Dec. 14, 1882] 
NATURE 
149 
cate a transit, March 22, 1877, which probably did not occur. 
And yet, viewed in connection with a reported transit, October 
24, 1876, seen by Mr. W. G. Wright at San Bernardino, Cali- 
fornia, and illustrated and fully reported in the Sczentific Ameri- 
can of November 18, 1876, which circumstance Leverrier 
probably had no knowledge of, was by no means as unsatisfactory 
as the public imagined ; for practically Wrisht’s transit and 
Leverrier’s hypothetical period mutually confirmed each other. 
The Scientific American Supplement of August 27, 1881, 
pw lished some remarks I sent them, which may have reached 
England. One point I directed attention to was that Le- 
verrier indicated that a conjunction was due September 21, 
1876, and I found that there were thirty-three days be- 
tween that and October 24, 1876, so if Leverrier took 176 
synodical periods from Lescarbault to September 21, it was 
nearly the same thing to take 177 to October 24; but extending 
the interval to January 1, 1750, there would be much nearer 
similarity in the synodical periods to accord with Wright’s 
transit, October 24, 1876. I also noticed that the ratio of dis- 
placement of the node from Lescarbault and Lumwis was 7 days 
retrograde in 3 years’ advance, and on that data, applied to 
Wright’s transit, another transit would be due 113 days earlier 
in 1881, while Leverrier, in October, 1876, remarke1 that for a 
transit at this node we must wait till about 1881.” My computa- 
tion made it fall due, therefore, October 12 or 13, 1881, and I 
was anxious that it might be looked for. The computation made 
the Hawaiian Islands the most favourable place ; but although I 
believe it was not seen there, nor was it observed from Sacra- 
mento or Salt Lake City, where Mr. W. R. Frink looked for it 
with a 4-inch aperture achromatic telescope, we have no evi- 
dence to show whether it might not have occurred in Europe 
or elsewhere, and been noticed if it had been looked for. 
Sacramento, California A. F, GODDARD 
[The subject of this communication is a very interesting one, 
as relating to the possibility of changes on the sun’s surface 
being due in some way to the positions of the various planets of 
the system. But before this relation can be considered as esta- 
blished, it will be necessary to increase the accuracy of our solar 
information by collecting our past observations, as well as by 
securing a set of daily observations for the future.—ED.] 
An Extraordinary Meteor 
I BEG to send you the following, in case you consider it worth 
inserting :—At about I.10 a.m. on the night between November 
18 and 19, whilst going in the s.s. Bokhara in the Red Sea, 
about midway from Aden to Suez, the quarter-master on duty 
called me, saying he had just seen a new comet, or shooting star, 
which was still visible many minutes after its first appearance. 
He said that whilst he was looking out ahead, or in a northerly 
direction, he suddenly noticed the effect of a bright light shining 
from astern, and on turning round saw a very bright shooting 
star still moving from left to right, and slightly downwards, in 
the south, at.an altitude of about 40°. The star speedily disap- 
peared, but left a bright train of light behind it, which continued 
so long (from five to ten minutes he gue-sed) that he thought I 
might like to see it. I came on deck a little before a quarter 
past one by the ship’s clock, and found a streak of light which I 
estimated as 8° or 10° in length, and rather less than half a 
degree in width, apparently stationary, midway between Sirius 
and Canopus, and nearly as bright as ¢he comet, the head of 
which must have risen half an hour or more previously. I 
watched the streak till half-past one o’clock, when it seemed 
sensibly fainter, though still a conspicuous object, notwith- 
standing the presence of the moon, the comet, and a number of 
bright stars. Whilst watching I noticed two small meteors 
shooting from left to right across the southern sky, which struck 
me as probably belonging to the same group as the large one 
whose train I was watching. 
At half-past one o’clock I went below, and did not return on 
deck till 5 o’clock, when the apparition had disappeared. The 
quarter-master told me afterwards that it had faded away soon 
after I left the deck, but he believed that from first to last it 
had remained conspicuously bright for more than half an hour. 
