214 Chronicles of Science. [ April, 
Comet ITI., 1867, in all probability belongs to the same system 
as Comets III. and V., 1859. The three planes in which these 
comets move intersect in the same line. M. Hoek had already 
suspected that the two comets of 1859 had a common origin, on 
account of the close resemblance between their elements, and the 
brief interval between their apparition. 
The Gold Medal of the Astronomical Society has been presented 
to M. Leyerrier for his elaborate investigation of the motions of 
Venus, Mercury, the Earth, and Mars. 
Mr. Huggins has confirmed the discovery lately effected by the 
observers at Paris that bright lmes appear in the spectra of three 
small stars. 
The 95th asteroid was discovered by M. Luther at Bilk-Dussel- 
dorf on November 23, 1867. It is of the 10th magnitude, or rather 
less. 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE Roya ASTRONOMICAL SocrEery. 
When astronomers first directed their attention to the deter- 
mination of stellar distances, it was natural to expect that the 
brightest stars would exhibit more evidently than the rest that 
annual parallactic displacement on which the determination depends. 
This, however, was not found to be the case. Sirius, for instance, 
which shines four times as brightly as any other star visible in our la- 
‘titudes, was found to exhibit a very minute parallax. Mr. Cleveland 
Abbe, of the Poulkova Observatory, has lately applied a careful and 
laborious process of calculation to a fine series of meridional observ- 
ations of Sirius, made with the transit circle of the Cape of Good 
Hope Observatory. He deduces a parallax lying between 037 
and 0”:17—that is, it appears that the distance of Sirius lies between 
563,000 and 1,224,000 times the diameter of the earth’s orbit. It 
will be remembered that Henderson, who observed Sirius at the 
Cape, but with an inferior instrument, deduced a parallax of 023. 
The Astronomer Royal calls attention to the fact that the dark 
shadow in the great eclipse of August 17-18, 1868, coincides through 
a large portion of its length with the course of our mail-steamers 
between Aden and Bombay. A mail-steamer is to leave Aden on 
August 16, and will be due at Bombay on August 23, and a mail- 
steamer is to leave Bombay on August 11, and will be due at Aden 
on August 22. Both these steamers will pass through the dark 
shadow. Although a ship’s motion renders it impossible to make 
many of the more important observations, yet several observations 
can be readily made on board ship. The red prominences could 
certainly be detected with a good opera-glass. The polarization of 
the corona could be readily examined by a polarizing test which 
acts by extinction, as the Nicol’s prism. Perhaps even, with a 
