largely developed than usual. These cannot, however, be opened, and are, indeed, actually fastened together— "soldered" is the technical term-along their central line of junction, thus forming a flattened arch over the body.

It shows no trace of ornamentation on any part of its body, not even the customary longitudinal furrows and rows of punctures so characteristic of beetles, and at first sight the integument seems to be perfectly smooth; examination with a lens, however, reveals a minute and indistinct, irregularly-scattered punctuation. The body is broadest a little behind the middle, and at the tail, the elytra, instead of terminating in a smooth, evenlyrounded edge, are each produced, at the tip, into a blunt projection curled upwards. The name mucronata, from the Latin mucro, a spear-point, refers to this odd little tail, which is, nevertheless, not confined to this species, but is represented in one form or other throughout the genus. Turning next to the organs of sense, we find another striking peculiarity in the eyes. Instead of forming projecting rounded masses, as is usually the case, they consist of two long, narrow, almost kidneyshaped strips, just behind the antennæ, and not raised above the general surface; this want of prominence of the visual organs finds its explanation in the darkling habits of the creature. Finally, the last four joints of the antennæ are like round black beads.

Blaps has really very little to recommend it. Its dull, sombre aspect is the reverse of attractive, and agrees well with the retirement and obscurity of its life. Clad so completely in the deepest of mourning, it could not be let alone by superstition, and has therefore been regarded with terror as an ally of the powers of darkness, and an associate of death-a creature whose natural abode could be none other than a charnel-house. Ideas so fostered found apparent support in the repulsive odour it continually emits, resembling that of putrid flesh, and in its not unfrequent occurrence in churchyards. Its disgusting odour is produced by the vaporisation of a fluid found in two oblong vesicles near the tail.

An unusual length of legs is generally an indication of agility, but not so with Blaps, which is a very tortoise in speed. It leisurely lifts one leg after the other, cautiously bringing them again to the ground, as though its vitality were well-nigh exhausted, and these were its last feeble efforts before giving up the ghost. Nothing Nothing could be farther from the truth, however, for its stock of vitality is extraordinary, and enables it to survive dangers and difficulties which would speedily be fatal to less hardy creatures. About a century and a half ago, when entomology was hardly yet a science, and the means of destruction of insect life not so varied or efficacious as at present, a struggle, so celebrated as to have been thought worthy of permanent record in the transactions of the Royal Society, took place between a Blaps and an entomologist; the latter made no less than four different attempts at the execution of the former, by immersing it in spirits of wine for periods of increasing length, the last extending over some twelve hours. On each occasion life appeared to be extinct, but each time also, on being removed from the fluid, the apparent corpse became reanimated, and the victim of alcoholic excess entered on a new lease of life, till at last the sentence was remitted, and the insect lived with its captor unmolested for three years afterwards, and even then the record of its experiences was brought to a close, not by its own decease, but by the carelessness of a domestic, who allowed it to escape.

This insect is often found in cellars, stables, and out

houses, dark and damp spots being especially congenial to its tastes. It shuns the light of day, and is chiefly nocturnal in habits. Though so disgusting in smell, it found a place in the Materia Medica of the Romans, being recommended by Pliny as an infallible remedy in the case of ulcers which would yield to no milder

treatment.

The larva is a long, narrow creature, with six short legs in front, very similar to an ordinary meal-worm, to which, indeed, it is not very distantly related. It is of a pale yellowish-white colour, and not hairy like those of the Dermestida. This, therefore, is the third type of larva we have met with; the first, of the Ptinidæ, plump, fleshy, soft, pale, and curved; the second, of the Dermestida, densely hairy, like moths' caterpillars, and the third, that of Blaps, long, narrow, and smooth. The larva of an allied species has been turned to account by the women of Egypt, who, following the precepts of "insectarianism,' are said to make a savoury dish of the grub by roasting it and serving in butter, partaking of it with a view to the cultivation of embonpoint.

THE

(To be continued.)

NOTES ON MAPPING. BY RICHARD A. PROCTOR. CENTRAL PROJECTION S.

AN EQUAL SURFACE PROJECTION.

HE conical projection which I have described in my papers on mapping is on the whole the best for representing small portions of the surface of a globe, and especially for maps of the constellations on the heavenly globe, and of countries of moderate size on the terrestrial globe. But when it is necessary to represent larger portions of a globe a central projection is nearly always to be preferred.

