plague in Europe that we are still in doubt as to whether the Grey
rat or the Black rat is the more susceptible to the disease--and what
flea, if any, acts, or has acted, as the carrier from rat to man in
this part of the world. The suggestion has been made that the Grey
Norwegian rat takes plague less easily than the Black rat, or than
the Indian Mole-rat (Nesokia), and that the multiplication of the
Grey rat in England and France and consequent decrease in Black rats,
is, therefore, an advantage, so far as plague is concerned. Possibly
with the Grey rat has come the big rat-flea, which does not attack
man as does the Cheops flea. The disappearance of plague in Western
Europe seems to correspond in date with the arrival of the Grey rat.
But, on the other hand, an alteration in the character of our houses
and their greater “accommodation” for the new rat rather than the old
black species may account both for the increase of the latter and for
the absence of dirt and vermin in the dwelling-rooms and bed-chambers
which formerly enabled the plague-bacillus to flourish amongst us,
and to reach the human population--as it does now in India and China.
All this shows how necessary it is to have accurate true knowledge of
such despised creatures as rats and fleas, if we are to live in great
crowded cities closely packed together. And it should also make us try
to gain further knowledge as to these creatures, so that we may form
a reasonable anticipation of the consequences we are bringing down on
our heads when we set about exterminating this or that race of animals.
We are not yet sure that the Norwegian Grey rat is not a blessing in
disguise.
31. _Ancient Temples and Astronomy_
Janssen, the French astronomer, who died about the same time as Lord
Kelvin, acquired celebrity by his discovery of a method for seeing
and studying the great flames or prominences which surround the sun.
The glare of the great fiery ball is such that the eye is blinded in
ordinary circumstances to the light of these prominences. They were
only known from their coming into view during the total eclipse of
the sun’s disc by the moon. Then they were seen as a great fringe of
pointed, tongue-like flames around the darkened disc. But at other
times no use of smoked glass or telescope could bring them into view.
Janssen went to India in 1868 to study these prominences of the sun
during the total eclipse of that year. His purpose was to examine with
a spectroscope the light given out by the prominences. The day after
the eclipse Janssen found that he could still examine the prominences
and make out their shape and the chemical elements present in them by
looking at them through the spectroscope, although the sun’s disc was
now uncovered, and it was impossible to see the prominences with the
unaided eye or with the telescope.
A young English astronomer, hundreds of miles apart from Janssen, on
the same day, Aug. 18, 1868, made the same discovery in the same way,
independently. The English astronomer was Norman Lockyer, and the
French Academy of Sciences caused a medal to be struck in commemoration
of this discovery. The medal is before me as I write. It shows the
heads of Janssen and of Lockyer side by side, as they were forty years
ago.
Each has carried on his researches and discoveries with unabated
vigour since that happy conjunction. Sir Norman Lockyer has for many
years added to his constant study of the sun, fixed stars, and nebulæ
by means of the spectroscope and photographic record of spectra, an
inquiry into the evidence afforded by astronomical facts first as to
the age of Greek and Egyptian temples, and latterly as to that of the
mysterious avenues and circles of stones (such as Stonehenge) scattered
about the British Islands, of the history and use of which we have
only vague traditions and no actual records. These stone circles and
avenues are very numerous in Great Britain. The chief are Stonehenge,
Avebury, and Stanton Drew in the middle South of England; the Hurlers,
Boscawen-Un, Tregaseal, the Merry Maidens, and the Nine Maidens in
Cornwall; Merrivale Avenue and Fernworthy Avenue in Devon; many circles
in Aberdeenshire, in Cumberland, Derbyshire, and Oxfordshire, as well
as monuments of the same kind in Wales. Sir Norman Lockyer has obtained
measurements of most of these and plans showing the relations of the
principal lines of their ground plan to the points of the compass, and
so to the position occupied by the sun and by certain stars on given
days of the year at the rising or setting of those heavenly bodies. It
may well be asked what is Sir Norman’s object in doing this?
The explanation is as follows: The builders of Christian churches in
Europe have, as a rule, set out the ground plan of the church shaped
like a Latin cross, so that the arms of the cross run north and
south--the head points to the east, or Orient, and the base to the
west. In consequence of this custom the word “orientation” has come
into use, to signify the direction purposely given to the main length
of a temple or church. Now it appears that many, if not all, ancient
temples (including the ancient stone circles and avenues of Britain)
were purposely so “oriented” by their builders that a particular
star, or the sun itself, should at a fixed day and hour in the year
be seen during its movement across the heavens through an opening in
the building especially designed for this purpose, so as to allow the
light of the star to fall into the most sacred part of the temple, the
“Naon,” or Holy of Holies. At the moment of its appearance special
ceremonies were performed by the priests and worshippers in the temple.
