840 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



observatory at three o'clock, where an important photograph was 

 secured. In the evening he went to the ship for dinner, but was 

 only able to lie on one side, and took some chlorodyne. He then 

 persisted in going ashore and to his own quarters to sleep, in a 

 violent rain. He passed a bad night, and was very ill on the 

 following morning, the time of the eclipse, and permitted himself 

 to be assisted over the half mile to the observatory, but would 

 not be carried in a stretcher. Though very much exhausted 

 when he reached the observatory, "as the important moment 

 approached he seemed to rally, and during the minutes of the 

 eclipse seemed to be himself again, and showed no signs of illness 

 or exhaustion. There were two photographic instruments in use 

 one, an old one, which had often been in use before ; the other 

 was the special corona graphic instrument prepared for the occa- 

 sion, of which Father Perry himself took charge. He was so 

 alert and self-possessed during the eclipse that his friends about 

 him hoped he was not so ill, but he gave way immediately after, 

 and with much difficulty reached his quarters in the hospital." 

 On Sunday night the critical nature of his disease, dysentery, 

 became evident. On Wednesday he was better, and the ship set 

 sail for Demerara. Friday afternoon his mind began to wander, 

 and in an hour and twenty minutes afterward he died. Before 

 he quite lost consciousness " he thought himself again engaged 

 in * the supreme moment of the scientific mission which had so 

 long filled his thoughts,' and ' began to give his orders as during 

 the short moments of the eclipse.' " 



Steps were taken a few months after Father Perry's death to 

 establish a memorial of him, to consist of a new fifteen-inch tele- 

 scope, which, with the house in which it stood, should be called 

 the Father Perry Memorial, the works done with which should 

 be published under his name. 



A THEORY of "partial impact" is suggested by Prof. A. W. Bickerton, 

 of the New Zealand University, to explain the sudden appearance and 

 rapid disappearance of "new stars." Recognizing the fact that enormous 

 masses of incandescent matter can not cool in a few weeks, the author 

 observes, as quoted in Nature: "A typical new star is probably a thousand 

 times as bi'ight as our sun ; it appears suddenly and disappears in a year. 

 . . . The formation of such a body is difficult to explain on any theory 

 except that of impact, but to explain its disappearance is more difficult still. 

 It is estimated that it will take the sun ten million years to lose half of its 

 luster. Think of a sun a thousand times as bright cooling in a year! The 

 idea is absurd." But if we accept Mr. Lockyer's theory that some stars are 

 not coherent bodies like our sun, but masses of meteorites which in the 

 case of new stars and variables collide with one another, the difficulty is 

 much less. We have no longer an enormous mass all aglow, but numerous 

 scattered masses, vastly smaller, and capable of rapid cooling. 



