt, "are particularly affected by the phenomenon of earthquakes." And he adds that "the very crocodiles of the Orinoco, otherwise as dumb as our little lizards, leave the shaken bed of the stream and run bellowing into the woods."

Humboldt s explanation of the peculiar sensations of alarm and awe produced by an earthquake upon those who for the first time experience the effects of the phenomenon is in all probability the correct one. "The impression here is not," he says, "the consequence of the recollection of destructive catastrophes presented to our imagination by narratives of historical events; what seizes us so wonderfully is the disabuse of that innate faith in the fixity of the solid and sure-set foundations of the earth. From early childhood we are habituated to the contrast between the mobile element water and the immobility of the soil on which we stand. All the evidences of our senses have confirmed this belief. But when suddenly the ground begins to rock beneath us, the feeling of an unknown mysterious power in nature coming into operation and shaking the solid globe arises in the mind. The illusion of the whole of our earlier life is annihilated in an instant."

Use habituates the mind to the shocks of earthquake. Humboldt found himself able after awhile to give a close and philosophic scrutiny to the circumstances attending the phenomenon which had at first impressed him so startlingly. And he tells us that the inhabitants of Peru think scarcely more of a moderate shock of earthquake than is thought of a hail-storm in the temperate zone.

Yet the annals of earthquakes are sufficient to give rise to a feeling of dread, founded, not merely on the novelty of the event, but on a knowledge of the powers of the earth's internal heavings. The narratives of some of the great earthquakes afford fearful evidence on this point.

In the first shock of the great earthquake of Lisbon (November, 1755) the city was shaken to its foundations. The houses were swung to and fro so violently that the upper stories fell at once, causing a terrible loss of life. Thousands rushed to the great square in front of St. Paul's Church, to escape the reach of the tottering ruins. It was the festival of All Saints, and all the churches had been crowded with worshippers. But when the terrified inhabitants reached the square, they found that the great church of St. Paul's was already in ruins, and the immense multitude which had thronged its sacred precincts were involved in its destruction. Such of the congregations of the different churches as had escaped rushed to the banks of the Tagus for safety. There were

to be seen priests in their sacerdotal vestments, and an immense crowd of people of all ranks and ages, praying to Heaven for mercy. As they prayed there came the second shock, scarcely less terrible than the first. The church on the top of St. Catherine's Hill was rocked to and fro till it fell, crushing in its fall a great multitude which had sought that height for safety.

But a far more terrible catastrophe was at hand. As the banks of the river sounded with the Miserere of the terrified supplicants who had crowded thither for safety, there was seen to pass over the wide expanse of the stream (here four miles broad) a strange heaving swell, though no wind stirred the air. The waters seemed to be drawn away to meet a vast wave which was now first

observed to be bearing down upon the devoted crowd. They strove to fly, but the wave swept too rapidly onwards. The whole multitude was overwhelmed in a moment. A magnificent quay, lately built at a great expense, was engulfed with all who had crowded on it for refuge. Numberless vessels, also, which were anchored on the river and were now full of terrified people-seeking on an unstable element the security which the solid earth denied them-were sucked down by the tremendous wave, and not a trace of them was ever afterwards

seen.

A third shock followed, and again the river was swept by a gigantic wave. So violently was the river moved

distance and then return like a vast mountain in height. "He heard a cry of Miserere rise from all parts of the city," and in a moment all was silent-where the town had once flourished there was a wide sea. But the same wave which overwhelmed the town drove past him a small boat, into which he flung himself, and so was saved.*

THE COLUMBIA TYPE-WRITER. BY JOHN BROWNING.

water were flung upon the dry ground. Other shocks and other inroads of the river-water followed, each working fresh destruction, insomuch that many began to believe that "the city of Lisbon was doomed to be entirely swept from the face of the earth."

