Apeil 1, 1899.] 



KNOWLEDGE. 



85 



grocer. This insect is now at the Zoological Gardens, 

 Eegent's Park, and is doing well. 



The second at Blackheath, on the 13th inst.,bya green- 

 grocer, in cauliflowers that had come from Italy. I sent 

 it to the Zoological Gardens, where it unfortunately died. 

 Mr. Thomson, the Assistant Superintendent, writes me 

 that he believes it is the migratory locust ( Pachytylus 

 mii/ratorius / of south-east Europe. 



The third at Highgate, on the loth inst., by a green- 

 grocer, in a case of Algerian bananas. It is now in the 

 school museum of the Highgate Board School. 



From the descriptions I conclude all three are of the 

 same species. Jos. F. Gkeen. 



West Lodge, Blackheath, 



18th March, 1S99. 

 ♦ 



We greatly regret to note the death, on March 5th, of 

 Miss Elizabeth Brown, of Further Barton, Cirencester. 

 Miss Brown has been well known in astronomical circles 

 for many years as a most careful and industrious amateur 

 astronomer. Her favourite subject of work was the sun, 

 and she became Director of the Solar Section in the Liver- 

 pool Astronomical Society in 1883, and on the formation 

 of the British Astronomical Association she was at once 

 invited to fill the same post. In this Association she was 

 a most indefatigable worker and a most generous contri- 

 butor to its funds. The problems offered by solar eclipses 

 also attracted her attention, and she made three long 

 journeys to Russia, to the AVest Indies, and to Lapland, in 

 order to take part in their observation. On only one of 

 these three occasions, however, was she favoured by a 

 sight of the phenomenon. Two charming little books, 

 written by her sister and herself, and entitled respectively 

 " In Pursuit of a Shadow, ' and " Caught in the Tropics," 

 narrate the experiences of the first two of these expeditions. 

 She contributed many papers, chiefly on solar matters, to 

 the Liverpool Society and the British Astronomical Asso- 

 ciation, beside the preparation in seven successive years 

 of annual reports on the daily state of the sun's surface. 

 These latter were illustrated by drawings of sunspots 

 largely from her own hand, which are of extreme beauty 

 and truth. Her sudden death is an irreparable loss to the 

 Association, in which she had made a large number of 

 personal friends. 



»-^~* 



By the death of Sir Douglas Galton, science 

 loses from its front ranks a gentleman whose name 

 is intimately associated with the sanitary advancement 

 of our time. Born in 1822, he entered the Royal 

 Military Academy, at Woolwich, at the age of fifteen, 

 and there distinguished himself by taking the first 

 prize in every subject. In 1847 he became secre- 

 tary to the Railway Commission that investigated the 

 application of iron to railway structures, and subsequently 

 became an inspector of railways and secretary of the Rail- 

 way Department of the Board of Trade. When, in 1857, 

 Metropolitan drainage was under consideration. Captain 

 Galton was one of the referees. In 1859 he was appointed 

 Assistant Inspector- General of Fortifications, and. in l.s62, 

 Assistant Under-Secretary for War. Sir Douglas was 

 elected a Fellow of the lioyal Society in 1H63, and, 

 in 1870, General Secretary of the British Association. 

 Oxford conferred on Sir Douglas its honorary degree, 

 D.C.L., and Durham its LL.D. Few men have sat on so 

 many commissions, or been oftener connected with the 

 great public exhibitions as judge of awards or member of 

 executive council. He was an authority on hospital con- 



struction, on the drainage of towns, on aU subjects which 

 are open to arbitration as between railway companies, 

 who often chose him for arbitrator. His services to the 

 British Association were recognized in his election to the 

 Presidency in 1895. Foreign orders were lavishly bestowed 

 upon him. 



A NEW FORM OF PHOTOGRAPHIC TELESCOPE. 



A GREAT number of very large telescopes of nearly 

 the same form have been given to observatories 

 during the last few years. Although such in- 

 struments are indispensable, in a limited number 

 of investigations, yet when the latter are divided 

 among so many telescopes the results obtained by each 

 are often disappointing to the donors. These instruments 

 have been erected, with two or three exceptions, in places 

 selected from local or political motives, and without regard 

 to meteorological or astronomical conditions. For this 

 reason the great observatories of the world are near large 

 cities or universities where the very conditions that have, 

 rendered the countries great have rendered them unfit for 

 the most delicate astronomical research. Nine-tenths of 

 these instruments are in the temperate zone in Europe 

 and the United States, while the southern hemisphere has 

 been entirely neglected, and many of the most interesting 

 parts of the southern sky have not yet been examined by 

 a modern telescope of the largest size. 



This duplication of expensive instruments in unsuitable 

 localities is rendered still more objectionable by another 

 condition. All the telescopes are similar in form, their 

 focal length being from fifteen to eighteen times the aper- 

 ture, and therefore all are best adapted to the same kind 

 of work. In view of these numerous precedents it was a 

 bold step to deviate from it ; but this step was taken, and 

 taken by a woman, Miss Catherine W. Bruce, of New 

 York, who gave fifty thousand dollars to the Harvard Col- 

 lege Observatory to construct a telescope of twenty-four 

 inches aperture, in which the focal length should be only 

 six times the length of the aperture. Fortunately, this 

 experiment succeeded, and the Bruce Photographic Tele- 

 scope is mounted in Arequipa, Peru, in a climate unsur- 

 passed, so far as is now known, for astronomical work. 

 Its immediate results are charts, each covering a large 

 part of the sky and showing such faint stars that four 

 hundred thousand appear upon a single plate. By its aid 

 many new stars of the peculiar fifth type have been found 

 in the Large Magellanic Cloud, showing an additional 

 connection of this object with the Milky Way. A group 

 of forty nebulae, hitherto unknown, has been found in 

 another part of the sky. The most important work of the 

 Bruce telescope, however, is that every year it sends hun- 

 dreds of photographs to the great storehouse at Cambridge. 

 Besides the immediate discoveries made from these platps, 

 they doubtless carry with them many secrets as yet un- 

 revealed, and many images of objects of the greatest 

 interest yet to be discovered. A striking example of this 

 kind is found in the recent discovery of the planet Eros, 

 which, next to the Moon, is sometimes our nearest neigh- 

 bour in the heavens. Calculation showed that this planet 

 must have been near the Earth, and therefore bright, in 

 1894. An examination showed that this object, although 

 not discovered until 1898, had not escaped the Harvard 

 telescopes. Two images of it were found upon the Bruce 

 plates, fifteen upon the Draper plates, and three upon the 

 Bache plates. It can thus be followed through nearly half 

 a revolution. Six images were also obtained in 1896, 

 when it was more distant and much fainter. 



