February 9, 1905] 



NA TURE 



353 



central axis of uric acid, whilst, in addition, the ureides 

 of these acids, namely, barbituric acid, dialuric acid, and 

 alloxan, are converted by the ferment quantitatively into 

 urea and carbon dioxide. Moreover, just as in the case of 

 the sugars only the hexoses are capable of undergoing 

 fermentation, the bacillus of uric acid is indifferent to 

 acids containing fewer or more than three carbon atoms. 



The Psychological Bulletin (vol. ii., No. i) for 

 January contains a notice of the meeting of the north 

 central section of the American Psychological Association 

 which was held at Chicago on November 26, under the 

 presidency of Prof. W. D. Scott, of the North-western 

 University. The following papers were read : — Is subjec- 

 tive idealism a necessary point of view for psychology? by 

 Mr. Stephen S. Colvin ; the genesis of meaning, by Mr. 

 I. E. Miller; relation of sensation and revived mental 

 processes, by Messrs. T. H. Haines and J. C. Williams; 

 the vehicle of cognition, by Mr. B. H. Bode; psychological 

 method, by Mr. C. A. Blanchard ; an Iowa case of complete 

 congenital cataracts cured after twenty-two years, by Mr. 

 James Burt Miner; the relations of psychology to logic, by 

 Miss Harriet S. Penfield ; the functional theory in psy- 

 chology and the concept of transcendence, by Mr. J. H. 

 Farley ; the psychology of linguistic development in the 

 individual, by Mr. M. V. O'Shea ; is the beauty of art a 

 higher type than that of nature? by Mr. George Rebec; 

 the reality and the symbol in education, by Miss Julia H. 

 Gulliver; and a motor theory of rhythm, by Mr. R. H. 

 Stretton 



The Walter Scott Publishing Company will shortly issue 

 a translation of " Science and Hypothesis," by Prof. Poin- 

 car^. Prof. J. Larmor, Sec.R.S., has written a preface to 

 this edition of Prof. Poincar^'s work. 



A COPY of the report of the librarian of the U.S. Con- 

 gress for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1903, has been 

 received from Washington. The report runs to 600 pp., 

 and includes elaborate details concerning every department 

 of the library's activities. A select list of recent purchases 

 during igoi-1903 constitutes part ii. of the volume, and a 

 third section is devoted to a report on copyright legislation. 



Mr. John- A. Bergstrom, of Indiana, writing in the 

 Psychological Bulletin, describes a spring suspension for 

 laboratory motors used for driving colour mixing or other 

 experimental apparatus, with the object of reducing the 

 noise and vibration produced by motors resting on a fixed 

 base. 



The third English edition of Prof. Mendel^eff's " Princi- 

 ples of Chemistry " has been published in two 

 volumes by Messrs. Longmans, Green and Co. The 

 new volumes are a translation from the seventh 

 Russian edition by Mr. George Kamensky, edited 

 by Mr. Thomas H. Pope. There are three appen- 

 dices to the work. The first of these is the Royal Institu- 

 tion lecture delivered by Prof. MendeMeff on May 31, 1889, 

 entitled " An Attempt to apply to Chemistry one of the 

 Principles of Newton's Natural Philosophy"; the second, 

 on the " Periodic Law of the Chemical Elements," is Prof. 

 Mendel^eff's 1899 Faraday lecture to the Chemical Society ; 

 the last is entitled " An Attempt towards a Chemical Con- 

 ception of the Ether," and its contents were described in 

 an article which appeared in Nature on November 17, 1904 

 (vol. Ixxi., No. 1829). The work is one of the classics of j 

 chemical science, and the new edition will be widely 

 welcomed 



OUR ASTRONOMICAL COLUMN. 



Ephemeris for Comet 1904 e. — Given below is an extract 

 from a daily ephemcis computed by Dr. E. Stromgren from 

 the elliptic elements calculated by M. Fayet for comet 

 1904 e. 



I2h. (M.T. Berlin). 



1905 a 



h. m. s. 



Feb. 9 ... 2 29 38 



„ II ... 2 34 23 



„ 13 ... 2 39 14 



„ 15 ... 2 44 10 



,, 17 ... 2 49 12 



S log r log il 



+ 21 14 ... 0'i582 ... o'o8i6 



+ 22 27 



+ 23 38 ... 0-1613 ... 0-0940 



+ 24 47 



+ 25 54 ... 0-1647 ••■ 0-1067 



On February 7 the comet was very near to, but south- 

 west of, v .Arietis {Astronomische Nachrichten, No. 3991, 

 supplement). 



Ephemeris for Comet 1904 d. — The following 

 extract from the daily ephemeris for comet 1904 

 lished in No. 3991 of the Astronomische Nachrich 

 Herr M. Ebell. 



IS an 

 d pub- 

 ten by 



12?; 



(iLT. 

 S (true) 



Feb. 9 

 „ 17 



19 22 32 ... +54 50 



19 41 49 ... +56 28 . 



20 I 4S - +57 57 

 20 22 ij ... +59 17 



Berlin). 



log r 



0-3492 

 03542 

 ■ 03593 

 . 0-3645 



. 0-3584 

 . o 3643 , 

 ■ o 3710 



. 0-3784 



Brighl- 



.. 0-82 

 .. 0-78 

 ■074 

 .. 0-70 



Brightness at time of discovery = 10. 



NO. 1841, VOL 71] 



An observation made by Herr Pechule at i6h. 24-3m. 

 (Copenhagen M.T.) on January 14 gave corrections to this 

 ephemeris of —4s. and -o'-5. 



On February 9 the comet will be to the north-west ot, 

 and near to, k Cygni, then, travelling in a north-easterly 

 direction, it will pass into the constellation Cepheus. 



Orbit of Comet 1904 e (Borrelly).— From the observ- 

 ations made at Konigsberg on December 31 and at Paris on 

 January 11, M. Fayet has made an investigation of the 

 probable orbit of Borrelly's comet (1904 e). In the first 

 place three different sets of parabolic elements were com- 

 puted but, although the arc traversed by the comet whilst 

 under' observation was very small, and the results obtained 

 were therefore not very trustworthy, the non-agreement of the 

 parabolic elements with the observational results was too 

 great to be admitted. M. Fayet therefore computed a set 

 of elements on the assumption that the orbit was elliptical, 

 and these were much more satisfactory, indicating a short 

 period of about six years. , ^ . 



The following set of elliptic elements was finally adopted 

 as giving a fairly satisfactory agreement between the 

 observed and computed positions : — 



T = 1905 Jan. 1577425 (M.T. Paris) 

 A - 76° 6' 43' 97 ] 



i = 30° 55' 2l"-25 ■ 1905 



c« = 35i° 35' 27"-iiJ 



log q — 0-149236 

 log e = 9-818195 



These results give a value for. /i of 423"-9iS, and there- 

 fore indicate that the comet is of the short-period type, 

 making one revolution in its orbit in about eight years 

 (Comptes rendus. No. 4, 1905). 



Observ.ations of the Leonid Shower of 1904.— In a 

 note published in No. 3989 of the Astronomische Nach- 

 richten. Mr. Denning gives a few details of his observations 

 of the late Leonid shower at Bristol. 



During a watch of about one and a half hours between 

 I3h. 30m. and ish. 45m. on November 14, 55 meteors,_ of 

 which 33 were Leonids, were seen, and Mr. Denning 

 estimated that, at that time, the latter were appearing at 

 the rate of about 25 per hour, for one observer, from a 

 radiant situated at R.A. = iSi<', decl. = + 23°. No increase 



