ASTRONOMICAL AND METEOROLOGICAL PHENOMENA. 271 



one. The elements of this 62nd planet are : — Mean longitude, 

 13° 42' 58" ; anomaly— 16° 24' 33" ; eccentricity, 10° 2' 22"; longitude 

 of perihelion, 30° 9' 31''; ditto of node, 126° 26' 59" ; inclination, 

 2* 11' 35"; daily motion, 646'109"; logarithm of the semi-axis 

 major, '493134. The Minister of Public Instruction wrote to 

 inform the Academy that M. Passot had sent a petition to the 

 Emperor, praying that a commission might be appointed by the 

 Academy to examine a paper already submitted to that body, " On 

 the Law of the Variation of the Central Force in Planetary Move- 

 ments," and to request the Academy to give his Excellency some 

 information on the matter. 



On the 24th of March, Dr. Luther discovered a new planet at the 

 observatory of Bilk, near Diisseldorf ; it is the fifty-seventh of the 

 small planets between Mars and Jupiter. 



GREAT STORMS OF OCTOBER AND NOVEMBER, 1859. 



Bear-Admiral Fitzroy has read to the Boyal Society some 

 Bemarks on the Storms of October 25, 26, and November 1, 1859, 

 from information obtained from lighthouses, observatories, and 

 private observers. 



The combined results of observations prove the storm of October 

 25 and 26 to have been a complete horizontal cyclone. Travelling 

 bodily northward, the area of its sweep being scarcely 300 miles in 

 diameter, its influence affected only the breadth of our islands (exclu- 

 sive of the west of Ireland) and the coast of France. 



While the central portion was advancing northward, not uniformly, 

 but at an average rate of about 20 miles an hour, the actual velocity 

 of the wind-circling (as against watch-hands) around a central "lull," 

 was from 40 to nearly 80 miles an hour. 



At places northward of its centre, the wind appeared to "back," 

 or "retrograde," shifting from east through north-east, and north to 

 north-west ; while at places eastward of its central passage, the 

 apparent change occurring, was from east, through south-east, south, 

 south-west, and west. 



Our Channel squadron, not far from lh/3 Eddystone, experienced a 

 rapid, i ! <sed almost a sudden shift of tue wind from south-east to 

 north- w< st, being, at that tiire, in or near the central lull ; while, so 

 near as Guernsey, ti.e wind vetred round by south, regularly without 

 any lull. This sudden shift off the Eddystone occurred at about 

 three (or soon after), and at nearly half-past five it took place near 

 Beigate, westward of which the central lull passed. 



From this south-eastern part of England, the central portion o{ 

 the storm moved northward and eastward. Places on the east and 

 north coasts of Scotland had strong easterly or northerly gales a 

 day nearly later than the middle of England. When the Royal 

 Charter was wrecked, Aberdeen and Banffshire were not disturbed 

 by wind ; but when it blew hardest, from east to north, on that 

 exposed coast, the storm had abated or almost ceased in the Channel 

 and on the south coast of Ireland. 



The storm of the 31st, and 1st of November, was similar in cha- 