The temple was dedicated to and carefully “oriented to” that particular
star. Thus, in ancient Greece, the Pleiades, Sirius (the dog star),
Spica, and other stars were thus used; in Egypt, Capella, Canopus, and
Alpha Centauri; in Britain, Arcturus, as well as those used by the
Greeks.
These temples were really astronomical observatories, and were meant
always to remain “oriented” to their special star, which must, if the
earth were steady in its position, although spinning like a top, and
also circling round the sun, duly appear each year at the expected
day and minute in the special “window” or aperture designed so as to
allow the star--then, and then only--to shine into the temple. But the
astronomers have discovered that the earth is not steady! It “wobbles”
very slowly and regularly as a top wobbles. The position of the axis
of rotation--corresponding in position to the stem of a top--does not
remain one and the same, but is pulled aside by the attraction of the
sun and moon, and moves round as one may often see in the spinning of
a top. The earth takes about 26,000 years for its poles to complete
the cycle of its wobble. Moreover, in addition to this, there is the
fact that the earth’s axis (stem of the top) is not nearly upright,
but inclined at a considerable angle (23 deg.) to the horizontal or
plane of its orbit round the sun, and that this inclination very slowly
changes, in addition to the wobbling movement. The amount and rate of
these changes in the inclination of the axis of the earth have been
definitely ascertained by astronomers.
I mention the nature of these movements because they clearly enough
must upset altogether the desired result of the orientation of temples.
The last-mentioned slow increase of obliquity affects solar temples
chiefly, and the more rapid wobbling affects the star temples--both to
such a degree that temples oriented two or three thousand years ago
are now quite out of line, and no longer “catch,” so to speak, their
particular star or the sun on the appointed day. They no longer point
truly, because the “pitch” of the earth has altered since they were set.
The next point is that astronomers are able to calculate with
surprising accuracy from other observations how much exactly at this
moment the “pointing,” or “alignment,” must be “out” as compared with
a thousand, fifteen hundred, two, three, four, or more thousand
years ago. Accordingly, if you know the star to which an ancient
temple was set or aligned, the day of the solar year which was the
festival or critical moment of the appearance of the star in the sacred
aperture--and how much the temple is to-day out in its pointing, that
is to say, the exact amount of swinging which would bring the temple
back into its original relation to the star--you have a means of
measuring the age of the temple; you have a measure of the time which
has elapsed since it acquired this amount of departure from correct
orientation. Astronomy tells you how much it must get out of line in
every hundred years.
Mr. F. C. Penrose, F.R.S., investigated this matter in regard to
several Greek temples; others besides Sir Norman Lockyer have written
on the aberration and calculable age of Egyptian temples. It has, for
instance, actually been found that the temple of Ptah was aligned to
the sun in the year 5200 B.C. The alignment is no longer correct, and
it appears that the Egyptians themselves discovered that some of their
most ancient temples had lost correct alignment, and erected new and
corrected buildings in connection with them, and re-dedicated them.
Now Sir Norman is making a vigorous effort to procure all the possible
measurements and indications concerning the prehistoric circles and
avenues of Britain before it is too late. They are being more and more
rapidly destroyed. Stonehenge has been carefully measured and its
present alignment determined by various surveyors. Its age is discussed
by Sir Norman Lockyer in an interesting book, but we may soon expect a
further discussion of the whole subject of these prehistoric British
monuments from his pen. In some cases, as in that of Stonehenge, the
relation of the temple to the sun is obvious and confirmed by tradition
and existing custom. But in many cases investigation is rendered very
difficult by the absence of any immediate indication of what precisely
is the heavenly body to which the temple was at its foundation oriented.
In the case of Stonehenge, the conclusion at which Sir Norman Lockyer
arrives is that there was an earlier circle of small stones (still
represented), but that the temple was rededicated, and the larger
trilithons (each consisting of two uprights and a cross-piece) erected,
and the main opening of the circle aligned to the midsummer rising sun
about 1700 B.C., with a possible error of 200 years, more or less. This
is arrived at by measurements showing the exact amount by which the
alignment is “out” at the present day. This date is confirmed by the
recent discovery of numerous stone hammers when one of the big stones
was dug under and restored to the upright position from which it had
slipped. The stone age is believed to have given place in Britain to
the use of metal before 1700 B.C., and no metal tools were found at
Stonehenge.
