August 29, 18S9] 



NATURE 



429 



to be aware of various dairy and other agricultural schools 

 which have been recently founded, or are now being promoted. 

 Among these may be especially mentioned the Travelling Dairy 

 School of the Bath and West of England Society. 



John Wkightson, 



" INFERNITOr 



SOME strange natural phenomena are described in a recent 

 report from the United States Consul at Maracaibo in Vene- 

 7.uela. That part of the department of Colon situated between the 

 Rivers Santa Ana and Zulia and the Sierra of the Colombian 

 frontier is very rich in asphalt and petroleum. The informa- 

 tion we have regarding this extensive and interesting region, 

 which is an uninhabited forest, is derived chiefly from the reports 

 of the searchers after balsam copaiba, which abounds ; but the 

 following data were taken from the personal observations of an 

 American gentleman who made a special exploration. Near 

 the Rio de Oro, at the foot of the Sierra, there is a very curious 

 phenomenon consisting of a horizontal cave which constantly 

 ejects thick bitumen in the form of large globules. These 

 globules explode at the mouth of the cave with a noise loud 

 enough to be heard at a considerable distance ; and the bitumen, 

 forming a slow current, falls finally into a large deposit of the 

 same substance, near the river bank. The territory bounded by 

 the Rivers Zulia and Catatumbo and the Cordillera is rich in 

 deposits and flows of asphalt and petroleum, especially towards 

 the south, where the latter is very abundant. At a distance of a 

 little more than 7 kilometres from the confluence of the Tara 

 and the Sardinete, there is a sand mound of from 25 to 30 feet 

 in height, with an area of about 8000 square feet. On its 

 surface are a multitude of cylindrical holes of different sizes, 

 which eject with violence streams of petroleum and hot water, 

 causing a noise equal to that produced by two or three steamers 

 blowing off simultaneously. For a long distance from the site 

 of this phenomenon the ground is covered or impregnated with 

 petroleum. The few explorers for copaiba who have visited 

 this place call it the " Infernito " (little hell). Among o'.her 

 things, it is stated that from one only of these streams of petro- 

 leum was filled in one minute a receptacle of the capacity of 

 four gallons. This represents 240 gallons in an hour, or 5760 

 gallons in 24 hours ; and even if this calculation be some- 

 what exaggerated, the fact remains that such a considerable 

 number of petroleum jets in constant active operation must 

 produce daily an enormous quantity. This petroleum is of 

 excellent quality, with a density of 83°, which is a sufficient 

 grade for foreign markets. Considering the immense amount 

 of inflammable gases which must be given out by the flows and 

 deposits of petroleum as described above, it may be easily 

 believed that this has a direct bearing upon the phenomenon 

 known since the conquest as the Faro of Maracaibo. This, 

 consisting of constant lightning without explosion, may be 

 observed towards the south from the bar at the entrance to 

 the lake, and Coddazzi in his geography explains it as being 

 caused by the vapours arising from the hot water swamp situated 

 about one league to the east of the mouth of the Escalante, 

 at the southern extremity of the lake. Near the mountains, and 

 not far from the River Torondoy, there are various flows of a 

 substance which seems to be distinct from either asphalt or 

 petroleum. It is a liquid of a black colour, with little density, 

 and strongly impregnated with carbonic acid, and is almost 

 identical with a substance met with in the United .States among 

 the great anthracite fields. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London, 

 Royal Society, May 2. — "On the Spectrum, Visible and 

 Photographic, of the Great Nebula in Orion." By William 

 Huggins, D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S., and Mrs. Huggins.^ 



It might be suggested that the want of coincidence observed 

 between the nebular line and the magnesium band, amounting 

 to A 0001 '9 nearly, might be due to a motion of translation of 

 the nebula towartls the earth. The motion required to produce 

 this shift of position is about sixty-seven miles in a seond. 

 [The earth's motion at the time of comparison with magnesium 

 band may be taken at nearly seventeen miles in a second of re- 

 ' Continued from p. 407. 



cession from the nebula. This motion would bring the nebular 

 line nearer the red, and diminish the apparent interval between 

 that line and the termination of the band. If the nebula has a 

 motion of approach, the earth's motion would bring the line 

 back again, to an extent corresponding to about seventeen miles 

 in a second, towards its true plane. —vl/a/ 18.] 



I showed in my paper on this subject in 1874 (Roy. Soc. 

