July 7, 1881] 



NA TURE 



world, and was a director in the Parisian Gas Company 

 and the Eastern Railway of France. His family relations 

 were singularly happy. He leaves behind him a group 

 of five sons. In addition to the treatise on aluminium 

 already alluded to, Deville was the author, in company 

 with D^bray, of an exhaustive work in two volumes on the 

 " Mdtallurgie du Platine" (1863). 



T. H. N. 



CONVERSAZIONE AT KING'S COLLEGE 



ON Saturday, July 2, a brilliant and successful conver- 

 sazione, given by the Council and the Academical 

 Staff of King's College, brought to a conclusion the 

 celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of 

 the College. In the afternoon H.R. H. the Prince of 

 Wales, accompanied by H.R.H. the Princess of Wales, 

 distributed the College prizes to successful students, and 

 the College rooms were converted into tastefully decorated 

 drawing-rooms and picture galleries, in which were exhi- 

 bited many very choice pictures and works of art. 



The librarj' was furnished with microscopes which had 

 been lent by members of the Microscopic Society. The 

 large entrance hall and the front of the College were 

 brilliantly lighted by three Crompton electric lights, which 

 burnt w^ith remarkable steadiness throughout the evening. 

 In the scientific department, the museum of King George 

 III. contains an unrivalled collection of mechanical and 

 physical apparatus, and is especially rich in apparatus of 

 historic interest. The nucleus of the collection was pre- 

 sented to the College by Her Majesty the Queen in 1843, 

 when the museum was opened by Prince Albert, who 

 then witnessed some of the experiments of Sir Charles 

 Wheatstone on the electric telegraph. Important addi- 

 tions have been made to the collection of apparatus by 

 the Professors of Natural Philosophy, and at his death 

 Sir Charles Wheatstone's valuable collection was be- 

 queathed to the museum. Among the interesting 

 features in the museum are : calculating machines of 

 Cavendish and others, Appoldie centrifugal pump, 

 Newcomen's model of his steam-engine, original forms 

 of Uaniell's battery, Siberian loadstone used for his 

 induction spark by Faraday, original Wheatstone's bridge, 

 early forms of stereoscope, early forms of electrical 

 machines, polar clocks and shadow clocks, De Kem- 

 pelen's talking machine. 



From its foundation in 1868 the Physical Laboratory, 

 now called the Wheatstone Laboratory, has been under 

 the direction of Prof W. Grylls Adams. Among the 

 interesting apparatus exhibited in this department were 

 the Wheatstone Collection of electrical apparatus for 

 exhibition in Paris, dynamo-electric machines, diffraction 

 spectra, an optical bench, showing interference of light, 

 measuring polariscopes, with universal motions for the 

 exact measurement of crystals, and vacuum tubes in great 

 variety, including a very beautiful coronet. The great 

 event of the evening in the Physical Department was the 

 exhibition for the first time in England of the Faure's 

 secondary battery or reservoir of electricity. Two boxes 

 of this battery, w^hich had been previously charged from 

 a dynamo-electric machine, and had then been brought 

 to the College, were capable of heating and keeping heated 

 to bright redness a platinum wire 2 metres long and i 

 millimetre in diameter. Six boxes were found to be suffi- 

 cient to cause Swan electric lamps to glow brilliantly. 

 Twelve of these boxes supplied a pedestal of Lane-Fox 

 lamps, supplied by the British Electric Light Company, 

 and during the evening the Physical Lecture Theatre was 

 brilliantly illuminated by twenty Swan lamps of the latest 

 type with the current from twelve other boxes of Faure's 

 secondary battery. It was shown that by means of these 

 boxes of electricity the lighting of private houses by 

 electricity was already an accomplished fact. 



w 



THE COMET 

 E have received the following communications :- 



At about lib. om. G.M.T. on June 29 a transit of 

 the " following " nuclear jet of the great comet over a star 

 of 8m. was observed by Mr. N. E. Green, of 39, Circus 

 Road, St. John's Wood, and by me, with a 12^-inch re- 

 flector belonging to Air. Green. Definition was very 

 good and tranquil. As the star became involved in the 

 jet it gradually increased in size, and when seen through ■ 

 the brightest part of the jet traversed resembled an ill- 

 defined planetary disk about 3" in diameter. At this 

 moment the comet seemed to have two nuclei similar in 

 aspect and brightness. 



