ASTRONOMICAL PROGRESS IN 1896. 



Francis Elgar. The half holiday on Saturday, the 

 19th, was devoted to local excursions, seeing Liver- 

 pool itself or taking trips on the Mersey, a large 

 number visiting New Brighton. One local attrac- 

 tion was the Liverpool overhead railway. A party 

 visited the Prescot mine, and were able after in- 

 specting the machinery and the mechanical con- 

 trivances to descend the shaft to witness the actual 

 working of the coal ; also on invitation a number 

 of gentlemen attending the British Association 

 were invited to Hawarden, where they were enter- 

 tained by Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone. In the evening 

 Sir Joseph Lister was entertained at a banquet 

 given by the medical profession of Liverpool. The 

 presiding officer was Richard Caton, President of 

 the Medical Institution, and 350 persons were pres- 

 ent. On the evening of Sept. 23 a banquet was 

 given in the Adelphi Hotel to the association by 

 the American Chamber of Commerce of Liverpool. 

 Besides the American ambassador, Prof. W. H. 

 Goodyear, of Brooklyn, and Prof. Charles S. Minot, 

 of Boston, were among the guests. At the close of 

 the meeting the usual excursions- provided for were 

 enjoyed, of which that to the Isle of Man was the 

 most popular. There were exhibitions of physical 

 apparatus, and in connection with the anthropolog- 

 ical section there was an important and valuable 

 loan collection of anthropological exhibits. 



Attendance and Grants. At the concluding 

 meeting of the association, held on Sept. 23, the 

 secretary reported an attendance of 3,181 members, 

 of whom 31 were new life members, 139 new annual 

 members, and 41 foreign members. The receipts 

 were 1.355, which amount was distributed among 

 the sections in grants for research as follow : Math- 

 ematics and physics, 320; chemistry, 80; geol- 

 ogy, 135; zoology, 325; geography, 20; eco- 

 nomic science and" statistics, 25 ; anthropology, 

 180 ; mechanical science, 10 ; physiology, 255 ; 

 botany, 20 ; and corresponding societies. 25. 



Next Meeting. The association will meet in 

 1897 in Toronto, Canada, beginning on Aug. 18. 

 Bristol was decided upon as the place of meeting in 

 1898, and for 1899 Dover was selected. Sir John 

 Evans, treasurer and a vice-president of the Royal 

 Society, an authority on archaeology and numis- 

 matics, was named as president for the Toronto 

 meeting. 



ASTRONOMICAL PROGRESS IN 1896. 

 During the year astronomy made satisfactory 

 progress, especially in some departments, the dis- 

 covery and investigation of variable stars taking 

 first rank. Save the asteroids, no new members 

 have been added to the solar system. Photogra- 

 phers of the heavens find these tiny planets, now so 

 numerous, so often depicted on the sensitive plates 

 of their camera that the list grows apace. 



The Sun. In solar physics but little advance 

 has been made. It was hoped that observations of 

 the total solar eclipse of Aug. 9 would largely in- 

 crease our knowledge of the nature, cause, and ex- 

 tent of the corona ; but clouds and storm at the 

 selected stations rendered well-nigh futile the at- 

 tempts of astronomers to observe it. Of his spots, 

 we know simply that, as to their number, there has 

 been a very slight decrease during the past two 

 years, though on no day was the great luminary 

 free of them, as last happened on March 28, 1831. 

 The decline in number and area has been much 

 more marked in the southern than in the northern 

 hemisphere, the opposite having been true in 1894. 

 The latitude of the spots, however, remains nearly 

 constant. Prof. Tacchini says : " No spots and few 

 faculas attain a higher latitude than 30." The spots 

 are often of immense size and easily visible to the 

 naked eye, and equal in extent five times the diam- 

 eter of the Earth, and a few times they have been 



observed with a diameter eight times that of the 

 Earth. Whether they are depressions or elevations 

 of the Sun's limb is a disputed question. It has 

 been asserted that, rounding the Sun's limb by his 

 rotation, they have been seen as notches; but, from 

 the boiling or tremors of the atmosphere, such ob- 

 servations are unreliable, and can have but little 

 value in deciding so important a matter. 



Metallic prominences seem to have been propor- 

 tionately numerous, about 5 per cent, of them re- 

 versing the sodium and magnesium lines, while in 

 1894 only 1'3 per cent, were so found. Mr. Evi-r- 

 shed, who annually observes about 1,000 promi- 

 nences, says the corona line, wave length 5,310, has 

 been relatively more frequent in the chromosphere. 



Few eruptive prominences have been lately seen. 

 Prof. George E. Hale records one on March 25, ( J h 

 50" to ll h 6 m , Chicago mean time, which was the 

 only one seen in 1895. By means of his large spec- 

 trograph, with moving slits adjusted to the K line, 

 he obtained some very fine photographs of the phe- 

 nomenon. From measurements of his plates, he 

 deduced the maximum height of the prominence 

 to be 624" X 450 = 280,800 miles, which is more 

 than 40,000 miles greater than the Moon's distance 

 from the Earth. Only one prominence surpassing 

 this in height is on record. 



While the spots are confined to two zones, one on 

 each side of, and near the equator, the prominences 

 or solar eruptions are seen entirely around the Sun, 

 showing the two to be in no wise associated. They 

 are dull scarlet in color, and are composed of hydro- 

 gen gas heated to redness. With the spectroscope 

 they can be seen and carefully studied without an 

 eclipse. 



Rotation of Venus. No consensus of opinion 

 has yet been arrived at by astronomers regarding 

 the announcement by Schiaparelli that the planet 

 Venus, like our Moon, makes a revolution syn- 

 chronously with her axial rotation. Prof. Tacchini, 

 from observations during 1895, makes the period of 

 rotation 224'7 days. Owing to her dense and cloud- 

 laden atmosphere, which renders her markings 

 changeable and uncertain, it is a question whether 

 her surface has ever been seen. The halo of light 

 extending over the unilluminated portion of her 

 disk, similar to that on the dark part of the Moon 

 three or four days after passing the Sun, claimed 

 to have been seen by some astronomers, is another 

 perplexing matter. Other astronomers, with equal 

 optical appliances and with eager quest, have been 

 Tinable to detect any trace of this phosphorescent 

 light. The writer is of the opinion that this phos- 

 phorescent illumination is illusory, as is also that 

 of the ring encircling the dark portion of the planet, 

 and the existence of a star in the center, each, of 

 Venus and of Mercury during their transits across 

 the Sun. These appearances are due. probably, to 

 some peculiarity in the retina of the observer's eye 

 as some people see, or seem to see, wave motions in 

 the zodiacal light, and in the tails of comets, sug- 

 gesting the undulations in a field of grain, which 

 trained and skillful observers fail to find. 



The Moon. During the total eclipses of the 

 Moon on March 10 and Sept. 3, 1895, Dr. Barnard, 

 then at the Lick Observatory, made a series of pho- 

 tographs of the eclipsed Moon and the surrounding 

 sky as a study of the question, Has our Moon a 

 satellite? If there is a satellite of our satellite, it 

 must be very small and not to be caught visually 

 nor photographically, unless during totality the 

 satellite should be outside the Earth's shadow. 

 Without an eclipse the Moon's brightness must of 

 course overpower that of her satellite. At the 

 September eclipse six fine photographs were se- 

 cured. As the Moon's motion is quite rapid, it was 

 necessary to guide the telescope by hand, moving 