It would be out of place to describe here at length how fire and pestilence came successively to complete the desolation begun by the earthquake's ravages. The terrible story has been narrated elsewhere. remains to be mentioned gives us startling evidence of the terrible energy of the earth's subterranean forces :

But what

The mountains Arrabida, Estrella, Julio, Marvan, and Cintra, some of the largest in Portugal, were shaken from their very foundations, they opened at their summits, and huge masses were flung into the neighbouring valleys. Flames and smoke were emitted from the openings. But much farther away the effects of the great convulsions were experienced. It has been computed, says Humboldt, that a portion of the earth's surface four times greater than the whole extent of Europe was simultaneously shaken. On the coasts of Sweden and on the shores of the Baltic, far away across the Atlantic to the Antigua Islands, at Barbadoes and Martinique, and still further off in the great Canadian Lakes, the movement was sensibly felt. A vast wave of inky blackness swept over the West Indian seas, rising twenty feet above the level of the highest tides. In Algeria the earth was as violently shaken as in Portugal, and eight leagues from Morocco a village with 8,000 inhabitants was swallowed up.

The shocks felt at sea were so violent that captains who experienced them thought their ships had struck the solid ground. A ship 120 miles to the west of St. Vincent was so violently shaken that the men were thrown half a yard perpendicularly upwards from the deck. Lakes and rivers in England were strangely agitated. The water in Loch Lomond suddenly rose against the banks without apparent cause, and then as suddenly subsided-the vibration of the earth's surface having travelled from Lisbon to Scotland at the rate of twenty miles a minute!

It has been calculated that in Lisbon alone 60,000 persons perished within the brief space of six minutes. But there have been other earthquakes in which even this terrible destruction of life has been surpassed. In 1693, 100,000 persons fell victims to the great Sicilian earthquake, and upwards of 300,000 persons are supposed to have perished in the great earthquakes which desolated

Antioch in the sixth and seventh centuries. It has been estimated that within the last 4,000 years five or six millions of human beings have perished through the effects of earthquakes.

It is related that in the great earthquake of 1747 all the inhabitants of the town of Callao were destroyed, save one. The man who escaped, standing on a fort which overlooked the harbour, saw the sea retire to a

TYPE-WRITERS have just recently been making distance of general adoption.

About thirty years ago I planned and began making a type-writer, and I do not suppose I was by any means the first person the idea occurred to. My attention was distracted from this idea by the charms of the spectroscope, and I have never returned to the subject since. But I have watched the production of the various typewriters with very lively interest, and used one occasionally for several years.

When I first adopted a type-writer I dispensed with the services of a shorthand clerk; but I soon found that no type-writer could arrange books and papers for me, and I therefore engaged one again. Yet I would never get a thoroughly-satisfactory type-writer. The Remington write any amount of matter with a pen in future if I could extensively adopted, and had it not been for the high was brought out some years since, and it has been price, about £20, it would doubtless have been still more generally used.

Since the Remington we have had the Caligraph machine, constructed on the same plan, containing some improvements.

Still more recently we have had several type-writers of a smaller size, and more economical in price. The Hall machine is portable and efficient, and the price is only £8. 8s. I have no experience of this machine, but I should think that it would be difficult to write with it quickly.

the type-wheel is turned by means of a straight handle, held between the fingers, a hand points to the letter which is in the position for printing on a dial; simply depressing the handle then prints the letter on the paper, and raising the handle again moves the paper-carrier forward, and inks the type for the next operation. The act of depressing the handle locks the type-wheel, so that it cannot turn while the letter is being printed.

Excellent letterpress copies, two in number, may be made from the writing done with the Columbia; but six perfect copies may be obtained at one operation on the machine itself by using thin paper and carbon paper alternately.

The Columbia Type-writer weighs less than six pounds, and the price, with one wheel of type, in case complete, is only £5. 5s.; with two wheels of type, to print both capitals and small letters, the price is £6. 6s. I have printed a few pages with the machine, and I find it When I have had some very easy amount of practice with it, I will report further respecting the speed which may be attained, as this is an allimportant consideration.

to use.

