June 13. 1889] 



NATURE 



i6^ 



At Greenwich on June 16 



Sun rises, 3h. 44m. ; souths, I2h. om. 26-55. ; daily increase 

 of southing, i2-8s. ; sets, 2oh. 17m.: right asc. on meridian, 

 5h. 40*2m. ; decl. 23° 22' N. Sidereal Time at Sunset, 

 I3h. 58m. 



Moon (at Last Quarter on June 20, 8h.) rises, 22h. 31m.* ; 

 souths, 2h. 35m. ; sets, 6h. 44m, : right asc. on meridian, 



2oh. 13 •2m. ; decL 21° 39' S. 



Right asc. and declination 



Planet. Rises. Souths. Sets. on meridian. 



h. m. h. m. h. m. h. m. „ 1 



Mercury.. 4 25 ... 12 20 .. 20 15 ... S 598 ... 20 14 N. 



Venus ... I 55 ... 9 4 •• 16 13 ... 2 437 ... 12 45 N. 



.Mars ... 3 41 .. 12 2 ... 20 23 ... 5 42-1 ... 24 4N. 



Jupiter ... 20 47*... o 42 ... 4 37 ... 8 19-6 ... 23 11 S. 



Saturn... 8 5 ... 15 38 ... 23 11 ... 9 i8-i ... 16 55 N 



Uranus... 13 55 ... 19 26 ... o 57*... 13 7*0 ... 6 27 S. 



Neptune.. 2 37 .. 10 25 ... 18 13 ... 4 47 ... 19 n N. 



• Indicates that the rising is that of the preceding evening and the setting 

 ih.-it of the following morning. 



June. h. 



iS ... 2 ... Mars in conjunction with the Sun. 

 ly ... II ... Mercury in inferior conjunction with the Sun. 

 21 ... 6 ... Sun at greatest declination north; longest 

 day in northern latitudes. 



Variable Stars. 

 Star. R.A. Decl. 



h. m. o / ^- •"• 



U Cephei o 52-5 ... 81 17 N. ... June 19, 22 47 m 



V Bootis 14 25-3 ... 39 21 N. ... ,, 16, m 



8 Librae 14 55"i ••• » 5 S. ... ,, 17,21 15 *« 



V Ophiuchi 16 20-6... 12 10 S. ... ,, 16, M 



U Ophiuchi 17 10-9... i 20 N , 17, o 53 »» 



and at intervals of 20 8 



X Sagittarii 17 40-6 .. 27 47 S. ... June 16, 22 o M 



,, 21, I o m 



W Sagittarii ... 17 57-9 ... 29 35 S , 19, o o w 



V Sagittarii 18 I4"9 ••• 18 55 S. ... „ 18, i o m 



TSerpentis 18 23-4... 6 14 N , 22, M 



R Scuti 1841-6... 5 50 S. ... „ 18, m 



17 Aquilae 1946-8... o 43 N. ... ,, 21, 20m 



T Vulpeculse ... 20 46*8 ... 27 50 N , 20, 22 o tn 



,, 22, o o M 

 8 Cephei 22 25-1 ... 57 51 N. ... „ 17, 2 oM 



M signifies maximum ; m nunimum. 



Meteor- Showers 

 R.A. Decl. 



Near )8 Ursse Majoris 

 From Vulpeculse ... 

 Near e Cephei 



170 

 285 

 335 



55 N. 

 23 N. 



57 N. 



Rather slow. 

 Swift. 



GEOGRAPHICAL NOTES. 



SlG. GiULio BoRELLi writes from Cairo to the May number 

 of the Italian Geographical Bollettino, on the outflow of the 

 River Omo, in connection with Count Teleki's recent dis- 

 covery of Lake Rudolf (Samburu). Combining the data sup- 

 plied by this explorer and his comrade, Lieutenant Hoenel, 

 with his own observations further north, he finds that the Omo 

 IS a tributary neither of the White Nile nor of the Juba, as 

 hitherto supposed, but almost certainly flows south to Lake 

 Rudolf. But at its confluence with the Gojieb, south of Shoa, 

 the Omo flows at an aliitute of 11 00 metres, about the same or 

 very little more than that of Victoria Nyanza ; and as beyond 

 the confluence it has still a very long and rapid course, it fol- 

 lows that it cannot be a tributary of the great equatorial lake. 

 Lake Rudolf stands at an elevation of about 550 metres, showing 

 a fall of over 500 metres from the Gojieb confluence in a space 

 of four degrees of latitude. Hence this basin, with its Omo 

 feeder, can have no connection with the Nile, and, as asserted 

 by its discoverers, is in fact a flooded depression without any 

 outlet. Thus would appear to be solved one of the last hydro- 

 graphical problems on the African continent. 



