APPENDIX D CVII 



Toronto. Mr. Arthur Harvey spoke of " Solar Kadiation/' and appears 

 to have been the first to establish the fact that the auroras synchronize 

 at the north and south simultaneously. 



May 31st, Mr. G. E. Luinsden read a paper on the subject of " Lunar 

 King Plains.'^ Attention was called to the fact, that on some por- 

 tions of the moon, ring-plains occur with greater frequency than at 

 others, and there appear to be vast differences in time as to the periods 

 of their formation, some showing a perfect formation, whilst others 

 are broken and worn away as if by the action of water or some other 

 fluid at an earlier period of the moon's history. 



June 3rd, W. B. Musson read an exhaustive and carefully pre- 

 pared paper on " Variable Stars,'' in which he drew attention to the 

 main points of difference between variables of short and long periods 

 and also stars of the Algol class. While there was little doubt that 

 the variability of the latter class is caused by the eclipse of one body 

 by another, the fluctuations of long period variables is still much of 

 a mystery. It was mentioned that Prof. Chandler had confirmed his 

 theory advanced in 1888, that Algol and its companion moved in an 

 orbit about a third body. 



Mr. A. F. Miller spoke of his observations of the star (Y) Yir- 

 ginus which in 1837 was kno^vn as a double not very far apart. Mr. 

 Miller's observations had shown the components to be considerably 

 separated now and their angular positions also greatly shifted. The 

 components are now equal in brightness and colour though they have 

 been known to vary in both particulars. 



September 9th, Mr. Andrew Elvins contributed a paper on " The 

 cause of the 25-day period in the magnetic ' curve.-* " 



September 23rd, Mr. J. H. Wetherby contributed a paper entitled 

 '■ Astronomical Work for the Autumn.'^ 



October 7th, Mr. Elvins and Mr. Miller reported observations of 

 romet " Perrine." The latter had examined its spectrum and had 

 found it to be that of a hydro-carbon incandescent gaseous body. 



The paper for the evening was by J. E. Collins on " The Applica- 

 tion of Kelvin's Theory of the Ether to the Stellar Universe." The 

 necessity for supposing the ether to be rather of a continuous nature 

 rather than consisting of discrete particles was pointed out and Kel- 

 vin's theory of vortices in this continuous substance was applied to a 

 finite universe and some interesting deductions drawn from the results. 

 The ether of a finite universe of this kind would be expected to have a 

 definite surface and bundles of vortices which would be conceived as 

 forming matter, rushing against its interior surface would be thrown 

 backward with the velocity with which they came. It was said that 



