"H." certainly does), "he cannot possibly remember all he writes." There is no fallacy in this of course. Oh, dear, no!

In KNOWLEDGE for July 10, a very complete reply (letter 1804) is given to "H.'s" bit of metaphysical mystification about "infinite divisibility." In the letter immediately following, the walrus -no, I beg his pardon, "Hallyards (but they are inextricably mixed in my mind)-demolishes the law of gravitation on the very sufficient ground that a gas acts like a gas, and not like a solid. In KNOWLEDGE for July 17, " H." returns to the charge on the subject of infinite divisibility, but he persistently ignores the distincttion between space and matter which was pointed out to him. An atom is indivisible not because it is too small to be divided, but because we have no means of dividing it. To this may be added that if we had the means of dividing the atoms of substance, say, oxygen, we should get something, but that something would not be oxygen. Let "H." get a heap of shot and a paper knife. He may divide the heap until he comes to single shots. These are (with the means he has) indivisible. But does it follow that the space each shot occupies is indivisible? "H." might find means to divide the shots further, either by smashing them with a sledgehammer, or by putting them in an acid. The result in either case would not be shots, but something else. Talking of shot, I cannot help thinking that "Hallyards senior" brought down that 40 ft. condor by a weapon well-known to great travellers, and used by several who have given their names to parts of the earth's surface -the long-bow.

Don't be alarmed, Mr. Editcr, I have no intention of following "H." through his whole range of subjects, "the comity of nations," printers' devilry," blunders about quotations, solar myths, garden slugs, the man in the moon, &c. I would not if I could, and I am not a walrus. I propose to construct an index of all the subjects on which "H." has treated, and I have a strong suspicion that if ever completed it will be an example of the "infinitely divisible." A great deal of it surely belongs only to the "Paradox Corner."

LAMMAS.

W.

[1844]" Mr. G. L. Gomme is satisfied that in the customs of Lammastide (1st of August) 'we have the key to the whole system of ancient agriculture. The one great custom, he remarks, that links it with a very remote past, is the removal of fences from lands that were held in common by the village community, but which had to some extent been inclosed for individual proprietorship since the preceding Lammastide-a custom that prevailed with much curious variation on the South Downs in Sussex, besides other places, till within the last 50 years, even if it be not [?] yet extinct. His paper must be read as a whcle in order to understand the force of his argument; the custom at any rate seems to have but weak connection with the reputed meaning of the word, which, like the other great mass days, involves a church offering, whether of a lamb, as sometimes explained, or of a loaf (hlaf).”—Saturday Review on ་་ The Antiquary," vols. vi., vii. Oct. 27th, 1883. Differing from the Reviewer above, I would suggest that the Lammas custom has the closest connection with the real-though not, indeed, with the reputed meaning of the word. Lammas in French is "St. Pierre-ès-liens." This word lien in English has come to have only a moral meaning, and to be pronounced (I think) like "lean." But when French was current in England, it was no doubt pronounced "lyèan," and used of material bonds. The mass would naturally be called "Lienmas"-or perhaps "Léanmas"-for liane in French means a withe-and then you have the word at once, without going to purely gratuitous hypotheses about lambs and loaves. The probability of this derivation would be greatly increased if it is the case that the feast was not known in England before the Norman Conquest; and this does seem probable. It is said in the lessons for the day in the Roman breviary that Eudacia, wife of Theodosius the younger, was presented at Jerusalem with the chain (i.e., one of the chains) wherewith Herod bound St. Peter; which she sent to her daughter Eudoxia at Rome, who brought it to the Pope, and he then shewed her the chain wherewith St. Peter was bound by Nero; that the two joined themselves together so as to seem the work of one artificer; that thence a church was dedicated on the Exquila under the name of St. Peter in Chains, and a feast assigned on the 1st August, till then occupied with surviving idolatrous festivities: the chains working miracles-among which in 969 a certain Count, a friend of the Emperor Oth, was delivered from a devil by contact with the chains : ac dienceps in urbe sanctoruni vinculorum religio propagata est." From which last concluding sentence I feel inclined to infer that the feast really dates from the end of the tenth century. It may not have been introduced into England till much later; Trinity Sunday was introduced only by St. Thomas Becket

in memory of his own consecration on that day. If this be so, the feast would not be known to the pre-Norman English; and this would account for its not being called Bondmas, or any like name. The removal of the hurdles is, of course, a very graphic way of commemorating the falling of the chains from St. Peter's hands. HALLYARDS.

