MISCELLANEOUS

NOTES AND QUERIES,

WITH ANSWERS.

"He is a rash man, who outside of pure mathematics, pronounces the word

impossible."-Arago.

VOL. V.

APRIL, 1888.

No. 4.

Speculations Concerning Matter.

Let us shut our eyes and think. We will ask ourselves some hard questions, and we shall simply tell the truth when we admit our ignorance. With some such confession at the outset, let us bravely attack the problem.

That which we actually know is little enough, compared with what is taken for granted. Our assumptions have stood so long in the place of facts that we shall find more difficulty in giving them up than in accepting any new knowledge, based upon no matter how great weight of evidence. We are, then, so far as we are able, to lay aside our opinions, as if they had never been formed, and to take the attitude of learners. Standing wistfully in the class for small beginners, we begin with wonder, and wonder how we shall begin.

The very first question staggers and dismays us: Is there and matter? With united voice you say at once, "Yes, matter is." You go farther; your mind goes at a galop to no end of conclusions. You are persuaded beforehand. All the generations of all ages assert it. The proposition needs no debate. You even agree to do without evidence, testify alone, and rest your case. Matter is! we reserve the right to cross-question the witness: Assersion is not proof. Very well, you go on and say, for substance. “I, Richard Roe, am; I knew John Roe; I helped put him in the ground after he was dead; I have a wife, and I can't be mistaken about it; I am fifteen

But

years the elder; she reminds me of that often. But what is the use of more evidence than we have? we eat, drink, smell matter; see, hear, feel, taste, get drunk on matter; we breathe it, absorb it, secrete it; we may weigh it, pound it, divide, grind and pulverize it but we can never get away from it; in it we live, move and have our being; in short, we are matter-therefore I say again, matter is!" You say so. Well, who are you?

Now, as a matter of fact, you cannot answer this apparently simple question, and have probably never made the attempt. You, as an individual, the unit of the race, present a highly complex organism. But what are you? Of what are you? You may you are of the earth, earthy. Reasoning in the circle in which our limitations compel us to grope, no other answer can be given. But what is the earth? How readily you reply, "The earth is a part of a system of which our sun is the centre." But of what is our solar system a part? In response to this inquiry the answer is less ready, still you venture to say, "Our solar system is one of many such systems in space." Upon being pressed for further information, as to number, relative size, distances from each other, relative age, composition, origin, purpose and so on, you may recite the few well-ascertained facts of astronomy, but upon the whole you decline to furnish a bill of particulars. But can you form the faintest mental conception of space? Try it What is it? Summon to your aid the genius of compution and mete out its volume. Come, ye children of light, and read me my riddle! Can man by searching find out space? Assault the problem; grapple with it; master it if you may. From the far points amid the inter-stellar depths, beyond which the telescope is blind, prolong the intellectual vision and assign to space its limits. Whither-ward and how stand the towers that guard its borders? Has it a centre, and if so. our poor logic demands a circumference. And beyond this — what? Come, boaster, begin. Is it here? Is it there? What answer? In the presence of this awful mystery we stand to-day, baffled and foiled. Thought, like the tired dove, would fain return. Imagination folds its weary wings, and of Science the asserting voice is hushed!

But you want to talk about matter. Very well, let us come back to earth. After putting our feet upon good old terra firma we know where we are. Yes, you think you know just where you are. But you don't. Unfortunately for our peace of mind we are surrounded by space and may as well surrender at once. This globe of ours lives in space, and every crevice, chink and cranny of the cosmos is full of it. Plenum is the word. It stands ready to fill all vacancies, but gets out of the way and goes somewhere whenever called upon. It will stop up a hole so much quicker than lightning that the probabilities are in favor of its having been there before the hole was made.

It accommodates itself to the environment, and consents to everything but a vacuum. Should space ever be vanquished in any professor's vacuum tube, the crack of doom would summarily end all. There's a motive power for some future Edison to tame and put in harness. Why not? 'Tis as easy as lying. But you say, "Space is nothing in itself it is only the vehicle, the medium, the room; you can't have anything, you know, without a place to put it. Space is that place; wherever there is nothing, nothing is there-it is simply the absence of anything - - don't you see?" I seem to see the drift of the witness: You would define space as something full of nothing, unless otherwise occupied. Well, that makes everything clear. Space is nothing. Indescribable, extensionless, measureless, termless - why not nameless? There being no such thing we will henceforth do without it. Good bye, space.

But no number of farewells will dismiss it. Avoid it we cannot. Can we either talk, reason, or think without it? Concerning this firstborn mystery we habitually speak in the terms of the rest of our knowledge; yet, in spite of this intimate and familiar contact, life-long and continuous, we are still strangers. Now how do the authorities assist us? Let us appeal to the definers: Worcester says "space is Extension, considered independently of anything which it may contain; that which makes extended objects conceivable and possible." Locke says, "Pure space is capable neither of resistance nor motion." What are these but explanations that do not explain? The core of the definition seems to lie in one word - NOTHING.