It is true that in all terrestrial atlases hitherto made, and in all celestial atlases except the Gnomonic Atlas of the S.D.U.K., and my own celestial atlases (Gnomonic and Equidistant, larger and smaller), other projections have been used. But this has been done to save trouble, and the result has been most unsatisfactory. Consider for instance the maps in a terrestrial atlas. We find Europe drawn on a nondescript projection in which the parallels of latitude are concentric circles, as in the conical projection, while the meridians are such curves as result from measuring off successive equal arcs along each of these concentric circles, the arcs being larger as the radius of the circle on which they are measured off is longer. Asia and North America are on similarly absurd projections, and being much larger are much more distorted, insomuch that at the upper corners of these maps the outlines are hardly recognisable. Africa and South America are on a projection in which the parallels are straight. Small countries are on the conical projection. The hemispheres are on a projection which has no definable character, except that it is rather easily drawn. Then we have the chart of the world on Mercator's Projection, which, however serviceable for navigation, is perhaps less suitable for geographical purposes than any projection yet invented.

This variety, and the resulting incongruity, render our atlases far less instructive and less truthful than they should be, and as they might easily be made. There is no reason why one and the same projection should not be used for all large sections of the earth's surface, as I

have shown to be possible for the surface of the celestial sphere. Somewhat more labour would, of course, be involved; but only in making the projections (once for all); and the result would amply repay the trouble.

I propose to give here some examples of central projections fulfilling various qualities, leaving to another occasion-possibly to future mathematical papers-the discussion of the geometrical principles on which these various methods depend.

I take first the equal surface projection which I have used so often in star-maps-as in my chart of 324,000 stars, my charts of the northern and southern heavens, and in other cases. The reason why I take this first is not that it naturally comes first, in the discussion of central projections; for I think the equidistant projection should come first, and the stereographic next. But in separate papers such as those I write here on mapping, a strict order need not be observed in such matters; aud just now it has occurred to me that an equal-surface pro

jection of the earth's surface would be interesting to English folk, much exercised as they have been by anxiety lest other nations should occupy too extended or too advantageous a position on the surface of our little world. I have before me as I write a large coloured chart on Mercator's Projection, from the Illustrated London News; and therein I see our British Empire (which has grown so largely and prospered so greatly under the influential sway of the gifted authoress of "Our Diary in the Highlands "), tinted red for comparison with the yellow-tinted empire over which the Emperor of all the Russias bears beneficent and fatherly sway. The chart is interesting; but it is impossible to form

*Comparing it with the maps of the world which I drew as a boy, I note how far Russia has wickedly spread over Central Asia, and how near the boundaries of the Russian Empire and of British India have approached each other. The true-born Briton feels proud to think how Great Britain's daring has been in extending her dominion northwards and westwards in India so rapidly, notwith

the least idea of the dimensions of the various empires of the world from a chart on Mercator's Projection. The Russian Empire is preposterously magnified, our Indian Empire (I beg ten thousand pardons, I should have said her Most Gracious Majesty's) as absurdly reduced. Greenland is larger, on such a projection, than Africa; British

standing the well-known fact that as soon as the Russian Empire reaches India, our power in India is bound to collapse. If this daring advance towards the Russians has been accompanied by some rather perplexing, shivering fits at their advance towards us (which manifestly is a very different matter) we may perhaps explain this as due to the belief that that remarkable document known as Peter the Great's Will was, as it were, a divinely-inspired prophecy. For somehow the Germans and Austrians manage to live without anxiety-agues though bordering directly on the Russian Empire, and even the unspeakable Turk does not proclaim his terror of approaching dissolution so loudly as some in our British Parliament proclaimed their assurance that because Russia has appropriated a few hundreds of square miles a thousand miles away from our borders, our rule over India is doomed.

America very much larger than Australia, and other monstrous errors of area are presented.

The accompanying charts are on a central equal-surface projection. The projection is obtained (or may be obtained, for in practice the use of a table of natural sines is far more convenient) by the construction shown on next page.

Let the equal straight lines AOB, COD (Fig. 1) intersect at right angles in O, the bi-section of each; and let AO equal the diameter of the globe we wish to project. Divide each of the quadrants, A C, CB, into eighteen arcs of 5° each. Connect in pairs the division marks equi-distant from A and B, as shown in the figure, by lines cutting OC in k, l, m, n, &c. Then OK is the radius for the projection of the small circle 10° from O; Ol is the radius for the small circle 20° from O; and so on. Thus if P and P' are 35° from A and B, and P P' cuts OC in N, the circle Np N' about O as centre represents the circle on the globe 70° from O. Similarly Mq M' is

If the map is a polar map, then the circles thus obtained are parallels of latitude, 10° apart, and radial lines to the alternate divisions round A C B D, as in the lower half of Fig. 1, are the corresponding meridians.

