ASTRONOMICAL PROGRESS IN 1898. 



55 



disturbances by the Sun. Among these arc the Leo- 

 nids, (juadrantids, Geminids, and Aquarids. The 

 Orionids owe their origin to the perturbations set up 

 by Jupiter, while the Lyrids are due to Saturn. 



Messrs. Schaeberle and Colton have succeeded in 

 getting the parallax of a meteor, and if this is cor- 

 rect, its height above the earth is easy of computa- 

 tion. They made the parallax 9.09', and the height 

 of the middle of its path above the Earth 99 miles. 



During the Jan. 1st. 1898. shower one observer 

 counted in six hours 109 Quadrantids and 21 others. 

 From observations reported from various places, the 

 usual number were seen belonging to the various 

 showers above named, all going to show that we have 

 many things to learn about them before meteoric 

 astronomy can become an exact science. 



Mr. Denning, of England, who is our best author- 

 ity on meteoric astronomy, urges the value of ob- 

 servations of the real paths of meteors and fireballs 

 in supplying data for the after comparison, especially 

 in tracing their identity with individual meteors of 

 former years. Thus he points out that a brilliant 

 meteor radiating from the constellation Auriga in 

 1896, Sept. 10, came from the same stream that gave 

 the fireball of 1866, Sept. 6, and 1867, Sept. 8, and 

 that all three are identical with the showers of 1870, 

 Aug. 29, 1885, Sept. 12 and 15, and 1879, Sept. 15-161 

 He cites one or two cases where meteors became 

 visible at great heights. The greatest instance was 

 that of a small Perseid on Aug. 15, 1893, which at 

 its first appearance was 126 miles above the Earth. 

 On or about Nov. 23, 1898, or 1899, the meteors con- 

 nected with Biela's cornet, which radiate from An- 

 dromeda, may be expected. They made splendid 

 displays in 1872 and 1885. But the most important 

 of all the 50 star showers is the Leonids of Nov. 

 14-15. Its history can be traced nearly one thousand 

 years. A singular feature of it is that a telescopic 

 comet (Tempel's) revolves around the Sun in the 

 same orbit, and to this comet the meteors owe their 

 parentage. It was discovered Jan. 1, 1866, and will 

 probably be reobserved in the spring of 1899. 



Double Stars. The discovery of double stars is 

 progressing at a rate unprecedented, which is con- 

 firmatory of the supposition of many, that when 

 larger and more powerful telescopes are made, and 

 more observers are engaged in the fascinating work, 

 more stars will be found to be double, triple, and 

 multiple than were deemed probable in the days of 

 the Herschels, who were pioneers in the work. In 

 Gould's " Astronomical Journal," now edited by Dr. 

 S. C. Chandler at Cambridge, Mass., in Nos. 431 and 

 432, 1898, is a surprisingly long list of new double 

 stars discovered at the Lowell Observatory, at Mex- 

 ico, and at Flagstaff. Arizona, by Dr. T. J. J. See. 

 It fills 32 three-column pages of the " Jour- 

 nal." It contains the places for Jan. 1, 1900 A. D., 

 their magnitudes, distances apart, and other im- 

 portant data, of 500 members, all southern stars. 

 Many are very interesting for various reasons, 

 especially from their brightness and excessive 

 closeness. Many are considered binaries. The 

 number of double stars now known, reckoning only 

 those that are sufficiently close to be eventually 

 proved binaries, amount to several thousand, and 

 still there is a daily addition to the number, for 

 there are many enthusiastic workers in the field. 

 Dr. See, in " Astronomische Nachrichten," Nos. 

 3495, 3496, has published a list of double stars that he 

 has measured, some of which he has discovered. In 

 many cases his measures are the first that have been 

 made and published. In prosecuting the work 

 more than 10,000 stars were examined, and more 

 than 1,000 double, triple, and multiple stars were 

 measured. 



Dr. See has been observing the binary stars Burn- 

 ham 883, Sinus, and Procyon. The distance of the 



components of $ 883 arc only about one quarter of 

 a second of arc. During the past year the angle 

 of motion has not changed more than 6. yet 

 between 1894 and 1895 the arc moved over was 

 25, which indicates a long radius vector. He 

 thinks that in about another year the distance 

 between them will be greatly diminished, and 

 then the angular motion will become very rapid. 

 He makes the distance between the components of 

 Sirius, the dog star, 4.86", and the motion accords 

 with that theoretically ascribed for it years before it 

 was optically discovered to be double by Alvan G. 

 Clark in 1862. Its period is fifty-two years. 



Procyon, like Sirius, was theoretically known to be 

 a double star by its perturbations, caused by a com- 

 ponent which no one could see, though it was long 

 searched for, until three years ago, when Prof. 

 Schaeberle, with the 36-inch telescope at the Lick 

 Observatory, discovered it. Its distance from the 

 large star is now 4.78", and it has an annual 

 orbital motion of 6. It is of the thirteenth mag- 

 nitude. The companion has been observed at the 

 Greenwich Observatory on three nights. It was 

 noticed that its appearance was unlike the com- 

 panion of Sirius; for while the wire of the microm- 

 eter totally eclipsed the companion of Sirius, that 

 of Procyon was seen on both sides of the wire. 

 Perhaps the companion is a nebulous star. 



Gamma Leonis is one of the most beautiful double 

 stars in the heavens. It has always been considered 

 a long-period binary. Prof. S. W. Burnham has 

 collected all the best available angular positions 

 since its discovery by Sir William Herschel in 1782. 

 In 1824 Sir John Herschel said : " There can be no 

 doubt of the motion of Gamma Leonis, though it is 

 probably less rapid than supposed by Sir William 

 Herschel." Prof. Burnham, who is authority second 

 to none on binary stars, has lately arrived at the 

 conclusion that the motion observed by different 

 astronomers is rectilinear instead of orbital. 



On pages 220 and 221 in " Monthly Notices of the 

 Royal Astronomical Society" is a list of several 

 hundred double stars, by all the principal observers, 

 including the computation of the periods of six 

 orbits, as follow : 



Only three known telescopic binaries exceed 82 

 Ceti in the shortness of their periods. They are 

 Burnham 883, Chi Pegasi, and Delta Equelei,"with 

 periods of 5.5, 11.42, and 11.45 years respectively. 



Three classes of binary stars have been discovered 

 by the spectroscope, viz. : 1. Bright stars with rela- 

 tively dark companions, the plane of whose orbits is 

 so inclined that one periodically eclipses the other, 

 of which Algol is a distinguished example. 2. Bright 

 stars with relatively dark companions, whose orbits 

 are so inclined that they never occult each other. 

 3. A system of two or more bright stars. Those be- 

 longing to the first class are called Algol stars, one 

 component only being visible with the telescope or 

 the naked eye. Of the Algol type, 16 are now 

 known, some of which have two minima, caused 

 undoubtedly by eclipses of the brighter and the 

 fainter component alternately. An inequality in 

 the period of some seems to indicate that the star 

 is triple, one bright and the other two dark. 



To the second class belong Spica and Pollux, 

 which show by the shifting of the lines in their 



