2o: 



NA TV RE 



[December 28, 1899 



56° 

 42° 

 30° 



Angle, from N. /first contact, 103° towards the W.^ 



point, of "I last contact, 78° towards the E. [ for direct 



Angle, from /first contact, 44° towards the W. | image. 

 Vertex, of \last contact, 130° towards the E. ) 



Position near Ovar (Portugal)— Long. 8° 38' W., Lat. 40° 50' N. 

 Local Mean Times. Greenwich Mean Times. Sun s 

 d. h. m. s. d. h. m. s. Altitude. 



Eclipse begins May 28 2 8 35 May 28 2 43 7 

 Totality begins „ 28 3 27 10 „ 28 4 1 42) 

 Totality ends „ 28 3 28 43 „ 28 4 3 ^SJ 

 Eclipse ends „ 28 4 38 42 „ 28 5 13 14 



Duration of Totality, im. 33*6s. 



Angle, from N. /first contact, 89° towards the W.^ 



point, of \ last contact, 93° towards the E. \ iox direct 



Angle, from/first contact, 137° towards the W. j image. 

 Vertex, of (last contact, 38° towards the E. j 



Position S.W. of Talavera de la Reina (Spain)— 

 Long. 5^ 10' W., Lat. 39^47' N. 

 Local Mean Times. Greenwich Mean Times. Sun's 

 d. h. m. s. d. h. m. s. Altitude. 



Eclipse begins May 28 2 29 18 May 28 2 49 58 53° 

 Totality begins ,, 28 346 2 „ 28 4 6 42! 

 Totality ends „ 28 3 47 29 „ 28 4 8 9/ 

 Eclipse ends ,, 28 4 55 38 .. 28 5 16 18 26° 

 Duration of Totality, im. 27-45. 



Angle, from N. /first contact, 88° towards the W. ^ 



point, of \last contact, 94° towards the E. [ for direct 

 Angle, from /first contact, 140° towards the W. j image. 

 Vertex, of \last contact, 38° towards the E. j 



Position West of Puerto del Infierno (Spain) — 

 Long. 1° 43' W., Lat. 38° 38' N. 

 Local Mean Times. Greenwich Mean Times. Sun's 

 d. h.Jm. s, d. h. m. s. Altitude. 



Eclipse begins May 28 2 49 40 May 28 2 56 32 49° 

 Totality begins ,, 28 4 4 28 ,, 28 4 11 20 \ 

 - -■ • " "12 41/ 



39 



Totality ends 



28 4 5 49 



28 



35 



23 



for direct 

 image. 



Eclipse ends ,, 28 5 12 9 ,, 28 5 19 



Duration of Totality, im. 21 "55. 

 Angle, from N. ( first contact, 87° towards the W. \ 

 point, of t last contact, 94° towards the E. f 

 Angle, from \ first contact, 143° towards the W. l 

 Vertex, of \ last contact, 38" towards the E. J 

 Cape De Sta. Pola (.\licante), Spain — 

 Long. 0° 30' W., Lat. 38° 13' N. 

 Local Mean Times. Greenwich Mean Times. Sun's 

 d. h. ra. s. d. h. m. s. Altitude 



Eelipse begins May 28 2 56 47 May 28 2 58 47 

 Totality begins ,, 28 4 10 52 ,, 28 

 Totality ends „ 28 4 12 11 ,, 28 



4 12 52| 

 4 14 11/ 



Eclipse ends ,, 28 5 17 55 ,, 28 5 19 55 21" 



Duration of Totality, im. I9'4S. 

 Angle, from N. f first contact, 87° towards the W. \ 



point, of ( last contact, 94° towards the E. ' for direct 

 Angle, from /first contact, 144° towards the W. i image. 



Vertex, of \last contact, 38° towards the E. ) 



The accompanying map of the line of totality will 

 show the parts of Spain and Portugal from which this 

 eclipse can be observed. It will be seen that the . track, 

 after leaving Spain near Alicante, crosses the Mediter- 

 ranean and enters Africa close to Algiers. 



We may be perfectly certain that the astronomers of 

 the United States and France will man the beginning 

 md the end of the line quite efficiently. It is clear, 

 therefore, that the attention of British astronomers with 

 serious work to do will be directed to the observing 

 stations in Spain and Portugal. 



The weather chances were stated by Prof. Arcimis in 

 a former number of Nature,^ and may be considered 

 excellent. 



There are many branches of work, such as securing 

 photographs of the corona, in which amateurs may do 

 good service. For them the well-found steamers leaving 

 Marseilles may make the coast near Algiers more 

 convenient. 



1 Vol. lix. p. 439. 



NO. 1574, VOL. 61] 



HERO OF ALEXANDRIAN 



THE reputation of Hero of Alexandria has always 

 been somewhat doubtful, and some difficulty has 

 been felt in apportioning to him his proper place among 

 the scientific worthies of the past. Mr. Schmidt, how- 

 ever, in the communication mentioned below, has 

 attempted to do justice to his reputation, and to 

 resuscitate the memory of him whom most of us re- 

 member only through the well-known experiment of 

 Hero's fountain. In another place Mr. Schmidt has 

 endeavoured to fix the approximate date of his career, 

 and by his intimate acquaintance with the various MSS. 

 and authorities, to do something to clear away the 

 doubts that linger around a Hero the younger and some 

 other anonymous writers. Mr. Schmidt may be said to 

 have taken Hero under his particular care, and though, 

 of course, it is unfortunate that many of the original 

 writings are not extant, and that others have not been 

 printed yet, Mr. Schmidt, by a careful study of the 

 remnants, has probably placed himself in a better 

 position to reconstruct the history of this ancient philo- 

 sopher than any other commentator. 



But though Mr. Schmidt attempts to place the object 

 of his study in the most favourable light, to make us see 

 m him one as influential as Euclid, we cannot say that 



Fig. I. — Hercules shooting at the apple. 



we think the steps he has taken are the most judicious 

 or the most successful Instead of a philosopher we 

 perceive rather an able artificer and an expert 

 mechanician. The points selected for elaborate illus- 

 tration are not those which exhibit Hero in the most 

 capable light. There can be no doubt but that Hero 

 successfully solved the problem of determining the area 

 of a triangle from the three sides, and it would have been 

 very interesting to see the method he employed set out 

 in detail, but the author passes over this feat with a bare 

 mention, although the treatment of such a problem 

 appeals more potently to modern students, and bespeaks 

 a higher position in the intellectual scale, than the skilful 

 manipulation of automatic figures over the details of which 

 Mr. Schmidt lovingly lingers. Again, we have indistinct 

 ideas of his experiments on the elasticity of air and 

 steam, and we should like to know whether he made any 

 approach to a knowledge of Boyle's law, and in any way 

 anticipated its enunciation by that philosopher. Of 

 course it may be urged that these are among the best- 

 known results of Hero's life and writings, and that as 

 such they do not need the aid of a commentator, but 



• 1 " Heron von Alexandria." By W. Schmidt. Sonder abdruck aus den 

 neuen Jahrbiichern fur das Klassische Altertum Geschichte und Deutsche 

 Litteratur. (Leipzig :B. G. Teubner, 1 899.) 