Stonehenge--the most wonderful, mysterious, and complete of the great
astronomical temples of Western Europe--has come down to us from the
absolute darkness of prehistoric ages. Its secrets are still buried in
the ground around and under its huge monoliths. This prodigious relic
of the past is actually the private possession of one happy man, Sir
Edmund Antrobus. Only two years ago he earned the gratitude of all men
by employing workmen and machinery, at considerable expense, to restore
one of the great stones to its upright position. The extraordinary
thing is that whatever money is needed for the purpose is not at once
offered to enable him to examine and replace with scrupulous care every
stone, big and small, every scrap of soil, within an area of many
hundred yards, embracing Stonehenge and all around it. I understand
that he is willing to sell this great possession to the nation. It
surely ought to be acquired as national property, and reverently
excavated and preserved, whilst every fragment of significance found
in the excavations should be placed in a special museum at Amesbury
or Salisbury, under unassailable guardianship. Year by year it has
crumbled away. We owe the sincerest thanks to Sir Edmund Antrobus
for having placed a light wire fence around the venerated relics,
and for putting a guardian in charge so as to arrest, even at this
latest moment, the final desecration and destruction of this splendid
thing by heedless ruffians. The protection afforded is, nevertheless,
insufficient. The delay in examining everything on the spot and in
making all that remains absolutely secure is a national disgrace.
32. _Alchemists of To-day and Yesterday_
The claim to have devised a secret process in virtue of which sugar
or charcoal placed in an iron crucible and heated to a tremendous
temperature is found on subsequent cooling to contain large marketable
diamonds has a close similarity to the pretensions of the alchemists.
It differs in the fact that very minute diamonds have actually been
formed by a scientific chemist (M. Moissan) in such a way, whilst the
alchemists’ search was for a substance--the “philosopher’s stone,” as
it was called, which was never discovered, but was supposed to have
the property, if mixed and heated in a crucible with a base metal,
of converting the latter into gold. From time to time those engaged
in this search honestly thought that they had succeeded; others were
impostors, and others laboured year after year, led on by elusive
results and dazzling possibilities.
In England, after the true scientific spirit had been brought to bear
on such inquiries by Robert Boyle and the founders of the Royal
Society in the later years of the seventeenth century, little was heard
of “alchemy,” and the word “chemistry” took its place, signifying
a new method of study in which the actual properties of bodies,
their combinations and decompositions, were carefully ascertained
and recorded without any prepossessions as to either the mythical
philosopher’s stone or the elixir of life. But as late as 1783--only a
hundred and twenty-five years ago--we come across a strange and tragic
history in the records of the Royal Society associated with the name
of James Price, who was a gentleman commoner of Magdalen Hall, Oxford.
After graduating as M.A., in 1777 he was, at the age of twenty-nine,
elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London. In the following
year the University of Oxford conferred on him the degree of M.D. in
recognition of his discoveries in natural science, and especially for
his chemical labours. Price was born in London in 1752, and his name
was originally Higginbotham, but he changed it on receiving a fortune
from a relative.
This fortunate young man, whose abilities and character impressed
and interested the learned men of the day, provided himself with a
laboratory at his country house at Stoke, near Guildford. Here he
carried on his researches, and the year after that in which honours
were conferred on him by his university and the great scientific
society in London, he invited a number of noblemen and gentlemen to his
laboratory to witness the performance of seven experiments, similar to
those of the alchemists--namely, the transmutation of baser metals into
silver and into gold. The Lords Onslow, Palmerston, and King of that
date were amongst the company. Price produced a white powder, which
he declared to be capable of converting fifty times its own weight of
mercury into silver, and a red powder, which, he said, was capable
of converting sixty times its own weight of mercury into gold. The
preparation of these powders was a secret, and it was the discovery
of them for which Price claimed attention. The experiments were made.
In seven successive trials the powders were mixed in a crucible with
mercury, first four crucibles, with weighed quantities of the white
powder, and then three other crucibles with weighed quantities of the
red powder. Silver and gold appeared in the crucibles after heating
in a furnace, as predicted by Price. The precious metal produced was
examined by assayers and pronounced genuine. Specimens of the gold
were exhibited to his Majesty King George III., and Price published a
pamphlet entitled “An Account of Some Experiments, &c.,” in which he
repudiated the doctrine of the philosopher’s stone, but claimed that he
had, by laborious experiment, discovered how to prepare these composite
powders, which were the practical realisation of that long-sought
marvel. He did not, however, reveal the secret of their preparation.
The greatest excitement was caused by this publication appearing under
the name of James Price, M.D. (Oxon.), F.R.S. It was translated into
foreign languages, and caused a tremendous commotion in the scientific
world.
Some of the older Fellows of the Royal Society, friends of Price, now
urged him privately to make known his mode of preparing the powders,
and pointed out the propriety of his bringing his discovery before the
society. But this Price refused to do. To one of his friends he wrote
that he feared he might have been deceived by the dealers who had sold
mercury to him, and that apparently it already contained gold. He was
urged by two leading Fellows of the society to repeat his experiments
in their presence, and he thereupon wrote that the powders were
exhausted, and that the expense of making more was too great for him
to bear, whilst the labour involved had already affected his health,
and he feared to submit it to a further strain. The Royal Society now
interfered, and the president (Sir Joseph Banks) and officers insisted
that, “for the honour of the society,” he must repeat the experiments
before delegates of the society, and show that his statements were
truthful and his experiments without fraud.