MICHAELMAS.

[1845]" Mr. Edward Peacock has a congenial subject in Michaelmas." [Does this mean that the great goose-feast must be interesting to all peacocks?] "Multitudes of angels, according to Jewish tradition, are created daily, but no archangels. These are limited to the original four who first spread their mighty wings at the birth of all things. The respect in which St. Michael is held, beginning with Satan himself, extending to Mahommed, coming down to John Bunyan, and continuing to now, is owing to his character as protector of the people of God. The Devil could not bring against him a railing accusation when the two disputed for the body of Moses." [This must allude to some little-known tradition; for St. Jude says, quite contrariwise, that the Archangel did not dare to bring, &c.] "The enemy of Michael is the enemy of God, according to the Prophet of Islam; and it is curious that so unsparing a bruiser of saint-worship and Popery as the man of Elstow should make his hero in his terrible fight with Apollyon call upon the prince of the archangels for aid; at least the winner in the conflict confesses to have done so with success in his afterpæan :

But blessed Michael helped me, and I

By dint of sword did quickly make him fly— that is, Apollyon."-Saturday Review "The Antiquary," vols. vi., vii., Oct. 27, 1883.

on

The aid of St. Michael in Christian's conflict with Apollyon is just one of those anomalies which favour the theory that the earlier part of the P.P. was pirated by Bunyan, and is of pre-Reformation date. The Reviewer by the way errs in saying that Xn. either invoked St. M. or says he did so. He merely says that St. M. helped him. Any Protestant could say this: but the curious thing is that in the account of the conflict there is no mention of St. M.; and that in the last lines of the little hymn Xn. thanks "him "his holy name "-(sic in 1st Edn.)-there having been no mention of God whatever. Later editions have capital H's; exactly as in Exodus, where it is said "he" (Moses) wrote on the tables-which in our bibles is printed "He" to make it agree with the other account in Deuteronomy. If Bunyan had meant God, what reason can be assigned for his not having written it ? HALLYARDS.

THOUGHT-READING.

[1846]-Since writing the letter, 1769, in which I alluded to the theory that possibly a rudimentary sense or organ in some minds or brains might account for the phenomena of thought-reading and mesmerism, I have carefully applied the theory to each case of thought-reading recorded in KNOWLEDGE, Vol. VI. pp. 364, et seq., with this result.

The first set of experiments refers to the guessing of the names of persons and things, and there appears no difficulty until we get to cork, which is guessed as fork. The only explanation I can see is that the questioner instead of having the idea fork in his mind had that of the word "fork" written or printed, or of the sound of the letters f, o, r, k; but then the experiment tongs, guessed as fireirons, poker, wants exactly an opposite explanation. I will now refer to the experiments carried on at Liverpool by Messrs. Guthrie & Birchall. A gold cross is guessed first as something yellow, then as a cross. In this case one would like to know whether the questioner arrived at the idea by this process of reasoning, or whether he was looking at a gold cross. The next answer is remarkable-" Looks like an egg." It seems, therefore, that the thought-reader sees the things he is thinking of; for, again, in the next experiment, a penholder with a thimble inserted on the end of it" is guessed as “a column with something bell-shaped turned down on it." It seems to me that much depends on the idea as conceived by the questioner. Supposing the questioner to be looking at a golden cross, one can imagine the image of a yellow cross appearing in the thought-reader's brain; but it seems to me that, if the questioner were merely thinking of a 'golden cross, the idea of gold et hoc genus omne rather than yellow would be produced in the thought-reader's brain. In a former letter I stated that whether we see a cannon fired, hear the report, or smell the powder, the same idea may be produced in our brains, namely, a cannon has been fired; but, as I am personally constituted, the idea "a cannon has been fired" neither pictures to my brain the smoke coming out of the muzzle, nor produces in my ears the sound of artillery, or in my nose the smell of sulphuretted

