August 13, 1903] 



NATURE 



3.53 



\ 



Eliot on Nudibranchiata, by Mr. L. A. Borradaile on the 

 sponge-crabs, and by Sir John Murray, F.R.S., and the 

 editor on lagoon deposits. 



The Proceedings of the Washington Academy of Sciences 

 for July 18 is made up of a full account of a meeting held 

 in Columbia University, under the auspices of the Wash- 

 ington Academy, to commemorate the distinguished services 

 to knowledge of the late Major John Wesley Powell, 

 together with a list of the 251 papers and articles written 

 by him during the years 1867 to 1903. Major Powell's 

 work as director of the Bureau of American Ethnology 

 is well known to anthropologists, and his services to 

 science as an explorer, geologist and organiser are of the 

 same high value. As an observer in many fields of natural 

 science, and as one who exerted great influence on scientific 

 progress. Major Powell's memory will long be held in 

 honour. 



Messrs. Charles Griffin and Co., Ltd., have now pub- 

 lished a tenth edition of Mr. Bennett H. Brough's " Treatise 

 of Mine-Surveying." The book was first published in 1888, 

 and was reviewed at length in our issue of August 2 of 

 that year. The prediction made on that occasion — " as 

 soon as the book becomes known, no English-speaking 

 mine-agent or mining student will consider his technical 

 library complete without it " — has been fully justified, as 

 the issue of a tenth and revised edition shows. Descrip- 

 tions of appliances invented since the ninth edition appeared 

 at the beginning of last year have now been inserted in 

 the book, and among these additions will be found accounts 

 of Sir Howard Grubb's new sight for mining dials, of 

 Gothan's instrument for surveying bore-holes, and of the 

 Dunbar-Scott mine tacheometer. Besides these improve- 

 ments, references to important papers lately published and 

 recent examinations questions have been added. 



The current number of the Popular Scientific Monthly, in 

 addition to other articles of general scientific interest, re- 

 prints the Romanes lecture delivered last June by Sir 

 Oliver Lodge, F.R.S., and publishes the third of a series 

 of papers on Hertzian wave wireless telegraphy by Prof. 

 J. A. Fleming, F.R.S. Other papers are on the bird 

 rookeries on the island of Laysan, and bacteria in modern 

 economic agriculture. From tnc columns headed the 

 progress of science we learn there are now somewhat more 

 than 100,000 students in the colleges, universities, and 

 technical schools of the United States, and somewhat more 

 than 50,000 in the professional schools of theology, law 

 and medicine. In 1901, 16,513 students graduated from 

 colleges and technical schools, and of these 5050 were 

 women. The number of pupils in secondary schools was 

 in 1901 upwards of 600,000, as compared with less than 

 voo.ooo in 1878. 



The additions to the Zoological Society's Gardens during 

 the past week include a Vervet Monkey (Cercopithecus 

 lalandii) from South Africa, presented by Mr. — Town- 

 -hend ; two Malayan Bears {Ursus malayanus) from 

 Malacca, presented by the Right Hon. Earl of Crawford ; 

 two Norwegian Lemmings {My odes lemmus) from Norway, 

 presented by Major-General C. S. Sturt ; two Dwarf 

 <'hameIeons {Chamaeleon pumilus) from South Africa, pre- 

 sented by Mrs. Mainwaring ; four Tuberculated Iguanas 

 d guana tuberculata) from Venezuela, three Elephantine 

 Tortoises {Testudo elephantina) from the Aldabra Islands, 

 two Radiated Tortoises (Testudo radiata) from Madagascar, 

 deposited ; a Japanese Deer (Cervus sika), born in the 

 Gardens. 



NO. 1763, VOL. 68] 



OUR ASTRONOMICAL COLUMN. 

 Borrelly's Comet (1903 c). — The following elements and 

 ephemeris for Borrelly's comet have been computed by Dr. 

 Aitken, of the Lick Observatory, from observations made 

 on June 22 and 30, and July 10 (Lick Observatory Bulletin, 

 No 47) :- 



E/e//ienls. 

