1864. | The Chemical Society. 287 
Mr. Williams presents us with a specimen as follows :—‘ In the 
fifty-eighth year of the thirty-second cycle, in the fifty-first year of the 
Emperor King Wang, of the Chow Dynasty, the third year of Yin 
Kung, Prince of Loo, in the spring, the second moon, on the day called 
then T'sze, there was an eclipse of the sun.” This date answers to 
720 B.C. 
A complete list of all such eclipses, with the year B. 0., and month 
and day answering to the Chinese dates, is added. The days have 
been computed by Ideler’s method, but Mr. Williams warns his read- 
ers that they must only be considered as approximate. 
Mr. E. J. Stone presented a Memoir, entitled “ Proper Motions of 
the Stars of the Greenwich Seven-year Catalogue of 2,022 Stars for 1860, 
not included in the Greenwich Twelve and Six-year Catalogues, deduced 
by Comparison with the Results of Bradley's Observations, as given in 
Bessel’s Fundamenta Astronomie.” This Memoir forms a continua- 
tion to those by Mr. Main.* 
J. R. Hind, Esq., communicated a note, “ On the Variable Nebula 
in Taurus ;” in which he records that, on the 12th of December, no 
trace of the Nebula could be seen either by himself or Assistant, 
although the atmosphere was in a most favourable condition for Astro- 
nomical observation. 
M. G. de Pontécoulant communicated a paper “ Sur le Coefficient 
de lV Equation Parallactique déduit de la Théorie,’ suggested by some 
notes by Mr. Stone and M. Hansen in a former volume of the “ Notices.” 
The paper did not present any point of general practical interest. 
At the November meeting, M. Léon Foucault, M. Knowalski, 
M. Winnecke, and Prof. G. P. Bond, were duly elected Associates of 
the Society. With one or two unimportant omissions, we think we 
have here communicated to our readers the pith of the proceedings of 
the Royal Astronomical Society. 
THE CHEMICAL SOCIETY. 
Up to the present time, the proceedings of the Chemical Society, 
during this quarter, have been destitute of any especial interest. The 
law of the absorption of mixed gases in water has become an im- 
portant subject of inquiry since Bunsen has proposed absorption as 
a method of analysis. A promising chemist, Mr. W. M. Watts, has 
experimented with mixtures of ammonia and hydrogen, and of sul- 
phurous and carbonic acid, principally with the view of testing the 
truth of Dalton’s conclusion, that each gas is retained in water by the 
pressure of gas of its own kind; no other gas with which it may be 
mixed having any permanent influence in this respect. The results 
of Mr. Watts’ experiments have led him to the conclusion that the 
proportion of mixed gases absorbed is not in accordance with Dalton’s 
simple law. 
* See vols. xix. and xxviii. of the Transactions of the Society. 