Under this pressure the unhappy Dr. Price consented to repeat the
experiments. He undertook to prepare in six weeks ten powders similar
to those which he had used in his public demonstration. He appears
to have been in a desperate state of mind, knowing that he could not
expect to deceive the experts of the society. He hastily studied the
works of some of the German alchemists as a forlorn hope, trusting
that he might chance upon a successful method in their writings. He
also prepared a bottle of laurel water, a deadly poison. Three Fellows
of the Royal Society came on the appointed day, in August, 1783, to
the laboratory, near Guildford. It is related (I hope it is not true)
that one of them visited the laboratory the day before the trial, and,
having obtained entrance by bribing the housekeeper in Price’s absence,
discovered that his crucibles had false bottoms and recesses in which
gold or silver could be hidden before the quicksilver and powder were
introduced. Dr. Price appears to have received his visitors, but
whether he commenced the test experiments in their presence or not
does not appear. When they were solemnly assembled in the laboratory
he quietly drank a tumblerful of the laurel water (hydrocyanic acid),
which he had prepared, and fell dead before them. He left a fortune
of £12,000 in the Funds. It has been discussed whether Dr. Price was
a madman or an impostor. Probably vanity led him on to the course of
deception which ended in this tragic way. He could not bring himself to
confess failure or deception, nor to abscond. He ended his trouble by
suicide. He was only thirty-one years of age! Not inappropriately he
has been called the “Last of the Alchemists,” though a long interval
of time separates him from the last but one and the days when the old
traditions of the Arabians’ al-chemy were really treasured and the
mystic art still practised.
33. _A Story of Sham Diamonds and Pearls_
It has been recently declared by a dealer in precious stones that
though diamonds and other stones can be very well imitated, yet pearls
cannot be. This is hardly correct, as artificial pearls so well made
as to defy detection by the casual glance of any but a professional
expert are common enough. Who does not know the pathetic story by the
greatest of French writers, Guy de Maupassant, of the wife of a poor
Government clerk, who borrowed a necklace from another lady to wear at
a reception at the “Ministry”? She lost the necklace (I forget whether
it was of pearls or of diamonds, or both); but she and her husband
were too proud to confess the fact, and purchased another necklace
exactly like the lost one, for a sum the outlay of which reduced them
for the rest of their lives to a state of penury and social exile. They
returned the new necklace in place of the lost one without a word,
and accepted their fate. By chance, the poor ruined lady, fifteen
years afterwards, met her old friend, who had long since passed from
her acquaintance, together with other prosperous people. Moved by her
former friend’s kind reception, she related the true history of the
pearl necklace of long ago. “Great heavens!” exclaimed the prosperous
lady. “The necklace I lent you was made with imitation gems! It was
not worth five pounds!” Too late! Nothing now could give back to the
high-minded, self-respecting little couple the lost years of youth
passed in privation and bitterness.
34. _The Nature of Pearls_
Pearls have been lately studied by zoologists, and their true history
made known. They are a disease, caused, like so many other diseases,
by an infecting parasite. It is common knowledge that they are found
much as we see them in jewellery, as little lustrous spheres embedded
in the soft bodies of various shellfish, such as mussels, oysters, and
even some kinds of whelks. They are not found in the shellfish like
crabs and lobsters, called Crustacea, but only in those like snails,
clams and oysters, called Mollusca. Pink pearls are found in some kinds
of pink-shelled whelks. A pearl-mussel or pearl-oyster has a pearly
lining to its shell, which is always being laid down layer by layer by
the surface of the mussel’s or oyster’s body, where it rests in contact
with the shell, which consequently increases in thickness. If a grain
of sand or a little fish gets in between the shell and the soft body
of its maker, it rapidly is coated over with a layer of pearl, and so
a pearly boss or lump is produced, projecting on the inner face of the
shell, and forming part of it. These are called “blister-pearls,” and
are very beautiful, though of little value, since they are not complete
all round, but merely knobs of the general “mother-of-pearl” surface.
These blister-pearls can be produced artificially by introducing a hard
body between the shell and the living oyster or mussel.
It used to be thought that the true spherical pearls were caused by a
hard granule of some kind pressing its way into the soft substance of
the shell-fish, pushing a layer of the pearl-producing surface like
a pocket in front of it. But it is now known that this “pushing in”
is the work, not of an inanimate granule, but of a minute parasitic
worm, which becomes thus enclosed by a pocket of the outer skin. The
pocket closes up at its neck, and lays down layer after layer of pearl
substance around the intrusive parasite, the dead remains of which can
be detected with the microscope in sections of the pearl forming there
a central kernel or nucleus. These parasitic worms were first detected
in the small pearls formed by the common edible sea-mussel.