hydrogen, but rather makes me conscious of the idea in the abstract It may be said that there is no such thing as an abstract idea, and that we cannot think of virtue, but must conceive some particular act of virtue. Even if this be the case, we do not, J think, picture that particular act being performed by a particular person; nevertheless, in every case of thought-reading recorded, the thought reader apparently pictures to himself something. He seems to be seeing something. He says: "A little tiny thing with a ring at one end and a little flag at the other, like a toy flag. It is very like a key." All the experiments recorded in the article seem to show that this, at any rate, was the idea of the writer, and that the experiments were selected accordingly. One would like to know what the experiments were which were considered unworthy of record.* It would be most unscientific to suppose that, if this rudimentary sense exists, only a very few possess it. If it exists in a few to such a marked

degree as thought-reading experiments appear to prove,

For

ordinary individuals must possess it in a less marked degree. Any one who has played the old game of "letters "-I mean the game in which one person forms a word, shuffles up the letters and gives them to another person to guess, knows how difficult it is to find out a word unless he sees it at once. In fact, my personal experience is, that I can guess the word before I have properly seen all the letters, or I must find it out mechanically by arranging the letters according to their most probable combinations. I used to think that I saw the letters en masse before I had time to notice any particular arrangement, and that they arranged themselves unconsciously into the word, but that when I noticed a particular arrangement of some of the letters as they lay, it suggested a particular word containing that arrangement. Still the arranging themselves unconsciously in my brain was still unexplained. But supposing the person giving the word was thinking of it at the moment it was given, and thought-transference possible, what otherwise is inexplicable is explained. Nevertheless, I am willing to admit that the arrangement and re-arrangement of letters does go on in my brain unconsciously. instance, frequently when asked a person's name, all I can remember is the first letter, the number of syllables, and some, if not all, of the letters, but wrongly arranged. Curiously, in some of the answers given by the thought-readers, some such confusion is produced. For example, the questioner thinks of the name "Albert Snelgrove," but the answers given are "Albert Singrove" and "Albert Grover." Here the cause must be different, for in my case I am trying to recall something I have forgotten, but the thought-reader is trying to find something out. It seems to me clear that no progress can be made in the elucidation of thoughtreading phenomena until it is clearly understood how ideas arise in the ordinary brain. In my own case, if I wish to fix an idea instead of picturing the thought, I seem to inaudibly repeat words which convey the idea, but this is not until after I have got the idea. So I suspect the thought-reader in many cases does the picturing after having taken in the idea, and works out the picture from the idea and not the idea from the picture. I cannot myself help thinking that when a compound idea becomes a conscious thought immediately on conception, that the action is direct, and not preceded either consciously or unconsciously, by a series of simple ideas leading up to the compound idea. What I mean is this, I see 23, as written, and the idea twenty-three is immediately conceived in my mind. Possibly there was a time when I should have had to have thought it out in this manner, the 3 is in the units' place and the 2 is in the tens', therefore it is twenty-three. But another time I see 2,000,003. Before I can pronounce it two millions and three, I must count the number of figures. It is not that the eye cannot take in so much at once, for three cows are as easy to count without counting as the angles of a triangle, and ten cows no more difficult than those of an irregular decagon. (Of course, the case of the Irishman's spotted. pig, which would run about and would not be counted, is an exceptional one.) Now, this forming a complex idea at once must have a most important bearing on the subject of thought-reading. It is evident the thought-reader and thought-readee must both be of the same mental calibre to obtain accurate reciprocity of thought. For instance, a capital C would probably suggest cat to my little boy, but to me it might suggest 100. It seems to me, therefore, for the theory of brain communication to be possible that it is almost necessary that an idea which is communicated should be a simple one. The theory apparently is that a certain particle, A, in a certain brain, B, has a certain motion, which produces a certain idea, C; that this motion produces an ether

