Feb.

27, 18731 NATURE

the present pUl"pose to inquire}, while all other sensations, as of
hearing, smell, before us only discontinuOltsty
and from >Ill things nor always
the same experience touch cannot
bly co-operate regularly does in ours. The
of effective touch that gets associated with
-is in the combining mobility and
tiveness in ; and tne dog has no h,lllti.
mobile limbs the extremities, and,
has sensitive hasinf; no such active mobility
human hand limited in the scope of their
prehension. being defective, what is thete
in the dog to play second sight, which as leader ne,::!s sUl?port,
were it only because there tS not always lIght to see wIth? ::smell,
I cannot but think, seeing that, while the organ is incontestably
acute. it has the great ad vantage over the tactile surface of the
lips, of receiving impressions from things already at a distance.
If we only suppose-what the facts make very likely-that the
dog's smell is acute enough to have some scn",tion from all
bodies without exception, nothing more is wanting to enable a
psychologist to understand that the dog's world may be in the
main a world of sights and sinells continuous in space. In that
case a dog conveyed in a basket might by smell alone find its
back pretty much blindfolded finds his way
alone.
To argue question is impossible
letter, and for reasons like those
rather than giving my adhesion
Wallace's as dogs are concerned.
extent that source of explanation for
nomen a which sufficiently constdered_
explanation related even about dogs
than I would vrbc',her it is equally serviceable
other .animals like cats and horses, concerninl{ which not less
wonderful stories are told, is not so clear_ Cats, however, seem
to have very acute smell. 'What is the truth about the smell of
horses? G_ CRUO"l
University College, Feb. 24
Fiords and Action
IN NATURE, vol. vii. pp. 94, 95, I find the. following;-
"PoggeJZdorj's AnnalelZ-A. Helland adduces a large amount
of evidence to show that the fiords in Norway have been formed
by glad"l action."
It appears and yet I have not met
that fiords t hose coasts where
geographical must have been the most
action. Tbe conditicn, for glacial
evidently coast in a high and
cold latitude, and snow-larlen west
the higher blow in (rom the ocean.
conditions highest degree by the
Norway lind : the western coast
America from IsLlnd northwards; and the
coast of South America. from Chil0e southwards; and these
coasts are accordingly more cut up into fiords than any others
in the world.
The western coa,t of America along the enormously long
from Vancouver's to Chiloe is one of the most unbroken
in the world. It is significant that the change in the coast at
Chiloe from an unbroken one to one very much broken into
fiords is accompanied by a great and compara! ively abrupt
change in the height of perpetual snow on the Andes_ The
following are the heights of perpetual snow at three different
latitudes, according to Mrs. Somerville's" Physical Gtogup'IY."
The first two are north of Chiloe, the third south of it.
"
"
12,780
7.960
3.390
Although snow-line deperids chiefly
tude, it is by the aspect of the
respecting Learing wind,. The best
of this is Himalayas, where, according
Mrs. Somerville the height of the snowline
16,620 feet and only 12,980 on the
According to another a"thority (CapL S!la,hey), qUGted hy
Mrs. Somerville (p. 54), the heights are 19,000 to 20,000 feet
on the n01th and on the southern_ The difference
of the two the same_ The reason

difference is evidently that the south side receives the moisture-
winds from the Indian Ocetm.
Forge, DunIDurry MUll.PHY
ON A POLYDA

kindness of Dr.
have been able to procure
many curious points
on his peculiarities will interest saml;; of
NATURE.