THE FACE OF THE SKY.

FROM Ост. 9 то Ост. 23.
BY F.R.A.S.

POTS and faculæ continue to be visible at intervals on the Sun's face. Map X. of "The Stars in their Seasons" shows the aspect of the night sky. Minima of Algol will occur at 1h. 26m. a.m. on Oct. 20, and again at 10h. 15m. p.m. on Oct. 22. Mercury comes into superior conjunction with the sun at 10h. a.m. on Oct. 16, and will be, for all practical purposes, invisible during the next fortnight. Venus is an evening star, but is very badly placed for the observer on account of her considerable and rapidly-increasing south declination. If seen at all it will be over the south-west horizon just after sunset. Mars, Jupiter, and Uranus are all equally invisible for the purpose of the ordinary amateur observer. Saturn is visible during the late working hours of the night. He rises about 9h. 11m. this evening, and about a quarter past 8, when our notes terminate. Hence he is fairly high up by midnight. He continues to form a triangle with and Geminorum. Neptune remains in the old blank region in Taurus. The Moon enters her first quarter at 1h. 20.7m. a.m. on Oct. 16, and is full on Oct. 23, at 9h. 22-6m. at night. No occultations of fixed stars occur during the period covered by our notes. When they begin the Moon is in Virgo, but at 7 o'clock this evening she will pass into Libra. She is travelling through Libra until 4 h. 30 m. p.m. on the 11th, when she arrives at the narrow northern strip of Scorpio. Passing through this, at 2 h. 30 m. in the early morning of the 12th she enters Ophiuchus, which she leaves in turn at midnight on the 13th for Sagittarius. She remains in Sagittarius until 2 h. 30 m. p.m. on the 16th, at which hour she crosses into Capricornus. She leaves Capricornus for Aquarius at 9 a.m. on the 17th; and Aquarius for Pisces at 3 p.m. on the 20th. Her passage through this huge constellation is not completed until 4 p.m. on the 23rd, when she passes into the north-west corner of Cetus. She is still there at midnight on the 23rd.

THE Chicago Railway Age states that over 1,650 trains pass over the junction of the New York Elevated Railroads at Chathamsquare every twenty-four hours. No railroad in the world does an equal train business on two tracks. There is a junction in London where 2,400 trains pass daily, but four tracks are provided for their accommodation. The only railroads in operation that compare with the New York Elevated Railroad system for crowded business are the London Underground Railways. The Underground Railways carry an enormous number of passengers, and the traffic has developed very rapidly. In 1879 a total of 91,420,178 persons were carried by the London Underground Railways, while in 1884 the number had increased to 114,447,514. During the corresponding five years the New York Elevated Railroads showed an increase from 46,045,181 to 96,702,620; in other words, while the Underground showed an increase of 23,027,336 in five years, the Elevated had expanded its figures by 50,667 430

Gossip.

BY RICHARD A. PROCTOR.

I HOPE, in the next number, which will be the last weekly number of KNOWLEDGE, to give a full account of the probable form in which the first monthly number of Knowledge will appear. At present I note only that it will contain, besides the letter mentioned in the next paragraph (which many will regard as its chief attraction), an article by Mr. Grant Allen, on "Nature's Way of Spreading Seeds "; the opening paper of a series by Mr. Clodd, on "The Story of Creation"; a paper by a Fellow of the Astronomical Society, on "Colour"; the beginning of a series of papers by, Mr. Mattieu Williams on "Coal" (in its commercial aspect), a subject which he has in a special manner made his own; a paper on "Indian Myths," by Stella Occidens; and probably a paper by Miss Ballin, on "Thought." I have not yet heard from other regular contributors. I begin a series of papers on the "Southern Skies," illustrated by maps prepared for the latitudes of Melbourne, Sydney, Cape Town, Dunedin, and other important southern cities; in fact, suitable for Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania, Cape Colony, &c., and likely to interest northern people who wish to know more than the books teach about the celestial phenomena of the southern skies. I also begin a series of papers on the religion of science. The "Face of the Sky" would no longer have the fitness which it had in KNOWLEDGE as a weekly; but monthly astronomical announcements will be made, and, perhaps, records of each past month's celestial phenomena. Chess will continue under the able management of "Mephisto," who has recently achieved such noteworthy success; and “ Mogul," the skilful Whist-player, has promised a series of papers on Whist which cannot but be of great interest.

