Augusi 28, 1879] 



NATURE 



425 



OUR ASTRONOMICAL COLUMN 



Dr. Johann Lamoxt. — The death of Dr. Lament, so 

 long connected with the Royal Observato.-y of Munich 

 (Bogenhausen), was mentioned last week. He was of 

 Scotch extraction, and was bom at Braemar on December 

 13, 1805. He was at first assistant at Munich, under 

 Soldner, and was appointed director of the observatory 

 in 1835, and Professor of Astronomy in the University of 

 Munich in 1852. His name has, perhaps, been chiefly 

 associated with terrestrial magnetism, his first publication 

 on this subject being the " Handbuch des Erdmagnetis- 

 mus," which appeared in 1838. In 185 1 he wrote on the 

 ten-year period of magnetic declination, of the existence 

 of which he was an independent discoverer, and the 

 same year he pubhshed at Stuttgart his "Astronomic 

 und Erdmagnetismus," and a long series of memoirs 

 bearing upon magnetical science is due to him. He 

 is also the inventor of a set of instruments for deter- 

 mining the magnetic elements very widely used by 

 continental magneticians. As an astronomer we find 

 him occupied with the observation of Halley's comet 

 with the refractor of eleven inches aperture, erected in 

 1835, by means of which he was able to follow the comet 

 until May 17, 1836, nearly a fortnight later than it was seen 

 by Sir John Herschel, with his 20-feet reflector, at the Cape 

 of Good Hope, the last glimpse of the comet being thus 

 obtained by Lamont. It was then distant from the earth 

 2'69, and from the sun i'86, so that the intensity of light 

 was almost precisely the same as when the comet was first 

 detected by Dumouchel at Rome, August 5, 1835. In 

 1836 he calculated elements of the Saturnian satellites 

 Encdadus and Tethys, which had been observed at 

 Munich, and also discussed Sir W. Herschel's obser- 

 vations of the latter. In the summer of this year he 

 measured the diameter of PaUas, and formed charts of 

 stars in the clusters in Scutum and Perseus. In the 

 following year he made a series of measures of the two 

 brighter satellites of Uranus, and deduced from them a 

 value of the mass of the primary considerably less than 

 that previously adopted from ISouvard's tables. The 

 most extensive astronomical work executed at Munich 

 under Lament's direction is the observations of zones of 

 stars from + 15° to — 30° published in successive volumes 

 of the Antialen der k. Uternwarte bei Miinchcn, and in the 

 previous series ; various catalogues founded thereon, and 

 containing together upwards of 30,000 stars reduced to 

 the year 1850, have been published in the supplementary 

 volumes of the Annals. Mr. Hind found in Lament's 

 zones two observations of Neptune before its planetary 

 character was recognised. The magnitudes of the tele- 

 scopic stars in these zones will prove serviceable from 

 time to time in the investigations of the periods of 

 variable stars. 



The Satellites of Mars. — Prof. Asaph Hall, after 

 discussing the long series of observations of the newly- 

 discovered satellites of Mars made with the Washington 

 26-inch refractor in 1877, expressed the opinion that at 

 the approaching opposition of the planet these objects 

 will be observable with that instrument from about 

 (October 10 to November 29. It may therefore appear 

 almost hopeless to expect measures as early as September, 

 yet probably efforts may be made in this direction and 

 with the view to facilitate the identification of the outer 

 satellite, Deimos, we subjoin positions calculated from 

 Prof. Hall's elements for i3h. Greenwich mean time : — 



Pos. Di«t. i Pos. Dist. 



Sept. II 

 12 

 «3 

 »4 

 JS 



235-5 

 296-3 



49 9 



68-3 



22r6 



4-5 

 10-3 

 46-9 



30 'O 

 33"2 



Sept. 16 



17 

 18 



»9 

 20 



■■ 2387 

 .. 8;s 



".. 8o-o 

 .. 227-1 



46-5 

 12-7 



19-8 



43 '6 



The greatest elongations of the satellites occur at angles 



of about 53° and 233", the greatest apparent distances at 

 the next opposition being 67" for Deimos and 27" for 

 Photos, the former passing the extremity of the minor-axis 

 of the ellipse about seven seconds distant from the limb 

 of the planet. 



GEOGRAPHICAL NOTES 



Herr Otto Schutt, the well-known African traveller, 

 has returned to Lisbon from his exploring expedition to 

 Central Africa, undertaken by order of the German 

 African Society, and has delivered an interesting lecture 

 to the Lisbon Geographical Society. He brings home 

 highly important and quite new data concerning the 

 complicated hydrography of the Congo Basin. Between 

 the Cuango and the Casai rivers, two known tributaries 

 of the Congo, he has discovered four others, viz., the 

 Quengo, Marata, Cinlu and Quanger rivers. Besides 

 this he has determined the upper course of the Casai 

 river from lat. 8° S. to about lat. 6" S. in a district totally 

 unknown hitherto. From lat. 8° S. as far as lat. 4° S. the 

 Casai takes the name of Zaire, which on older maps is 

 often given to the Congo itself. The lake called Sankowa 

 Lake by English explorers is situated in lat. 5° S., and is 

 called Mucaruba by the natives. To the south of this 

 lake a tribe of dwarfs are living. The tribes inhabiting 

 the shores of the Quengo and the Casai rivers are can- 

 nibals. - As the Muata Jamvo, who some three years ago 

 stopped Pogge's further progress, did not permit Herr 

 Schiitt to cross the Lulua river, he had to return to Loanda 

 on the west coast. 



It is announced from Sierra Leone that Mr. H. M. 

 Stanley arrived there on July 24, and left on August I for 

 "Banana" (? Mboma), on the Congo. 



Intelligence has been received at New York of the 

 arrival of the Polar exploring vessel Jeannette at Onalaska, 

 on the 2nd inst. She is to endeavour to meet with 

 Nordenskjdld in Behring Strait. The United States 

 Revenue vessel Richard Rush has passed through Behring 

 Strait, within seventy-five miles of East Cape. Her 

 captain reports that the sea northward of that point is 

 clear of ice. Last winter had been unusually warm, and 

 the ice broke up earlier than usual. 



Several Russian expeditions are to be sent out during 

 this autumn to Central Asia, and especially to the Darwaz. 

 Capt. Hermann and the well-known young botanist, M. 

 Smirnoff, will explore that quite unknown country, and 

 M. Smirnoff will no doubt bring back a rich botanical 

 collection. 



A TELEGRAM has reached St. Petersburg through Pekin 

 from Col. Prjwalsky, to the effect that at the date of his 

 despatch his expedition had accomplished the third part 

 of the route to the Himalaya, and that no great obstacles 

 were expected to intervene between them and their 

 desired goal — which may mean Lhassa. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 



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 munications containing interesting and novel facts.\ 



How did Eozoon Originate, and is Graphite a Proof of 

 Organic Beings in the Laurentian Period ? 

 I REAU with great interest the abstract of Dr. Moebius's inves- 

 tigations on Eozoon in Naturb, vol. xx. pp. 272, 297, and no 

 more doubt of its inorganic origin. But how was Eozoon 

 formed ? We find such siniile or ramified foraminiferx-like or 

 algse-like fibres or stems (Figs. 5, 9, 10, 18, 19), which show, 



