104 



NATURE 



\_May 23, 1878 



Right Ascension. S. Declination, 

 h. ra. s. , / 



h 2036 I 14 4 16 26 



» 3447 I 30 35 .30 31 



» 3461 I 40 I 25 39 



,. 3494 2 14 46 35 59 



» 5"3 19 17 30 29 32 



M 2904 19 47 7 24 14 



The "mean results" at the end of this publication 

 apply to upwards of 500 objects. 



tf?j,THE Reappearance of Encke's Comet.— Dr. von 

 Asten,, in an extract from the Bulletin of the St. Peters- 

 burg Academy, has circulated an ephemeris of Encke's 

 comet for the return in the present year, and it is also 

 printed in No. 2,197 of the Astroitoviische Nachrichten. 

 The elements have been perturbed to April 24, 1878, 

 taking into account the attraction of the six old planets 

 and the effect of a resisting medium. The perihelion 

 passage takes place July 26 • 1 1 59, G. M.T., and Dr. von Asten 

 especially insists upon the importance of observations in 

 the southern hemisphere after perihelion, for the improve- 

 ment of the theory, and urges that at least two complete 

 series of observations with moderately powerful instru- 

 ments should be obtained, for reasons which he states are 

 explained in a memoir now in the press. The following 

 positions are interpolated from his ephemeris for Berlin 

 noon, corresponding to 8h. 46m. mean time at Mel- 

 bourne : — 



Right Ascension. N^f^f^^olar L c>g. D istaj^ce 

 h. m. s. , / 



August I ... 9 46 o ... 79 19*8 ... o'o824 



5 ... 10 17 23 ... 83 538 ... 0-0597 



,, 9 ... 10 47 39 ... 88 28-0 ... 0*0399 



,, 13 ... II 17 24 ... 92 58-0 ... 00248 



,, 17 ... II 47 o ... 97 i8-8 ... o'oi55 



,, 21 ... 12 16 30 ... lOI 24*3 ... 0"OI23 



„ 25 ... 12 45 47 ... 105 87 ... 0-0151 



„ 29 ... 13 14 34 ... 108 27-3 ... 0-0233 



Sept. 2 ... 13 42 30 ... HI 17-4 ... 0-0359 



The elements of the orbit for April 24, 1878, are: 

 longitude of perihelion, 158° 19 41", ascending-node, 

 334° 39' 10" (M. Eq. 1878-0), inclination, 13° 6' 40", 

 eccentricity, 0-8491669, semi-axis major, 2-2ioi59i. The 

 perihelion distance is 0-33344, the aphelion distance, 

 4-08794, and the semi-minor-axis, 1-16752. The sidereal 

 period at the above date is 1200-8 days. 



NOTES 

 The funeral of the late Prof. Henry, at Washington, was an 

 imposing pageant, being attended by the President and the 

 members of the Cabinet and the Congress — the latter body 

 adjourning from respect to his memory — with a large number of 

 prominent men from all parts of the country. Prof. Spencer F. 

 Baird succeeds Prof. Henry as secretary to the Smithsonian 

 Institution. 



A MONUMENT to the late eminent physicist, Dr. Robert 

 von Mayer, -will be erected at Heilbronn, in Wurtemberg. 

 Herr Gustav Rumelin, the Chancellor of Tubingen University 

 and well-known critic of Shakespeare, will shortly publish a 

 biography of Dr. von Mayer. 



Prof. Helmholtz has nvritten to the Royal Institution to 

 obtain a_bust of Faraday, and to the French Academy of Sciences 

 for busts of Ampere and Regnault. No bust of Regnault being 

 in existence, one will be executed at the expense of the Govern- 

 ment, by M. Noel, and placed in the Hall where the Academy 

 meets. A cast will be sent to Berlin as requested. 



The honorary membership of the Geographical Society of 

 Italy, at Rome, has recently been conferred on Dr. George 

 Bennett, of Sydney,^ who is well known as a naturalist and 

 traveller, and who it seems had been exceedingly active in 



the furthering; of Signor L. 'M. d'Albertis' late expedition to 

 New Guinea. 



Prof. Ernst Haeckel has been nominated honorary mem- 

 ber of the Geographical Society of Lisbon and of the Micro- 

 scopical Society of San Francisco. 



The system of science and art education which centres at 

 South Kensington and branches to the remotest parts of the 

 kingdom, has years ago assumed the dimensions of a national 

 organisation and done more, probably, than any other means, to 

 foster a wide-spread artistic taste and a desire for scientific 

 knowledge among the people. The well- trained teachers of the 

 department are everywhere doing their humanising and elevating 

 work. This immense organisation, every one now admits, is mainly 

 due to the energy, intelligence, and foresight of one man, Sir Henry 

 Cole, who has happily survived .much that would have daunted 

 a less enthusiastic and public-spirited man — survived to receive, 

 as he did last Thursday, a well-earned and appropriate 

 honour. On that day a large number of ladies and gentle- 

 men assembled at Grosvenor House, by the permission of 

 the Duke of Westminster, for the purpose of presenting to Sir 

 Henry Cole a testimonial, the result of an effort originated 

 some years ago. The memorial was in the form of a marble 

 bust and memorial tablet in della robbia ware, containing a 

 portrait of Sir Henry in mosaic. The total amount of sub- 

 scriptions was 2,924/. 1 3 J. i^d. After paying expenses for the 

 monument, portrait,^ and bust. Sir H, Cole had already 

 received z,oix>l. The Duke of Westminster, in present- 

 ing the testimonial, bore testimony to the advantages 

 which Sir Henry Cole had conferred upon the nation in his 

 efforts to promote the development of science and art. 

 Sir Henry Cole, in acknowledgment, said his words could but 

 feebly express his hearty thanks to the princes, jieers, com- 

 moners, men of science, art, and literature, industrial producers 

 and handworkers, who had joined in this testimonial. After 

 fifty years of public life, with his health declining from the 

 constant strain of official work, he (Sir H, Cole) felt it right to 

 resign his duties. He was not idle in his leisure. His health 

 had improved, and he hoped still to do some useful public 

 work. He was trying to obtain a national recognition for 

 music, the first and most popular of all fine arts, to help 

 elementary education to become the work of the people rather 

 than of the State," and to promote improved health through, 

 out the country. The portrait in mosaic of Sir Henry is to be 

 offered to the South Kensington Museum. The marble bust will 

 be presented to his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, as pre- 

 sident of the Albert Hall, with a request that it should have a 

 suitable place in the Hall. 



A strange jubilee is proposed to be celebrated in Italy during 

 1879. bur readers know that next year 1,800 years will have 

 elapsed since the two cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum wera 

 destroyed by earthquakes and eruptions from Mount Vesuvius. 

 It is now intended to celebrate the anniversary of that year of 

 destruction, and the site of the celebration is to be at Pompeii 

 itself, as being the better known of the two buried cities. 



In the April number of the Bulletin of the Imperial Academy 

 of St. Petersburg it is stated that a clergyman named Pervou- 

 chine has proved that the number 2"" -f- i is divisible by 

 7-2^* -V I. Bouniakowsky has verified the result at the 

 request of the Academy. Hitherto the only exception known to 

 Fermat's statement, that all numbers of the form 2* -f I are 

 primes, is that of m = S where Euler showed that 641 is a 

 divisor, 



M, C. Th. Liebe {Proc. Imper. Geol. Instit., Vienna, 

 March 5, 1878) has found a considerable quantity of remains of 

 the Marmot in the Diluvium near Gera (Thuringia), indicating 



