Mercury is brightest this date, and furthest from the sun August 13.
Venus will be at her descending node August 17. Jupiter will be near the
moon August 17, 4h. 20m. morning, being the moon's apparent diameter
north; this will be an occultation south of the equator. Saturn will be
near the moon August 16, being about 7° south.
There will be a partial eclipse of the moon August 16, in the evening.
The moon will rise more or less eclipsed east of Kansas, west of which
no eclipse will be visible.
Middle. End.
H.M. H.M.
Boston 7 24 eve. 8 50 eve.
New York 7 12 eve. 8 38 eve.
Washington 7 00 eve. 8 26 eve.
Charleston 6 48 eve. 8 14 eve.
Chicago --------- 7 44 eve.
St. Louis --------- 7 33 eve.
New Orleans --------- 7 34 eve.
The following shows the appearance of the moon when the eclipse is
greatest--7·1 digits, or 0·596 of the moon's diameter.
[Illustration]
The size of the eclipse will be the same for all places. The time of
middle and end for any other places may be obtained by applying the
difference of longitude from Washington, converted into time, to the
Washington time of middle and end, adding if east of Washington, and
subtracting if west.
* * * * *
=An Interesting Astronomical Observation.=
_To the Editor of the Scientific American:_
While viewing the planet Jupiter, at about 5 minutes past 10 o'clock
P.M., a very strange sight presented itself to the observers, who were
looking for a transit of one of the satellites. A very dark spot much
larger than a satellite was seen on the eastern edge of the disk, as
shown in the above diagram. It moved rapidly westward along the upper
margin of the northern belt and passed off at 1 o'clock 24 minutes A.M.
(12th). From its first internal contact till its last external contact
was just 3h. 19m., Pittsburg time. It appeared to be a solid opaque
body, truly spherical, very sharply defined, and most intensely black.
The transit of the satellite occurred at 15 minutes after 11 o'clock,
and had no unusual appearance. Now what was that dark body? We are
constant observers of the heavenly bodies, though not deeply versed in
the science of astronomy, and are anxious to know if any one can give us
some light on the subject. The telescopes used were a 2½ inch and 5 inch
achromatic, magnifying 154 and 216 diameters, but the 154 was chiefly
used. JOSEPH WAMPLER.
JAMES R. GEMMILL.
McKeesport, Pa., July 11, 1878.
[Illustration]
* * * * *
=Some of Professor Marsh's Recent Discoveries.=
Mr. S. W. Williston, the assistant of Professor Marsh, has been giving
to the Omaha _Bee_ some interesting facts with regard to the great
reptilian fossils recently discovered in Wyoming and Colorado. The bones
found represent reptiles of many sizes, from that of a cat up to one
sixty feet high. The latter, found at Como, Wyoming, belonged to the
crocodile order; but the remains give evidence that the animal stood up
on its hind legs, like a kangaroo. Another found in Colorado is
estimated by Professor Marsh to have been 100 feet long. A great many
remains of the same general class, but belonging to different species,
have been collected and sent East. Among them from three to four hundred
specimens of the dinosaur, and about a thousand pterodactyls, have been
shipped from Colorado, Wyoming, and Kansas. The wings of one of the
latter were from thirty to forty feet from tip to tip. Seventeen
different species of these flying dragons have been found in the chalk
of western Kansas. There have also been found six species of toothed
birds. Comparatively little has been done toward classifying the late
finds, the task is such an enormous one. Great importance is attached to
them, however, since nothing of the kind had been found in America until
a little over a year ago and great stress had been laid by certain
geologists on their absence. Another remarkable feature of the discovery
was that the fossils which had been reported as not existing in this
country had hardly been brought to light in one locality before
thousands of tons of them were simultaneously discovered in half a dozen
different places.