wave which sets in motion a particle, A', in a brain, B', which causes an idea, C', similar to idea, C; that A B and C stand in the same relation to one another as A' B' and C'. The main difficulty seems to be this, supposing two or three persons present during an experiment, the brain of each must be sending off ether waves at the same time, and how does the thought-reader select the right one? Yet possibly this is the explanation of thought-reading. Thoughtreading is not a particular or peculiar power of reading thought, but the power of concentrating the attention on one particular brain. Just as some persons can concentrate their attention on one person and listen to him in a crowd of talkers, when others only hear a buzz and cannot follow a single conversation. Another difficulty is the improbability of two brains being so similarly constituted that molecular motion in one should produce similar molecular motion in another. I see colours different shades with my right eye to what I do with my left. Mr. Proctor somewhere states that one of his eyes is short-sighted and the other longsighted. In these cases the same exciting cause produces different ideas in the same person. Nevertheless, an inarticulate cry for help will set twenty persons running to the same spot, each having a very similar idea to his neighbour, or, at any rate, an idea quite as similar as the theory of direct brain communication seems to require. Whether physiologically the fact of a certain molecular motion producing a certain idea will ever be demonstrated or not, it is pretty certain that for every thought there is a corresponding molecular motion in the brain.

How calculating boys work out sums unconsciously, which mathematicians require pencil and paper for, seems more easily explained by a theory of thought-reading than in any other way, as the gift is lost as the intellect grows. How we are able to follow the argument of a lecturer on a difficult subject by means of our ears alone (in some of us very imperfect organs) I do not know, unless our brains get into accord in some way; for frequently I have known the meaning of what a lecturer has said, and yet when I have tried to catch his exact words have found I could not distinguish them. On the other hand, I have frequently read a sentence over and over again without getting any meaning out of it.

Any one playing with young chess-players must have noticed how often, after waiting ten minutes or so for his adversary's move, which eventually is the wrong one (say leaving a piece en prise), that the young player, just as the hand is stretched out to take the piece without ever having touched the men, shouts out, "Wait a minute, please, I see a better move," and immediately puts the piece out of danger. Of course, some one may say it is no more wonderful than seeing a revoke the moment you have exposed the card-a most unfortunate trick of young whist-players-but here again, I say, it is some one else sees the revoke first. I really believe, if thought-transference is admitted, it will explain many circumstances which are now either called coincidences, or explained by a sharpness of sight and acuteness of hearing com. bined with a quickness of intellect and sensitiveness of touch more wonderful even than the disintegration theory of Madame Blavatsky and the Cashmere pundits. Jos. W. ALEXANDER.

LETTERS RECEIVED AND SHORT ANSWERS.

H. D.-I should have fancied myself that the force with which any fluid, such as air, acted perpendicularly upon a plane obliquely opposed to it, varied as sin of the inclination of the plane to the direction of the current. Try this formula. I cannot at this moment refer you to any book in which the matter you are interested in is specially treated of. Moreover, I know of no work following on the lines of Barlow's "Mathematical Dictionary which has since been published. No recent edition of it exists. - MASON. The Pyramids are chiefly built of the natural nummulitic limestone obtained either from the mountains near Cairo, or from quarries on the west side of the Nile; but also of granite, &c. The stones employed in its construction are of all sizes, some of the granite slabs being 17 ft. long by 3 ft. 9 in. wide. As the Pyramids are built in a series of gradually diminishing platforms, it is probable that the stones were raised by a system of levers. Moreover, Herodotus tells us that the Great Pyramid occupied twenty years in erection, and that 100,000 men were employed in its construction. Human life was, of course, as cheap as dirt, and a Pharaoh would think as little of killing fifty men in raising a huge mass of stone by manual labour as he would of destroying the same number of flies.-LEONARD MORGAN BROWN.

