Mays, ^^^1^ 



NATURE 



George James Snelus, 



A.R.S.M., F.C.S., Memb. I.M.E. Metallurgist. Is distin- 

 guished as a chemist and metallurgical engineer. He was the 

 first to make pure steel from phosphoric pig iron in a Bessemer 

 converter lined with basic materials, a diicovery of national 

 importance, for which he was, in 1883, awarded the Bessemer 

 Gold Medal of the Iron and Steel Institute. He has developed 

 points of much scientific interest in connexion with the mode of 

 existence of carbon and silicon in iron and steel, and has 

 specially studied the liquidation of fluid bodies during the solidi- 

 fication of steel. He has also conducted important researches on 

 the relation between the chemical composition and mechanical 

 properties of steel used for rails. Is the author of the following 

 papers : — " On the Condition of Carbon and Silicon in Iron and 

 Steel " ; " On the Composition of the Gases evolved from the 

 Bessemer Converter"; "On the Scientific Features of the 

 Danks' Puddling Furnace" ; " On the Manufacture and Use of 

 Spiegeleisen " ; "On Fire-Clay and other Refractory Materials " ; 

 " On the Direct Process of Steel Making " ; " On the Removal 

 of Phosphorus and Sulphur in the Bessemer Process " ; " On 

 the Distribution of Elements in Steel Ingots"; "On the 

 Chemical Composition and Testing of Steel Rails." 



Thomas Lord Walsingham. 



Trustee of the British Museum. A practical Entomologist and 

 ardent student and collector of the Microlepidoptera, of which he 

 has an extensive private collection. In 1872, Lord Walsingham 

 made a special expedition to Northern California and Oregon, 

 and besides forming a large series of the Microlepidoptera of 

 that district, many of which were unknown, obtained a good 

 collection of other Natural History specimens, which he pre- 

 sented to the Cambridge Museum. — [Addendum. — Author of 

 " Catalogue of North American Tortricidse in the British 

 Museum," 4to., being Part 4 of " Illustrations of Typical Speci- 

 mens of Lepidoptera Heterocera," 1879, and published by the 

 Trustees. " On some Probable Causes of a Tendency to 

 Melanic Variation in Lepidoptera of High Latitudes " (Presi- 

 dential Address, Tran?. Yorksh. Nat. Union, 1885) ; and 

 various papers in the Trans. Ent. Soc. and Proc. Zool. Soc. , 

 1880-84.] 



William Whitaker, B.A. (Lond.), 



F.G.S. Assoc. Inst. C.E. District Surveyor on the Geological 

 Survey of England and Wales. Contributor to, or author of, ten 

 of the Memoirs of the Geological Survey, among these being — 

 "The Geology of the London Basin;" "The Geology of the 

 N.W. part of Essex, and the Geology of the country round 

 Ipswich ; " of Papers in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological 

 Society on the "Western end of the London Basin;" "The 

 Lower Tertiaries of Kent ; " " On some- Borings in Kent, and 

 other subjects;" and of many other papers on geology, more 

 especially of the Cretaceous and Tertiary Beds, and on the sub- 

 ject of water-supply. Has also drawn up many lists valuable to 

 the student of geological literature, and was for several years 

 Editor of the Geological Record. Awarded the Murchison Medal 

 of the Geological Society, 1886. 



THE PARIS ASTRONOMICAL CONGRESS. 



"XITE have now received a considerable instalment of 

 * * the prods-verbaux of the sittings of the Conference, 

 and although those of the final meeting are not yet to 

 hand, we think it important to give, in continuation of our 

 article in a recent number, an account of the work done, 

 so far as the information has reached us, the Confer- 

 ence having sat every day, except Sunday, from the i6th 

 to the 25th. 



The meetings, which took place in the large hall of 

 the Paris Observatory, were attended by the following 

 astronomers and physicists, the names being given alpha- 

 betically :— Auvvers, Berlin ; Baillaud, Toulouse ; Bak- 

 huyzen, Leyden ; Bertrand, Paris ; Beuf, La Plata ; 

 Bouquet de la Grye, Paris; Brunner, Paris; Christie, 

 Greenwich ; Cloud, Paris ; Common, Eahng ; Cornu, 

 Paris ; Cruls, Brazil ; Donner, Helsingfors ; Dundr, 

 Lund ; Eder, Vienna ; Elkin, America ; Faye, Paris ; 



