April 12, 1877J 



NATURE 



509 



Fig. i), and this lasted all day, with the addition at 4 P.M. 

 till 5.40 P.M. of the arc ik (being the exact copy of Fig. 4 of 

 March 20) ; at 6 p.m. there was the ordinary circle a.&, the mock 

 sun 7, and an inverted portion t]Q (Fig. 2). At 6. 10 only the 

 ordinary halo remained. 



From 8 p.m. till 9.40 p.m. (21st) there was a lunar halo with 



Fig. 4. 



an elongated mock moon ; so that a similar condition of the 

 atmosphere prevailed for thirty-eight hours. 



Whenever the circles were briliant, they were formed in a very 

 thin haze-like cloud, through which the sun or moon (in either 

 case) shone brightly. 



The weather was cold with thick ice in the morning. 



FiG. 5. 



At 8 a.m. on the 20th the sky was scattered over with thin 

 woolly cirri, indistinct in outline, and dirty-white in colour, with 

 here and there a small prominent white portion (the sky resem- 

 bling a sea with a few white wave-crests here and there). These 

 clouds moved in a south current, but at 9 A.M. the clouds were 

 again floating in a north-east current. 



The wind on the 20th was north-east, and on the 21st north. 



Fig. 6. 



Tempera- 

 lure on 

 20th. 



8 a.m. 



X P.M. 

 6 P.M. 



II p.m. 



Dry bulb. Wet bulb. 



32-3 

 41-9 



37-5 



32-8 



31*0 

 34 "o 

 34'o 

 317 



Tempera- 

 ture on 



2ISt 



8 A.M. 



I P.M. 



6 P.M. 



II P.M. 



Dry bulb. Wet bulb. 



35 'O 

 42*1 



397 

 30-0 



327 

 34 "o 

 33 '6 

 28-3 



March 22, solar halo and lunar halo. 

 >> 23, ,, ,, 



.« 27, )) >> 



28, solar halo. 



30, lunar halo. 



E. J. Lowe 



Owens College 



, "iT seems probable that the claims of Owens College to be 



[constituted into a university and degree-giving body for the north 



of England, will soon be brought before the public in a more 

 definite shape than that of newspaper correspondence. There 

 ure one or two considerations affecting the question, which do 

 not seem to me to have been brouglit forward by any of those 

 who have entered into the discussion, and I shall esteem it a 

 favour if you will allow me briefly to notice these. 



I may premise that no word in this letter is intended to derogate 

 from any claims that Owens College may advance on the ground of 

 past or prospective services to^education in the district of England 

 to which its efforts must be principally, though not entirely, con- 

 fined. It is almost impossible to over-rate those claims, but when 

 they are so put forward as to imply that Owens College is the 

 only possible centre for giving degrees in the north of England, 

 the dwellers on the banks of the Tyne, the Wear, and the Tees, 

 are apt to feel that too little account is made both of the necessi- 

 ties and of the actual educational resources of their own part of 

 the " north of England." 



In the first f)iace, a careful study of Bradshaw makes it clear 

 that, for the counties of Durham and Northumberland, and even 

 the noith-east portion of Yorkshire, a university examination or 

 college course is at least as accessible in London as at Man- 

 chester ; so that for these counties the benefits of Owens College, 

 whether as college or university, are practically on a par with 

 those of University College, London, and the degree examina- 

 tions of the University of London. 



Secondly, it is a fact, although apparently unknown to the 

 majority of those who have written on this question, that there 

 already exists in the north of England — at Durham — a university 

 with a Royal Charter for giving degrees in all faculties, and whose 

 conditions for giving those degrees combine in an admirable 

 manner the modern spirit with the strictness of the old require- 

 ments. 



This university was originally founded by the liberality of the 

 Cathedral authorities, who, with a spirit worthy of imitation 

 elsewhere, set apart certain of their own funds for the purpose 

 of giving a liberal education in arts and theology to students 

 who for various reasons could not avail themselves of the ad- 

 vantages of Oxford and Cambridge. As always happens in 

 such cases, benefactions of scholarships and fellowships have 

 accrued which have considerably increased the funds available 

 for educational purposes. 



Nor have these funds been restricted, as many might expect, 

 looking at the source from which they come, to sectarian pur- 

 poses. While most of the colleges at Oxford and Cambridge 

 were still compelling Jews and Nonconformists to attend reli- 

 gious services to which they objected, the regulations of the 

 University of Durham anticipated the Universities' Tests Act by 

 granting exemption in such cases ; and during the last six years 

 more than a thousand pounds a year of the university funds has 

 been set aside for the purposes of the Science Faculty of the 

 university which has its local habitation in Newcastle. 



I may add that the Senate and Convocation of the university 

 have in late years adopted a most liberal view in regard to the 

 admission of students of other colleges than those at Durham 

 and Newcastle to the degrees which they give, and I have per- 

 sonally little doubt that they would consider with favour any 

 scheme for extendbig the area over which their degrees are 

 available. 



The question of the desirability of multiplying the number of 

 centres for giving degrees is a wide one, into which I have no 

 desire to enter. My only wish is that in any consideration of 

 the question of establishing a new centre, all the facts regarding 

 its sphere of action and the centres which already exist within 

 what is claimed as that sphere should be known. 



W. Steauman Alois 



College of Physical Science, Newcastle-on-Tyne, March 24 



The Suspected Intra-Mercurial Planet ; Occultation of 

 Kappa Geminorum 



March 21 was fine here, but with frequent clouds. I had 

 several observations of the sun from 9 o'clock to 12, Dublin 

 mean time, and then at 12.35, 1.35, 2.0, and 3.50, after which 

 the sun become permanently clouded for the remainder of the 

 day. The only object remarked was a small spot with a double 

 nucleus near the western limb followed by a few very small 

 spots. 



March 22 was finer, and I observed at 8.30, 9.12, 10.20, 

 10.50, 11.25, 12.38, 1.35, 1.50, 2.55, 4.25, 5.8, and 5.33. 

 The small spots of the previous day had completely disappeared, 

 and broad bright lacuna; occupied their place. The large spot 



