currency. In any case there was a very distinct maximum of failures in 1878, succeeded by a sudden reduction, and it occurred at a time differing by less than a year from the corresponding collapse in England. In the Dominion of Canada there was a very strongly marked maximum of failures at the same time as in England, namely, in 1879. The theory of the solar-commercial cycle and of the partially oriental origin of decennial crises has received such confirmation as time yet admits of. I am, however, fully alive to the weight of some of the difficulties and objections which have been brought forward against the theory. These objections are far from being conclusive, and I may hope to give them in due time a satisfactory answer. But such answer must involve more detail than can be put into a brief article.

W. STANLEY JEVONS

A contains six attitudes, in which the legs are crumpled below the body.

B contains four attitudes, in which one or both of the hind legs are on the ground, and the fore legs are pawing in the air.

C contains five attitudes, in which both the fore and hind legs are extended.

D also contains five attitudes; the hind legs are flung back and the fore legs are on the ground.

CONVENTIONAL REPRESENTATION OF THE HORSE IN MOTION

IT

T is of interest to analyse the reason why artists represent a galloping horse in a way unlike any of its real attitudes, as they have been photographed by Mr. Muybridge, and why the critical public have so long acquiesced in these incorrect representations without remonstrance. Partly, no doubt, it is owing to prevalent errors of conception which govern the judgment in its interpretation of a movement that is hard to follow. An excellent instance of this is to be seen in the Academy, in the diploma picture of Mr. Riviere, R.A., entitled "The King drinks." It is a lion lapping water in the wrong way, by spooning his tongue outwards and upwards instead of curling it backwards, like the fingers of the half-closed hand when the knuckles are to the front, an action that may be conveniently studied in the kitten. The error of preconceived ideas partly explains the conventionally extended figure of the galloping horse; but I find the latter to be largely justified by the shape of the blur made on the eye by his rapid and various movements. I wish I could reproduce on a scale, however small, any one of the many plates published in "The Horse in Motion;" but it appears that the copyright of the photographs is disputed, and there are difficulties in the way of doing so, and I must make shift without them.

I find that taking the attitudes of the galloping horse, Phryne, as an example, published in Plate XVI. of the book just mentioned, that her stride has the duration of about six-tenths of a second, and that it has been photo

FIG. 2.

when he has to put down a lake or river on the map must put it somewhere, although its real position may be uncertain, so the artist thinks he must put the lower parts of the four legs of the horse somewhere, and he is guided

in his decision as to the exact place by the direction of their upper portions.

I find, however, on trial that another cause of confusion lies in the difficulty of watching closely both the fore and the hind halves of the animal simultaneously. The eye wanders from one to the other and seizes the most characteristic attitudes of each, and combines them into a hybrid monster.

The accompanying composites, Figs. 1 and 2, each from four successive attitudes, will explain the process; it certainly tends to go on in my mind, and probably does

FIG. 3.

so in that of others. The first composite shows the hind legs distinctly; the second shows the fore legs distinctly; and if duplicates of the first and second woodcuts are each divided in two halves and the best defined half of each are united (in a way that might have occurred to Baron Munchausen if a second rider's horse had suffered as his own, and there had been a mistake in piecing them), a result, Fig. 3, is produced that shows a very fair correspondence with a not uncommon representation in sculpture. FRANCIS GALTON

THE CHANNEL TUNNEL

T the meeting of the Paris Academy of June 26, M. AT Daubrée read a note on the geological conditions of the Channel tunnel. The works connected with the tunnel comprise three phases: (1) Scientific researches; (2) preparatory works; (3) execution of the tunnel itself. The first phase was devoted to purely geological investigation, in the form of minute exploration of the French and English coasts, exact and detailed investigation of the sea-bottom in the Strait, borings made on terra firma which verified the nature, thickness, and inclination of the strata, and gave an approximate idea of the hydrological condition. Since 1879 the second phase has been entered on by verifying the previous scientific data, and preparing for the execution of the tunnel itself, experimenting in small galleries with machines and tools capable of being ultimately used in a work of exceptional importance. On the French coast, the geological investigation established a slight bulging of the beds at the place known as the Quenocs. On account of this bulging the inclination of the strata, which, in the strait is towards the north-north-east, is found, along the cliffs of Blanc Nez, turned towards the south-east, and the slope which, according to the first orientation, in the neighbourhood of the Quenocs, is about o'05 m. per metre, is found, in the second, to be nearly o'09 m. It is important then, to find in what conditions this bulging may modify the physical conditions of the banks forming the base of the Rouen chalk. For this purpose the French Association had dug, near Sangatte, two shafts of a depth of 86 m.,

