mothers possess of retarding the deposition of their eggs, and we have
reason to believe, sometimes even the young when circumstances are
unpropitious for her to produce them, seems to us specially curious.
_Chilobothrus_ is known to have had both eggs and a living brood. So
has _Coronella lævis_. Of the latter, some German ophiologists state
that it is 'always viviparous;' others 'occasionally' so. In her native
Hampshire woods she has been seen with a young brood about her; but
there seems no satisfactory evidence of any eggs having been found.
Time and careful notings only can substantiate this and many other
singular facts regarding these 'wise' and 'subtle' creatures, hitherto
surrounded by prejudice and but little studied. We, not well versed
in Ophidian biographies, might have expected the anaconda to lay
eggs because her cousin the pythoness did so; and we might have also
speculated upon her incubating them, as the python did. But she has
produced a perfectly developed though dead family of six, instead; a
circumstance of so much interest to naturalists, that the loss of the
young ones is to be regretted though not wondered at. Captured from
her native lagoons, and shut out from the light of day in a box just
large enough to contain her, this 'good swimmer' arrives alive; thus
proving her amazing powers of endurance; but she has had no fitting
place in which to deposit her young, and they died unborn. Still it is
a noteworthy fact in the annals of zoology. At first, from the result
of observation, the incubation of the python was 'suspected;' then it
became confirmed; and the birth of young coronellas also. From this it
is evident that we cease to declare that only _vipers_ produce live
young; or, according to the original signification of the word, a boa,
a coronella, and several other non-venomous snakes would be 'vipers!'
Again, it is remarkable that these peculiarities of reproduction are
not confined to particular families and genera; because some coronellas
lay eggs, some incubate them, and others bring forth a live brood. So
also, while some of the _Boaidæ_ lay eggs, the anaconda is completely
viviparous.
We would venture to urge upon those lovers of nature who dwell 'remote
from towns' the value of careful observation and a noting down of what
appears unusual, even of the habits of the much persecuted snake.
C. H.
PLAYTIME AT OXFORD.
'What is to be done this afternoon?' is a question invariably asked by
scores of undergraduates, either at the well-supplied breakfast-table
(for whatever men do not learn at Oxford, they at least learn to eat
a good breakfast), or by those victims of procrastination who leave
everything to the last moment, just as the scout is bringing up the
more modest luncheon.
There are certain rules at the university--social rules I mean--which,
though unwritten, are not to be broken save under severe penalties,
such as being entered among that class of undergraduates yclept
'smugs.' Of these unwritten laws, one of the best and most universal
enacts, that a great part of the afternoon shall be spent outside the
college, presumably in active and healthy exercise, even if it be
but a sharp constitutional. Not that this is a hardship, or that the
answers to the question, 'What's to be done?' and the modes of spending
these two or three hours, are monotonous or circumscribed. Far from
it. Many places may be more full of life and amusement than Oxford in
the morning and evening; but few, I am sure, can surpass the bill of
amusement which Alma Mater presents to us after lunch.
Every taste can find appropriate satisfaction, save perhaps the taste
for picturesque scenery, in which the neighbourhood of Oxford, to use
a 'varsity term, 'does not come out strong.' Still, if I may believe
report (never believe an undergraduate when he tells you a tale of a
fellow he knew), Cambridge is rather worse off. We have Shotover and
Bagley Wood to set against their Gog Magog Hills. Be that as it may,
simple walking does not find many advocates, except on Sunday, or as
a stop-gap on some off-day when rackets and the river begin to pall,
as every amusement seems to do by the end of term. I have even heard
a member of an eight-oar say after six weeks' daily attendance at the
river, that 'he really felt he'd had almost enough of it.' And it _is_
rather an objection to rowing, that as soon as your blisters have
hardened and you feel indifferent about the cushion on your chair,
the act of pulling your own weight and a trifle over begins to have a
certain sameness.
To return to walking. Much of that otherwise tame exercise is involved
in going to witness sports of various kinds. Almost every day in
winter there is either a football match or a racket match, or the
trial eights or some college sports to be inspected; or we may look
in at the fives-courts or at the gymnasium, and see Tompkins vaulting
the high-horse, which he does not do so well as at lunch; or to the
dog-fancier's in ---- Street, and look over Jenkens's bull-pup. Not
that there is any ratting going on of course, or such a thing as a
badger in the county; but these are lazy ways of getting through the
time, and except occasionally, none of our party is reduced to them.