[* I think it was De Morgan who suggested that this occult power of calculation rather pointed to some hitherto undiscovered property of numbers; perhaps akin to logarithms.-ED.]

Your letter is obviously intended for the Conductor of KNOWLEDGE, who is at present absent from England; whither, however, he will return in the course of a fortnight or so. I greatly fear that it will be as much out of his power to grant you a private interview as it is out of mine. The time of an editor is occupied in a fashion of which the outside world has not the most distant idea. Those who picture him as sitting in an easy chair with an old Cabaña in his mouth, only waiting for the pleasure of half-an-hour's chat with a visitor or correspondent, indulge in a veritable Alnaschar's dream.-HUNDREDWEIGHT. The change of declination in the sun in January is not particularly rapid, notably at the beginning of the month. Still this may have produced a portion of the discrepancy. See Chauvenet's "Spherical and Practical Astronomy," Vol. I., p. 244. I should, though, myself be disposed to attribute the major part of it to irradiation, incident on the small power of the telescope and the eye-shade not being dark enough. Many of the shades furnished with sextants are far too light-coloured.-JAMES U. ROBERTSON. Do you seriously suppose that under the scarcely veiled pretext of describing a manufacturing process I am going gratuitously to advertise that you have shares of a company for sale? -H. F. YOUNG. If you wish to form a correspondence class, you must advertise in Mr. L.'s form. It is absolutely out of the question that such a class should be formed in connection with KNOWLEDGE itself. You might just as well ask me to lay in a stock of the various articles advertised in these columns, for retailing among its subscribers.-G. DUNCAN. Kindly read the paragragh in capital letters, which concludes those heading the correspondence columns. The conductor has nothing to add to his printed testimonial, which you must consult and draw your own inference from.-DR. LEWINS desires to put on record (for the nth time) that "all HyloIdealism requires is the categoric belief that the body is the real man-that this body is part of, not apart from, the circumambient universe, known to us only by sensation and thought, which are not external entities, but strictly functions, i.e., creations of the same organism itself." He further wishes to direct the attention of readers to the article "Animism" in the 9th edition of the "Encyclopædia Britannica," to the volume on Cause and Effect" by Dr. Thomas Brown, and to Mr. Fraser's article "On Ghosts" in the Contemporary for July.-HON. EXAM. '85. I have stated over and over again here, that I am not a crammer or coach, and that I must absolutely decline to do sums or solve equations or problems set in any examination whatever.-ALFRED GORSTON. It could only be accepted as a voluntary contribution.-CAPT. F. DE RICHELIEU. Much too long, and not of sufficient popular interest for insertion.-E. W. J. The papers on the "Morality of Happiness" have not as yet been reprinted. Whether they will form part of a future volume of the "Knowledge Library Series" has yet to be discussed and decided on.-T. H. GARFIT. Thanks, no. The subject is outside of those to which this journal is devoted. Undoubtedly, a Platyscopic lens is much more useful as a microscope than a common shilling hand lens.THE GHOST OF JOSHUA. Any man who says that the sun at the North Cape at this (or any other) season remains virtually over the same point of the horizon for twenty-four hours, merely altering its altitude above it, lies-under some astonishing mistake.A. BROTHERS. Conductor still in America. When your spectral image is projected on a distant background of course it looks monstrously bigger, as its angular dimensions remain invariable. If you could remove a little bush on to the horizon, preserving its angular subtense at the eye, it would look like a huge forest. Vice-versa, any object brought from a distance, if it were possible, without the enlargement of the angle under which it is viewed would appear less.-ECLIPSED. The origin of the symbols of the zodiacal signs as also in fact that of the signs themselves-is obscure. Some of them are tolerably apparent, e.g., the ram's horns; 8 the bull's head, and so on. The my concerning which you are exercised, stands for Maria Virgo-the Virgin Mary. V is formed by joining the two letters rp; the beginning of the Greek word rрayos, a goat. is the caduceus of Mercury, the looking-glass of Venus, the shield and spear of Mars, 2 the arm of Jove holding the thunderbolt, h the scythe of Chronos or Saturn, &c.-JOSEPH KIRK. However much the ingenuity of your argument would entitle it to admission, it is perforce excluded by its essentially theological character. Of course you turn professedly literal history into pure allegory-but that is a detail.-R, A, H. I expect that the Conductor will be in England on or about the 8th prox., when your proposal shall be submitted to him.-A. KOROBOFF. The Roman Catholic sect and that of the Greek Church may be all that you aver; but it is utterly out of the question that I should reproduce your appeal to M. Jules Ferry here, or afford space for your claim to be the regenerator of the world.-S. FLOOD PAGE. The Directors' Reports of Commercial Companies can find no place in these columns.WM. MCKENZIE. Needlessly detained through being addressed to the Editor instead of the publishers.