 Proc, vol. xxii. p. 253), that, in the case of the Orion nebula 

 and six other gaseous nebula: — namely, 4234, 4373, 4390, 4447, 

 4510, 4964, of Sir J. Herschel's "General Catalogue of Ne- 

 bulae" — "in no instance was any change of relative position of 

 the nebular line and the lead line detected." We should have 

 to resort, therefore, to the overwhelmingly improbable suppo- 

 sition that all seven nebulse were approaching the earth with 

 velocities such that, having respect to the eanh's motion at the 

 different times of observation, they all gave a sensible shift 

 corresponding ;o 67 ± 15 miles in a second.^ There is little 

 doubt in my mind, therefore, from these comjjarisons, which, 

 considering the strong evidence we possessed before of the rela- 

 tive positions of the nebular line and of the magnesium line, 

 are, strictly speaking, supplementary and confirmatory evidence 

 only, that this line of the gaseous nebulx' is not produced by 

 " the remnant of the magnesium fluting." 



In the diagram on p. 134 (Roy. Soc. Proc, vol. xliii.), 

 Mr. Lockyer represents this nebular line followed by fine lines, 

 which give it the appearance of a fluting similar to that of the 

 magnesium band placed above. 1 am unable to find in the 

 paper any authority for this representation of the line. In an- 

 other place (Programme Royal Society S dree. May 9, 1888, 

 p. 12) Mr. Lockyer says : " On one occasion, at Greenwich, it 

 was recorded as a fluting in the spectrum of the nebula in 

 Orion." Mr. Maunder's words are (" Greenwich Spectroscopic 

 Results," 1884, p. 5) : " None of the lines (with two-prism train) 

 are very sharp. A. 5005 showed a faint fringe mainly on the 

 side nearer the blue." 



Mr. Maunder has recently sent a note to the Royal Astrono- 

 mical Society, in which he explains that the observation was 

 made with a second half-prism added to the half-prism spectro- 

 scope. He says : — " The three principal lines of the nebular 

 spectrum were seen as very narrow bright lines, but none of 

 them were perfectly sharp, each showed a slight raggedness at 

 both edges ; but in the case of the line near A 5005 it was clear 

 that this fringe, or raggedness, was more developed towards the 

 blue than towards the red. In the case of the other two lines, 

 they were not bright enough for it to be possible to ascertain 

 whether the fringes were symmetrical or not. But A 5005 was 

 clearly a single line. There was no trace of any bright line, or 

 series of bright hues, close to it on either side ; no trace of a 

 fluting, properly so called. The entire line, fringes and all, was 

 only a fraction of a tenth-metre in total breadth" {Monthly 

 Notices A'.A.S., vol. xlix., 1889, p. 308). [It should be 

 noticed that, with the instrumental conditions under which Mr. 

 Maunder observed, the second and third lines were not sharp, 

 but also showed fringes, — A/ay iS.] 



My own observations of this line, since my discovery of it in 

 1864, with different spectroscopes up to a dispersion equal to eight 

 prisms of 60°, show the line to become narrow as the slit is 

 made narrow, and to be sharply and perfectly defined at both 

 edges. 



' [The following observations of Orion for motion in the line of sight have 

 been made at Gretnwich : — 



1884. February 15 —About thirty-one miles approach. Note, measures 

 pnrcty tentative. 

 February 18 — About fifty-one miles approach. Note, the measures 



ate not trustworthy. 

 March 10.— Direct comparison. With neither one nor two prisms, 

 after very careful direct comparison, could any displacement be 

 detected ; the coinciden.e of the two spectra was evidently very 

 close. 

 Ma-ch 11.— Direct comparison. . . . Direct comparison with one 

 prism-train showed coincidence as complete as could be detected, 

 considering the faintness of the two spectra. . . . No part of the 

 nebula showed any marked displacement, but at a point a lit'le 

 preceding the Trapezium the pointer did not seem perfectly central 

 on the line, but a litile (perhaps one-tenth, certainly not more) 

 towards the red. 

 1887. October 25.— Si.x measures, three of which show approach, and the 

 other three recession. Note, lines in nebula faint, and bisectioas 

 very ri.ugh. 

 In a letter dated May 17. Mr. Maunder permits me to state that the mea- 

 sures and estimat.ons made in 1884 and 1887 are of no weight, but that he 

 considers the coi/i/'arisons in March 1884 to be as satisfactory as possible 

 with so Taint an object, and to show that the nebula has. very little, if any, 

 sers'ble n.otion in the line ti sight. — May 18.] 



