[21] During these journeys the Atlantic was sounded, and Scoresby’s estimate of the enormous depth of the Atlantic to the north-west of Spitzbergen was fully confirmed, the line indicating a depth of more than two miles. It was found also that Spitzbergen is connected with Norway by a submarine bank.
[22] It is far from improbable that a change has taken place in the climate of the part of the Arctic regions traversed by Koldewey; for the Dutch seem readily to have found their way much further north two centuries ago. Indeed, among Captain Koldewey’s results is one which seems to indicate the occurrence of such a change. The country he explored was found to have been inhabited. “Numerous huts of Esquimaux were seen, and various instruments and utensils of primitive form; but for some reason or other the region seems to have been finally deserted. The Polar bear reigns supreme on the glaciers, as the walrus does among the icebergs.” Not improbably the former inhabitants were forced to leave this region by the gradually increasing cold.
[23] Dr. Emile Bessels was tried at New York in 1872, on the charge of having poisoned Captain Hall, but was acquitted.
[24] The phenomena here described are well worth observing on their own account, as affording a very instructive and at the same time very beautiful illustration of wave motions. They can be well seen at many of our watering-places. The same laws of wave motion can be readily illustrated also by throwing two stones into a large smooth pool, at points a few yards apart. The crossing of the two sets of circular waves produces a wave-net, the meshes of which vary in shape according to their position.
[25] It is a pity that men of science so often forget, when addressing those who are not men of science, or who study other departments than theirs, that technical terms are out of place. Most people, I take it are more familiar, on the whole, with eyelids than with palpebræ.
[26] This nautical expression is new to me. Top-gallants—fore, main, and mizen—I know, and forecastle I know, but the top-gallant forecastle I do not know.
[27] The instrument was lent to Mr. Huggins by Mr. W. Spottiswoode. It has been recently employed successfully at Greenwich.
[28] Thus in Christie Johnstone, written in 1853, when Flucker Johnstone tells Christie the story of the widow’s sorrows, giving it word for word, and even throwing in what dramatists call “the business,” he says, “‘Here ye’ll play your hand like a geraffe.’ ‘Geraffe?’ she says; ‘that’s a beast, I’m thinking.’ ‘Na; it’s the thing on the hill that makes signals.’ ‘Telegraph, ye fulish goloshen!’ ‘Oo, ay, telegraph! geraffe’s sunnest said for a’.’” “Playing the hand like a telegraph” would now be as unmeaning as Flucker Johnstone’s original description.
[29] Not “to represent the gutta-percha,” as stated in the Times account of Mr. Muirhead’s invention. The gutta-percha corresponds to the insulating material of the artificial circuit; viz., the prepared paper through which the current along the tinfoil strips acts inductively on the coating of tinfoil.
[30] I must caution the reader against Fig. 348 in Guillemin’s Application of the Physical Forces, in which the part c d of the wire is not shown. The two coils are in reality part of a single coil, divided into two to permit of the bar being bent; and to remove the part c d is to divide the wire, and, of course, break the current. It will be seen that c d passes from the remote side of coil b c, [Fig. 6], to the near side of coil d e. If it were taken round the remote side of the latter coil, the current along this would neutralize the effect of the current along the other.