which met the gault at 59 m. below the hydrographic zero, adopted in the maps in which the geological explorations of 1875-6 are recorded. The digging of these shafts, one of them 5'40 m. in diameter, showed that all the white chalk and the upper part of the Rouen chalk are water-bearing. These strata had thus to be abandoned.

On the other hand, the base of the Rouen chalk allowed only a very small portion of water to pass. There, then, the tunnel should be pierced, as the stratum appeared to proceed without interruption from France to England. The water penetrating the works is fresh, and of good quality; at the upper part only some slightly salt veins were found. Nevertheless, the communication of the water-bearing strata with the sea is proved by the oscillation of the water-level in the shafts according to the tide, and by the invariable increase at high water. M. Daubrée then refers to further galleries dug on the French and on the English sides, and excavations made with the machines of Col. Beaumont and Mr. Brunton On the Dover side, the chalk, which on the French side was but little permeable, was, on the English side, quite impermeable. Owing to this circumstance, they were able to begin at the bottom of the shafts, at 29 m. below the French hydrogr.phic zero, a gallery advancing under the sea by following in 'the stratum an almost regular descending slope of 1-80th, or 125 mm. per metre. The bed on the English side, somewhat more powerful than on the French side, presents a very great regularity. Thus the Beaumont machine, which has been used in the perforation, has been easily able to trace a perfectly cylindrical gallery, which has now reached 1800 metres from the shafts, of which 1400 metres are under the sea. So far there has been no access of water. In the banks which form the base of the Rouen chalk, the rock in mass is almost completely dry; the access of water which has been observed has entirely the character of small springs issuing from the joints of fracture or cleavage. The perfectly cylindrical form produced by the Beaumont machine renders the gallery where such leakage occurs easily isolated by means of cast-iron rings prepared in segments easily united, the rings themselves being clamped together to form a tube of any length. When the water spurts out in considerable force, a sort of mastic or minium is successfully employed, which is placed between the segments of the rock, and compressed in the manner of a water-joint by the pressure of the rings against the rock. The mastic also seems to render the joints of the neighbouring rings water-tight. Owing to the excellent make of these rings, they can be rapidly put in position; a complete ring can be placed in half-an-hour, and several experiments in the Shakespere Cliff Gallery have proved that by this simple process the springs encountered can be completely blocked. On account of the slope on which the English gallery descends, its extremity recently reached 51 m. below the hydrographic zero, at a point where the depth of the sea at low water is 5 m.; there is thus 46 m. of chalk between the floor of the gallery and the bottom of the sea.

NOTES

MR. GEORGE GRAY, Honorary Secretary of the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand, writes under date May 20:-"I have been requested to forward you the inclosed resolution passed at a meeting of this Institute May 4, 1882, and to ask if you would kindly insert the same in the Notes of your valuable journal. Resolution proposed by C. Chilton, M.A., seconded by G. Gray and carried :- That this Institute desires to place on record its high appreciation of the great services that have been rendered to science by the late Dr. Charles Darwin, and its deep sense of the loss that science has sustained through his death."

AT a meeting of the Executive Committee of the Darwin Memorial Fund, held on June 30 at the Royal Society's Rooms, Burlington House, it was announced that the total subscriptions already promised or received amounted to £2487 135. It was decided that the memorial should take the form of a marble statue; and a sub-committee was appointed to make the necessary arrangements. It was agreed to ask the trustees of the British Museum for permission to place the statue in the large hall of the British Museum (Natural History), South Kensington. The sub-committee consists of the following :-Mr. W. Bowman, Sir J. D. Hooker, Prof. Huxley, Mr. C. T. Newton, and Sir F. P. Pollock, with the Chairman, Mr. W. Spottiswoode, Pres. R.S., the Treasurer, Mr. John Evans, Treas. R.S., and the Hon. Secretaries, Prof. Bonney and Mr. P. Edward Dove.

