ASTRONOMICAL PHENOMENA AND PROGRESS. 



The appearances which I have seenj and which 

 may be worthy of notice, are the following: 



1. The principal division of the ring has been 

 easily visible to the present time (January 10, 1877), 

 but 1 have not certainly seen any other division, 

 although at times there is an appearance of slight 

 markings on the ring which may be caused by other 

 divisions. 



2. The dusky ring when seen on a good night ap- 

 pears remarkably bright. Although the edge of the 

 ring will be turned toward the earth early in 18Y8, 

 and the position is rapidly becoming more unfavor- 

 able for observation of the dusky ring, I have no- 

 ticed this brightness more especially in 1876. It is 

 possible that this is only a result of the great light- 

 power and good definition of our glass. The appear- 

 ance of the dusky ring is well described by Mr. 

 Trouvelot as " somewhat like particles of dust float- 

 ing in a ray of light traversing a dark chamber." 



8. The outline of the shadow of the ball on the 

 ringj as I have said, always appears of a regular and 

 continuous curvature, but the convexity of this out- 

 line is turned toward the ball, and not away from it, 

 as it is usually drawn, and as we ought to see it if 

 the surface of the ring is a plane surface. This 

 shadow of course appears on different sides of the 

 ball before and after opposition, and I have examined 

 it in both positions and always with the same result, 

 viz., the convexity of the outline is turned toward 

 the ball. 



The phenomenon here described may possi- 

 bly be explained by regarding the system of 

 rings as lenticular in form. 



Orbit of Hyperion. Although Hyperion, the 

 faintest satellite of Saturn, was discovered in 

 1848, the extreme difficulty of observing it has 

 prevented the accurate determination of its 

 orbit. In the Astronomische Nachrichten for 

 June 19, 1877, Prof. Hall gives approximate 

 elements derived from his observations in 1875 

 and 1876 with the Washington refractor of 26 

 inches aperture. Prof. Hall concludes that 

 the plane of Hyperion's orbit does not coincide 

 with that of the ring, but lies between those of 

 Titan and lapetus. The mean distance from 

 the centre of Saturn is found to be 939,440 

 miles ; the period 21 d - 7"' 28 m - 16'- ; and the ec- 

 centricity 0.125. The orbit is therefore more 

 eccentric than that of any other satellite; the 

 difference between the greatest and least dis- 

 tances of the body being greater than that be- 

 tween the mean distances of Hyperion and 

 Titan, the large satellite next interior. 



Comets. The first comet of 1877 was dis- 

 covered by M. Borelly, at Marseilles, on the 

 morning of February 9th, and independently 

 on the morning of the 10th by Pechule, of 

 Copenhagen. It passed its perihelion on the 

 19th of January, at a distance of 75,000,000 

 miles from the sun. For several days after 

 its discovery it appeared as a circular nebulous 

 body, without either tail or nucleus. Its ap- 

 parent diameter, on the 20th of February, was 

 8', which corresponds to a true diameter of 

 63,000 miles. On the 16th and 17th of Feb- 

 ruary Father Secchi examined the spectrum 

 of this comet, and found in it the usual three 

 bright-corn etary bands. 



The second comet of 1877 was discovered at 

 Strasburg, on the 5th of April, by Dr. Win- 

 necke. It was well observed both in Europe 



and America, and became sufficiently bright 

 to be seen by the naked eye. The elements 

 of its orbit resemble those of the comets 

 1827 II, and 1852 II. "The stellar nucleus 

 appeared to be composed of about a dozen 

 stars of the twelfth magnitude. The comet 

 passed its perihelion about April 19th, at a dis- 

 tance of some 90,000,000 miles from the sun, 

 being then rather farther from the earth." 

 Christie's Observatory, No. 1. 



The third comet of the year was discovered 

 by Lewis Swift, Esq., of Rochester, N. Y., at 

 9 h - 30 m - on the evening of April llth. The same 

 body was independently observed three days 

 later by Borelly at Marseilles. 



At the May meeting of the Royal Astro- 

 nomical Society Lord Lindsay read a paper on 

 the spectra of the second and third comets of 

 1877. That of the former showed three bright 

 lines, which did not coincide with the posi- 

 tions of the lines of carbon. The spectrum of 

 the nucleus, when examined with alow power, 

 appeared continuous, but with a high power it 

 gave three bright lines. According to Mr. 

 De la Rue, the spectrum had lines very near 

 the magnesium line. 



D' 'Arrest's Comet. The periodic comet of 

 D'Arrest, whose last previous return was in 

 1870, was discovered by M. Coggia, at Mar- 

 seilles, on the 8th of July, 1877, very near the 

 position indicated by the ephemeris of Leveau. 

 As this comet sometimes passes within a short 

 distance of Jupiter, its motion is occasionally 

 greatly disturbed by that planet, and hence the 

 elements of its orbit are liable to great varia- 

 tion. The comet passed its perihelion on the 

 10th of May. 



Another comet was discovered by M. Cog- 

 gia on the 14th of September, three days after 

 its perihelion passage. Its least distance from 

 the sun was 1.576 ; greater than the mean dis- 

 tance of Mars. 



The sixth comet of 1877 was discovered by 

 Dr. Tempel, of the observatory of Arcetri, 

 near Florence, on the 2d of October. Its 

 perihelion passage occurred on the 27th of 

 June, and its least distance from the sun was 

 1.024. 



De Vice's comet of short period, whose re- 

 turn was due in 1877, entirely escaped detec- 

 tion, though carefully looked for by several 

 astronomers. 



The motion of Swift's comet, the third of 

 1877, is direct; that of the first, second, fifth, 

 and sixth, retrograde. 



Meteors. The August meteors were seen, in 

 1877, wherever the state of the atmosphere 

 permitted observations. On the night of the 

 10th Rev. J. L. Gay, of Parsons, Ka., counted 

 100 in an hour. The November shower was 

 observed at Blocmington, Ind., on the morning 

 of the 14th. The meteors, however, were by 

 no means numerous. In an hour and fifty 

 minutes from l h - 55 m - to 3 h - 45 m - fifty-four 

 were counted by two observers. This was at 

 the rate of thirty per hour. The morning of the 



