598 



NATURE 



{Oct. 23, 1879 



was firmly convinced of its truth and felt able to substan- 

 tiate it ; otherwise the fact that there were two known 

 stars, on the parallel or nearly so, and less than one 

 degree west of the objects supposed to be new, would 

 probably have been felt to be an almost fatal objection to 

 the reality of the discovery. It must be remembered 

 that Watson asserts he did see 6 Cancri as well as the 

 neighbouring object a ; Peters objects — " not at the same 

 time though" — an objection which Watson does not 

 notice in his reply, but which will be easily removed by 

 him ; it might perhaps be rather gathered, that if the 

 objects were not in the field together, he satisfied himself 

 of their distinctness. 



Throughout Prof. Peters's criticisms, not only as regards 

 the American astronomer's observations during the eclipse, 

 but other reported observations of unknown bodies in 

 transit over the sun's disk, there is evinced a certain 

 anhniis, which might have been as well avoided, and 

 there is a flippancy in his reference to Leverrier's labours 

 on the theory of Mercury, which he hopes "will be in- 

 vestigated anew by a hand very favourably known in this 

 field of research, and we may expect then to have the 

 intra-Mercurial spectre put to rest definitively." Most 

 astronomical readers will feel more respect for the opinion 

 of our great physical astronomer. Prof. J. C. Adams, who, 

 on presenting the gold medal of the Royal Astronomical 

 Society to Leverrier in 1876, thus expresses himself as to 

 the existence of intra-Mercurial matter, as indicated by 

 the French astronomer' s researches — " The theory of the 

 planet has been established with so much care, and the 

 transits of the planet across the sun's disk furnish such 

 accurate observations, as to leave no doubt of the reality 

 of the phenomenon in question ; and the only way of 

 accounting for it appears to be to suppose, with ^M. 

 Leverrier, the existence of several minute planets, or of a 

 certain quantity of diffused matter circulating about the 

 sun within the orbit of Mercury." 



It has been mentioned that Mr. Swift has also addressed 

 a communication to the Astronomische Nachrichten, in 

 consequence of Peters's criticism of the observations made 

 during the eclipse. Mr. Swift notified, soon after the 

 occurrence of that phenomenon that he had seen two 

 reddish objects with sensible disks about 3° distant from 

 the sun ; their mutual distance he first stated to be twelve 

 minutes of arc, subsequently correcting this estimate to 

 seven or eight minutes, as it is given in a letter which he 

 addressed to Nature, vol. xviii. p. 539, but in the same 

 letter, referring the position of one object to that of the 

 other, which he believed to be 6 Cancri, by means of the 

 place of the star given by the Astronomer-Royal in a 

 communication to this journal, he assigned a position 

 which, as we pointed out (vol. xviii. p. 569), would 

 locate the supposed planet at a distance of thirty minutes 

 from the star, instead of seven or eight minutes. He now 

 writes that the difference of declination (? right ascension) 

 shown by his own and Watson' s observations, had been 

 "a source of solicitude," as he could see no way to 

 harmonise them " till Nature pointed out the error of 

 reducing the eight minutes of arc to time, saying it was 

 but 323. instead of 2m. This changed the whole com- 

 plexion of the matter. The scales immediately fell from 

 my eyes, and for the first time I was able to see my way 

 clearly through the difficulty with which it had so long 



been enshrouded." We should have been glad if we 

 could explain in what manner the sudden illumination 

 consequent upon our remarks reconciles the distances in 

 question, and so clear the way for accepting Mr. Swift's 

 observation as confirmatory of that of Prof. Watson. He 

 tells us that he has been an observer of the heavens for 

 twenty-two years, and we know that he has been the first 

 discoverer of several comets, and have no intention to 

 depreciate his claim to credence on any astronomical 

 question, but it has naturally happened that the diflferent 

 statements and the hesitation felt as to the distance of the 

 objects he observed has detracted from the importance 

 which would otherwise have attached to his experiences 

 during the eclipse. 



AUSTRALASIA 

 Australasia. Edited and Extended by A. R. Wallace. 



With Ethnological Appendix by A. H. Keane, M.A. 



(London : Stanford, 1879.) 

 '~j"'HIS stout octavo volume is one of the series entitled 

 J- " Stanford's Compendium of Geography and Travel," 

 based on Hellwald's "Die Erde und ihre Volker." 

 Mr. Wallace tells us, however, in the preface that he has 

 been able to utilise comparatively little of the translation 

 of Hellwald's work, so that it forms little more than one- 

 tenth part of the present volume. 



The. term Australasia is taken in a very wide sense to 

 include the entire East Indies and the Philippines, New 

 Guinea and Australia, and all the islands of the Pacific, 

 even to Easter Island. The region extends thus around 

 much more than one-third the circumference of the globe. 



The book commences with a short general account of 

 the main geographical and biological features of the area 

 and then treats of its various subdivisions separately. 

 The author divides his Australasia into six princi])al 

 regions, viz., Australia, Malaysia, Melanesia, Polynesia, 

 Micronesia, and New Zealand. He commences with a 

 very interesting summary of the principal physical featuies 

 and climatic conditions of Australia. 



Australia with Tasmania is only a little less in area 

 than Europe. Yet its highest mountain. Mount Kosciusko, 

 is only 7,308 feet in height. Its greatest river, the Murray, 

 has a basin the area of which is about equal to that of the 

 Dnieper. The hottest chmate in the world probably occurs 

 in the desert interior of Australia. Capt. Sturt hung a 

 thermometer on a tree shaded both from sun and wind. 

 It was graduated to 127° F., yet so great was the heat of 

 the air that the mercury rose till it burst the tube, and :he 

 temperature must thus have been at least 128° F., appa- 

 rently the highest'ever recorded in any part of the world. 

 For three months Capt. Sturt found the mean temperature 

 to be over 101° F. in the shade. Nevertheless in the 

 southern mountains and tablelands three feet of snow 

 sometimes falls in a day ; in 1876 a man was lost in the 

 snow on the borders of New South Wales. Snowstorms 

 have been known to last three weeks, the snow lying 

 from 4 to 15 feet in depth and burying the cattle. Forty 

 miles of the railway from Sydney to Bathurst have been 

 seen covered continuously with snow. Australia is the 

 land of drought and flood. The annual rainfall at Sydney 

 has varied from 22 to 82 inches. Lake George, near 

 Goulburn, was, in 1824, 20 miles long and 8 miles broad. 