In the first monthly number of KNOWLEDGE there will appear a long and most interesting letter by Sir John Herschel, written in the year 1869, and hitherto unpublished. It relates to my own inquiries, then little more than begun, and presents in clear terms his ideas at that time, when in the fulness of years but also in the fulness of his powers-he was resting after the close of his long and noble series of astronomical labours.

I PROPOSE to follow up that letter by some others in which Sir John Herschel discussed the theories which his father had enunciated. I hope hereafter to be able to publish in connected form some of the more important of the elder Herschel's papers. This is much needed.

IN nearly every work on general astronomy which has been published during the last half-century, a certain theory of the stellar universe is described and illustrated. According to this theory the system of stars forms a figure which has been compared to a cloven flat disc. Near the centre of the disc is the sun, while around the sun a small circle is drawn, which is intended to represent a sphere enclosing all stars visible to the unaided eye. The portion outside represents a section of the cloven disc of stars, the single extension on one side corresponding to the enormous array of the stars whose united lustre produces the light of the Milky Way where that stream is single, while the double extension on the opposite side corresponds to the arrays of stars producing the two streams into which along one-half of its course the Milky Way is divided. The theory and the illustration are

both referred, quite justly, to Sir Wm. Herschel, and the reader is further informed that according to the views accepted by astronomers of our time the system of stars really has the figure assigned to it by the theory so fully and so frequently described and illustrated.

the

YET, surprising as it may seem, the theory referred to is one which Sir William Herschel himself has distinctly rejected, as not in accordance with evidence he obtained during the progress of his researches. This "generally accepted theory" with which every reader of even the most elementary treatises on astronomy is familiar, is one which no astronomer who has read Sir William Herschel's works through can possibly accept as the true theory of the sidereal system. I know nothing which in a more marked manner illustrates the careless way in which our astronomical textbooks are prepared than this, that a theory which its own deviser rejected as unsound, has been presented over and over again as embodying nearly all that is known about the general structure of the sidereal heavens. One writer has borrowed the theory from another-neither inquiring into its real merits nor being at the pains to study the papers of the great astronomer who first propounded it; until at length it has come to pass that the few who have ventured to challenge the theory have been regarded as little less rash than the paradoxists who are always overthrowing the theory of gravitation.

I REMEMBER well the awe-struck-almost horror-struck -looks with which many of the Fellows of that very Society which might be expected to know best what Herschel taught, regarded me when I said that a greater astronomer than the propounder of the theory had overthrown it. "Sir Wm. Herschel put forward this theory of the stars," I remarked, "but it was attacked and overthrown more than a quarter of a century later by an astronomer of greater experience, by an observer far more skilful, by a theoriser at once more daring and more cautious. This man, the greatest observational astronomer that has ever lived, and excepting Newton himself, the astronomer who has most profoundly affected the views of men respecting the celestial depths, has pronounced that the theory of the star-system which appears in almost all the astronomical text-books of our day is not a sound one, because not based on trustworthy hypotheses.

The astronomer who thus proved that Sir Wm. Herschel had been wrong was Sir Wm. Herschel himself. The appeal is from Sir Wm. Herschel in 1785, the most skilful and laborious observer of his day, to Sir Wm. Herschel a quarter of a century later, compared with whom, the Herschel of 1785, great as he was, was yet but a beginner." Many, if not most of those to whom I addressed these remarks, considered (I know well) that either I was mistaken or else that I was drawing somewhat largely on my imagination.