No; for Brown votes for rackets: a game active enough, I can vouch.
It looks so easy to hit the ball with the great battledore-shaped
racket--until you try: perhaps as easy as battledore and shuttlecock,
now ousted by lawn-tennis. So just descend into the black-lined arena,
and you will discover that the small sphere you aim at finds out all
sorts of impossible angles, and dodges you in a way that no fellow can
stand; so that rackets is rather dispiriting to a beginner. Having
only once got up the ball in the course of an hour, and having sharply
struck myself on the side of the head with my own racket, to say
nothing of the curious attraction of the ball to my shoulder-blades,
I determined that that should be my last as well as first visit to
a racket court, charming as the game doubtless is when well played.
So Brown will not ask me to make up his four for Holywell. There are
also one or two tennis courts in Oxford; but I do not think that the
favourite game of the Merry Monarch is very generally played except on
grass.
I shall not part from Brown yet, but shall accompany him to Holywell
and get a hand in the fives-court. It is a hot game, but not a graceful
one, like rackets. It is all very well to poise your racket overhead,
sway backwards and send the whizzing ball against the wall. But it
is quite another thing to flounder after it with outstretched hands,
which seem monstrous in their hot clumsy gloves, and missing it by a
hair's-breadth, 'vainly beat the air.' Say what you like against it,
there is no better exercise, though I should not think of bringing a
certain young lady to witness my performances there, any more than I
should of asking her to come to hear me viva-voce'd in the schools.
But I have wandered from the subject to the fair sex. To return to
Jones, who is going to scull as far as Sandford in the fairy outrigger
in which he is proud to disport himself. With some reason too, for the
equal dip of the sculls in an outrigged skiff is hard to attain, and
the art of turning those craft in any reasonable space is known only to
a few of the initiated. I have always found that when I steered 'by the
bank,'
E'en for a calm unfit,
I'd steer too near the sands to boast my wit,
as Dryden says; though I am not quite sure that he exactly means that.
Others of our luncheon-party are bound by college patriotism to go down
to the barges and undergo their day's training for the Torpids. These
are of the stalwart sort; but they will not have a very pleasant time
of it, nor will Jones in his skiff, for the wind is rather strong, and
the water even on the lower river must be pretty rough; so two of our
company, not of the stalwart kind, are going to the Freshman's river to
engage one of those sailing-vessels called at Oxford a 'centre-board.'
The wind is blowing fairly up stream; but they will have some trouble
at a certain corner called 'Blackjack;' and I shall not be surprised if
their new flannels are somewhat shrunken by to-morrow. Still they can
swim; and if they can't, they ought to.
Besides the Rugby votaries of football, the Association and other clubs
play in the parks. The practice of the former is the most interesting
to watch; and though this pastime is, not without some reason, deemed
by many to be silly and even barbarous, it seems to be generally
largely patronised by spectators.
We must not neglect the new running ground with its comfortable
pavilion, where, if we do not wish to take a trot ourselves, we may
read _The Field_, and watch through the window the training of the
crack whose performances it records. And talking of running, there
is or was a Hare and Hounds Club, which numbered some distinguished
runners among its members; and one college at least had lately, and
perhaps still has, a pack of beagles. If a man be of very solitary
habits and much inclined to hide him from his kind, there is
jack-fishing in many parts of the river, engaged in which contemplative
recreation he may moralise to his heart's content. There is a Gun-club
too; to say nothing of the hunters, hacks, and pony-carts which may
be obtained for a consideration. I don't know whether the hunters are
screws, for I've never tried one, and for the same reason I don't
know whether they are dear or cheap; on the whole, however, I should
be inclined to say _not_ cheap. Then there is a bicycling club, whose
members perform immense distances in wonderful times, and who talk of
going to Aylesbury or to Banbury and back, as outsiders do of Cowley
and Cuddesden. And if you are one of the country's defenders, are
there not drills in St John's Gardens, or parades in the Broad, and
evolutions of all kinds in the parks? harder work than the road-making
lately fashionable at Hinksey, near which, I believe, are the rifle
butts. Playing at labourers has gone out, I believe.