Our Inventors' Column.

PHOTOGRAPHIC SHUTTER.

[Patent No. 7,792. 1884.]-In exposing sensitive plates for instantaneous photographs it has always been a desideratum to obtain a comparatively longer exposure for the foreground than for the distance.

This result is obtainable by use of this shutter, patented by Mr. Heath and manufactured by Messrs. Marion & Co., in the following manner :-Two plates are cut obliquely and made to pass over one another, in opposite directions, by a parallel motion, the result being that in their transit the bases of the apertures exposing the lower portion of the lens are the first to be uncovered and the last to be closed, thus very greatly increasing the proportionate exposure of that portion of it.

The movement is communicated to the plates from a coiled steel spring, by means of arms with slots, traversing and driving pins in the same.

A break is attached by which speed can be reduced from an instantaneous exposure to one of two or three seconds. The spring working the plates is released by the depression of a small stud shown on the bottom of the frame. This is accomplished by urging forward a small piston in the cylinder adjacent to the stud. The pneumatic device patented by Cadet is employed for this purpose.

[Patent No. 9,040. 1884.]-H. G. Norrington, of Bonhay-road, Exeter, has patented a simple but effective fastener for fixing galvanised corrugated iron sheets, now generally coming into use, to both hay- and corn-ricks. It is applied by punching a hole on the top of a corrugation in the sheet, inserting the end of the fastener, and screwing it in, when it draws itself into the rick, until the grooved washer firmly fixes down the sheet, the groove at the same time fitting the corrugation so as to prevent any rain entering the hole made. There are many advantages apparent to agriculturists in being able at any time to permanently cover their ricks without having to wait for a thatcher. Curved sheets can be used for the ridges, and ventilation, if necessary, can be secured by leaving the space between the hay and the ridge.

SLIDING-SEAT FOR RACING BOATS.

[Patent No. 11,829. 1884.]-This invention, by Mr. J. C. Green, of 21, Great Southsea-street, Portsmouth, is fitted with rollers, the application of which causes the seat to work with less friction than exists in the ordinary sliding-seat. The rollers are placed so that the seat runs true, and they are so fitted that if the boat happens to be off her level keel, the working of the seat is not affected. The difference claimed, therefore, in the working of the ordinary sliding-seat and the "Improved Sliding Seat" is:-That the amount of force, which is required to overcome friction in the former, is with the improved seat made available for materially increasing the speed of the boat. With this invention, therefore, a speed can be attained which it is impossible to produce by the use of the ordinary sliding-seat. The latter bears directly upon the slide-rods without any medium, whilst the "Improved" seat has rollers fitted between the wooden seat and slide-rods, which cause the seat to run easier than the ordinary sliding-seat.

Our Whist Column.

