8 
By means of a battery under the seat of the chair, with which 
the patient is put in communication by two electrodes which he 
will hold, he will be so effectually galvanised that he will lose 
all sense of pain. It is claimed for this invention that it will be- 
come an effectual substitute for anesthetics, in cases where they 
cannot be safely employed.” 
To turn from the subject of electricity to a higher branch of 
science, namely astronomy, perhaps the most interesting event of 
the year was the annular eclipse which took place on the 17th of 
last June, and of which I had a good view trom Lucerne. The 
moon being at the time in apogee, her apparent diameter was not 
large enough to cover the entire face of the sun, but at places 
where the eclipse was central, a ring of light was visible round the 
moon’s dark disc, hence the term annular eclipse. This amount 
of light is sufficient to deprive an annular eclipse of that scientific 
interest with which a total eclipse is invested, nevertheless it 
presents by no means an uninteresting spectacle, and the gloom of 
the sky is in some cases so deep as to render visible the planet 
Venus, bright stars, and sometimes also Mercury ; delicate plants 
too have been known to close their flowers, as during the total 
eclipse. ' 
Professor Schiaparelli, who has been observing the planet 
Mercury for upwards of nine years, finds that it revolves round 
the sun in the same way as our moon revolves round the earth, 
always presenting to it the same face, hence its axial rotation is 
performed in the same time as its orbital revolution, that is to 
say, in eighty-three days. The spectrum of Saturn’s rings has 
been under close observation at the Lick Observatory, and as no 
lines but those of the solar spectrum can be detected, it is con- 
cluded that the rings are not self luminous. An interesting 
conjunction was expected last autumn between the large red spot 
in Jupiter, which has been now observed for twelve years, and a 
dark spot on the southern belt which has been gaining for some 
time on the red spot. The result of the observations has not yet 
been published ; it was thought that it would take two months for 
the one spot to pass before and obscure the other. 
The phenomenon of variable stars, namely those which periodi- 
cally lose their brilliancy, and then after a fixed interval resume 
it, 1s one which affords immense interest to all astronomers. 
During the past year Professor Vogel, of Potsdam, has published 
most valuable reports of his observations; he finds that in the 
star Algol (as indeed is thought to be the case with all variable 
stars), the periodic comparative darkness is caused by the revo- 
lution of a dark satellite across the dise of its primary. Professor 
Vogel shows that the respective diameters of Algol, and its 
