46 



ASTRONOMY, PROGRESS OF, IN 1893. 



letters of the alphabet before the assignment 

 to them of their catalogue numbers. Inconse- 

 quence of this there must for a time be some 

 uncertainty about the actual number known, 

 which is now 390. The accompanying list is 

 presumably about correct : 



Since the last report names have been given 

 to the following numbers : 



806. Unitas. 827. Columbia. 



809. Fraternitas. 828. Gudrun. 



818. Chaldfea. 829. Svea. 



814. Rosalia. 882. Siri. 



816. Goberta. A, 1892. Badenia. 



817. Koxana. 0,1892. Roberta. 

 820. Katharina. G, 1892. Dorothea. 

 826. Tamara. T, 1892. Dembouwska. 



The name Columbia given to No. 332 in last 

 year's list was erroneous. It should have been 

 as above, Siri. To keep watchful care over so 

 numerous a family has become an onerous 

 duty, and the outlook for the future is gloomy. 

 During the month of March, 1893, as many 

 planetoids were found as were discovered in the 

 first fifty years of the present century. 



Eclipse of April lb. Comparatively meager 

 reports have been received of the solar eclipse 

 of April 16, 1893. Stations were occupied by 

 astronomers in Chili, the Argentine Republic, 

 Brazil, and Africa, and at most of them the 

 observers were favored with a clear sky, and 

 valuable observations (telescopic, photographic, 

 and spectroscopic) were secured in large num- 

 bers. The United States sent out no expedi- 

 tion, but a private one from the Lick Observa- 

 tory, in charge of J. M. Schaeberle, went to the 

 west coast of Chili, making in a cloudless sky 

 numerous and important observations. During 

 the eclipse many photographs were secured, sev- 

 eral being taken during the four and a half min- 

 utes of totality. Prof. Schaeberle is the origi- 

 nator of the mechanical theory of the corona 

 which has attracted considerable attention. At 

 departure he left a drawing showing how the 

 corona should appear during totality, but Profs. 

 Pickering, Fowler, and Taylor, who observed 

 the corona, assert that they could not trace the 

 slightest resemblance to the sketch. A compari- 

 son of the different photographs taken by Prof. 

 W. H. Pickering, who observed the eclipse from 



South America, revealed many interesting and 

 valuable details of the inner corona not brought 

 out when rapid plates were used. 



Prof. Fenyi gives a list of 9 prominences whose 

 heights were over 30", one amounting to 103". 



Prof. Deslandres discovered 15 new coronal 

 and chromospherical lines. 



Mr. Taylor, in Brazil, where totality lasted four 

 minutes forty-two seconds, had during this crit- 

 ical period a clear sky, though for ten minutes 

 both before and after totality the sky was over- 

 cast. He secured several photographs of the 

 sun's surroundings which reveal a great amount 

 of detail especially in the lower part of the co- 

 rona. Some of the streamers extended two di- 

 ameters at least from the sun's limb, the longest 

 being at the sun's north pole. The longest ex- 

 posure was of one hundred and fifty seconds, but 

 it failed to reveal any greater extension of the 

 streamers than did those of fifty seconds. The 

 sky-fogging of the plats in long exposures pre- 

 vents any gain over those of shorter exposures. 



Meteoric Showers. In various parts of 

 America a star shower of unusual brilliancy was 

 observed on Nov. 23, 1892. Such a shower was 

 expected, though not until the evening of the 

 27th, that being the date of the meteoric shower 

 connected with the lost comet of Biela, which 

 shower occurs once in six or seven years, having 

 been first seen in 1872, and again in 1885. When, 

 therefore, it took place four days earlier than the 

 predicted time, the question arose whether those 

 seen were really Biela meteors. 



Says Prof. Charles A. Young : " The heliocen- 

 tric longitude of the descending node of Biela's 

 comet at its last visible appearance in 1852 was 

 about 62, and was also the longitude of the 

 earth, and was also the same at the times of the 

 meteoric showers of 1872 and 1885. This fact 

 suggests the inquiry whether perturbations since 

 will fairly account for such a recession of the 

 node. It is obvious that if the meteoric swarms 

 encountered by the earth in 1872 and 1885 were 

 really moving in the orbit of Biela's comet, then 

 the swarm encountered on Nov. 23 last, seven 

 years later, must have been an entirely different 

 one, unless, indeed, the perturbations since 1885 

 can account for a retardation of nearly five 

 months." 



On the other hand, Prof. Newton does not 

 think the five months alluded to are at all sig- 

 nificant, as he believes the length of the swarm 

 to be 500,000,000 miles along the comet's path, 

 and that the passage of the earth through, it in 

 a different place at each encounter, sometimes 

 through its central portion and then again near 

 its ends, will account for the irregularity of its 

 appearance. 



The display, while not comparable to that of 

 1885 as witnessed on the eastern continent, was 

 fine. One observer in New York counted over 

 200 meteors in forty minutes, the radiant being 

 near Gamma Andromeda. At Princeton, at 8.30 

 o'clock, an observer counted 6 a minute; at 10 

 p. M. two observers, standing back to back, saw 

 104 in five minutes ; and at 11 o'clock the same 

 observers, in like manner, counted 100 in four 

 minutes and a half. 



Geminid Shower, 1892, Dec. 12. The ra- 

 diant of this shower is about 4^ east of Castor 

 and Pollux, and appears to be double, the two 