Why longer cling to this shadow? We see, or seem to see, that space is after all but an idea, born of necessity, christened and clothed and set up in the intellectual temple, side by side with the gods of Time and Sense, Spirit and Matter. But I see you are growing weary; let us rest our tired brains by thinking upon Nothing synonym Space-lest peradventure this hydra which has hitherto swallowed all, devour us.

WILLIAM E. MOORE, Manchester, N. H.

TERMS USED IN TALKING TO DOMESTIC ANIMALS. In controlling the movements of domestic animals by the voice, besides words of ordinary import, man uses a variety of peculiar terms, calls and inarticulate sounds-not to include whistling-which vary in different localities; In driving yoked cattle and harnessed horses teamsters cry "get up," "click click" (tongue against teeth), "gee," "haw," "whoa," "whoosh," "back," etc., in English-speaking countries: "arre," "arri," "juh," "gio," etc, in European countries.

In the United States "gee" directs the animals away from the driver, hence to the right. Webster's Unabridged states, however, in England the same term has the opposite effect because the driver

walks on the right hand side of his team. In Virginia mule drivers gee the animals with the cry "hep-yee-ee a :" in Norfolk, England, "whoosh-wo:" in France, "hue" and "huhaut:" in Germany "hott" and "hotte" in some parts of Russia "haita," serve the samepurpose. To direct animals to the left anhoter series of terms is used.

In calling cattle in the field the following cries are used in the localities given: "boss, boss" (Conn.): "sake," "sake" (Conn.): "coo, coo" (Va.): "sook, sook," also "sookey" (Md.): "sookow" (Ala.) : "tlon, tlon" (Russia) : and for calling horses, "kope, kope" (Md. and Ala.) for calling sheep, "konanny" (Md.): for calling hogs "chee00-00❞ (Va.).

:

The undersigned is desirous of collecting words and expressions (oaths excepted) used in addressing domesticated animals in all parts of the United States and in foreign lands.

In particular he seeks information as to:

1. The terms used to start, hasten, haw, gee, back and stop horses, oxen, camels and other animals in harness.

2. Terms used for calling in the field: cattle, horses, mules, asses, camels, sheep, goats, swine, poultry, and other animals.

3.

Exclamations used in driving from the person, domestic animals. Any expressions and inarticulate sounds used in addressing domestic animals for any purpose whatever (dogs and cats).

5. References to information in works of travel and general literature will be very welcome.

Persons willing to collect and forward the above mentioned data will confer great obligations on the writer: he is already indebted to many correspondents for kind replies to his appeal in NOTES AND QUERIES for the Counting-out-Rhymes of Children the results of which have been published by Elliot Stock, London, with that title.

To indicate the value of vowels in English please use the vowelsigns of Webster's Unabridged, and in cases of difficulty spell phonetically. All correspondence will be gratefully received, and materials used will be credited to the contributors.

H. C. BOLTON, University Club, New York City.

THREE EIGHTS IN SUCCESSION. It is 111 years since our heroic grandfathers and great-grandfathers wrote the three successive sevens, in the year succeeding American Independence. It will be III years before our grandchildren and great-grandchildren, will write the three successive nines. Then 223 years later, if the earth still revolves, time will deal a hand with four of a kind-four twoS, 2222something that has not happened since the days of Peter the Hermit.

Notes on the History of the Magic Lantern.

The "magic" lantern is an outgrowth of the camera obscura the origin of which is unknown. Its invention is usually attributed to John Baptist Porta, but Libri (Histoire des sciences mathématiques en Italie, Paris 1841, 4 Volumes, octavo,) has shown that it was frequently men. tioned by authors of much earlier date.

The first mention of the camera obscura occurs in unpublished MSS. of the celebrated Italian painter, sculptor and architect Leonardo da Vinci. Da Vinci was born in 1452 and died in 1519. His reputation as an artist is immortal but it is less generally known that he was well versed in music, military science, mechanics, hydraulics, astronomy, geometry, physics, natural history and anatomy. In sev eral of these branches he made original investigations, anticipating later philosophers.

In a MS. quoted by Libri, da Vinci proposed a theory of vision which he seeks to explain by reference to the camera obscura. (Libri, III, 54 and 233). This takes the invention back into the 15th century-say 1490.

In a work published in 1521 by Cæsariano, a Milanese architect, he attributes the invention to a Benedictine monk, Dom Panunce, which is, however, regarded as doubtful. (Libri, IV, 303.)

Cardanus, an Italian physician, mathematician and author, also mentions the camera obscura in a treatise entitled "De verum subtilitate" published at Nuremberg in 1550.

All these references antedate John Baptist Porta's work, "De Mag ia Naturalis" of which the first edition appeared in 1553 when its precocious author was only 15 years of age. While Porta was not the inventor of the camera obscura in its simplest form, he has the honor of first employing a convex lens to perfect the images, and of placing transparent drawings opposite the opening. To these drawings he attached movable parts and thus produced astonishing effects which the unlearned ascribed to magic, a term connected with the lantern ever since.

Porta's camera obscura consisted of a simple box with a small opening at one side through which the rays of light entered and fell upon a white paper screen at the opposite side. The lens was subsequently inserted.