 T = 1903 August 27-6056 G.M.T. 



u = 127° 19 2S'S] 



a = 293 32 550^1903-0 



/• = 84 59 45'3J 

 log ^ = 9-518126 



Ephemeris \zh. G.M.T. 

 1903 True a True 6 log A Brightness 



h. m. s. o / 



Aug. 13-5 ... 10 54 23 ... +39 24-1 ... — ... — 



„ 15 5 ... 10 48 12 ... +37 42-9 ••■ 9947 ••• 6-7 



„ 17-5 ... 10 42 2 ... +35 58-0 ... — ... — 



„ 195 ... 10 35 58 .... +34 7-2 ... 9-996 ... 7*4 



„ 21-5 ... 10 29 54 .. -h32 7-0 ... — ... — 



„ 23-5 ... 10 24 3 ... +29 54-8 ... 0-038 ... 8-2 



„ 25-5 ... 10 18 30 ... -1-27 27-0 ... — ... — 



„ 27-5 ... 10 13 31 ... +24 47-3 ... 0-074 - 7-9 



,, 29-5 ... 10 9 20 ... +21 546 ... — ... — 



,, 31-5 ... 10 5 59 ... +18 53-8 ... O'lOO ... 6-2 



Projection on Mars. — In the first Bulletin issued by the 



Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, Arizona, Mr. Percival 



Lowell describes the observations of a projection which was 



discovered on the terminator of Mars by Mr. Slipher at 



i5h. 34m. (G.M.T.) on May 25. Messrs. Lowell and 



Slipher afterwards alternately observed the projection, 



which lasted for about thirty-one minutes ; the position 



angle varied from 204°o to i99°-8, and the projection was 



variously estimated as being removed from the terminator 



by a perpendicular distance of 0067-0 075 of the radius of 



the disc ; its length was i''-58, and it disappeared at 



i6h. 8m. 



The projection was " suspected " again at ish. 58m. on 

 May 27, and, if really seen, had moved 7° in latitude and 

 8° in longitude during the twenty-four hours' interval. 

 The observations lead to the conclusion that the projection 

 was probably a cloud of dust about 300 miles long, travelling 

 at about 16 miles an hour in a north-easterly direction, 

 and dissipating as it went. 



The Satellite of Neptune. — Using the Crossley re- 

 flector, Prof. Perrine has obtained a series of photographs 

 of Neptune's satellite which cover one complete revolution, 

 January 4-January 16, 1902. 



The measurements of forty-fi%'e plates show that a correc- 

 tion of -f-o°S5, with a probable error of +o°09 in position 

 arrgle, and of — o"oo6, with a probable error of ±o"o20 in 

 distance, must be applied to Hall's elements as published 

 in No. 441 of the Astronomical Journal. 



The observations are recorded in Bulletin No. 39 of the 

 Lick Observatory, which also contains a series of deter- 

 minations of the position of the planet itself, at certain 

 times, as determined from the same photographs. 



The Estimation of Stellar Temperatures. — The ques- 

 tion of the relative temperatures of the different types of 

 stars is one of the most important in astrophysics, and has 

 lately been the subject of much discussion in consequence 

 of the discovery that spark lines appear in the arc spectrum 

 under certain special conditions. In Astr. Nach. (No. 3882), 

 after reviewing the recent contributions to the discussion, 

 Prof. Kayser suggests a method of estimating the tempera- 

 tures of stars which is based on an idea put forward in 

 1876 by Sir George Stokes in a note appended to a paper 

 by Sir' Norman Lockyer (Roy. Soc. Proc, vol. xxiv. pp. 

 352-4). In the case of an incandescent solid body the 

 proportion of the more refrangible radiations increases 

 with the temperature, and Stokes suggested that a line 

 spectrum might behave in the same manner, so that at 

 different temperatures different lines would be most persis- 

 tent. Prof. Kayser thinks that, while this may not hold 

 for the whole spectrum, it may be true for the lines of a 

 definite series, such as those of hydrogen, or one of the 

 series of lines of helium. On this supposition he has 

 recently undertaken a preliminary investigation for the 



