NA TURE 



[Jan. 22, 1885 



work will profit. Papers on educational subjects will be read 

 at the spring meeting, which is to take place in the middle of 

 April at the Girls' Grammar School, Bradford. 



Ot.n residents of the California peninsula have noticed several 

 varieties of birds near the sea coast that they have never before 

 kn >wn to leave the mountains. This is supposed to indicate a 

 severe winter, but the migration is more probably due to the 

 prevailing scarcity of all kinds of seeds in the mountains this 

 season. 



According to the report of the captain of a vessel which in 

 December returned from Eskefjord, on the east coast of Iceland, 

 showers of ashes fell on Eastland early in November. The 

 deck of the ship was covered with a thin layer of ashes, probably 

 caused by a volcanic eruption inland. 



Mr. W. Hewitt, Science Demonstrator to the Liverpool 

 School Board, writes to us with reference to the "Itinerant'' 

 method of science teaching. The special instruction is, in Liverpool, 

 he states, commenced with the children in the fourth standa d, 

 and by this means deals with more than double the number of 

 children who would lie included were the commencement de- 

 ferred until the fifth standard, as appears to be the case in 

 Birmingham. There is every reason to believe, Mr. Hewitt 

 thinks, that the preliminary instruction in the fourth standard 

 is a very important part of the intellectual training which it is 

 the object of the system as a whole to give. The stages of in- 

 struction in each subject are kept quite distinct throughout, and 

 are always taken in the same order. The children on commenc- 

 ing the subject take up the first stage, and proceed in the 

 following year to the second stage, and so on through a sys- 

 tematic and carefully-graduated three (or four) years' course of 

 instruction in elementary science. 



The hatching of lobster and fish is making great progress in 

 Norway. Thus, last year the Association for the Promotion of 

 the Norwegian Fisheries hatched 7,000,000 fish, chiefly cod and 

 haddock, at their establishment of Arendal, in the Chrisliania 

 fjord, and this winter between 50,000,000 and 60,000,000 more 

 will probably be turned out. The experiments, which were made 

 of placing the ova of lobster in hatching apparatus, have been 

 attended with great success, and show that they may be turned 

 out by the million in this manner. As private enterprise cannot 

 be expected to undertake these operations from year to year on 

 a large scale all along the coast, the Association have petitioned 

 for Government support, which will, it is expected, be readily 

 forthcoming, as the Norwegians now clearly see of what enor- 

 mous benefit to the nation these operations are. 



Mr. Newall asks us to state that in his note on " The 

 Jeannette Drift" (vol. xxxi. p. 102), the word knots should 

 be nauts, a naut being a geographical mile of 60 to a 

 degree. It is a much more convenient measure than the mile 

 of 1760 yards, for it contains 1000 fathoms, or ten cables of 100 

 fathoms each, as used in the navy. It is the only decimal 

 measure used in any Government department ! Knot is a mark 

 on a line used on board ship, having the same proportion to a 

 naut which a half-minute glass has to an hour, or the I/I20th 

 part of a naut ; so, when 10 knots pass out during one turn of the 

 glass, the sailor means that the vessel is passing through the 

 water at 10 nauts an hour. 



The addition^ to the Zoological Society's Gardens during the 

 past week include a Golden Eagle [Aguila ckrysaetos) from 

 Sutherlandshire, presented by Col. E. D. Hunt ; a Crossbill 

 (Loxia curvirostris), British, presented by Mr. G. Skegg ; seven 

 Bramblings ( Fringilla montifringilld), two Chaffinches ( 1 1 

 ctslebs), a Tree Sparrow [Passer montana), a Black-headed Hunt- 

 ing (Emberi ■ ,',r) from Norfolk, presented by Mr. 

 T. E. Gunn ; a Nilotic Crocodile (Crocodilus vulgaris) from 

 Africa, presented by Mr. II. E. Cree ; a Brush-tailed Kangaroo 



(Pelrogale penicillata 6) from New South Wales, a Golden- 

 crowned Conure (Conurus aureus) from South-East Brazil, 

 ; two Striated Tanagers (Tanagra striata) from 

 Buenos Ayres, two Siskins (Ckrysomitris spinus), British, pur- 

 chased ; a Virginian Fox (Urocyon virginianus) from North 

 America, received in exchange. 



