i66 



NATURE 



{Dec. 21, 1876 



in ; the few boxes I have are filled with earth and living 

 plan's. My ethnological collections are very extensive 

 indeed ; I have literally cleared all the houses, and I 

 have the best collection of the stone implements of New 

 Guinea ever seen, of every kind and description. I have 

 also the ornaments used when dancing and when engaged 

 in war, paddles for their canoes, &c., &c. I procured 

 dresses of various patterns, some petticoats made of 

 human hair, others of grass, both of the natural colour 

 and dyed ; stone implements, finished and unfinished ; 

 painted and carved skulls, stuffed human heads, arrows 

 pointed with bone, artistically worked, and the cement 

 used in fixing the points. I am very anxious to show 

 you everything, and see your surprise at the beauty of 

 my collection, as you can so well appreciate it. I hope 

 my plan of the Fly River will be correct. I have noted 

 mile by mile, and every day I landed I recorded the 

 nature of the soil, &c. I hope the Government, Com- 

 mittee, and subscribers to the Expedition will be satisfied 

 with the confidence they placed in me, and, more so, 

 when I have time to publish my notes in extenso. I have 

 investigated science in all its various branches, more 

 especially anthropology. The presence of the great bird 

 of paradise {Paradisea apoda, Linn.) in the centre of 

 New Guinea, but at the same time in almost the 

 same latitude as Am Island, is of the greatest im- 

 portance after what Lesson has asserted, and which 

 has been denied by Wallace. I have got specimens 

 in every stage of plumage, and of both sexes, and I have 

 no doubt it is the P. apoda, and not the P. papuana. It 

 is, nevertheless, much smaller than all the specimens I 

 have seen in the British Museum, and in the collections of 

 Mr. Beccari and Mr. Cockerell, and if with this distinction, 

 when compared, any other difference may be perceptible, 

 then it will probably prove to be a new species. For the 

 present I believe it to be the Paradisea apoda. I have 

 t-vo beautiful male birds in full plumage, and also of the 

 P. 7'ai>giana. 1 hope the Committee will be pleased with 

 the short report I have sent, but at the same time must ask 

 them to suspend their judgment of all that I have done until 

 they receive a more extended and minuter account of the 

 expedition from me." [Mr. D'Albertis concludes his letter 

 with a few lines addressed to Mrs. Bennett, in which he 

 says] : " I am in good health and spirits, and remember 

 your kindness, for I bought bananas, when I was starving, 

 with the red worsted ribbons adorned with pearl shells you 

 gave me to traffic with the natives. I also enjoyed the 

 large plum cake for a month, and finished it in the true 

 centre of New Guinea, and wished I had another. The 

 flag was the admiration of the natives of Moatta, and I 

 bore in remembrance the ladies v/ho presented it to me." 



P. L. S. 



OUR ASTRONOMICAL COLUMN 



The New Star in Cygnus. — It is stated by Prof. Littrow 

 {Bulletin International, December 12) that this star, which on 

 December I appeared of about the same brightness as at the time 

 of discovery on November 24, was of the fourth magnitude on 

 December 2, and two days later had descended to the fifth. 



Comparisons with neighbouring stars, using the magnitudes of 

 the "Durchmuster ng '' on December 13, showed that the 

 estimate we gave last week was somewhat too low, being doubt- 

 less influenced hy the unfavourable conditions on the previous 

 night ; the star was found to be 5 "8 — 6"0, but as before, without 

 trace of colour. 



The following position for 1876 "o will be rather closer than the 

 one given last week, R. A. 2ih. 36m. 5o*4is., N.P.D. 47°43'2i"-5, 

 to which correspond annual precession in R.A. + 2 '36 is., in 

 N.P.D. - 1 6" "27. We give M. Cornu's spectroscopic results 

 in another column. 



Remarkable Star Spectrum.— D'Arrest, writing in No- 

 vember, 1873, refers to- the spectrum of the star XX. 1396, of 



Weisse's second catalogue from Bessel's zone observations ; he 

 says "sein Spectrum ist das merkwUrdi^ste unter einigen 

 tausenden, die ich bislang untersucht habe," and thinks the 

 star may eventually prove to be variable. Has this object been 

 examined by any British spectroscopist ? It was observed by 

 Bessel as an eighth magnitude, October 26, 1823, and his 

 position reduced to i877'0 is in2R. A. 2oh. 43m. 24'2s. , N.P.D. 

 67'' 27' 36". 



The Minor Planet, No. 169. — This last discovered member 

 of the group of small planets which was detected at Paris on 

 September 28, has been named " Zelia." M. Leverrier's 

 Bulletin of December 12, contains ample materials for the deter- 

 mination of its orbit. 



Newcomb's Corrections to Hansen's Lunar Tables. 

 — Part III. of papers published by the United States Commis- 

 sion on the transit of Venus, just received, contains an important 

 investigation, by Prof. Newcomb, of the corrections required by 

 Hansen's lunar tables, for the purpose of rendering the lunar 

 ephemeris available for accurate determination of the longitudes 

 of stations not telegraphically connected with well-ascertained 

 positions. 



Remarking that determinations of longitudes from moon cul- 

 minations have been found by experience to be subject to con- 

 stant errors which there is difficulty in allowing for, Prof. New- 

 comb refers to its having been a part of the policy of the Ameri- 

 can Commission to depend rather upon occultations. An occulta- 

 tion of a star is a sudden phenomenon, and the time at which it 

 occurs can be fixed by observation within a small fraction of a 

 second ; wherefore, if the ephemeris of the moon is exact and her 

 figure a perfect circle, the longitude could be determined from 

 such observations with a similar degree of precision. The ine- 

 qualities of the lunar contour form a source of error that it is 

 impossible to avoid, but may be considered to be eliminated 

 from the mean of a large number of observation*, and the star's 

 position admitting of being fixed by the meridian instruments 

 with any required exactness, there remain only the errors of the 

 lunar ephemeris to be diminished as far as practicable, and it is 

 the object of Prof. Newcomb's paper to reduce these errors to a 

 minimum. 



The material principally relied upon is the series of meridian 

 observations of the moon at Greenwich and Washington from 

 1862 to 1874, but in order to verify the most striking and unex- 

 pected result of the investigation, the comparison of Hansen's 

 tables with the Greenwich observations during the twelve years 

 1847- 1858 has also been utilised. The result alluded to is the 

 irregularity in the moon's longitude represented by 



I -"50 sin (56°-8 + 1 3° -1 24 1 3/) 

 where t is reckoned in days from Greenwich mean noon of 1850, 

 January o. The period of this inequality is 27-4304 days. 



Prof. Newcomb remarks that "it would perhaps be premature 

 to introduce so purely empirical a term as this into lunar tables 

 for permanent use," but in the particular case to which his 

 researches apply, where it is requisite to obtain the corrections 

 of the tables with all possible accuracy for a limited period only, 

 he considers the evidence in favour of the existence of the 

 inequality sufficiently strong to justify its introduction. He 

 further observes that the only apparent cause for this term is 

 "the attraction of some one of the planets." 



Prof. Newcomb finds some support to a correction of the 

 tabular longitude of node, as already suggested by Hansen in 

 the Darlegung in connection with his discussion of ancient 

 eclipses. The entire corrections to the moon's longitude given 

 by his investigation are given at p. 37, supplemented by auxiliary 

 tables for facilitating the calculation of the corrections required 

 by the tables as published, the arguments in which extend from 

 1850 to 1890. 



