92 



NATURE 



[November 22, 1900 



OUR ASTRONOMICAL COLUMN. 

 The Leonid Meteors, — As was anticipated, the Leonid 

 meteors failed to appear in any numbers last week. In a letter 

 to the: Times, Mr. W. H. M. Christie, the Astronomer Royal, 

 states that a watch was kept at the Royal Observatory on the 

 nights of November 13-14, 14-15 and 15-16, but comparatively 

 few Leonids were seen. The following is a statement of the 

 number of meteors noted by three observers on the three nights 



in question : — 



Length of Total number Number of 



watch. of meteors. Leonids. 



November 13-14 ... 5 hours ... 25 ... 5 



14-15 ... 2 ,, ... 20 ... 6 



15-16 ... 4i » ••• 55 - 23 



It will be seen that there was nothing in the nature of a 

 shower of Leonids. 



Mr. E. C. Willis, writing from Norwich, says: — "Watches 

 for the Leonids were first undertaken on the morning of Nov- 

 ember 10, and continued at various intervals until the evening 

 of November 16. The total duration of the actual watches was 

 I2i hours, but a considerable portion of this time was more or 

 less cloudy, and the moon was above the horizon nearly the 

 whole of it. The total number of Leonids recorded was 42, 

 while the other meteors numbered no. No Leonids were ob- 

 served before the morning of November 11, or after the morning 

 of November 16, and although it is no doubt very possible that 

 the shower may have extended over a much longer period, it is 

 certain that in that case it must have been of a very weak char- 

 acter. 



" To determine the true maximum of the shower, it is neces- 

 sary to combine the records of observers from various parts of 

 the earth's surface, so as to obtain a continuous record. The 

 maximum, however, as deduced from my own observations only, 

 decidedly occurred on the morning of November 14. On this 

 occasion the Leonids numbered about two-thirds of all the 

 meteors seen, while on every other occasion they were decidedly 

 in the minority. The hourly rate was about thirteen, but it is 

 evident that many more would have been seen if the conditions 

 had been more favourable, as hardly any of those observed 

 were of less than the second magnitude. This portion of the 

 shower seems to have ended a little before lyh. 30m., as 

 between that time and i8h. none were observed. 



" Perhaps the most remarkable point brought out by the ob- 

 servations was the extraordinary paucity of Leonids on the night 

 of November 15. Watches were kept for 2\ hours at various 

 times between iih. 15m. and i6h. 15m. In all, 32 meteors 

 were seen, but only two of these were Leonids." 



Prof. J. P. O'Reilly, of Dublin, informs us that on November 

 13, at about 5.51 p.m., he observed "a shooting star of much 

 brilliancy, which seemed to start from about the Pleiades and to 

 shoot in the direction of the south in a rising direction of about 

 25° to 30° with the horizon, and being visible over an arc of 

 about 12° to 15°." 



Balloon ascents were made from Paris on the nights of Nov- 

 ember 14, 15 and 16, but only a few stray meteors were seen. 



Elements of Comet i^oob (Borrelly-Brooks).— Prof. 

 C. D; Perrine gives the following computed elements of this 

 comet in \}!\t. Astronomical Journal, No. 484, vol. xxi. :— 

 T=i900 August 3d. -20726 G.M.T. 



_ . , £0=12 26 I3'2"i 



a =328 o 301 J- 19000 

 t-dz 30 46 3 j 

 log. r/= 0*006390 

 New Variable Star in Lyra.— Mr. A. Stanley Williams 

 has detected anoiher small variable in ; Lyra, and in the 

 Astronomische Nachrichten, Bd. 153, No. 3671, gives the follow- 

 ing co-ordinates for itspoition: — 



i R.A. = i8h. 54m. 22s.\, o > 



Decl.:.+34"45'-5 |('^55 o). 

 The variation in brightness, as measured from photographs taken 

 with a 4'4inch portrait lens during the period 1899 September 2 

 to 1900 October 21, is from 93 to ii'O magnitude. No regular 

 series of observations are given, but the period would appear 

 to be about thirty days. 



Visual Observation ok Capella (a-AuRic^).— Prof. 