Clewer, December 6 B. R. BRANFILL 
British Rainfall 
I AM just preparing to issue to all the observers ot rainfall 
known to me, blank forms for the entry of their records for the 
year shortly about to close. This staff now exceeds 2000, but 
still as they are not unfrequently rather clustered there are many 
parts of the country where additional records are needed. I 
have no doubt that records are already kept in many places 
unknown to me, and I shall be glad if you will allow me to 
invite communications from any one who has kept an accurate 
record, and to supply either those already observing or contem- 
plating doing so with a copy of the rules adopted by British 
observers, and with all necessary blank forms—all, I may perhaps 
as well add, free of charge, as our greatest requirements are 
ample and accurate records. G. J. Symons 
62, Camden Square, London, N. W. 
Swan Lamp Spectrum and the Aurora 
In Nature, vol. xxv. p. 347, is a description of the spec- 
trum of carbon as found by Professors Liveing and Dewar in a 
Swan lamp rendered incandescent in the ordinary way. Finding 
one of these lamps only feebly lighted by ten pint Grove cells, it 
occurred to me to test it by the secondary current. The coil 
was nominally a 6-inch spark one, but little battery power was 
used, and the spark considerably reduced. One wire was con- 
nected with the filament holders, the one made into a little coil 
and laid on the top of the lamp. 
The first effect was a fine silver glow filling the lamp, and: 
showing Pliicker tube changes when the circuit was reversed. 
This gave a carbon spectrum of bright lines, Soon, however, 
the colour of the discharge changed to pink, and the carbon 
spectrum gave way to a nitrogen banded one. A yellow spark 
had been noticed where the wire lay on the top of the lamp, 
and it was evident air had found its way into it. 
At one point perforation had taken place bya single spark, 
while near this the glass was pounded into a sponge-like mass 
by a series of these. 
The sodium lines due to disintegration of the glass were 
observed in the spark and glow. I was much struck by the 
rapidity with which, as what was probably only a small quantity 
of air found its way into the lamp, the nitrozen-spectrum swept 
away and took the place of the carbon one, a matter which 
seems to present another difficulty to the favourite theory which 
makes the aurora, with its bright, sharp unrecognized lines, an 
electric discharge in rarified air. J. RAND CAPRON 
Guildown, November 30 
The Aurora 
ALREADY we have for the height of the ‘‘auroral beam” the 
varying estimates of 44, 170, 209, and 212 miles, and assuming 
the correctness of any one of the three last figures, we ‘seem 
drifting from the improbable to the impossible, for are we not 
told by Messrs. De la Rue and Miiller (NATURE, vol, xxii. 
p- 24) that while at 81°47 miles’ height, the discharge is ‘‘ pale 
and faint, at 12415” 20 discharge could pass? Lest this addi- 
tion to the aurora’s mysteries be for want of definite particulars 
in the observations, I add mine as nearly as I can—Time 6h. 
G.M.T. and a few minutes? Altitude of moon above horizon 
28°, Distance from moon’s centre to centre of beam as it 
floated adove 2°, direction east to west (nearly), Lat. 51° 13' 46” 
N., Long. 0° 28’ 47" W. (observatory). 
Cuildown, Guildford, December 11 J. RAND CAPRON 
Fertilisation of, the Speedwell 
Ir Mr. Stapley, who wrote on this subject in last week’s 
NaTuR#, can refer to Dr, H. Miiller’s treatise on the relations 
between flowers and insects, in the first volume of Shenk’s 
Handbuch der Botanik (now publishing as part of Trewendt’s 
Encyclopedie der Naturwissenschaften), he will see that his own 
observations are very similar to those of Dr. Miller. The latter, 
however, refers to and figures the Germander, not the Common, 
Speedwell. Is it possible that Mr. Stapley—who speaks of the 
Veronica officinalis as having larger flowers than the V. hedere- 
folia, whereas they have flowers of about the same size—mistakes 
the V. chamedrys for the V. officinalis ? 
The insects which Dr. Miiller found bending down the 
stamens, as Mr. Stapley describes, were small Diptera chiefly of 
the genera Ascia and AZelanostoma. He mentions this also in 
Kosmos, iii. p. 497, and a few pages earlier (74, p. 493) he gives 
a large drawing of V, urticefolia, 
