’ a 
264 PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY OF 
called the attention of the society to some new experiments by M. Kirchoff 
relating to the influence exerted on the stripes in the spectrum of a flame by 
the presence in that flame of certain metallic substances. From these experi- 
ments highly interesting consequences regarding the nature of the solar 
atmosphere are deduced by M. Kirchoff. 
From M. Gautier we also received an account, first, of a memoir of M. Otto 
Struve, jr., on the annual parallax of the stars, alpha of the lyre and 81 of 
the swan. The result of the observations on this last star establish its com- 
parative proximity to the earth, from which, nevertheless, it is separated by four- 
teen millions of millions of leagues; second, of a memoir of M. Powel, of 
Madras, on the double star eta of Cassiopea, the distance between the two 
stars being 7”, and their orbit indicating a revolution of 181 years; third, of 
the publication of tables of Venus, by M. Leverrier, the results of which indi- 
cate that the value of the mass of the earth is to be slightly augmented; 
fourth, of observations made in England and in Germany on a nebula which, 
during the month of May, 1860, assumed for some days the appearance of a 
brilliant star of the sixth or seventh magaitude. 
M. Wartmann, sr., notified us of the discovery, between Mars and Jupiter, 
of six new asteroids. On this occasion he combated the idea of M. Leverrier, 
that these new planets might be recently formed from the cosmic matter dif- 
fused through space. He also communicated a note on an aurora borealis ob- 
served at Geneva Marcli 9, 1861, in which it is shown that the theories of the 
aurora heretofore given leave unexplained the cause of the movement of oscil- 
lation which is executed by describing suddenly and completely an azimuthal 
are of several degrees in extent to the right and left of the magnetic meridian. 
M. Wartmann invites the attention of theorists to this strange phenomenon, 
which equally concerns both physics and meteorology. 
The communications relating to electricity have been, as usual, quite nu- 
merous. M. L. Soret presented on the 6th December an essay towards a 
mechanical theory of electricity. After having recalled the fact that electric 
phenomena, and especially the calorific and mechanical effects, seem to adapt 
themselves fully to an hypothesis like that on which rests the mechanical 
theory of heat, he infers that electric phenomena are to be regarded as melecu- 
lar movements subject to the ordinary laws of mechanics; and he proceeds to 
investigate the nature of those movements which he considers to be rotary. 
The rotation may be executed in two directions, from left to right and from 
right to left. From thence would flow that duality which characterizes elec- 
iric phenomena, and conducting bodies would be those which allow the trans- 
mission of the rotary movement of a molecule to neighboring molecules, while 
that property would be absent in isolating bodies. On these principles M. 
Soret explains the facts of both statie and dynamic electricity ; and he termi- 
nated this first communication by showing that the phenomena of the propa- 
gation of currents and extra-currents, of the closing and the rupture of a cir- 
cuit, are easily explicable on the hypothesis thus presented. The chief objec- 
tions to this theory arise from the impossibility of explaining thereby actions 
at a distance, and the consideration that the movement of rotation of a mole- 
cule cannot produce in the neighboring molecules a movement in the same di- 
rection, but necessarily movement in a contrary direction. 
M. de la Rive reminded us that in 1849 he proposed to explain the variations 
of the magnetic needle by the existence at the surface of the earth of. electric 
currents resulting from a rupture of equilibrium of the terrestrial and atmos- 
pheric electricity. This theory was rejected by astronomers, who maintained 
that the magnetic variations are too intimately connected with the position of 
the sun not to depend on the direct action of the-mass of that body. Rccently, 
however, a celebrated astronomer, Father Secchi, has anew had recourse to the 