 W. W. Campbell having some time ago discovered that this 

 star was a spectroscopic binary with a period of 104 days, and 



NO. 1 62 I, VOL. 63] 



the discussion of its parallax with the calculated dimensions of 

 the orbit suggesting the possibility that it might be seen as a 

 visual double star. Prof. W. J. Hussey has made a number of 

 careful examinations of it with the 36-inch Lick telescope. 

 In i\\Q A stronotnical Journal, "Ho. 484. vol. xxi, he furnishes 

 the result of his observations. From the spectroscopic results 

 it was indicated that the most favourable dates of observation 

 would be April 15, June 6 and July 28, as at these times the 

 components would be at their maximum separation. During 

 these observations no evidence of the duplicity of the star could 

 be detected. On August 2 and 5 further examination was made, 

 using powers of 1 000, 1500, 1900 and 2600. With all powers 

 the star image appeared round. The " seeing " on these latter 

 days was excellent, and it is considered that any elongation of 

 the image as great as the tenth of a second of arc would have 

 been perceptible even with the lowest power. On one occasion 

 colour screens of various shades were used to reduce the light, 

 but the result was exactly as before. 



HUXLEY'S LIFE AND WORK} 

 T ACCEPTED with pleasure the invitation of your Council to 

 *■ deliver the first Huxley lecture, not only on account of my 

 affection and admiration for him and my long friendship, but it 

 seemed also especially appropriate as I was associated with him 

 in the foundation of this Society. He was President of the 

 Ethnological Society, and when it was fused with the Anthro- 

 pological we, many of us, felt that Huxley ought to be the first 

 President of the new Institute. No one certainly did so 

 more strongly than your first President, and I only accepted 

 the honour when we found that it was impossible to secure 

 him. 



But the foundation of our Institute was only one of the 

 occasions on which we worked together. 



Like him, but, of course, far less effectively, from the date of 

 the appearance of "The Origin of Species," I stood by Darwin 

 and did my best to fight the battle of truth against the torrent 

 of ignorance and abuse which were directed against him. Sir 

 J. Hooker and I stood by Huxley's side and spoke up for 

 Natural Selection in the great Oxford debate of i860. In the 

 same year we became co-editors of the Natural History 

 Review. . , . , 



Another small society in which I was closely associated with 

 Huxley for many years was the X Club. The other members were 

 George Busk, secretary of the Linnean Society ; Edward 

 Frankland, president of the Chemical Society ; T. A. Hirst ; 

 head of the Royal Naval College at Greenwich, Sir Joseph 

 Hooker; Herbert Spencer ; W.Spottiswoode, president of the 

 Royal Society; and Tyndall. It was started in 1864, and 

 nearly nineteen years passed before we had a single loss— that 

 of Spottiswoode ; and Hooker, Spencer and I are now, alas » 

 the only remaining members. We used to dine together once 

 a month, except in July, August and September. There were 

 no papers or formal discussions, but the idea was to secure 

 more frfequent meetings of a few friends who were bound 

 together by common interests and aims, and strong feelings of 

 personal affection. It has never been formally dissolved, but 

 the last meeting was in 1893. 



In 1869 the Metaphysical Society, of which I shall have some- 

 thing more to say later on, was started. . 



From 1870 to 1875 I was sitting with Huxley on the late Duke 

 of Devonshire's Commission on Scientific Instruction ; we had 

 innumerable meetings, and we made many recommendations 

 which are being by degrees adopted. , 1 l i-j 



I had also the pleasure of spending some delightful holidays 

 with him in Switzerland, in Brittany, and in various parts of 

 England. Lastly, I sat by his side in the Sheldonian Theatre at 

 the British Assocation meeting at Oxford, during Lord Salisbury s 

 address, to which I listened with all the more interest knowing 

 that he was to second the vote of thanks, and wondering how 

 he would do it. At one passage we looked at one another, and 

 he whispered to me. " Oh, my dear Lubbock, how I wish we, 

 were going to discuss the address in Section D instead of here ! 

 Not, indeed, that he would have omitted any part of his speech, 

 but there were other portions of the address which he would 



1 The first " Huxley Memorial Lecture" of the Anthropological Insti- 

 tute, delivered on November 13, by the Rt. Hon. Lord Avebury, b.K.5>., 

 D.C.L., LL.D. 