The effect of the cometary matter on the star' s image 

 resembled that of ground glass, not that of fog ; the image 

 of the star, being dilated into a patch of nearly uniform 

 brightness, instead of presenting a sharp central point 

 with a surrounding halo. Cirro-stratus, passing into rain- 

 cloud,produces on the appearance of the sun an effect the 

 counterpart of that produced by the cometary emitted 

 matter on the star. There was not sufficient light for the 

 use of the spectroscope, the star, afterwards identified as 

 B.D. -f 65^, 519, being fainter than 8m. 



The transit of the jet occupied about 3m., and the star 

 slowly resumed its ordinary appearance and dimensions, 

 the image contracting as the centre of the jet left the star 

 behind. A transit o"f this kind has not frequently been 

 observed, at least under such favourable conditions as to 

 brightness and definition of the objects, and it is to be 

 hoped that others may have been as fortunate as Mr. 

 Green and the undersigned. 



If the point which obeys the Newtonian law be a solid 

 body, the observation just recorded seems to show that its 

 true outline would probably be rendered unrecognisable, 

 and its aspect totally altered by the (refractive ?) power of 

 the coma and jets. Charles E. Burton 



38, Barclay Road, S.W., July i 



The following is an extended list of places obtained 

 with the transit-circle when the comet passed sub Polo : — 



Greenwich Mean „, , Observed North Polar 



Dale. lime of p" distance (uncorrected 



for parallax) 



R.A. 



(<7)' June 23 ... II 30 54-4 



[i) „ 24 ... II 30 42'6 



(c) „ 25 ... II 30 58-3 



{d) „ 27 ... II 33 2-8 



(e) „ 28 ... 



(/) » 29 ... II 37 393 



(S) „ 30 ■■■ II 41 3"9 



(/;) July I ... II 45 19-9 



{i) „ 2 ... II 5° 3>9 



5 34 55-2 ... 44 S3 20-6 



5 38 39'9 •■• 40 35 337 



5 42 52-2 ... 36 38 27-4 



5 52 50-2 ... 29 46 5-8 



— ... 26 49 45 ° 



6 5 20-5 ... 24 II 37-9 

 6 12 42-2 ... 21 50 26'3 

 6 20 55-5 ... 19 44 41-3 

 6 30 49 ... 17 52 59-6 



Remarks.— (a) The nucleus distinct but nebulous. Tail 

 bright, and estimated 15° in length. Observation good. 



{b) Observation difficult, owing to cloud. 



(c) Nucleus better defined than on June 23, but not so 

 bright. Length of tail estimated at 15°. Observation good. 



{d) Observation fair, very cloudy. Tail I2°-I5° long. 



{e) C)bserved through short break in clouds. Tail 10° 

 in length. 



(/) Observation very good. Tail 10'. 



{g) observation very good. Nucleus smaller and fainter 

 than on preceding nights. Tail 10'. 



(/;) Observation very good. Tail 9". 



(/) \'ery faint, observed through haze. Tail S'. 



Radclifi"e Observatory, Oxford E. J. Stone 



My chief object in writing to-day is to explain a word 

 in my letter of June 28 (p. 200) that is quite open to mis- 

 interpretation. In examining the head of Comet i^ 1881 

 with a small direct-vision spectroscope and a narrow slit, 

 I saw, on June 27, three bright lines or bands on a faint 

 continuous spectrum. Two of the lines were strong and 



■ The observed R.A. and G.M.T. for June 33, reported in last week's 

 Nature (p. 200), should be decreased one minute, as above. 



