32 REPORT — 1844. 



producing the germination of mignonette under the influence of those rays 

 which have permeated the bichromate of potash in solution. 



In my first published experiments, I stated that the luminous rays acted 

 most injuriously upon germination and prevented the growth of young plants. 

 Every experiment has tended to confirm my first statement, and however 

 much uncertainty — and I have not endeavoured to hide this — there may be 

 about some other phaenomena of vegetation, there is not any on this point. 

 Light prevents healthful germination and is injurious to the growth of the 

 young plant. A number of fine young Pansies were placed in the most fa- 

 vourable circumstances under different absorptive media, on May 19th. On 

 the 1st of June the Panseys under the yellow media were found to be dead, 

 whilst all the others were growing well. When planted these plants all had 

 small flower-buds, but with the exception of the plants under intense red 

 media I could not get a flower to form upon any. Several of the ten-week 

 stocks were removed from the garden in the most healthy conditions when of 

 about a fortnight's growth ; the stocks exposed in the yellow light died in ten 

 days. With these plants I succeeded in obtaining flowers both under the 

 influence of the blue and the red media. I reserve the statement of many 

 other experiments to a future occasion. In justice, however, to myself, I 

 am bound to state that I have repeated Dr. Gardner's experiments on the 

 production of chlorophylle without success. 



Postscript, Nov. 20. — On my return to Falmouth after the York meeting, 

 I found all the peas and mignonette dead, except under the red fluid. This 

 mignonette was very healthy, abundant and in full flower, in which state it 

 continues to this time. Would not this point to the use of red media for pre- 

 serving delicate plants in the winter season ? 



Report of a Committee, consisting of Sir John Herschel, Mr. 

 Whewell, and Mr. Baily {deceased), appointed by the British 

 Association in 1840, /or revising the Nomenclature of the Stars. 



The obvious importance and necessity of arriving at some definite practical 

 conclusion which might be satisfactorily acted upon in assigning a uniform 

 system of constellations, letters, numbers and names to the stars in each and 

 all of the three great Catalogues now in course of preparation under the 

 auspices of this Association, viz. the "British Association Catalogue," the 

 Southern Catalogue of Lacaille and the extensive Catalogue of the Histoire 

 Celeste, has caused your Committee to assign this particular object as the 

 present term and scope of their labours, the Catalogues in question being 

 fully prepared for publication, and being actually in course of printing. Tlie 

 great extent and high authority of these Catalogues, — their appearance all at 

 one epoch, — their preparation on a uniform system digested and arranged by 

 the master-mind of our late lamented colleague, — and the use of the same 

 nomenclature throughout all the three, — can hardly fail to give that nomen- 

 clature universal currency in every observatory for a very long time to come, 

 and to do away at once and for ever with the uncertainty and confusion which 

 has so long and so unhappily prevailed in this respect. 



In resting at this point, therefore, your Committee consider that a great prac- 

 tical benefit will have been conferred on astronomy. And in resolving on 

 this course they have necessarily abandoned (not without much discussion, 

 extensive foreign correspondence, interchange of opinion with British astro-, 

 nomei-s, and many partial modifications of the design,) the idea which they 

 had originally entertained of a total remodelling of the southern constella- 