WE would draw the attention of our readers to a letter which we print this week from Dr. Sophus Tromholt, relative to the establishment of an observatory in Sweden for the Aurora Borealis "and other phenomena of Terfestrial Magnetism." Dr. Trom-. holt, it will be seen, is anxious to obtain for his proposal the opinion and advice of those familiar with the subject. Doubtless some of our readers might in this matter render useful help.

IN the sitting of the Paris Academy of Science of July 2, M. Berthelot, who had crossed the Channel with M. de Lesseps to visit the English works of the Channel Tunnel, gave an enthusiastic description of the galleries excavated at Dover, and the working of the Beaumont machine.

DR. ZIEGLER of Freiburg has recently prepared five wax models illustrating the development of the head of Sinedon pisciformis, Salmo salar, and Rana temporaria, founded upon the investigations of Dr. Ph. Stöhr of Wurzburg. These models are likely to be of great service to students in mastering the development of the skull, being greatly superior for this purpose to the best diagrams. The price of the series, conveniently packed in two boxes is 55 marks.

THE splendid dining-room and picture-gallery, together with the grand staircase of Stafford House, the residence of the Duke of Sutherland in Mayfair, have now been fitted up with the incandescent electric light. The lamps are those of Lane-Fox, as supplied by the British 'Electric Light Company, and the arrangements have been made by Mr. W. Mackie, who has been entirely successful in producing a fine effect. There are about 250 lamps displacing 8000 wax candles, and they are fed by the current from six Gramme machines of B type. The field magnets of these machines are excited by the 'current from two E Gramme machines, it being found preferable to adopt this plan. The power is derived from a 20 H.P. (nominal) steamengine built by Marshall. The lamps are all in parallel circuit, so that the total resistance of the lighting circuit, including leading-wires of copper, is only o'6 ohms. The leads consist of copper strand wires th of an inch in diameter, properly insulated and protected. The pure character of the incandescent light, together with its sanitary and artistic advantages, is causing it to make its way in West-End mansions.

A SPECIAL meeting of the Anthropological Institute will be held at No. 4, Grosvenor Gardens, S. W., the residence of Gen. Pitt Rivers, F.R.S., the President of the Institute, on Tuesday, July II, at half past eight o'clock, p.m., when the following papers will be read :-I. Note on the Egyptian Boomerang, by General Pitt Rivers, F.R.S., President. 2. On the Longevity of the Romans in North Africa, by the Right Hon. Lord Talbot de Malahide, F.R.S., President of the Royal Archæological Institute. 3. On Neolithic Stone Implements, &c., from Wásá on the Gold Coast, by Capt. R. F. Burton and Commander

V. L. Cameron, R.N., C.B. 4. Exhibition of Bushman Drawings, by Mr. M. Hutchinson, with Note by Mr. W. L. Distant.

THE Anniversary Meeting of the Sanitary Institute will be held in the Royal Institution Theatre, Albemarle Street, on Thursday, July 13, at 3 p.m. An address will be delivered by Edward C. Robins, F.S.A., F.R.I.B. A., entitled: "The Work of the Sanitary Institute of Great Britain." The chair will be taken by His Grace the Duke of Northumberland, K.G., President of the Institute.

THE late Dr. Karl Remeis has left a sum of 20,000l. to found an astronomical observatory in his native town of Bamberg, Germany, He has besides given the future observatory a 10-inch refractor and several other instruments.

THE great summer excursion of the Geologists' Association will be this year to the West Riding of Yorkshire, on July 17 and five following days.