OUR ASTRONOMICAL COLUMN 

 Comets of Short Period, (i) Encke's Comet. — The 

 following ephemeris of this comet for February is founded upon 

 Dr. Backlund's elements, which the January observations show 

 to be very exact : — 



At 6'/. Greenwich Mean Time 



<, R.A. 



'5 h. m. s. 



• 1 ■■ 23 33 o 



2 ... — 34 31 



3 - — 3° 3 



4 ■•■ — 37 35 



5 - - 39 8 



6 ... — 40 40 



7 ■•■ — 42 13 



8 ■■ — 43 45 



9 ■■■ — 45 17 



10 ... — 46 49 



11 ... — 48 20 



12 ... — 49 50 



13 ... - 51 18 



14 ... — 52 44 



15 ■■■ — 54 7 



16 ... - 55 26 



17 ... — 56 41 



18 ... - 57 52 



19 ... — 58 57 



20 ... 23 59 54 



21 ... o o 42 



22 .. — 1 20 



23 ... — 1 46 



24 ... — 1 57 



25 ... — 1 51 



26 ... — 1 25 



27 ... o o 36 



Deck Log. distance from 



+ 6 32-4 

 6 38-6 ... 0-0884 ■■■ 9'9 2 79 

 6 447 

 6 507 



6 56-4 



7 21 ... 0-0705 ... 9-8901 

 7 7 '5 



7 i2"7 



7 175 



7 21-.; ... 0-0490 ... 9-8478 



7 25 '8 



7 292 



7 3i '9 



7 33'9 ■-■ C0233 ... 9-8003 



7 34'9 



7 3V9 



7 337 



7 31-1 ... 9-9924 ... 9-7470 



7 26-9 



7 207 



7 12-4 



7 1 '4 ■•• 99555 ••• 9"°88i 



6 47'5 



6 30-1 



6 8-9 



5 43'2 ••■ 9'9I23 •■• 9'°263 



5 12-4 



:8 ... 23 59 22 ... +4 35-9 



(2) Barnard's Comet. — Dr. Berberich, of Berlin, has made 

 a new determination of the orbit of this comet from three normal 

 positions deduced from observations extending over a period of 

 three months. The sidereal revolution is now found to occupy 

 1958-9 days, or 5-363 years. In heliocentric longitude 343° 40', 

 the distance of the comet from the orbit of Mars is only o 0079, 

 and a revolution but slightly differing from that obtained by Dr. 

 Berberich would have caused a very close approach of the two 

 bodies as lately as the end of 1873 or beginning of 1874. The 

 distance of the comet at aphelion from the orbit of Jupiter is 

 0'572. As previously remarked, much interest attaches to this 

 comet from the similarity of the elements of its orbit to those of 

 " the lost comet of De Vico," observed in the autumn of 1844. 



(3) Wolf's Comet. — Dr. Tempel, writing from Arcetri on 

 the 4th inst., describes this comet as being still " sehr hell mit 

 leicht zu beobachtendem Kerne." Considering that accurate 

 observation commenced on September 20, the mean motion may 

 lie expected to be pretty exactly defined by the observations at 

 this appearance, and the comet's orbit previous to the near 

 approach to the planet Jupiter in 1S75 may be investigated, 

 with 1 robability of a reliable result, without waiting for obser- 

 vations at its next return to perihelion in 1891. 



GEOGRAPHICAL NOTES 



The Bulletin de la Societe de Geo^raphie for the last quarter of 

 1884 is largely occupied with the geography of the far East. 

 Two members of the foreign mission body communicate papers 

 on Tonquin, both accompanied by maps. Pere Pinabel writes 

 on some "savage peoples" dependent on Tonquin. The ex- 

 pression "savage " is explained to mean nothing more than moun- 

 taineers. The tribes here described inhabit the mountains of 

 tl e 1 rovince ol rhague-hoa, between the rivers Maa and CIiou, 

 which is the most southern province of the delta of the Red 