But the summer term is the term for fun. Woful is the man who is in
the schools in the bright days of June, when the sun at length gets
through the Oxford fogs. The summer term is, technically speaking,
two terms, for there are four terms in the 'varsity year, though no
'varsity man ever yet knew the distinctive names of them; and so the
summer terms are twice as jolly as the other two, though only equal
to one in length. Ah me! I shall soon have cause to sigh for the days
that are no more. Then cricket and lawn-tennis, the eight-oar races,
the lazy punt and nimbler canoe, cider-cup and skittles at Godstow,
bathing at Parsons, archery and croquet, and cousins and sisters, and
the occasional flower-show, will recur amongst the standing-orders of
the past!
Every afternoon, when it is fine, the cricket-grounds, most of which
are at Cowley, present a lively scene. The practising nets are
occupied by batsmen, the sound of whose strokes on the much-enduring
leather is like the tap, tap, tapping at the hollow beech-tree, or at
the garden-gate, according to the taste of the listener. If you go
in front of the nets, keep your eyes and ears open, or you may get
knocked down by a stray ball--a danger kept constantly in your mind by
frequent cries of 'Head!' which cause many to anticipate the bump in
store for one. A man does not look to advantage at the moment when he
becomes conscious of a descending cricket-ball in close proximity to
the back of his head. In the centre of the ground a college match is
being played; and in the tiny structure often graced by the title of
Pavilion much beer is being consumed. At the further end, a couple of
games of lawn-tennis are being briskly kept up. Altogether, the college
ground is not a bad place in which to spend the afternoon, even though
you may not be A1 at cricket.
As to the river, every visitor to Oxford in the summer term has seen
that, and its varied and variegated load of eight-oars, four-oars,
dingies, whiffs, skiffs, cockle-shells, pairs, punts, and coal-barges.
For my own part I prefer the Cherwell and the cushioned punt. It is not
a bad plan to get on shore in the Botanical Gardens, and stroll up the
High as far as Cooper's, wherein to consume strawberry ices. I do not
much affect the archery and croquet, nor yet the flower-shows; very
good in their way, I daresay, but you can enjoy them at home, where a
racket court, or even a skiff, is not always handy, and where skittles
are apt to be voted low, and the secrets of cider-cup hidden from the
butler's ken. So make your hay while the sun shines. And almost as fast
as the skittles fall before the practised hurler, fly the nine weeks
of the summer term, which comes to most men but three times in their
lives; and if enjoyed again, must be so generally only at the expense
of a disastrous 'plough,' a catastrophe which necessitates extra
reading and perhaps a change of residence.
So the curtain falls upon the glories of the final tableau, the
Commemoration, a tableau which has sadly wanted its proper amount of
blue-fire lately. Even the Long Walk is beginning to fail as an avenue,
and there are some gaps in the foliage, I think. All work and no play
makes Jack a dull boy: but even though he _does_ work, and 'reads' when
he ought, Jack need not be dull withal at dear old Oxford.
THE MONTH:
SCIENCE AND ARTS.
While the President of the Royal Society is travelling in America,
studying, in company with Professor Asa Gray, the peculiar vegetation
at the foot of the Rocky Mountains--while Dr Tyndall is solacing
himself with a quiet holiday in his own house on the Bel Alp--while
spectroscopists are rejoicing in the new 'grating' constructed by
Professor Rutherford, which multiplies to an extraordinary degree their
power of observation--while physicists and naturalists are betaking
themselves to inland villages or to remote bays on the sea--while
amateurs are looking at the one hundred and seven photographs of
the Arctic expedition recently published by the Admiralty--while
artists, engravers, and printers are at work on the voyage of the
_Challenger_--while readers are acquainting themselves with Mr
Darwin's new book, _The Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the
same Species_--while the British Association are reckoning up the
profit and loss of their meeting at Plymouth--while the promoters of
the Ordnance Survey of Palestine are appealing for funds to finish
their work--while geographers and adventurers are soliciting means
for the exploration of Africa--while Europe is trying to prevent
immigration of the Colorado beetle--while Mr Varley is attempting by
telephone to carry music from Her Majesty's Theatre to the 'other side
of the water'--while the Treasury are considering whether they will
ask parliament to vote three million pounds for the building of the
much wanted new public offices--while Mr Berthollet is pointing out
'the possibility of producing temperatures really approaching three
thousand degrees'--while Mr Rarchaert is shewing that his locomotive,
combining the two essentials of adherence and flexibility, will travel
safely round curves of two hundred and fifty mètres radius--while Mr
Cornet, chief engineer of mines in Belgium, is endeavouring to prove
that compressed air can be used in mines; and while the Social Science
Council are settling their programme for amendment of law, repression
of crime, promotion of education, improvement of health, furtherance
of economy and trade, and diffusion of art--while all this is going
on, science, art, and philosophy progress in a way that implies force
within as well as without.