I was not aware when I thus addressed the Royal Astronomical Society that the German astronomer Wm. Struve had expressed precisely the same opinion. Here are the words in which, after summing up the labours of Sir Wm. Herschel during the years immediately following the enunciation of the theory of 1785, Struve speaks of the result to which those labours had led :-" Nous parvenons donc au résultat peut-être inattendu mais incontestable, que le système de Herschel, énoncé en 1785 sur l'arrangement de la Voie Lactée, s'écroule de toutes parts, d'après les recherches ultérieures de l'auteur; et que Herschel lui-même l'a entièrement abandonné.

Ir is strange that the country in which the elder Herschel received his scientific training should know so little of his works. We have to turn to German literature to obtain a satisfactory, though not quite complete account of Sir Wm. Herschel's researches. His own masterly papers are written indeed in our language, but those who would read them must search through no less than thirtyseven of the thirty-nine volumes of the "Philosophical Transactions," published between the years 1780 and 1818. England has not done what Wilhelm Struve urged her to do. She has not yet honoured herself by honouring the memory of her greatest astronomer," so far as to publish "at least a complete and systematic edition of his works."* Nor again has the position which the work of the younger Herschel bears with respect to the labours of the father been adequately presented in any English treatise on astronomy, the subject being one which would naturally not receive at his own hands-in his fine "Outlines of Astronomy ". either exhaustive or sufficiently appreciative treatment.

SIR,-A correspondent in your Tuesday night's issue presents us with a sample of Mr. Proctor's statements, some of which are taught in our schools to the rising generation. Just imagine the editor of KNOWLEDGE being lauded and applauded for such burning imaginative utterances as the following:-That the earth, sun, and moon are planets, requiring millions of years' process to advance to the stage he states the moon to be in, "decrepid." Will the reader just compare this with the Mosaic account found in Genesis, that not quite six thousand years ago God created on the fourth day two great lights, sun and moon, to rule day and night, also for signs and for seasons. Thus the moon cannot be the sun's senior by twelve hours. Yet we are expected to believe it millions of years. I respect my Bible too much for that, and have learned to value its statements as true. Mr. Proctor also pretends to describe the roarings of a cyclone in the sun, also to give its velocity as 100 miles per second. Readers, think of these statements, and ask how these things can be determined on a body ninety-five millions of miles distant, a distance which no human eye can reach with the most powerful aid. If the sun was double its size and of ten thousand times the brilliancy they say it is, one million miles would place it out of our limit of minute investigation.-I remain, yours truly, E. T. TAYLOR.

Although of course such letters reflect discredit where they appear, I fancy Derby is well on a level with the best towns in England for general intelligence and education. My audiences there, both when I lectured recently, and when I lectured for the Gilchrist Fund, were among the best I have addressed.

THE reduced telegraph tariff is one of the most successful hits the Post-office has ever made. Their estimate of an increase of thirty per cent. in the number of messages transmitted has been as nearly as possible realised. On the First the increase was nearer forty per cent., but that is accounted for by the immense number of messages sent for the sake of spending sixpence over the inauguration of the new scheme, which, so far, has worked as well as could greater on the local traffic than on the provincial or "town to town" be expected. The increase, as was anticipated, is considerably work, being for London as much as fifty per cent. It is noticeable that the increase in the actual number of messages is scarcely, if at all, felt in the instrument-rooms, the average length having been considerably reduced, and the addresses brought down to the lowest limit.

Struve, in his "Études d'Astronomie Stellaire." In this work the labours of the Herschels are dealt with in the true scientific spirit not with unquestioning acceptance, though with fullest appreciation of their value enhanced by the independent analysis to which the German astronomer has subjected them, while at the same time their intrinsic merit is made abundantly evident to the reader.