Maidenhead, I
cats; and
think a note
the readers of
Readers of Mr. Darwin's "Origin of Species JJ are
familiar enough with the illustration he gives of corre-
lation of arrest of development in the deafness of blue-
eyed cats. Some years ago I showed that our great
naturali!'t had fallen into error on this point, and that the
correlation is not between the blue eyes and the deafness,
but between the latter and the sex of the cat.
I have made a great many inquiries on this point, and
have completely confirmed my (ormer observation, that
perfectly white tom-cats are they have
eyes occasionally, because beauty is
among white cats. many white
with blue eyes, but were deaf.
"Pudge" from Cookham deaf, and
blue eye and a yellow first few
after I had him, I thought little, but
quite satisfied that complete,
he is alive to soumis through solid
A further point of intcre::t is he is not mute
as most deafs are, but there is a kittenish shrillness
in his voice and a loudness in his purring, which are not
commensurate with his age_ I think, therefore, that it
possible that early in life he may have heard a little, for I
know of two instances where perfect mutism accompanied
the deafness in cats, and I do not know of any contrary
conditio!l_ The olle yellow eye favours my view that
" Pudge" may have heard in infancy his mother's voice.
His sense of tOllch is extremely acute compared to that of
another cat I have, but his sight ooes not seem so sharp
of cats generally is. six digits,
these are arranged-seven limb, and
each hind limb. The on the
limbs are thumbs, and are either si;e
tflle pollex, being joined
bones. In the hind limb
of the same nature,
placed on the outer side 1
tarsus by a completely-dtveloped
ON ACTION AT A DISTANCE*
I HAVE no new discovery to bring before you this
evening. I Hlu't ask you to go over very oJd
ground, and to turn your attention to a question which
has been raised again and again ever since men began
to think. .
The question is that of the transmission of force. \Ve
see that bodies at a distance from each other exert a
influence on each Does thi.,
action depend on thc some third
some medium of occupying the
between the bodies, or on each
immediately v.:ithout the an) thing
mode in which
phcnomena of this kind
other modem inquirers,
tP. enable you to place yourselves Farclddy"s point
of view, and to point out the scientific value of that con-
at the Royal 18/3. by Peol,
Publishing Group
Feb. 27, I873J NATURE
between
of light.
contact, I
rings contract, several of
them vanish at the centre. Now it is possible to bring
two pieces of glass 00 close together, that they will not
tend to separate at all, but adhere together so firmly
that when torn asunder the glass will break, not at the
surface of contact, but at some other place. The glasses
now be many nearer than in mere
contact.
"e have shown bodies begin against
her while still measurable distance, and that
even when pressed together with great force they arc not
in absolute contact, but may be brought nearer still, and
that by many degrees.
Why, then, say the advocates of direct action, should
we continue to maintain a doctrine founded only on the
experience of age, matter can-
where it is of admitting that all the
from which Ollr ancestors concluded that contact is
to action reali ty cases at a dis- I
tance, the distance being too small to be measured by their
imperfect means of observation? I
If we are ever to discover the laws of nature, we must
do so by obtaining the most accurate acquaintance with
the facts of nature, and not by cJressing up in phiJo-
language the opinions of who had no
of the wLich throw most on these
for those introduce or other
media, to account (or these actions, without any direct
evidence of the existence of such media, or any clear
understanding of holV the media do their work, and who
fill all space three and four times over with rethers of
different sorts, why the less these men talk ahout their
scruples about admitting action at a
the better.
were regulated Newton's
be easy to opinions
in advance of the age. We should only have to compare
the science of to-day with that of fifty years ago, and by
producing, in the geometrical sense, the line of progress,
we should obtain the science of fifty years hence.
The progress of science in N ewton's consisted in
rid of the machinery which gene-
encumbered and
the sky."
aJready got their crystal
spheres, they were still swimming in the vortices of
Descartes. Magnets were surrounded by effluvia, and I
electrified bodies by atmospheres, the properties of which
resembled in no respect those of ordinary effluvia and
atmospheres.
Newton dernonstraled that the which acts
of the bodies depends relative
with respect other bodies, new theory
violent from the advanced philo-
sophers of the day, described the doctrine of gravi-
tation as a return to the exploded method of explaining
everything by occult causes, attractive virtues, and the
like.
Newton himself, with that wise moderation which is
characteristic of all speculations, that he
pretence of explaining the mechanism by which
heavenly bodies each otber. clrlermine the
which their action on their
relative position was a great step in science, and this step
Newton asserted that he had made. To explain the pro-
cess by which this action is effected was a quite distinct
step, and this step, Newton, in his" Principia," does not
attempt to make ..
But so far was Newton from asserting that bodies really
do act on one another at a distance, independently of any-
between them) which has
quoted by
;, inconceivable
the mediation somethmg els.o) 15 not ma-
terial, operate upon and affect other matter without mut ual
contact, as it must do if. in the sense of pi-
curus, be essentIal and mherent m It ... That gravity
should be innate, inherent, and essential to matter, so that
one hody can act upon another at a distance) through a
without mediation of else, by and
which their and force conveyed
to another, so great an that I
no man who. philosophical
petent faculty of thmkmg can ever /all into it."
Accordingly, we find in h:s "Optical Queries," and in his
letters to Boyle, that Newton had very early. made the at-
tempt to account for gravitation by means of the pressure
of a medium, and that the reason he did not publish these
igations" (rom hence that he found
not able, and to give
account medium, manner of
operation in the chief phcllomena of na-
ture." '*
The doctrine of direct action at a distance cannot claim
for its author the discoverer of universal gravitation. It
was first asserted by Roger Cotes, in his preface to the
" Principia," which he edited during Newton's life. Ac-
to Cotes, it experience that that all
gravitate. not learn in way that
extended, or solid. there-
as much right considered pro-
perty of matter as extension, mobility, or impenetrability.
And when tbe Newtonian philosophy gained ground in
Europe, it was the opinion of Cotes rather tban that of
Newtonthat became most prevalent, till at last Boscovich
propounded his theory, that matter is a congeri('s of ma-
thern;llical points, each endowed with the of
repelling the according te In his
matter is and contact impossible.
not forget, to endow mathematical
points with inertia. In this some of the modern repre-
sentatives of his school have thought that he" had not
quite got so far as the strict modern view of 'matter' as
being but an expression for modes or manifestations of
'force.''' t
we leave Ollt account for the the de-
of the science, and our atten-
the extension boundaries, see that
most essential. Newton's should be
extended to every branch of science to which it was appli-
cable-that the forces with which bodies act on each other
should be investigated in the first place, before attempting
to explain !tow that force is transmitted. Nomen could
be better fitted to themselves exclusively to the first
the problem, those who considered the second
unnecessary,
Accordingly Cavendish, Coulomb, Poisson, the
of the exact sciences of electricity and mag-
ne-tism, paid no regard to those old notions of "magnetic
effluvia" and" electric atmospheres," which had been put
forth in the previous century, but turned tbeir undivided
attention to the determination of the law of force, accord-
ing to which electrified and magnetised bodies attract or
each other. way the tme of these
were discovered, this was men who
doubted that act.ion took distance,
the intervc:ntion any medium, who would
have regarded the discovery of such a medium as com-
plicating rather than as explaining the undoubted pheno-
mena of attraction.
(To be cOlltimled.)
.;,' 1\'brl011rin's Account K DiscoV'etics.
t Review of ft.1rs, Somervilll'!'s (, Molecular Science/' Saturday Revieu'}
Feb. 13, 186g.
'C)1873 Nature Publishing Group