ABSENCE from home and pressing business since my return have delayed my sending a reply to Prof. Maskelyne's second article upon the above subject (NATURE, November 5, p. 5). So far as I can discern Prof. Maskelyne's primary object in writing these articles, it is to endeavour to maintain the hypothesis put forward by him many years ago; and with this object in view he has made a number of statements, from which I have culled not a few that may be ranged under either of two heads—firstly, those which I believe can be shown to be distinctly contrary to the evidence; and secondly, those which, if not directly contradicted by the evidence, are quite unsupported by it. In my first reply I gave samples of these statements which afforded perfectly clear issues, and as these have been unanswered, it is useless to refer to others in detail at present.