* * * * *
=Trying to Save a Hundred and Fifty Million Dollars a Year.=
Professor Riley, recently appointed Government Entomologist and attached
to the Agricultural Department, reports that specimens of insects
injurious to agriculture are constantly being sent to the department
from all parts of the country, with requests for information. In every
instance, if a proper examination could be made, an effectual remedy
could be found, and not less than $150,000,000 saved to the country
annually. Recently a worm entirely new to science was sent to the
department by an Iowa farmer, whose orchard of several thousand apple
trees had been rendered unproductive for several years by the new
depredator. For the interests of Western fruit growers this insect
should immediately be investigated. Professor Riley asserts that the
$5,000 recently voted by Congress for the investigation of the cotton
worm, which has sometimes damaged the cotton crop of the South as much
as $20,000,000 in a single fortnight, might have been used to better
advantage by the department; the salary of the entomologist will use up
all the money, leaving next to nothing for experiments for the
eradication of the pest.
* * * * *
=Industrial Education.=
All are agreed that some education is necessary; but what? The great
proportion of those having the direction of our educational system and
facilities in charge still cling to a system which was established long
before the first mechanical operation came into existence. Before the
present system of man's relation to man, socially, industrially,
politically, or commercially, was heard of, and notwithstanding the
revolutions and advancement in all other things, there is a determined
resistance to any attempt at revolution in what shall be considered
education.
There is an effort to establish compulsory education; but what is the
child to be taught? As if in league with the false theories of the
rights of labor, these efforts take the apprentices from the shops,
force them away from where they would learn something, and confine them
inside a school house to learn--what? Certainly nothing of the
materials, or tools, or pursuits by which they are to obtain their
livelihood. The child knows nothing of when or by whom the compass was
discovered, the printing press, the use of powder, electricity, of
steam, or of any one of the thousand mechanical operations now
controlling every department of life. Does any school boy know how many
kingdoms there are in the natural world, or whether an animal, a
vegetable and a mineral all belong to the same or to different ones?
Will he know that from instinct the young of animals seeks its food and
expands its lungs, as by the same instinct the root of a seed sucks up
its nourishment from the soil and sends its leaves up to breathe the
air? Will he know anything of the nature or requirements of the soils or
the plants that grow in them? Will this compulsory education teach the
boy anything of the iron furnace, the foundry or rolling mill, or the
uses or handling of any of their products? Will it teach him anything of
woods and their value, or for what and how they are useful to man?
Will this knowledge, for which the powers of the State are to be
required to force him to know it--will it teach him anything of the
nature or uses of metals, of metal working, or the business depending
upon them? Will it teach him anything of gold or silver, copper or
brass? Anything of pottery, of bone, ivory, celluloid, etc.? Will he
learn anything of hides, leather, or the production of these necessary
articles? Will he know whether the word textile applies to anything but
a spider's web or the wing of a butterfly? Whether the United States
make, import, or grow cotton, wool, silk, flax, and hemp?
Will he know anything of commerce, railroads, telegraphs, printing, and
the great number of clerk labors in the larger towns? Will he have
learned a single thing which will assist him in his work of life? Will
not every boy thus taken out of the shop and placed at the compulsory
schooling find after he has mastered all it has to give him that he yet
knows nothing; that he must then commence where he was and serve his
apprenticeship; that instead of compulsory education his past years have
been wasted in obtaining but a compulsory ignorance?
* * * * *
=Business and Personal.=
_The Charge for Insertion under this head is One Dollar a line for
each insertion; about eight words to a line. Advertisements must be
received at publication office as early as Thursday morning to
appear in next issue._
Lubricene.--A Lubricating Material in the form of a Grease. One
pound equal to two gallons of sperm oil. R. J. Chard, New York.
Assays of Ores, Analyses of Minerals, Waters, Commercial Articles,
etc. Technical formulæ and processes. Laboratory, 33 Park Row, N. Y.
Fuller & Stillman.
Manufacturers of Improved Goods who desire to build up a lucrative
foreign trade, will do well to insert a well displayed advertisement in
the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN Export Edition. This paper has a very large
foreign circulation.
Cutters, shaped entirely by machinery, for cutting teeth of Gear
Wheels. Pratt & Whitney Co., Manufacturers, Hartford, Conn.