Fizeau, Paris ; Folie, Brussels ; Gautier, Geneva ; Gill, 

 Cape of Good Hope ; Gyld^n, Stockholm ; Hasselberg, 

 Pulkova ; Henry (Brothers), Paris ; Janssen, Meudon ; 

 Kapteyn, Groningen ; Knobel, London ; Krueger, Kiel ; 

 Laussedat, Paris ; Liard, Paris ; Lcewy, Paris ; Lohse, 

 Potsdam ; Mouchez, Paris ; Com, Lisbon ; Oudemans, 

 Utrecht ; Pechiile, Copenhagen ; Perrier, Paris ; Perry, 

 Stonyhurst ; Peters, Clinton ; Pujazon, Cadiz ; Rayet, 

 Bordeaux ; Roberts, Liverpool ; Russel, Sydney ; Schon- 

 feld, Bonn ; Steinheil, Munich ; Struve, Pulkova ; Tac- 

 chini, Rome ; Tennant, Ealing ; Thiele, Copenhagen ; 

 Tisserand, Paris ; Trdpied, Algiers ; Vogel, Potsdam ; 

 Weiss, Vienna ; Winterhalter, Washington ; Wolf, Paris. 

 With a few exceptions we have in this list all the men 

 engaged in astronomical photography. 



In our former article we gave an account of the first 

 general meeting, held on April 16. The second took 

 place on the 19th. The names of those present were as 

 follow : — 



President, M. Struve ; Vice-President, Mr. Christie ; 

 Messrs. Auwers, Baillaud, Bakhuyzen, Beuf, Bigourdan, 

 Bouquet de la Grye, Common, Cornu, Cruls, Donner, Duner, 

 Eder, Elkin, Fizeau, Gautier, Gill, Gylddn, Hasselberg, 

 Paul Henry, Prosper Henry, Janssen, Kapteyn, Knobel, 

 Krueger, Loewy, Lohse, Mouchez, Oom, Oudemans, 

 Pechiile, Perry, Peters, Pujazon, Rayet, Roberts, Russell, 

 Schonfeld, Steinheil, Tacchini, Thiele, Tisserand, Tr^pied^ 

 Vogel, Weiss, Winterhalter, and Wolf. 



M. Struve commenced the proceedings by giving an 

 account of the resolutions adopted by a small technical 

 Committee, which resolutions had been prepared by 

 M. Loewy. They had been suggested by the desire that 

 a great number of Observatories should participate in the 

 work ; that the price of the instruments should be moderate ; 

 and that the work should be completed in the smallest 

 time possible compatible with thoroughness. 



The following conclusions of the Committee were 

 adopted without discussion, and agreed to unani- 

 mously : — 



(i) The instruments employed shall be exclusively 

 refractors, and may be made locally provided the con- 

 ditions laid down by the Conference are fulfilled. 



(2) The stars shall be photographed as far as the four- 

 teenth magnitude inclusively ; this magnitude being indi- 

 cated provisionally by the scale actually in use in France, ■ 

 and with the reservation that the photographic value 

 shall be definitely fixed afterwards. 



The third conclusion gave rise to a considerable amount 

 of discussion, and was finally approved as follows : — 



(3) The aperture of the object-glasses shall be 0-33 

 metre, and the focal length about 3'43 metres, so that a 

 minute of arc shall be represented approximately byo'ooi 

 metre. 



The division of the Congress into sections for the study 

 of special questions was next considered, and it was de- 

 termined that there should be two sections, one to deal 

 with purely astronomical questions, and the other with 

 those involving photography. 



It was arranged that these sections should not meet at 

 the same time, and that each section should appoint its 

 officers at the first meeting. 



We next come to the work of the Photographic Section, 

 which held two meetings on April 20 and 21. 



M. Auwers, the Vice-President of the Conference, took 

 the chair, and proposed that M. Janssen should be ap- 

 pointed President. This proposition was adopted with 

 acclamation. The bureau of this section was composed 

 as follows : — 



President, M. Janssen ; Secretaries, MM. Dundr and 

 Tripled ; and MM. Auwers, Bakhuyzen, Christie, Clou^, 

 Common, Cornu, Cruls, Eder, Fizeau, P. Gautier, Gill, 

 Hasselberg, Paul Henry, Prosper Henry, Kapteyn, Knobel, 

 Krueger, Laussedat, Loewy, Mouchez, Oudemans, Pechiile, 