Where steam is employed, especially on board ship, it not unfrequently
happens that a sudden occasion arises for exercise of the utmost power
of the engines, and that to this gain extreme power for the short
time required is of more importance than economy of coal. The method
hitherto adopted to effect this object is to drive more air through the
fire, or to throw a jet of steam into the chimney.
Mr Bertin, a French marine engineer, has proved that the best method
is to throw jets of slightly compressed air into the base of the
chimney by means of a centrifugal ventilator, or at higher pressure by
employing a blowing-machine working with a piston. Under the transitory
action of these jets of air the combustion in the furnace is doubled,
and the ship, like a warrior in extremity, may make efforts impossible
in ordinary circumstances. The increase in the consumption of coal
is not more than twenty per cent.; and the method having been tried
on board one of the national frigates, _La Résolue_, has proved so
effectual, that its adoption is only a question of time. Mr Bertin has
described his method and the principles on which it is based in a paper
to be published in the _Bulletin_ of the Société d'Encouragement pour
l'Industrie Nationale.
The same Society have just recognised the merits of an English chemist,
Mr Walter Weldon, by conferring on him their Lavoisier medal--_grande
medaille d'honneur_--for his discoveries and improvements in the art
of manufacturing chlorine. Formerly all the manganese used in the
process was wasted, and manganese became scarcer and dearer. Waste is
an opprobrium in chemical operations. Mr Weldon shewed a way by which
the manganese could be reoxydised over and over again indefinitely;
and at once an offensive part of the process was got rid of, and the
price of chlorine fell thirty per cent. This of course cheapened
all the articles, and they are numerous, in the production of which
chlorine plays a part; and Mr Weldon's method has been adopted wherever
chemicals are manufactured on a great scale. Mr Lamy, who drew up the
statement of the grounds on which the medal was awarded, said: 'If we
have not the good fortune to designate a Frenchman for your suffrages,
at least we have the satisfaction to present an inventor belonging to
a friendly nation, the first among all for the development and the
potency of its chemical industry.'
If this be true, there is a chance for another ingenious chemist for
the Council General of Guadeloupe offer a reward of one hundred
thousand francs to the inventor of a new method of extracting the juice
of the sugar-cane, or of manufacturing sugar.
Hitherto it has been thought that to produce a good black dye the
co-operation of a metallic substance or of a chlorate, or both
combined, was indispensable. The question arose: Were those ingredients
really indispensable? Mr Rosenstiehl first shewed that the metal might
be dispensed with, and recently, as may be seen in the _Annales de
Chimie et de Physique_, Mr Coquillion has proved that the chlorate is
not required, for in the one case as in the other, the use of 'nascent'
or active oxygen will effect the desired object. We are informed that
the fact observed by the French chemist 'is an elegant demonstration of
the action of active oxygen upon aniline salts; that it will perhaps
enable us to obtain blacks derived from aniline in a state of greater
purity, and to hasten the moment when we shall know their elementary
composition; a question which, in view of its great interest, has been
proposed for a prize by the Industrial Society of Mulhausen.'
Mr Cornet, whose name has been mentioned above, in a mathematical
discussion of the question, says that compressed air would be largely
used in mining operations 'were it possible to keep the temperature
of the air from rising during compression much above that of the
atmosphere, and from falling during expansion to the temperature
of freezing water.' And he thinks that he has found 'the means for
attaining this end in the use of water-spray, which could be introduced
into the cylinder of the compressor, and into that of the machine using
the air in the mine.' The practical details are not yet made known; but
if they succeed, 'the use of compressed air in mines will soon become
general, and the problem of mining at any depth will be solved.'
One part of the method devised by Mr Cornet had been previously thought
of; for in 1875 an air-compressor was working in the St Gothard tunnel,
of which it was said: 'The heat produced by compression is reduced by
the circulation of cold water in the walls of the cylinder, in the
interior of the piston and its rod; and an injection of water-spray
at the two extremities of the cylinder completes the cooling.' When
the compressors were at work they supplied to the tunnel fifteen cubic
mètres of air per minute.
