1864. ] Astronomy. 665 
unfavourable notice, as micrometric measurements prove that, in several 
instances, Herschel’s drawing is less accurate than Bond’s. It would 
be more satisfactory if some independent observer were to examine the 
matter minutely, for it is really important, in view of the questions 
which have been raised respecting the reality of changes in the 
aspect of the nebula. The reading of these remarks gave rise to a 
short discussion, in which Mr. Stone, Dr. Winnecke, and the Rev. C. 
Pritchard took part. It was generally agreed that, from the acknow- 
ledged ability of Mr. Bond, his drawing will probably become the 
standard of reference for the present epoch ; but it was most important 
that attention should be directed to all suspected deviations of that 
drawing from accuracy, in order that they might now be settled while 
there is an opportunity of doing so. 
Some very beautiful photographs of the sun, taken by the Ely 
Helioautograph, were exhibited at the same meeting by Professor 
Selwyn. Some of them were 63 inches in diameter, and contained spots 
and facule very clearly marked. He considered that his photographs 
did not support a result obtained by Mr. Stewart, who, from an 
examination of the sun pictures taken at Kew, considered that it was a 
nearly universal law that the facule belonging to a spot appear to the 
left of that spot. Professor Selwyn believes that the facule surround 
the spots in the same way as the edges of a crater surround the cavity 
of a crater, not favouring one side or the other, but lying fairly round 
them. A continuous series of solar photographs cannot fail to give the 
means of proving or disproving such statements. 
We have already mentioned the series of Chinese eclipses com- 
municated to the Society by Mr. John Williams. This gentleman, a 
profound Chinese and Japanese scholar, has more recently communi- 
cated another series, from B.c. 481 to the Christian era, which he has 
extracted from a Chinese historical work entitled ‘Tung Keen Kang 
Muh,’ in 101 volumes, first published during the Myng dynasty, about 
1473. The dates have been carefully verified by a comparison with 
a set of chronological tables published in Japan, which supply not 
only the Chinese cycles and their years, arranged according to their 
Kea Tsze system, but also the years in the European system, answering 
to their cyclical years. The work of exhuming these records of 
eclipses must be very laborious, and Mr. Williams deserves great 
praise for the service which his linguistic talents enable him to render 
to astronomical science. 
Respecting the bright band bordering the moon’s limb in photo- 
graphs of eclipses, Professor Airey described some experiments which _ 
he says leave no doubt on his mind that the phenomenon in question 
is a mere nervous lritation of the retina, produced by the view of the 
conterminous black and white portions of the photograph. 
An elaborate mathematical paper on shooting-stars in March, by 
A. 8. Herschel, Esq., cannot be given in abstract. 
R. Hodgson, Esq., has communicated to the Society a note on the 
achromatic object-glass, illustrated with several diagrams, in which he 
shows how wide and large have been the variations made by foreign 
opticians, whilst the form adopted by English opticians is the same as 