FROM the Scotsman we learn that H.M. ship Triton arrived at Granton on Sunday week from Sheerness, where she had been fitted up for the prosecution of deep-sea investigations. The steamer is commanded by Staff-Commander Tizard. At the request of the Royal Society, the Triton has been detached for two months to investigate certain questions of physical geography in the Faroe Channel, which have a bearing on the results of the Challenger Expedition. On Monday week the vessel was supplied from the Challenger office in Edinburgh with dredging aud sounding gear, deep-sea thermometers, and other apparatus. Mr. Murray and his assistants are to join the vessel at Stornaway in the course of three weeks; and she will be engaged for about six weeks in investigating the Faroe Channel. After completing this work, the Triton is to come into Oban to take on board Prof. Tait, and convey him to the North Atlantic, where, in a depth of 2000 fathoms, he proposes to test certain experiments which he has been performing on the Challenger deep-sea thermometers. (See NATURE, vol. xxv., PP. 90, 127.) In regard to the proposed Faroe expedition, it may be remembered that an exploration of the channel in question was made by Staff-Commander Tizard and Mr. John Murray, during the summer of 1880, in H.M.S, Knight Errant, the results of which were recently submitted by Mr. Murray to a meeting of the Edinburgh Royal Society. On that occasion Mr. Murray referred to the discovery by the Lightning and Porcupine, in 1868-9, of two contiguous areas having widely different bottomtemperatures, called by Dr. Carpenter the cold and warm areas respectively. At that time, he said, there was no suspicion of the existence of a sub-marine ridge separating those two areas. Certain theoretical considerations, however, based on some of mander Tizard to express the opinion that these two areas were the general results of the Challenger expedition, induced Comseparated by a ridge rising to within 200 or 250 fathoms of the surface. When a divergence of temperature was observed at some distance above the bottom in adjoining areas, it was inferred that a ridge intervened, and that the point of divergence indicated the height of the ridge. It was to make soundings in reference to this question that the Knight Errant was detached (see NATURE, vol. xxii. p. 405). Referring to the probable limitation of the British fauna, Mr. Murray remarked that since the depth limit had been disproved by the finding of animals at all depths, an artificial limitation must be substituted, and he thought it would be a temperature limit, for Arctic, British, and deep-sea species were obtained by the Knight Errant. There were climates on the surface of the sea, as well as on land, each having its peculiar fauna, and this surface fauna could be traced on the bottom by the dead shells found in the deposit.

FROM the Cape of Good Hope we receive the Report for 1881 of the South African Museum, which, under the superintendence of Mr. Trimen, is prospering and increasing. The following paragraph is of some interest :-" Upon trustworthy information that in a part of the Beaufort West district some unusually fine and perfect remains of extinct Saurians were accessible, the Trustees in October last despatched the Acting Curator to make an examination on the spot. Mr. Oakley reported that he had met with a large quantity of fragmentary re nains of the Dicynodon group (some of which he brought with him), and that he had reason to believe, from the best local information obtainable, that in the bed of the Klein Leeuw River there existed an almost perfect fossil skeleton of a Saurian of great size, which, though recently visible, had become hidden by alluvial deposits. In transmitting this report to Government on November 1, the Trustees strongly recommended that a sum of 2007. should be placed on the estimates for 1882-83, for the purpose of defraying the cost of procuring for the Museum the more perfect of these fossil remains, and of conducting further investigations into South African palæontology; and they were informed in reply that every consideration would be given to their proposal when the time for framing the estimates should arrive. In reference to their subsequent communication on the subject, dated February 9, they now desire respectfully to renew their recommendation, as it is most desirable that the extinct Dicynodontia and allied reptilian forms, so characteristic of the past life of South Africa, should be as completely represented as possible in the Colonial Museum." We trust the necessary funds have been granted, and that the Trustees will see that it is for the best interests of the Colony that such an institution as this be maintained in complete efficiency.

THE surveyor to the Finnish Government, Herr Rodas, states that on June 25 this year he carefully measured the height of a hole, bored according to authentic records 2 inche; above the level of the sea on the coast of Österbotten on June 25, 1755, and discovered that that part of the coast had risen, in 127 years, 6 feet 4 inches, or more than half an inch per year.

