November 17, 19 10] 



NATURE 



87 



burg. Photographs of a bridge and several large roofs 

 constructed under Hetzer's system are included in the 

 article. 



One of the chapters in the latest volume of '* The Cam- 

 bridge Modern History " (to be published on December 8), 

 dealing with " The Scientific Age," is written by Mr. 

 W. C. D. Whetham, F.R.S., who has undertaken the 

 important and difficult task of surveying the trend of 

 modern science in all its various departments. In this 

 chapter will be found considerations of the Darwinian 

 hypothesis, of evolution and religion, of electrical inven- 

 tion, of bacteriological treatment of disease, and other 

 phases of modern scientific progress. 



The October issue of The Central, the organ of the 

 Old Students' Association of the City and Guilds of 

 London Central Technical College, maintains the high 

 standard previously reached by this periodical. The 

 number is well illustrated, the frontispiece being an excel- 

 lently reproduced portrait of Prof. W. J. Pope, F.R.S. 

 Among articles contained in this issue may be mentioned 

 hose by Mr. H. Clififord Armstrong on steel making; 

 -Messrs. W. Gore and D. Halton Thomson on rainfall, 

 <team-flow, evaporation, and reservoir capacity ; Mr. 

 Howard Mayes on boiler management ; and Mr. .A. G. T, 

 Glaisby on birds and photography. 



OUR ASTRONOMICAL COLUMN. 

 Discovery of a Comet. — A telegram from the Kiel 

 Centralstelle announces the discovery of a new comet by 

 Dr. Cerulli on November 9. Its position at 8h. 2oSm'. 

 I Rome M.T.) was R.A.=3h. 38m. 36s., dec. =8° 43' 20' 

 v., and its daily motion amounted to —8s., - iq'. The 

 nagnitude is given as 102, and the comet's position lavs 

 about half-way between, but slightly below the line join- 

 ing, ( and X Tauri. 



Metcalf's Comet (1910b).— Dr. Ebell publishes a con- 

 tinuation of his ephemeris for comet 1910b in No. 44^2 

 f the Astronomische Nachrichten. This ephemeris 

 overs the period November 13 to January 4, and shows 

 :hat the comet is now moving slowlv, in a north-easterly 

 direction, through Serpens towards Corona ; on December 8 

 it will be about ^° north of 5 Coronae, and of the twelfth 

 magnitude. 



Recev-t Fireballs.— .\ large number of fireballs have 

 been observed during the last few weeks. The records of 

 their appearance are not, however, sufficientlv full and 

 accurate to enable their real paths to be computed except 

 in the cases where the objects were seen bv capable 

 observers. 



The majority of the brilliant meteors have evidently 

 belonged to a shower of Taurids, which is often very 

 active in the first half of November, and is notable for 

 the magnitude and conspicuous aspect of its members. 



.At loh. 24m.. November 9, one of the most interesting 

 of the fine meteors recently seen was not a Taurid, but 

 directed from a radiant at 312°+ 11° in the western skv. 

 It passed from over a point east of Yeovil to west of 

 Horsham at heights of 62 to 32 miles. The motion was 

 unusually slow, viz. about 12 miles per second. The 

 meteor sailed through the air in an apparently serpentine 

 course, its sluggish, wriggling flight being specially noticed 

 by observers at Bristol and other places, who mention it 

 as quite an exceptional feature. There is no known 

 shower at 312°+ 11° in November, but on November 2, 

 i8qi. Mr. Denning recorded a brilliant meteor close to its 

 radiant, estimated at 311°+ xi°. 



Solar Activity and Terrestrial Temperatures. — An 

 important paper on the effect of solar changes on terres- 

 trial temperatures is published by Mr. W. J. Humphreys 

 in No. 2, vol. xxxii., of the Astrophysical Journal. 



Mr. Humphreys accepts the interrelation of magnetic, 

 and auroral, disturbances and sun-spot changes as estab- 

 lished, and points out that terrestrial temperatures and 

 NO. 2142, VOL. 85] 



rainfall are observed with sufficient accuracy to justify an 

 e.xamination of their relation to solar activity. Further, 

 he considers rainfall dependent upon temperature, which is 

 more accurately measurable, and so considers only the 

 latter. 



