i86 



KNOWLEDGE & SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



[August, 1904. 



lion, '{'he shaft harl been found filled 1)\' dt-siL;ri with 

 1,iil;c masses of roek and the door of the ihanilier was 

 closed V, iih roiit;h-(h'essed stones built up like a door. 

 On i( inoxing' these the interior showed the tomb of 

 a eourlier n.amed Antcf, imdisturbed and preserved in 

 its entiret}' as it had been left by the anrient Egyptians 

 at his funeral, 4,000 years before. The wooden 

 sarcophagus, with its lines of religious formula? and 

 text painted in hieroglyphic cliaracter upon it, lay 

 within, head to the north, and the painted " eyes of 

 Osiris " towards the 0.1st. I'pon it, and by its side. 



Boat with Armed Man. 



wi-ri' little wdoflen models of rixer and sailing lioats, a 

 gr.inar\ , a grouii ol persons baking, a man brewing, 

 another leading an o\, a girl carrying ;i brace of birds 

 in hri- h.ind and a basket on her head. The o.arsmen 

 still <linging to their oars, through all the lapse of 

 ye.ars, and the paint was fresh upon the \\(io(len figures. 

 It was a wonderful sight ; one which rewards a life- 

 time. Within the sarcophagus were the bones of 

 .Ante!, wrapped around with a linen cloth, which was 

 still preser\ed, while the body had decayed. His 

 pillow, a wooden one, was bv his head, and a pair of 

 sandals at his feet. 



This first tomb entered proxed characteristic of the 

 w hole number, and the result is a wealth of information 

 as to the life and ritual of the Egypt of that distant 

 day. 



ASTRONOMICAL. 



A Possible Varia-tion of the Solar 

 RaLdiation. 



Tm-: .Islrn/^hysirtil Jniiniti! for June opens with a paper by 

 Professor S. F. Langley, in which he shows cause for conclud- 

 ing that there was probably a fall in the solar radiation at the 

 end of March, 1903. The determination of any such variation 

 in the solar constant is one of extreme difiiculty owing to the 

 great and varying effects of the absorption exercised by our 

 .itmosphere, and Professor Langley puts his results forward 

 with all due caution. But the introduction of automatic 

 methods for registering the observations of the bolometer, and 

 improvements in the instrument itself, so that the zero of the 

 galvanometer remains almost unchanged for weeks together, 

 justify the attempt to ascertain if any such variation can be 

 detected. The chief difficulty lies in the calcid.ition of the 

 total absorption exercised by our atmosphere so that the 

 radiation recorded at the observing station may be corrected 



so as to exhibit the radiation as it would be recorded were the 

 atmosphere removed. The only method at present available 

 is by the comparison of observations made with the sun at 

 different altitudes, and acting through different thicknesses of 

 air. The measurement and reduction of a series of from five 

 to ten holographs of a single day involves so much labour that 

 a single computation of the solar constant takes about a week. 

 The effects due to the atmospheric absorption having been 

 allowed for, a series of observations made at the Smithsonian 

 Astropbysical Observatory, from October, 1902, to March, 

 1904, appears to show that the solar radiation itself fell off by 

 ai)Out 10 per cent., the change l:>eginning late in March, 1903. 

 Such a change should be followed by a decrease of tempera- 

 ture on the earth less than 7-5" C, and on comparing the 

 observed temperatures at .S9 stations in the North Temperate 

 /one, an average decrease of temperature of over 2° C. was 

 actually found to be shown; stations far from the retarding 

 influence of the oceans showing the greatest variation. The 

 mean temperature curve of the S9 stations shows a striking 

 correspondence with the curve of the solar constant during 

 the fir=t 8 months of 1903, but rises in the last 4 months. 

 This ri.se may be due to an increase in the transparency of the 

 earth's atmosphere, the Smithsonian observations indicating 

 that there was a great falling off in such transparency from 

 I'ebruary to August, 1903, but a recovery later, though the 

 in iximum value recorded in 1901-2 was not fully attained. 



-)t * * 



The Electric Equilibrium of the Sun. 



An import. nit paper by Professor Svante Arrlieuius was 

 communicated to the Royal Society on June 2 by Sir William 

 Huggins. Professor Arrhenius had previously pointed out 

 that several electric and magnetic phenomena might be con- 

 nected with the pressure of radiation. The gases in the solar 

 atmosphere are practically ionised by the ultra-violet radia- 

 tion ; the negative ions condensing vapours more easily than 

 positive ions. A large majority of the droplets formed by con- 

 densation in the sun's atmosphere arc thus negatively charged 

 and driven away, charging with negative electricity the atmo- 

 spheres of celestial bodies, c.i,'., the earth, which they meet. 

 Calculating the speed with which these particles will move 

 through space, Arrhenius finds that on the average they 

 would reach the earth in aliout 46 hours. Now Ellis and 

 INIauuder have shown that the magnetic storms commence 

 26 hours in the mean after the sun spots which probably 

 cause them reach the central meridian of the sun. Ricco 

 found that the height of the storm is attained on the average 

 about 45'5 hours after the transit of the spot : a result prac- 

 tically coinciding with that of Ellis and Maunder, and with 

 the speed deduced by Arrhenius for these negatively electri- 

 fied particles. 



But a difficulty arises here, for the emission of these par- 

 ticles from the sun should result in its soon assuming so 

 great an electric charge of positive sign as to hold back the 

 negative particles. But if these drops should agglomerate 

 the potential increases, and larger masses are formed which 

 can part slowly with their negative charge in the form of 

 electrons traversing space with a velocity much less than that 

 of light. Such electrons would, in general, not pass by many 

 suns without being caught by them. In this way. Professor 

 Arrhenius suggests that the supply of negative electricity to 

 the suns is proportional to their deficiency in it. This balance 

 supposes that the chief forces driving the particles away from 

 tlie sun are, like the pressure of radiation, not electric ; but 

 for the negative electrons caught by the sun, forces other than 

 electric are relatively insignificant. 



* * * 



Mr. Yendell's Observations of the Colovir 

 of Certairv Variable Stars. 



In the Astronomical Jounui} for June 20, 1904, Mr. Paul 

 S. ^'endell gives an extension of Professor Chandler's examina- 

 tion of the colours of the variable stars {A. J., \TII., 137) to 

 the more recently discovered variables. The observations 

 were made with a screen of a full blue colour, formed into a 

 double eye-glass, so that it could be used either with the naked 

 eye or with the binocular, and an examination of the spectrum 

 of the light transmitted by this glass showed a large absorp- 

 tion throughout the whole of the red and yellow. The obser- 

 vations were carried on more or less continuously from 1893 



