496 



NATURE 



\OcL 7, 1875 



ashes underneath. It appears by a letter from Mr. Greene, 

 " that a gentleman brought two Indian snakes to Ballinrodan, 

 both of which escaped six or seven years ago ; one ot them was 

 found half eaten by a pig shortly afterwards, and this mi^ht be 

 the other, though how it lived through the winters I do not know. " 



It would be interesting to ascertain whence the snake came 

 and how it found its way to the proscribed island. 



London, Sept. 28 J. Fayrer 



Origin of the Numerals 



In the novel " David Elginbrod," by George Macdonald, 

 p. 45, is a suggestion of the origin of the forms of the numerals 

 in daily use, very similar to that indicated by Mr. Donnisthorpe 

 in last week's Nature, p. 476. The disposition of the lines in 

 some of the figures is very ingenious. G. W. Webster 



Chester, Oct. 4 



If your correspondent will refer to Leslie's " Philosophy of 

 Arithmetic," p. 103 et seq., he will find that very much is known 

 respecting the origin of the numerals. By referring to p. 107, 

 same work, he will find that the numerals he gave are wonder- 

 fully like the Sanskrit. 



Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Oct. 4 Wm. Lyall 



Scalping 



Mr. Charles C. Abbott, in Nature, vol. xii. p. 369, 

 wishes to learn what other men, if any, besides the North 

 American Indians, have the practice of scalping among 

 them. The question is answered in Southall's " Recent 

 Origin of Man," chap. ii. p. 40. "In this connection we 

 may mention that the custom of scalping is not peculiar to 

 the American Indians. Herodotus mentions that it was one of 

 the most characteristic practices of the ancient Scythians. But 

 tins is not all •. it is stated that the practice prevails at this day 

 among the wild tribes of the frontier in the north-eastern district 

 of Bengal. The Friend of India, commenting on this state- 

 ment, adds : ' The Naga tribes use the scalping-knife with a 

 ferocity that is only equalled by the American Indians, and the 

 scalps are carefully preserved as evidences of their prowess and 

 vengeance over their enemies. On the death of a chief, all the 

 scalps taken by him during his warlike career are burned with 

 his remains.' " G. Peyton 



University of Virginia, U.S.A., Sept. 22 



OUR ASTRONOMICAL COLUMN 



The Double Star 2 2120.-— As mentioned last week, 

 M. Flammarion advocates the binary character of this 

 star, identifying it, as Sir John Herschcl had already 

 done, with H. ill. 89. Sir W. Herschel's observation 

 runs thus : — 



" III. 89. Ad 63-''n> Herculis. In linea per et e ducta. 



1 782 Nov. 26. Double. About 4 degrees from S towards 6 

 Herculis, near the 63rd. Very unequal. L. r. ; S. r. Dis- 

 tance 11" 53". Position 47° 48' n. following." 



There is a contradiction here ; a position *' 4 degrees 

 from fi towards e Herculis," which pretty well agrees with 

 that of 2 2120, would not be near 63 Herculis, which is 

 little more than 1° s.p. S. 



The formula given in Nature, vol. xii. p. 147, assigns 

 for the position of the small star at Sir W. Herschel's 

 date — 



Angle ... 36° 39' ... Distance io"72 



The observation has ,, ... 42 12 ... ,, II "iS 



It is by the difference between these positions, which 

 however it may be remarked is not larger than we occa- 

 sionally meet with on comparing Sir W. Herschel's 

 measures with recent ones, in cases of stars which there 

 is reason to suppose merely optically double, that the 

 binary nature of the object is considered to be proved by 

 M. Flammarion, as it had been by Sir John Herschel in 



the paper upon his father's measures, which appears in 

 vol. 35 of the " Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical So- 

 ciety." Until that single observation is supported by 

 curvature in the path of the small star subsequent to its 

 nearest approach to the primary, which if this be really a 

 binary system must probably become sensible within a 

 few years from the present time, the suspicion of recti- 

 linear motion of the small star as the cause of the change 

 of position, representing as it fairly does the measures 

 between 1829 and 1873, is not one perhaps that can be 

 legitimately abandoned. The apparent fixity or nearly 

 so of the principal component to which reference was 

 made in our former remarks, is supported by Dr. Engel- 

 mann's comparison of the place deduced from meridian 

 observations at Leipsic in 1867, with Struve's position in 

 " Positiones Mediae," for which the mean date is 1 836*1 ; 

 for secular proper motion he found Aa=+os"i92, 

 A S = -}- 2" '40— very insignificant quantities, and show- 

 ing that if proper motion, as we have surmised, enters 

 into the question, it is mainly the smaller star that is 

 affected by it. M. Flammarion, relying as stated upon 

 Sir W. Herschel's measure of 1782, concludes : " C'est 

 done un systeme orbital tres-inchnc,et c'est peut-etre celui 

 dont I'aspect ressemble le plus aux systcmes de perspec- 

 tive." We leave it for the measures that may be made 

 during the next few years to decide between these 

 opinions. 



The Nebula in the Pleiades.— In No. 5 of- Pub- 

 licazioni del Reale Osservatorio di Brera in Milano," 

 Herr Tempel has laid down the stars in the Pleiades, 

 from the " Durchmusterung," and traced the outline of 

 the nebula near Merope as it appeared to him with a 

 magnifying power of twenty-four on a telescope of four 

 inches aperture. The outline is shown to be elliptical, 

 one extremity of the longer axis, the northern one, at 

 Merope, and the inclination of this axis to the circle of 

 declination about 18'', so that as referred to Merope, the 

 angle of position of the longer axis is 198° ; the greatest 

 and least diameters of the ellipse are roughly 35' and 20'. 



M. Wolf, of the Observatory of Paris, observing with 

 the telescope of o™-3r aperture in March 1874, perceived 

 two nuclei, one almost concentric with Merope, the other 

 and brighter of the two at a distance of about seven 

 seconds, on the same parallel, following. From the month 

 of November 1874 to the end of February 1875 the 

 nebula could not be seen notwithstanding the very 

 favourable atmospheric conditions, and at the same time 

 M. Stdphan was unable to detect it with the telescope of 

 o'"'8o. M. Wolf concludes that the nebula is certainly 

 variable, and that its period is pretty short. 



Herr Tempel remarks that generally the nebula has 

 been much more readily seen with small telescopes than 

 with large ones, and doubt has been expressed as to any 

 real variabiHty of light ; yet it is not easy to understand, 

 except upon this supposition, why the nebula should be 

 visible at certain times in a particular telescope and in- 

 visible at others, the circumstances of sky appearing to be 

 about the same in all cases. 



This nebula was first remarked by Herr Tempel, at 

 Venice, on the 23rd of October, 1859. 



The Satellites of Uranus and Neptune.— An 

 elaborate and highly interesting investigation of the 

 elements of these sateUites from observations with the 

 26-inch equatorial of the United States Naval Observa- 

 tory, Washington, and of the masses of the primaries 

 thereby indicated, has been received from Prof. New- 

 comb during the past week ; it forms an appendix to the 

 Washington Observations for 1873. The most probable 

 value of the mass of Uranus derived from these observa- 

 tions is Tj^Jooj w^th a probable error of 100 in the deno- 

 minator "of the fraction. For Neptune the value of the 

 mass by satellite-observations is yiy^fro '■> the mass deduced 

 by Prof. Newcomb from the perturbations of Uranus 



