WIGGINS STILL WAGGING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIII, Issue 7800, 20 November 1886, Page 2 (Supplement)

WIGGINS STILL WAGGING.

HE GOES FOR PROCTOR HOT-HEADED AJND HEAVY-HANDED. ;

On being told by the Ottawa, Ont., correspondent of the New York Herald on Sept. 30 that his storm was late, Professor Wiggins said:— " Oh, no. It may be in one sense, bat these storms are always predicted for shipping in the Gulf, and they always appear there twenty-four hours earlier. This storm will continue for several days, and to cover America I said it would begin between Sept. 29 in the afternoon and October 1. " Of course, if it doeoD't come, you will lose friends." # # ' "It was bound to come. Did it not pass Quebec on its southern journey over the Gulf 1 It takes time for a storm to form after it appears. Suppose I had placed the time on October 1, my prediction would have been of no value."

" What of the earthquakes ?' " Did I not say that the earthquake force would cross America ? and did it not cause earthquakes and eruptions yesterday in Mexico ? Central America has in all probability a score of mountains in action at this very moment. I never predicted a storm or earthquake yet that the public did not first condemn me and then say I was right; and it will be so in this case. You will have enough of it before' you are through, for this is none other than the ' Haxeby,' except that the tides are mainly in the southern hemisphere on account of the. heavenly bodies moving south." "The Press is coming down on you rather roughly, Professor." 41 The Press has always been down on me." WIGGINS ON PROCTOK'S ORIGINALITY. " What of Proctor's attaok on you." " Proctor never made a prediction in his life, and is a buzzard among scientists, devouring every yolmg man whom ho finds making any pretensions. A new idea never entered his mind, and he only sees through the spectacles of the old school. In 1576 I pointed out that the saurians of the paleolithic age were yet at the bottom of our oceans, and gave an example of one that had been seen. . Eight years afterwards he claimed my discovery. The theory of the electrical powers of the sun which control the movements of the comets I discovered and published in my 'Architecture of the Heavens' in 1864, and two years ago Proctor claimed it as his own. He declared that no such thing as a lunar atmosphere existed. As 1 have now proved its existence, ho will no doubt announce a few years hence that he discovered it. But I have forgotten; he did make a prediction. He predicted four years ago that the great comet of that year would fall into the sun. Of course it— didn't. Proctor is not a scientist; and in all the books he wrote, he never has given to the world an original idea ; for even the idea that comets are the sun's fuel he did not originate. He has now adopted my theory that comets originate from the solar volcanoes. I have written for his letter, and will make things pleasant for him before he is through." "Well, the world has been down on yon for some days." "Yes; but the world can take a back seat, for I will be vindicated by other worlds than ours."