12 



SECTION PHYSICS. 



Christie at the meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society on Friday, 

 May 1 2th. His paper contains the following table of comparison of 

 the recent application of this method at Greenwich. 



Mr. Christie concludes his paper by saying " Notwithstanding the 

 difficulties (connected with the methods of observation) it is gratifying 

 to find that out of the list of 21 stars, which have been observed both 

 by Dr. Huggins and Mr. Maunder (the observer at Greenwich), there 

 are only two cases of discordance, as will be seen in the table ; and for 

 both of these stars Dr. Huggins has expressed himself dissatisfied with 

 his observations, whilst the Greenwich results rest on too few observa- 

 tions at present." 



Mr. Christie informs me that since his paper was written, the motion 

 of the planet Venus has been observed by means of a small displace- 

 ment of the Fraunhofer lines of the sun's light reflected from that planet. 



I am now engaged in applying photography to the spectra of the 

 stars. This investigation may throw much light on the relative tempe- 

 rature of the suns and stars, and on some other important points of 

 astronomical physics. The investigation is at present too incomplete 

 for me to give any statement of the methods, and of the results obtained. 



Mr. J. NORMAN LOCKYER, F.R.S.,gave some account of the present 

 state of spectroscopic research as applied to Solar and Molecular 

 Physics. He confined his remarks to a few points in connection with 

 the instruments exhibited relating to the construction of a new Normal 

 map of the solar spectrum, together with a perfectly purified map of 



