STRANCE COINCIDENCES

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 77, 20 August 1914, Page 8

STRANCE COINCIDENCES

SCIENTIFIC AN}) LITERARY \ I'AHA I.Lli US. In tho lives of most of us coincidence lias played a part. Probably nine out of every ten people can recall events and dates which, coinciding with one ■ another, are u source of wonderment. There are some coincidences, however, which are of such a character as to call for more than usual comment. In a rricent issue ol the Strand Magazine, for instance, the-re is a photograph illustrating a phenomenon only J visible in the tropics—that of sunshine at noon when no shadow is thrown by object exposed to the sun's rays, the explanation being that the ship upon i which the photograph was taken was at the moment in the exact nadir of the sun's zenith. The phenomenon, was observed by Mr W. E. Gibbs, in latitude 15deg. south, in February of last year, and it is a singular coincidence that precisely the same phenomenon was witnessed in 1881 or 1882 by Captain W. M. Gibbs, of Cardiff, at about the same time of the year and practically in -the same latitude. An experience even rniore unique befell Captain W. M, Gibba nearly twen y years later, when, by a really wonderful coincidence, hie Bhip, on New Year's Eve, 1898. was in precisely in the same spot as she had been at midnight on New Year's Eve the year before. Captain Gibbs got his chief mate to check the reckoning in order that there should be no mistake about the position, which was some thirty miles off the coast of Algeria. COINCIDENCES OF THE SEA. I There have, however, been many re■markable coincidences in regard to &hips I On the day Lord Salisbury died a vessel called the Lord Salisbury was posted as I missing at Lloyd's, while the Czar's son, the Czarevitch, was bom within fortyeight hours of the time when the Bussum battleship, the Czarevitch, had a disastrous battle with Admiral Togo's j fleet off Japan. And this reference to the Russian-' Japanese war recalls the fact that a horse called Togo beat Big Gun almost at the hour when Admiral Togo was defeating the Russian Heet outside Port Arthur. The death of King Edward's niece, Princess Alice, happened within a few I weeks of the dreadful accident to the vessel, Princess Alice, in the Thames, vvldb simultaneously with' the wreck of ■the P. and 0. liner Delhi, off Tangier, 1 on the coast of Morocco, when the Princess Royal and bor husband, the late Duke 'of Fife, had such a narrow escape from drowning, the other Delhi was being created the capital of India, i Turning to other coincidences, there' are some very curious literary parallels. \ The Crimean War was foretold 400 years i before that <>vent, thf prophecy in I verse being embodied in a little book published in 1453. It began*:— I In twice two hundred years ths Bear j The Crescent will assail, | But if the Cock and Bull'unite J The Bear will not prevail. j PROPHETIC FICTION. 1 Whey Guy de Maupassant, in one of his stories, described how an Englishman with three daughters stood on the deck of a sinking vessel with a Frenchman, and all met their fate singing "God Save tho. Queen," not a faw of the French critics pronounced the whole incident to be absolutely implausible. Nevertheless, may years 'later, in 1807, a similar patriotic scene was enacted on tho deck of the doomed Aden. Perhaps one of the most interesting of literary coincidences is that concerning Mrs. Humphry Ward and Mr. Israel Xangwill. Stories from the pens of these two novelists were simultaneously appearing in Harper's Magazine, and irt the same issue both writers described a scene at Orvieto, the actions of which were also peculiarly similar. Yet Mr. Zangvvill subsequently confessed that bo had chosen Orvieto because he thought the place comparatively neglected by writers. The story of an extraordinary coincidence is related by Kir W. Robertson Nieoll in "Aj liijokman's 'Letters." A lady sent her servant, a young man of about twenty, to a neighbouring town with.a valuable ring which required some alteration. On the- way he unfortunately dropped the ring while looking at it. He thought it fell into the liollow stump of a tree, under the water of a stream, but failed to lind it. Afraid, to return to tell the story of his loss, lie ran away, went to tiie.'West Indies, and there accumulated a very 'fair fortune. Then he resolved to come home and el?ar himself with his mistress. THE LOST RING. ' Arriving in London he ascertained that she was still alive, and purchased a diamond ring of considerable vahfc which he-determined to present in person. Arriving in the neighbourhood he met a former servant, to whom lie unfolded the story of why he had left the country abruptly years before. As he was telling the story they came to the. spot where lie had dropped the ring. "There." he said, "it was just here that 1 dropped the ring, and there is the veryhit of old tree into si hole of which it fell—just there.' At the same time he put down the point of his umbrella into a hole in tho tree, and, drawing it out. there appeared, to the astonishment of both, the very ring on the ferrule of the umbrella. Among scientific coincidences there is nothing so remarkable as that concerning Darwin and Alfred Rit.-:sel Wallace, who died recently. Both scientists, unknown to each other, evolved the theory which is now termed Darwinism. Alfred Russel Wallace, who had a great admiration for Darwin, wrote to him, asking him his opinion of his theory,' I only to find that Darwin had hail the same thought, and had been working it out for years previously.