Taking Abbot and Fowle's conclusion that sun-spot 

 maxima are accompanied by terrestrial temperature 

 minima, and vice versa, the average range being 1° C, 

 he points out the practical importance of a fuller know- 

 ledge of the nexus between these phenomena. 



His conclusions, stated briefly, are that at spot maxima 

 the solar atmosphere is more fully charged with " dust " 

 (i.e. any particles capable of reflecting and scattering 

 light), and therefore, owing to selective absorption, the 

 proportion of ultra-violet radiations finally escaping will be 

 diminished. Ultra-violet radiations acting on cold, dry 

 oxygen, such as exists in the earth's upper atmosphere, 

 produce ozone, therefore at spot maxima the amount of 

 ozone will be less. 



Further, it has been shown that ozone absorbs a much 

 greater proportion of the earth-reflected radiations than of 

 the incident solar radiations. Thus at spot maxima, with 

 less ozone, more heat will escape, and a lower tempera- 

 ture ensue ; the converse explains the observed rise of 

 temperature at spot minima. 



This process is complicated by many factors, such as the 

 increase of ozone-producing aurorae at spot maxima, but 

 Mr. Humphreys suggests that the observed change in 

 terrestrial temperatures may depend largely, if not wholly, 

 upon the selective absorption of the direct solar and the 

 terrestrially reflected thermal radiations by the changeable 

 amount of ozone in our upper atmosphere. 



Stars having Peculiar Spectra, and New Variable 

 Stars. — Circulars 158 and 159 of the Harvard College 

 Observatory contains lists of newly discovered variable stars 

 and stars having peculiar spectra. In No. 158 thirty-eight 

 new variables, chiefly discovered by Mrs. Fleming, are 

 tabulated, and there is also a list giving the positions, 

 magnitudes, &c., of nineteen stars of which the spectra 

 exhibit various peculiarities. Ten of these are of type vi.. 

 three are of type v. with bright lines, four are gaseous 

 nebulae, and in the remaining two Hj8 is bright. In the 

 spectrum of the ninth-magnitude star DM. — 14° 5265 thf» 

 bright line appears to be of slightly greater wave-length 

 than H/8. but is not the 5007 nebula line, and on a Liter 

 photograph there is a trace of a bright line on the less 

 refrangible edge of the dark H/3 ; it is suggested that in 

 this spectrum the bright line mav be variable. 



No. 159 contains a list of fifteen new variables dis- 

 covered on Nos. 7. 10. 16, and 10 of the Harvard Map, 

 and the usual analytical table shows that osi of the 

 probable variables on map 19 yet remain to be discovered. 

 It is also stated that the very red star +46° 1817 appar- 

 ently varies very irregularly. 



The Discovery of Neptune.— No. 19^4 of La Nature 

 contains the complete text of the letter in which Leverrier 

 sent to Dr. Galle the results which led to the visual dis- 

 covery of Neptune. It is stated that the first time the 

 whole of this historic document has been published is in a 

 recent article by Dr. See in Popular Astronomy, and it is 

 suggested that the proper place for the original would be 

 in the museum of the Paris Observatory. 



Variable Stars in the Orion Nebula. — No. 4451 of 

 the Astronomische Nachrichten contains a list of eleven 

 more stars, in the nebula of Orion, which are apparently 

 variable. The number of known variables in this nebula 

 now amounts to 1^6. 



T//E BANQUET TO JUBILEE PAST-PRESI- 

 DENTS OF THE CHEMICAL SOCIETY. 



'T'HE council and fellows of the Chemical Society 

 ■*■ honoured five of their past-presidents who had com- 

 pleted their jubilee as fellows by entertaining them at a 

 banquet at the Savoy Hotel on Friday, November 11. A 

 large gathering numbering 250, including the Duke of 

 Northumberland, the Postmaster-General, the presidents of 

 the French and German Chemical Societies, and no fewer 

 than eleven past-presidents, was presided over by Prof. 

 Harold B. Dixon, F.R.S., the president. 



