53* 



NA TURE 



[April 5, 1906 



extreme velocit) ran be imagined from the great de- 

 parture oi those bright lines from the stable dark 

 line F, seen below them, and not only that, but we 

 can think out the explicit character oi this prominence 

 action. They were really in this case, as already 

 stated, smoke rings thrown up by enormous circum- 

 solar action. " 



We thus see thai aftei the lapse of thirty-five years 

 these "lozenge" forms, as they were then called 

 spectroscopically, have been caught in the mesh of 

 the photographic plate. 



For the search after intra-Mercurial planets two 

 objectives of 10 cm. aperture and 4 metres focal length 

 were used equatorially, and plates were exposed for 

 [20 and 63 seconds. So far as the negatives have 

 been examined, no unknown object has been detected, 

 but it is interesting to remark that on both plates 

 Mercury appeal's of the fifth or sixth magnitude eleven 

 hours after inferior conjunction. 



Successful measures were made of the brightness 

 of the corona with a Weber photometer by Prof. 

 Knopf, but the reductions are not yet quite complete. 



one he has chosen, for in the course of some 300 

 octavo pages he traces the story of the district in 

 which Pickering is situated from pre-Glacial limes up 

 to the date of his publication, including the geology, 

 the archaeology early and later, local legends and 

 folklore; and very good miscellaneous reading he 

 makes of it. The earlier sections, however, can 

 scarcely be said to conform with his title-page, for 

 it is admitted that for many thousands of years aftei 

 the period of his second chapter no human being mi 

 existed in Britain in the latitude of Pickering, and 

 the town itself would, ol course, !»■ even later. 



There is, however, no harm in this, and it must be 

 confessed that the admirable material existing in the 

 neighbourhood, and the masterly way in which much 

 ol ii has been treated by competent hands, offer great 

 temptations to include nature's story as well as man's. 

 The Kirkdale cave is one oi the best known of these 

 natural features of the locality, and was exhaustively 

 described by Dr. Buckland in 1S22 before the Royal 

 Society, in a paper which is a model of scientific 

 analysis. The physical conformation of the country. 



Fig. i.— The Ha 



vatory's Eclipse Camp in Souk-Ahr; 



! coronagraph is on the right, and the 



Ipla 



-finde 



Shadow bands were clearly seen, and the dimensions 

 "I those measured were about 50 cm. long and 4 cm. 

 to 5 cm. broad. W. J. S. Lockyer. 



THE STORY Of AN ENGLISH TOWN. 1 

 THE modern changes in literary methods and the 

 * demands of the reading public have altered the 

 character of many classes of books, but none has 

 been so much affected as that dealing with topo- 

 graphy. The subsidised family history, the elaborate 

 folding pedigrees, plates of armorial bearings or of 

 equally uninteresting tombs of former magnates oi 

 the locality, have disappeared from such works, unless 

 their intrinsic interest coincides with that of the sub- 

 ject of the book. Genealogists and students of family 

 history are now provided with publications of their 

 own, surely a change of a practical kind, and one 

 which allows the substantive matter of a topographical 

 work to take its real place. Even when the older 

 fashion is cast aside for the new, however, there are 

 many alternatives in the treatment of local history. 

 Mr. Gordon Home may be said to be thorough in the 



1 " The Evolution of an English Town ; being the Story of the Ancient 

 Town of Pickering in Yorkshire." By Cordon Home. Pp. xix4-2a8. 

 1 London : J. M. Dent and Co., 1005.) Price 10s. 6,1. net. 



NO. I9OI, VOL. 73] 



the bills around rising to a height of upwards of 

 1400 feet, naturally provides an admirable field for the 

 observation of the action of ice, and here Mr. Home 

 has taken full advantage of the survey made by Prof. 

 Kendall, while the existence and behaviour of the 

 glaciers in the valleys converging on Lake Picker- 

 ing iii the lesser Ire age are made very clear b\ 

 the diagrams provided. Naturally enough, then' is 

 a good deal of elementary geology in these chapters, 

 and Mr. Home at times also gives his imagination 

 a somewhat free rein, but he does not confuse lac; 

 and imagination. 



Coming to the later limes, where geology gives 

 place to archaeological conditions, we are on surer 

 ground; the relics arc- more plentiful and more 

 directly comparable with similar remains in other 

 localities and even other countries. Hypothesis and 

 even imagination still have their uses, but the more 

 abundant matera] should keep the studenl to the 

 safer /one of comparative archaeology. Here again, 

 in the Barrow period, Mr. Home is fortunate in 

 having masters of the craft to appeal to. Dr. Tbur- 

 nam and Canon Greenwell have both provided ample. 

 mailer for the story of man during the later Sic. 11. 

 and earl) Bronze ages, and Mr. Home might have 

 drawn upon them more largely with advantage to 