BY "FIVE OF CLUBS."

WHEN NOT TO LEAD ACE.

HAVE shown why the accepted leads of the Ace from length

I are sound. These leads are two only, viz., from Ace four

others, not including the King; and from Ace, Queen, Knave, with or without others. But Continental players usually lead Ace from Ace three others, and among Americans especially in the West one too often notices the unsound lead of Ace from Ace, King, and others,—though, I need scarcely say, one does not observe this among American players of the game of Whist, properly so-called. (Unfortunately players of this class are few, in America.)

With regard to the lead of Ace from Ace three others, we may admit that it is sound enough in itself. I prefer the lead of lowest from such a suit even on general principles, but I cannot deny that there is much to be said in favour of the Ace lead. It is usually a safe lead, like the French opening at Chess. The Ace is almost certain to be made; and by leading out another round immediately, the suit is generally too well cleared for the weakness of the leader to cause serious mischief. It may happen, of course, that one of the enemy have length in the suit, and that giving up the command means throwing several tricks into the opponents' hands. usually the lead of the Ace from Ace three others turns out well enough. Still, the chance of making the Ace second round is so good, and the result to the hand so much better if Ace is thus made than if it is made first round, that for my own part, unless where the game is in a critical state, so that no certain trick must be risked, I consider the small card the best to be played on general principles.

But

What, however, would turn the scales if they were more nicely balanced than they are, is the circumstance that by rejecting the lead of Ace from Ace to four, we keep the meaning of the Ace lead plainer. It is limited to two cases, instead of three, and the language of the game is made so much the clearer. This would be an insufficient reason if the lead of a small card from Ace to four were bad in itself. For the object of play is to make tricks, not to talk to one's partner through the cards. But as the lead of the small card is at least as good as the lead of the Ace for trick-making purposes, the circumstance that the lead also helps to make Whist conversation clearer, constitutes an important advantage. F. H. Lewis's remarks on this point are excellent (they are quoted at p. 159 of my little work "How to Play Whist"):-"I am in favour," he says, " of leading a small card from Ace to four originally, and also in the course of the hand, unless in the latter case, the play of the previous suits has shown an irregular division of the cards, in which event the Ace might be in danger: I am in favour of thus leading a small card, because I am in favour of uniformity at Whist: I lay no stress whatever upon the argument that uniformity gives information to the adversaries as well as to partner."

Mr.

About the other case in which Ace is led wrongly, there can be no question. There is no division on this point between the players in England, those on the Continent, and those in America; yet there is no error about which bad players are so positive and persistent, as about this lead,-viz. of Ace, from Ace, King, and others. Of course every Whist player leads the King in such cases; and from Hoyle's time to the present there has never been any division of opinion. Yet, those who lead the Ace are full of arguments (or what they regard as such) in favour of their way of leading.

:

The learner's chief difficulty on this point is to know how it can matter whether the Ace or King is led to which, when they are a little more advanced, they add that as the highest of a head sequence is usually led, the lead of King seems an unnecessary exception. To these negative objections it is a sufficient answer to say that there are already two accepted leads of Ace, and there is but one other case (besides Ace, King, and others) from which King can possibly be an original lead,-viz. from King, Queen, and others; so that if it is a matter of indifference whether Ace or King is led, so far as trick-making is concerned, it is obviously best to lead the King so as to distinguish this lead from the two cases in which Ace is led originally. As against this advantage, the exceptional nature of the lead of the lower card of a head sequence is as nothing,-rather it serves to emphasize the significance of the King lead.