A SECOND earthquake of a far more violent character than the previous one, was felt at the town of Luleå in Sweden on June 23 at 7.30 a.m., the shock extending as far as the towns of Hapa randa and Pitia. It lasted fully a minute, and went from southwest to north-east. People awoke from their sleep, and those about could only stand with difficulty, and that no accident occurred is due to the circumstance that all houses are constructed of wood. Whilst the tremor lasted subterranean noises could be heard similar to the rapid movement of heavy artillery on a hard road. There was no disturbance of the sea, the weather was clear and no wind, the temperature being 20° C., barometer high.

THE Parkes Museum, which was first instituted in 1876 as a memorial to the late Dr. Edmund Parkes, and in order to pro. mote the health of the community for which Dr. Parkes so successfully devoted the best years of his life, was incorporated on June 28. The museum has been temporarily located in University College, Gower Street, since its establishment, and a proposal for permanently keeping it in connection with the College has been under consideration for some time, but the probability is that those who desire to see the Parkes Museum established as an independent institution in a building of its own will have their wishes gratified. Negotiations are now being made for acquiring such a building in a more central position than University College. The Museum is not rich pecuniarily, but its objects are of such growing importance that the necessary funds will no doubt be forthcoming. The objects of the Museum are "to aid, promote, and encourage the acquisition and diffusion of knowledge of hygiene in all its branches, and of all matters relating thereto, especially in connection with personal régime,

AN International Geographical Exhibition is being held at Copenhagen.

THE French expedition to Cape Horn will leave this week without any further delay.

LIEUTENANT SCHWATKA is organising an expedition for the exploration of Northern Alaska.

THE Report of the Imperial Mint, Ôsaka, Japan, for the year ending June 30, 1881, being the eleventh report of the Mint, shows that during the financial year gold coins to the value of 490,585 yen (dollars) was struck, this being rather more than during the previous year. In the silver coinage there has been great activity, 5,089,113 one yen pieces having been struck, this being a larger number than ever before finished in a year. Nearly 74 millions of copper coins were struck during the year, their aggregate nominal value being over one million yen. The total value of coin issued by the Imperial Mint since its commencement in The 1871, to July, 1881, amounted to yen 97,596,529,*79. reports of the Assayers to the Imperial Japanese Mint, of the Royal Mint, and of the United States Mint, testify to the highly satisfactory manner in which the standards of weight and fineness are kept up. The soda-works within the Mint-ground are now in operation, and small quantities of sulphate and carbonate of soda have been turned out. The sulphuric acid-works did not produce so large a quantity of acid as in former years, but another works has been established in Osaka by a private company, showing that chemical industry in Japan is not standing still. The work carried on at the Osaka Mint, both as regards quantity and quality, is in the highest degree creditable to the technical adviser, and Mr. McLagan, the engineer, as well as to two foreign employés, Mr. Gowland, the chemist, assayer, and the staff of native officials and workmen.

CAPTAIN CONDER and Lieutenant Mantell, R.E., have returned from their first campaign in Eastern Palestine, bringing with them the results of their work. These include the map of a large district, covering 500 square miles of country, with a very large quantity of notes, plans, drawings, and photographs concerning the antiquities of Moab and Gilead. Captain Conder will proceed at once to arrange these materials for publication. He has also brought with him a considerable quantity of notes, and additional information made by himself and his party in Western Palestine. These will be included in the next volume of the Society's great work, which will be delayed a month or two on their account.

THE Municipal Council of Paris has voted a sum of 40%, as a subsidy to the Academy of Aerostation for the purpose of trying to photograph Paris with the help of captive balloons.

THE July number of the Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society is of unusual interest. Along with excellent maps we have Mr. D. D. Daly's account of the surveys and explorations in the native States of the Malayan Peninsula, 1875-82; a translation of Dr. Albert Regel's account of his journey in Karateghin and Darwaz; and some interesting details as to Capt. P. de Andrada's journeys to Masinga and the Mazoe on the Lower Zambese. This number contains the report of the anniversary meeting.