ASTRONOMY. 217 



'^l. Parkliurst of Kew York City — unanimously awarded the prize to the 

 essay signed "Hipparchus III," by Prof. Lewis Boss, director of the 

 Dudley Observatory, of Albany, X. Y. The text of this essay has been 

 published by the Rochester Astronomical Society. 



Although the following extract is u6t of direct scientific interest, it is 

 not without value as showing the official view of comets in China. It 

 is dated July 4, 1881, at Peking : 



'• (1) A decree. For several days past a comet has been visible in the 

 northwest, which We reverently take to be a warning indication from 

 Heaven and accept with feelings of the deepest and most respectful awe. 

 At the present time there are difficulties of many kinds to contend against, 

 and the people are not at ease. It only remains for Ourselves and Our 

 Ministers mutually to aid each other in the maintenance of an attitude 

 of reverential watchfulness, cultivating a spirit of virtue, and examin- 

 ing Our shortcomings in the hope of invoking blessings and harmonious 

 iuHuences from Heaven, and securing comfort to the black-haired race. 

 Do all ye Ministers at Our Court then, each and all strive to be diligent 

 in the exercise of your respective functions, and with all your might put 

 away from you the habits of perfunctoriness so long indulged in, assist- 

 ing Us with true sincerity of heart, and uniting in a common effort to 

 rescue your country from her difficulties. All provincial high authori- 

 ties must positively attempt to compass this object by genuine endeavour, 

 and set to work in earnest to bring about reforms, seeking out the 

 afflicted and the sorrowful in the villages and hamlets, and ministering 

 to their comfort with their whole heart. Then it may be that as each 

 day goes by perfection may be more nearly attained. Let them thus en- 

 deavour to second Oar earnest feeling of reverential awe and Our wish, 

 by the cultivation of virtue and habits of introspection, to acknowledge 

 this sign from Heaven by deeds and not mere empty words." 



The August shooting-siars. — Over a hundred systems of meteors, which 

 are so disturbed by the passage of the earth near them on its way around 

 the sun that ''shooting-stars" are drawn from them into the earth's at- 

 mosphere, where they are heated to visibility, are now known to astron- 

 omers. Most of these systems arc unimportant because of their small 

 size or comparatively great distance; and of the rest, only those which 

 send us the August and November meteors are of particular interest, 

 although those of the latter part of April, the early part of December, 

 and the middle of July have been pointed out as noteworthy. It is a 

 common theory of '• shooting-stars" that they are the broken remnants 

 of comets whose orbits once crossed or came near to that of the earth, 

 but it is perhaps a mistake to hold that they are such debris, since all 

 that is known of them touching this matter is that they often follow in 

 the trains of comets as attendants. This is true of some well-known 

 systems, but it has never been shown that every system of meteors thus 

 follows in tlie Avake of comets or that every comet is attended by shoot- 

 ing stars, Of these bodies two interestiug theories were proposed in 



