June 30, 1 881] 



NA TURE 



i9r 



found. Cneofthe most important matters contained in 

 the book is the author's account of a Bathybius-like 

 albuminous substance which he discovered in the mud 

 composing the sea-bottom, at a depth of ninety or ninety- 

 five fathoms north of Smith Sound. The specimens of 

 mud were brought up in a water-bottle apparatus, about a 

 large spoonful being obtained each time of sounding. 

 This mud was very sticl<y, and showed itself under the 

 microscope to consist of a yellowish gray mass with 

 numerous opaque lime particles embedded in it. If 

 some of the mud was left to rest in a hollowed out 

 glass slip for some time the albuminous masses ex- 

 hibited unmistakable amceboid movements, and took 

 into their substance particles of larmine. The substance 

 is named Protobathybius. 



We cannot follow the author further. His book is well 

 worth reading, and only escaped notice here sooner 

 through accident. It is well illustrated throughout. He 

 takes exception on the ground of priority to the name 

 Pateocrystic Sea, which Sir George Nares conferred 

 upon the expanse which the Americans had previously 

 named Lincoln Sea. He states that, owing to the 

 neglect of his work by an assistant, numerous serious 

 errors occur in the official volume of scientific results of 

 the Polaris expedition already published, especially in 

 the meteorological department. These are corrected in 

 the appendix to the present volume, which contains also 

 much other scientific matter. He finds fault throughout 

 his book with the conduct of the ice-master of the Polaris, 

 .S. O. Buddington, and considers that the ship might have 

 reached higher latitudes if, on two occasions which he 

 believes were favourable, a push had been made north- 

 ward. He accuses Buddington of not even going up into the 

 crow's-nest as often as he should have done to examine 

 the state of the ice. Some official correspondence which 

 passed on board the ship on these questions of the man- 

 agement of the expedition is given in the book. The 

 manner in which the meteorological observations were 

 kept up after the shipwreck, and the devotion with which 

 Dr. Bessels attempted, though in vain, to sledge far north 

 after the wreck from Polaris house are highly creditable. 



The book is dedicated to the Arctic explorer, Capt. A. 

 H. Markham, R.N., who with great kindness, and at very 

 considerable inconvenience, shared his cabin on board 

 the whaler Arctic with Dr. Bessels on the voyage to 

 Dundee, the i'?«j'c«j-irr«/]o- having fallen in with \\\e. Arctic 

 on the whaling-grounds. H. N. MOSELEY 



THE COMET 

 'T^HE comet which, so far as we are yet informed, was 

 -•■ first astronomically observed in the southern hemi- 

 sphere on May 29, is now well under observation in these 

 latitudes, and as its position will become more and more 

 favourable, it will be a mere question as to how long our 

 telescopes will show it, what data may be obtained for an 

 accurate determinaticn of its orbit. The elements appear 

 to have some resemblance to those of the great comet of 

 1807, to which reference w-as made in Dr. Gould's early 

 telegram from the observatory at Cordoba, but the iden- 

 tity of the comets appears highly improbable after 

 Bessel's classical memoir containing a rigorous investiga- 

 tion of the orbit of the comet of 1807, which he followed 

 until the perturbations of the known planets had ceased 

 to be sensible. We may briefly recall the circumstances 

 attending the appearance of that body and one or two 

 main results of Bessel's investigation. According to 

 Piazzi it was first detected by an Augustine monk at 

 Castro Giovanni in Sicily on September 9, but the first 

 regular observation was made on the 22nd of the same 

 month by Thulis at Marseilles From this time the 

 comet's positions were determined at every opportunity 

 by Bessel, Olbers, Oriani, and others until the end of 

 February, 1808, and on the 18th of the following month 



Wisniewsky, favoured by a very acute vision and the clear 

 skies of St. Petersburg, observed the comet again, and' 

 succeeded in fixing its position until the 27th. In con- 

 sequence of a notification from Olbers, that with powerful 

 telescopes there might be a possibility of observing the 

 comet again as the earth overtook it to some extent in 

 October and November of the same year, Bessel, then 

 working with Schroeter at Lilienthal, closely examined its 

 track with reflectors of 15 and 20 feet focal length, and 

 on November 9 did succeed in finding an extremely faint 

 nebulosity near the computed place of the comet, which 

 he could not find subsequently, but as the position differed 

 12' from that assigned by an orbit which he considered 

 very exact, he came to the conclusion that the object he 

 observed was not the comet of 1S07, but another one 

 which happened to be in the vicinity, and which was not 

 seen elsewhere. The discussion of the six months' obser- 

 vations of the comet appears in the masterly treatise to 

 which we have referred, viz., " Untersuchungen iiber die 

 scheinbare und wahre Bahn des im Jahre 1807 erschienen 

 grossen Kometen," published at Konigsberg in 18 10. 

 The method of determining the perturbations of a comet 

 due to planetary attraction, which is detailed in this 

 memoir, was long practised by the German astronomers 

 in similar cases. 



Bessel inferred from his researches that at the perihe- 

 lion passage of the comet on September 22 it was moving 

 in an ellipse, with a period of revolution of 17 14 years, 

 which was reduced to 16S5 years at the date of Wisniew- 

 sky's last observation, and continuing his computation of 

 the perturbations to March, 1S15, when the effect of 

 planetary attraction had become very small, he found the 

 period further reduced to 1543 years. 



The general aspect of the comet noiv visible as viewed 

 in an excellent Cometcn-siic/scr, reminds us of the appear- 

 ance of the comet of June, 1845, discovered by Colla, 

 which was observed under very similar circumstances, 

 and it may be mentioned that Encke stated at the time 

 that the comet of 1845 reminded him strongly of the 

 great comet of 1819, which passed across the sun's disk 

 on June 26. 



The present comet appears to have been at its least 

 distance from the earth about June 2r, and should soon 

 present a material diminution of brightness. In perigee 

 its distance would be about o'j. 



[Since the above was in type we have received observa- 

 tions from Dr. Elkin, of the Royal Observatory, Cape of 

 Good Hope : After a week of overcast sky the comet was 

 found there on May 31. Mr. L.A.Eddie, F.R.A.S., of 

 Graham's Town, saw it on May 27, and others claim to 

 have seen it two days earlier. On June 4 the tail was 6' 

 long, coma 20 minutes, and nucleus 20 seconds in 

 diameter ; the comet was as bright as a Columbse.] 



The following opinions of American astronomers have 

 appeared in the Daily A'czus. That paper, with wonder- 

 ful journalistic enterprise, has not hesitated to telegraph 

 nearly a column of matter from America on this subject :— 



" Prof. Stone, of the Cincinnati Observatory, thinks it 

 is not the comet of 1812, because of its not moving in a 

 southerly direction, but that it may possibly be that of 

 1807. Professors Eastman and Skinner, at the Naval 

 Observatory, succeeded in getting some fair observations 

 of the comet on Friday night, although the night was not 

 altogether favourable. Prof. Skinner describes the comet 

 as having an extremely bright nucleus, which presented a 

 very ruddy appearance. The observers did not know 

 whether this appearance was normal, or was due to the 

 prevailing atmospheric conditions. Prof. Skinner esti- 

 mates the tail, which is fan-shaped, at about eight degrees 

 in length. It was also ascertained that in twenty-two 

 minutes the comet travelled three seconds in arc, and in 

 an hour nine seconds, giving it a daily rate of travel 

 northward of about three degrees thirty-six seconds. 

 Computing its motion from its position when discovered. 



