JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post
Okay, here’s another entry in an occasional series on antiquarian sci journal issues with multiple interesting bits in them. The example today is a slender (23pp) but crammed (1500 words per page) weekly issue of the venerable journal Nature (volume 51, 22 November 1894)–it initially raised my interest for a two-pager Francis Galton paper on synesthesia and super-abilities entitled “Psychology of Mental Arithmeticians and Blindfold Chessplayers”. This irresistible paper shared space with a famous paper by another great 19th c polymath, Etienne Marey, “Photographs of a Tumbling Cat”, being a full page (four strips) of “chronophotography” of a cat being dropped upside-down showing the progress of how the cat rights itself in a short distance to landing on its feet. Marey (along with Edweard Muybridge) helped create and establish the motion picture–this paper came a dozen years or so after his groundbreaking work appeared in the 1880 and 1882 volumes of the Comptes Rendus…de l’Academie des Sciences (Paris).
- [Source: this image is from an already-scanned version from an issue of the Comptes rendus but is identical to the top half of the Nature image.]
This Nature issue isn’t done yet! There’s also the article “Schiaparelli on Mars” (pp 87-90) including a full page of about 2000 words on “The Canals or Channels”, though the editor points out in a footnote that “canale” in the original Italian version should be translated as “channel” or “strait”, and not canal, a sentiment that didn’t have enough impact in preventing the avalanche of the Martians-on-the-loose syndrome that was building steam. This was also right about the time that astronomers as a whole began to doubt the existence of Martian seas (first brought into the conversation by Secchi in 1858).
Anyway, there it is, a wonderful Victorian super-issue of beautiful Nature. (Oh yes, there’s also two book reviews of works on (Hamilton and Taits) quaternions.
The full text is available at Hathi Trust: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.c2754927&view=2up&seq=112