The meridians and parallels for the illustrative charts have been obtained on this principle, only that instead of the geometrical construction just given, I simply took out the natural cosines of 5°, 10°, 15°, &c., to represent the radii of the parallels having polar distances 10°, 20°, 30°, &c. The whole globe can be represented, as we see from Fig. 1, in a single chart on this projection. In my "Essays on Astronomy" there is an article on equal-surface projection illustrated by charts of the whole surface of the earth on three projections possessing this property. The first of these charts is on the polar equal surface projection here considered. There are also projections of the whole globe in my little treatise on "Elementary Physical Geography.' Of course the distortion in parts of such maps is necessarily very great.

In the illustrative charts the British Empire is tinted by meridianal shading, the United States by shading along latitude parallels, the Chinese Empire by slant lines in one direction, the Empire of Brazil by slant lines in another direction, and the Russian Empire is spotted. [By the way, when we consider that the British Empire is not much more than half-a-million square miles larger than the Russian, and note the limited shore-line we command, our anxieties about Russian encroachments in Central Asia seem more than justified. There is a bare possibility that Russia may one day extend across Persia or Afghanistan, so as actually to reach the shores of the Indian Ocean! What a terrible thing that would be for British commerce!]

PHOTOGRAPHY Continues to increase in popularity. A new society just established in Birmingham starts with seventy members, and promises to be of real use to the town and district. The meetings are held in the Technical School, Bridge-street. Dr. Hill Norris is President; Mr. W. Jerome Harrison, F.G.S., vice-president; and Mr. Joyner, of 43, Bull-street, hon. secretary. At the first excursion -to Salford Priors, on June 27-nineteen members were present, and seventy-three plates were exposed.

STATISTICS OF GREAT COUNTRIES.

THE

BY RICHARD A. PROCTOR.

HE table on the opposite page, compiled from Whitaker's Almanac (a perfect marvel of collected information) will be found interesting in connection with the preceding article and the equal surface charts of the globe. I have there arranged in order of area the principal countries of the world. (The Argentine Republic is included on account of its great extent, having manifestly no other claim to be regarded as a great country.)

I may add the following statement respecting the British Empire and the United States together. (The mere accident that those Britons who established certain British colonies in America, eventually elected to be independent of the mother country does not render the United States less thoroughly a British product-nay, that very independence was a product of British energy, though Germans and other foreigners who arrived after the work was done, may take pleasure in regarding themselves as natives and English folk as foreigners in the United States):

:

English-speaking nations and possessions.

Area in square miles.

Population.

Exports and Imports. 12,491,726. 367,225,000. £1,371,842,260.

But as regards exports and imports, the United States, by a foolish protective system (in political economy America is still a mere child among the nations) has spoiled the splendid total which the English-speaking nations might otherwise have shown. Imagine fifty millions of the most commercial people in existence, with magnificent country and a splendid seaboard, free also from the necessity of maintaining large forces for defensive purposes (to say nothing of their prudent avoidance of aggressive courses), yet with little sive courses), yet with little more than one-third the imports and exports of our 36,300,000 in the old country! And they claim to be a progressive, nay a go-ahead nation!-regarding us as effete. (If we are, though, things look bad for our kinsfolk over the water, who presumably have inherited our national qualities.)

The wiseacres who regulate American commerce (and are regarded by many Americans as statesmen !) conceive that the way to make a nation rich and prosperous, is to force it to manufacture at great cost (and pretty badly, too, in many cases) what they could get more cheaply, and much better, from other nations. They neglect altogether the splendid opportunities which America would have if she drove as she could-a roaring trade with other nations in the multitudinous articles which her people can manufacture well, and (owing to natural advantages) at less cost than other countries. They imagine the artificial rise of wages to meet the enormous extra cost for necessaries of many sorts, a real gain; not seeing that labour would be far more profitably remunerated, and have a much more rapid (because a more natural) growth if directed to such manufactures as would make of America a great exporting nation. And because the old country (which has long since come to years of discretion and has learned that as among individuals so among nations, the loss of one is a loss for all and the gain of one the gain of all) would be glad to see wiser counsels prevail, America fondly imagines that Britain would be the only gainer if America threw away

copper wire are put into the machine, which automatically cuts them to the required size and cleans off the ends of each piece. A vitreous or glassy solution is applied to both sides of the dial, which is then fused on in suitable gas furnaces (Fig. 9). The next step is to paint on the hours, which is done by hand with a camel's hair brush. When these figures are finished and the surplus paint scraped off, the company's name and then the minutes are painted on. The paint used for these purposes is also of a vitreous nature, whence each dial has to be again placed in a furnace to fix the enamel letters.

In the Gilding Room (Fig. 10) electricity is, perforce, largely employed in the various processes involved. All brass movements, after receiving what jewelling they may require, are immersed in a nitric, sulphuric, or hydrochloric acid bath for cleansing purposes. Any particles of foreign matter not removed by the bathing