But positive objections are urged by those who are not students of Whist, indeed regard themselves as better able to teach than to learn, against the lead of the King. For say they, the King may be trumped by your partner, unaware that you hold the Ace also;

whereas if you lead the Ace, of course he passes the trick. This particular objection, which I have heard now about a hundred times, affords a good measure of the quality of bumble-puppy players. It assumes, practically, that either you would lead a singleton King, or that having King and others (not including Queen) you would lead the King for the sake of giving your partner a ruff,-this, too, as an original lead. One lead or the other it must be to justify their reasoning; for the lead of King from King Queen which has been uniform with Whist players since Hoyle's time, these folks utterly reject. Now if I had a partner whom I knew to be so bad a player that he would lead King single, or King from King and others not in sequence with it, for the sake of getting or giving a ruff (except where a single trick would save or win the game), I might ruff his King without remorse, knowing that nothing could spoil his play, and that that might be what he wanted. But to ruff a King led by partner (unless in a case presently to be considered) would be such atrociously bad play, that no one but a bummble-puppist could imagine so gross an offence against Whist principles. If I knew fourth player held the Ace (say through his having exposed the card early in the game) I should play atrociously were I to ruff my partner's King,-seeing that his only conceivable object in leading it under ordinary conditions would be that he might draw the Ace and obtain command of his suit.

This particular objection only avails then to show how little the bumble-puppist appreciates the principles of the game. He has no idea of the importance of obtaining or retaining the command of suits, whether as a measure of offence or of defence. His only idea is to capture a trick when he sees the chance, even though he may ruin his partner's strategy and lose three or four tricks by so doing.

The chief direct advantage of the King lead, from Ace, King, and others, is that should you see fit from the fall of the cards to discontinue the suit, your partner knows almost certainly that you have the Ace left, whereas if you lead the Ace and then stop he would not know that you have the King.

In one case only should you lead Ace from Ace, King, and others: If you have trumped one suit, and led King, your partner might think you saw an opportunity of establishing a cross ruff or of at least getting another ruff in the suit you had trumped, and therefore would be apt to trump your King, if he had none of the suit. To avoid this, it is best in such a case to lead Ace first and then King.

SINCE 1810 the Municipality of Aberdeen has spent £1,033,000 on harbour works. In 1811 the revenue amounted to £1,214; in 1835, it was £13,635; in 1860 it had risen to £27,443; and in 1884 it reached £58,293.

A TEMPERATURE of 570° will produce a dark blue colour on polished steel, and 590° a pale blue. Oil or grease of any kind will answer for drawing the temper of cutlery. The temper for lancets is obtained at 430° Fahr., axes at 500°, swords and watch-springs at 530°, small saws at 570°, and large saws at 590°.

SPECIFIC GRAVITY OF AMERICAN WOODS.-Of the four hundred and thirteen species of trees found in the United States, there are sixteen species whose perfectly dry wood will sink in water. The heaviest of these is the black ironwood (Condalia ferrea) of Southern Florida, which is more than thirty per cent. heavier than water. Of the others, the best known are the lignum-vita (Guaiacum sanctum) and mangrove (Rhiziphora mangle). Another is a small oak (Quercus grisea), found in the mountains of Western Texas, Southern New Mexico, and Arizona, and westward to the Colorado desert, at an elevation of five thousand to ten thousand feet. All the species in which the wood is heavier than water belong to semi-tropical Florida or the arid interior Pacific region.

NEW GUTTA-PERCHA TREE.-Instigated by the threatened dearth of the gutta-percha tree (Isonandra Gutta), M. Heckel has sought a substitute, and claims to have found it in the Birtyrospermum Parkii (Kotschy) of equatorial Africa, and abundant in latitudes between Upper Senegal and the Nile, especially in the forests of the Niger and Nile regions. It affects the argillaceous and ferruginous soils of Bambarras Boure and Fonta- Djalon, where the Africans gather its fruit, which yields a grease called karite. The juice or milk is obtained by incision from the bark, and on evaporation resembles gutta-percha. M. Heckel states that he has sent seeds to various French colonies, and also to England, in the hope that the latter country will try the experiment of introducing the tree into her vast tropical possessions. M. Heckel also calls the attention of English botanists and chemists to the divers Indian Bassias, as he is led by analogy to infer that they might furnish milky products similar to the Bassia Parkii..