400 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



the Royal Society, General Sabine has shown that at Toronto (the only series 

 hitherto fully discussed) all the magnetic elements subjected to observation 

 undergo similar variations. In the face of these coincidences, to doubt the 

 relationship between the two phenomena seems to me to be almost as un- 

 reasonable as to doubt the influence of the moon on the tides of the ocean. 

 " For thirty years never has the sun exhibited his disc above the horizon 

 of Dessau without being confronted by Schwabe's imperturbable telescope, 

 and that appears to have happened on an average about 300 days a year. 

 So, supposing that he observed but once a day, he has made 9000 observa- 

 tions, in the course of which he discovered about 4700 groups. This is, I 

 believe, an instance of devoted persistence (if the word were not equivocal, 

 I should say, pertinacity) unsurpassed in the annals of astronomy. The en- 

 ergy of one man has revealed a phenomenon that had eluded even the sus- 

 picion of astronomers for 200 years/' 



PERIODICAL METEORS. 



The periodical meteors of August, 1857, were studied by the orders of M. 

 Le Terrier, the Astronomer Royal of France, from Paris and Orleans, by 

 simultaneous observations, to ascertain their actual distance from the earth, 

 by calculating the angles at which they appeared to the two observers. But 

 out of about sixty seen, Mr. Liais, who discussed the results, could be cer- 

 tain of only six being the same stars seen by both. These six stars, at the 

 moment of appearing and disappearing, were calculated to be distant from 

 the earth as follows : 



No. 1, 35,000 11,000 metres, equal to 23.7 miles 



No. 2, 33,000 25,000 " 24.17 " 



No. 3, 31,000 21,000 " " 20.14 " 



No. 4, 37.000 25,000 " " 25.3 " 



No, 5, 83,000 13.000 " " 55.9 " 



No. 6,119,000 66,000 " " 79.44 " 



and their rapidity, as 14, 14, 16, 17, 55, and 75 miles per second, which af- 

 fords the curious coincidence (for in the very imperfect state of our knowl- 

 edge about these mysterious visitants this fact is little more), that the highest 

 were the swiftest. 



In 1839, De Vico at Rome, and Nobilc at Naples, made simultaneous ob- 

 servations of this sort in the nights of the 23d, 24th, 25th, and 31st of 

 August, and saw the same meteor thirty-one times, and so exact were the re- 

 sults that they served as well as the best ordinary methods for correcting the 

 difference of longitude cf those places forty-three leagues apart, while Paris 

 is only twenty-eight leagues from Orleans. 



DISCOVERY OF DOUBLE STARS. 



Some very interesting discoveries of double stars have recently been made 

 by Mr. Alvan Clark, of Boston, the well known telescope manufacturer, who 



