86 



NA rURE 



\_Nov. 23, 1876 



original investigator endowed with an extraordinary capa- 

 city for work. In these respects meteorology is perhaps 

 the sternest of the sciences in exacting from those of its 

 votaries who make any permanent contribution to its 

 literature not only keen scientific insight, but also courage 

 to encounter for years, if need be, the constant drudgery 

 of calculations before the end sought can be attained. 



That Dr. Jelinek published scarcely any important work 

 on meteorology from 1850 to 1865 need excite no surprise 

 if we keep in view the great and important works on 

 Austrian meteorology which appeared in quick succession 

 from his pen between the years 1865 and 1870. The 

 papers here referred to, about ten in number, several being 

 really voluminous productions, are all of them rich in 

 well-digested tabular matter, which, in relation to the 

 subjects discussed, is of the most satisfying character. 

 The paper on the five-day mean temperatures at Austrian 

 stations from 1848 to 1863 contains 130 closely-printed 

 quarto pages of rabies. Among the subjects discussed in 

 these papers are the mean annual and monthly distribu- 

 tion of atmospheric pressure and thunderstorms, and the 

 annual, monthly, five-day, daily, and hourly distribution 

 of temperature over the Austrian Empire ; the tempera- 

 ture of Vienna for the ninety years from 1775 to 1864 

 thus supplying data calculated to throw light on not a 

 few cosmical questions ; the cold weather which occurs 

 in May, and the storms of November and December, 

 1866. An important result of this work is that over the 

 whole of Austria a closely approximate statement can be 

 given as to how far the temperature as observed at any 

 hour of any day of the year is above or below the average. 

 In addition to the above, he wrote his admirable and 

 well-known " Anleitung zu Meteorologischer Beobach- 

 tungen," which has already in the present year reached 

 its third edition, and in 1866 established and edited, 

 jointly with Dr. Hann, the Journal of the Austrian 

 Meteorological Society, which is published fortnightly, 

 and which, from its liberal and catholic spirit, and the 

 position in science it has attained, stands alone among 

 meteorological publications. In 1865 he succeeded in 

 introducing telegraphic weather reports in Austria. Dr. 

 Jelinek was also Secretary of the Meteorological Society 

 of Austria, and the important services he rendered in 

 connection with the Meteorological Congresses at Leipsig 

 and Vienna are well known. 



Thus the Austrian Meteorological Institute, under Dr. 

 Jelinek's management, has not merely made observations 

 and published results, but it has also discharged the 

 functions of a discussing body of a high order. The 

 domain of meteorology in which Dr. Jelinek takes the 

 highest position is that which is concerned with the dis- 

 cussion of averages, taking the term in its widest signifi- 

 cance. It is here where his scientific insight appears to 

 the best advantage. We may refer in illustration to the 

 judicious use he makes of the method of differentiation in 

 the discussion of such problems as the normal atmo- 

 spheric pressure in Austria during the months of the 

 year. He does not commit the mistake of taking different 

 terms of years for different places, according as observa- 

 tions at each place were available, but by the application 

 of the method of differentiation he practically takes the 

 same terms of months and years for all places. In all 

 his writings there is evinced the greatest care to avoid 

 giving expression to any view or speculation unless he 

 had taken the trouble of collecting together all available 

 information that lay in his power bearing on the point in 

 question. 



He died, after a lingering illness, on October 19, being 

 thus prematurely cut off at the comparatively early age of 

 fifty-four — a man of singularly noble and spotless cha- 

 racter, ever on the alert, if we may use the expression, to 

 discover and recognise real work wherever it appeared, 

 and ever ready to offer his help to workers in science, 

 even though he could do so only at the expense of much 



personal trouble and fatigue. His beneficence was cha- 

 racteristic of the man, being absolutely without ostenta- 

 tion, and his kindly acts were performed as if his left 

 hand knew not what his right was doing. 



OUR ASTRONOMICAL COLUMN 

 The Distances of the Stars. — We shall here endeavour 

 to present at one view the most reliable results of investigations 

 relating to stellar parallax up to the present time. In making 

 the selection parallaxes less than a tenth of a second of arc are 

 omitted except in the case of the pole-star, for which independent 

 researches have given values closely approximating to this amount. 

 In estimating the " light-years," we adopt Struve's determination 

 of the time occupied by light in traversing the mean distance of 

 the earth from the sun, viz., 8m. 17 783. (According to Leverrier's 

 last value for the solar parallax, and Clarke's diameter of the 

 earth's equator, this would assign for the velocity of light, 185,360 

 miles per second, at which rate of travelling it would arrive at 

 the planet Neptune in 4h. lom., or the breadth of the planetary 

 spaces as at present known would be traversed in less than 8| 

 hours.) By "light-years" is of course to be understood the 

 interval which light would require to pass from the star to the 

 earth at the distances respectively assigned. 



The authorities are, for a Centauri, Henderson's value as cor« 

 rected by Peters, and that of Moesta, the mean ; for 61 Cygni, 

 Auwer's mean of his own result and that of Otto Struve ; Lalande 

 21 185, Winnecke; |3 Centauri, Sir Thomas Maclear; /x Cassiopeae, 

 Otto Struve ; Groombridge 34, Auwers ; Capella, Otto Struve ; 

 Lalande 21258, Kriiger ; Oeltzen 17415, Kriiger ; a Draconis, 

 Biiinnow ; Sirius, Gylden from Maclear's observations at the 

 Cape of Good Hope ; a Lyrse, Briinnow's mean ; 70 Opbiuchi, 

 Kriiger ; i\ Cassiopeae, Otto Struve ; Procyon, Auwers ; Groom- 

 bridge 1830, a mean of results of Briinnow, Schliiter, Wichmann, 

 and Otto Struve; and for Polaris, Peters. 



In the third column is given the distance of the star from the 

 earth, in mean distances of the earth from the sun, as is usual ; 

 it will be seen how greatly the alteration, even of a single unit in 

 the last decimal place of the annual parallax in the preceding 

 column, affects these numbers. 



So far as our present knowledge extends, light, travelling at 

 upwards of 185,000 miles per second requires 3i years to pass 

 from the nearest fixed star? to the earth, and it does not reach us 

 from our well-known northern polar _star in less than thirty-five 

 years. 



The Total Solar Eclipses of 1239, June 3, and 1241, 

 October 6. — Prof. Celoria has published an important memoir 

 on these eclipses, in the Transactions ot the Royal Institute of 

 Sciences at Milan, vol. xiii. He refers to a note in Nature, 

 vol. xii., p. 167, in which, when remarking on his first compu- 