When messages were first sent by telegraph, many persons were
exceedingly puzzled to understand how they were sent; and now the
telephone has come to disturb them with another puzzle. But scientific
men have long known that 'galvanic music,' as it is called, was
discovered forty years ago, that an electro-magnet on being suddenly
magnetised or demagnetised gives out audible sounds, and that many
notices of the curious fact were printed in English and foreign
journals. Professor Graham Bell, whose experiments have been already
mentioned in these pages (_ante_ 208, 415), succeeded in making the
sounds, which were commonly very faint, audible to a large number of
persons. This was accomplished, as he explains, 'by interposing a tense
membrane between the electro-magnet and its armature. The armature in
this case consisted of a piece of clock-spring glued to the membrane.
This form of apparatus,' he continues, 'I have found invaluable in all
my experiments. The instrument was connected with a parlour organ,
the reeds of which were so arranged as to open and close the circuit
during their vibration. When the organ was played, the music was loudly
reproduced by the telephonic receiver in a distant room. When chords
were played upon the organ, the various notes composing the chords were
emitted simultaneously by the armature of the receiver.'
'The simultaneous production of musical notes of different pitch by
the electric current,' continues Professor Bell, 'was foreseen by
me as early as 1870, and demonstrated during the year 1873. Elisha
Gray of Chicago, and Paul La Cour of Copenhagen, lay claim to the
same discovery. The fact that sounds of different pitch can be
simultaneously produced upon any part of a telegraphic circuit is of
great practical importance; for the duration of a musical note can
be made to signify the dot or dash of the Morse alphabet; and thus a
number of telegraphic messages may be sent simultaneously over the same
wire without confusion, by making signals of a definite pitch for each
message.'
By instalments of news from the Pacific we hear of the tremendous
earthquake that occurred last May; but for precise details we shall
have to wait until reports are published in the scientific journals
of the United States. Meanwhile, we learn that the great volcano of
Kilauea in Hawaii began to be restless on the first of the month; a
few days later huge columns of lava were thrown up, vehement jets of
steam burst forth from a long range of fissures, and all the startling
phenomena of a mighty eruption, including drifts of Pele's hair, were
observed. This evidence of disturbance deep down in the earth was
corroborated by an earthquake, which about half-past eight on the
evening of the 9th terrified and devastated the coast of Peru, and
occasioned greater ruin than the similar calamity in 1868. Iquique is
said to be completely destroyed, and other towns and cities along two
hundred miles of coast suffered more or less severely. As usual, the
commotion of the land produced a commotion of the water, and the sea
rolling great waves upon the shore, intensified the havoc. The waves
varied in height from ten to sixty feet; and we are told that 'four
miles of the embankment of the railway were swept away;' and that
'locomotives, cars, and rails were hurled about by the sea like so many
playthings.'
Also, as is usual in such catastrophes, the earthquake wave was
propagated; and between four and five of the morning of the 10th, it
(that is the sea) rushed upon the Hawaiian Islands in waves varying
from three to thirty-six feet in height. Thus in eight hours the
resistless oscillation had traversed the five thousand miles which
separate the islands from the South American continent.
From this brief sketch it is obvious that there is much in this
calamitous visitation to interest the physicist and geologist as
well as the philanthropist. Information will in all probability be
communicated from other places until the remotest points at which the
disturbance was felt shall have been ascertained.
As relating to this subject we remark that the hair of Pele--a Hawaiian
goddess--above mentioned can be produced artificially in a blast
furnace. It has been described in former pages of this _Journal_ as
'slag cotton.'
We learn by a communication from Hawaii to the American Journal of
Science and Arts that a grand outburst occurred in February last, but
ceased quite suddenly, to the disappointment of visitors who came
expecting to see a volcanic display. As the vessel was steaming away,
they saw in deep water, a mile off Kealakekua, the place where Captain
Cook was killed, a remarkable heaving and bubbling, intermingled
with jets of steam, and throwing up of pumice and light scoria. This
commotion was still going on five weeks afterwards. It was occasioned
by a subterranean lava-stream which, after rending the mountain slopes
with deep fissures, found an outlet under the sea.