At the last meeting of the Russian Geographical Society it 

 was definitely announced that the Society had decided to take 

 part in the Geographical Congress which is to be held at Paris 

 luring the Exhibition. At the same meeting, Colonel Nadaroflf 



communicated some interesting facts about the South UsurJ 

 region. It appears that the level of the great Lake Khangka, at 

 the sources of the Usuri, has fallen to a considerable extent 

 since the Russian occupation of the country thirty years ago. 

 Even a hasty glance over the region of the Lower Amur and 

 its tributaries, surrounded by numberless lakes, shows that the 

 river-beds of the region belong to what Peschel described as 

 " young rivers " — that is, rivers which have not yet completed 

 the excavation of definite beds. It is natural, therefore, to sup- 

 pose that the lakes which surround the Lower Amur must by and 

 by be emptied into the channel of the great river, and thus 

 in the meantime gradually diminish in size. M. Nadaroff"'s 

 statement tends to confirm this view, and adds new facts in. 

 support of the theory of the rapid desiccation of Northern Asia. 

 At the meeting of the Physical Section of the Russian Geo- 

 graphical Society on May 10, General Tillo made a communica- 

 tion about his remarkable hypsometrical map of European 

 Russia, for which he has collected all available data obtained 

 by levellings for the building of railways and along Russian 

 rivers, as well as for the draining of marshes, together with data 

 furnished by the trigonometrical survey of Russia and by- 

 individual explorers. 



I 



THE PRIORITY OF CHINESE INVENTIONS. 



A WRITER in the Noi'th China iTira/i/ of Shanghai, referring 

 '^~*" to the Chinese claims to have originated many modern 

 Western scientific inventions, says that Chinese patriotism has 

 exhibited itself in an ardent desire to claim priority over 

 Europeans in this respect. They are a very ingenious people, 

 and, in past times having invented many valuable implements, it 

 has always seemed to them a fair hypothesis that as every 

 machine is an improvement on something that preceded it, the 

 machinery and telescopes of the West may have originated at 

 first in something Chinese. Yuen-yuen, a former Governor- 

 General of Canton, in his " History of Astronomers," written 

 at the beginning of this century, again prominently brought 

 forward the idea that European mathematics came from China, 

 and many subsequent writers have made the same claim. Not 

 only is this the case in mathematics, but the Chinese say that 

 our telescopes, steam-engines, firearms, and cannons are owing 

 to them. Ever since China first saw steamers, fifty years ago, 

 and since she came to know of the existence of European mathe- 

 matics three hundred years ago, she has, from time to time, with 

 more or less eagerness shown herself bent on claiming that the 

 knowledge and skill shown in the West began in the first place 

 with China. Mei-wen-ting, a great Chinese scholar, who died 

 at an advanced age in the year 1722, after considering the whole 

 question from the Chinese point of view, came to the conclusion 

 that Europeans had got their mathematics and science from 

 China. Amongst other reasons for this belief he states that in 

 the " Chon-pi," a mathematical work of about B.C. iioo, 

 although not expressly stated, the rotundity of the earth is im- 

 plied. In the same book are to be found, he says, the properties 

 of a right-angled triangle, as, for instance, that the square of the 

 hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two 

 sides. Since this is a fundamental problem, Mei-wen-ting 

 claims that Western geometrical and trigonometrical knowledge 

 is due to China. He accounts for the spread of Chinese astro- 

 nomy to us by the scattering of the schools of astronomy in 

 China, which, according to Szu-ma-chien, an historian who wrote 

 a century before the Christian era, took place about B.C. 760. 

 The fugitive astronomers, flying from the tyranny of the early 

 Chow dynasty, diffused Chinese learning amongst the barbarians. 

 Similarly in other matters the Chinese claim that the metaphysics 

 of Indian Buddhism are due to the journey of Lao-tse to the 

 West. The writer concludes his interesting discussion as 

 follows : — " We need not trouble ourselves much respecting the 

 Chinese claim to have originated Western science : they only 

 claim to have started the preliminary ideas. As to the Chinese 

 having always had enlightened views on many scientific and 

 political subjects, we may frankly admit it. They speak 2200 

 years ago of concave and convex mirrors being able to magnify 

 objects. Four thousand years ago they had instruments for 

 observing the stars. In the year a.d. 1122 they made use of 

 the magnet pointing to the south on board ship to guide the 

 vessel on her course. With the proviso that they may have 

 derived some of their early knowledge in these things and in 

 others, such as the manufacture of fireworks, from foreign 



