520 
NATURE 
[ Oct. 27, 1870 
NOTES 
Desrrous of aiding the English Eclipse Expedition, Prof. 
Peirce has addressed the following letter to Mr. Lockyer. It is 
to be hoped that observers will take advantage of the oppor- 
tunity so magnificently afforded them :— 
“*Fenton’s Hotel 
“My Dear S1r,—I have been directed by the Government 
of the United States to have the best possible observations made 
of the total eclipse of next December. If I could aid the cause 
of Astronomy by assisting the observers of England in their 
investigation of this phenomenon I should be greatly pleased. 
I take the liberty therefore to invite your attendance, and also 
that of other eminent physicists of England, with either of the 
parties of my expedition, one of which will go to Spain and the 
other to Sicily.— Yours very respectfully and faithfully, 
‘* BENJAMIN PEIRCE 
‘*J. Norman Lockyer, Esq., F.R.S.” 
Of course it would have been better had English observers, 
who have devoted their attention to solar physics, gone out under 
the English flag; but science is of no country, and they may 
well be proud to join such a distinguished corps as that with 
which they are asked to associate themselves. 
WE are also informed that arrangements are being made for a 
deputation to urge on Mr. Gladstone, as a last resource, the 
jmportance of not abandoning the Eclipse Expedition, and to 
point out the especial inopportuneness of such a course at a 
time when neither France nor Germany can send out ex- 
peditions, and when, if we withdraw, the whole burden of obser- 
vation will fall upon America. It will be remembered that the 
reason given by the Admiralty for refusing the loan of a Goyern- 
ment ship was ‘‘that Parliament did not place money at the 
disposal of the Naval Department for such purposes.” If this 
should be the only difficulty with the Admiralty, it will not be 
hard for the Deputation to find precedents, from the time of 
Captain Cook downwards, for sending out such expeditions, Itis 
to be hoped that Mr. Gladstone may take a more liberal view 
of the subject than the Lords of the Admiralty have done, and 
that the leaders of science in this country will show themselves 
less supine in the matter than they have hitherto done. 
WE are informed that the work done by Dr. Carpenter in the 
Porcupine expedition of the present year has satisfied him of 
the justice of the views advanced in his reply to Prof. Wyville 
Thomson’s lecture, as to the over-estimation of the heating and 
moving action of the real Gulf-stream. It is Dr. Carpenter’s in- 
tention to bring his views on this subject before the Royal 
Geographical Society. 
THE Science and Art Department of the Committee of Coun- 
cil on Education have published a second edition of their 
Directory, with regulations for establishing and conducting 
Science Schools and Classes, superseding those previously 
printed. 
THE amount of interest shown in Natural Science at Oxford 
cannot be better illustrated than by noticing the long list of 
lectures which are to be given this term. These, exclusive of 
the purely mathematical, are as follows :—1. University Lectures : 
Professor Phillips, F.R.S., ‘*On the Composition and Structure 
ot the External Parts of the Earth.” Professor Lawson, ‘‘ On 
the Minute Anatomy of Plants.” Professor Rolleston, F.R.S., 
‘€On Anatomy and Physiology.” Professor Pritchard, F.R.S., 
*©On Astronomy.” Professor Clifton, F.R.S., ‘On Elementary 
Statics,” and a continuation of his lectures ‘‘On Heat.” Mr. 
Wyndham, for the Professor of Chemistry, ‘‘On Elementary 
Principles of Chemistry.” The Professor of Zoology will give 
assistance to all who are working at the Articulata, the collection 
of which he is arranging. All these are free public lectures, 
and are illustrated by experiments, and are all largely attended. 
2. College Lectures, &c.: Mr. A. V. Harcourt, F.R.S., Lees 
Reader in Chemistry, ‘‘On the Chemistry of the Metals,” at 
Christ Church. Mr. A. W. Reinold, Lees Reader in Physics, 
““On Hydromechanics and Heat,” at Christ Church. Mr. J. B. 
Thompson, Lees Reader in Anatomy, ‘‘On Comparative Osteo- 
logy,” at Christ Church. Mr. Heathcote Wyndham, ‘‘ On 
Chemical Philosophy,” at Merton. Mr. Abbay, ‘‘On Ele- 
mentary Physics,” at Merton. Mr. Chapman, ‘‘On Anatomy 
and Physiology,” at Magdalen. These lectures are open to all 
other Colleges on payment of a small fee. 
MAGNIFICENT displays of the Aurora Borealis have been 
witnessed in London on two nights of the present week, Monday 
the 24th, and Tuesday the 25th inst. It will be interesting to 
ee 
— 
—_—_ 
hear from distant subscribers the extent of the area over which 
the phenomenon was visible. In addition to the letters printed 
this week, we have received others describing the display from 
C. Pocklington, Poole ; E. C. Walker and T. H. Waller, York ; 
E. Dukinfield Jones, Fermoy, Co. Cork, and others. Apropos 
of one of these displays, a correspondent of the Pall Mall Gazette 
thus states the view taken of it by the inhabitants of a little 
village through which he passed :—‘‘ They were all standing 
outside their houses gazing at the heavens. ‘ There is France 
for you,’ said one of them to me as I approached him, I re- 
quested an explanation, and found that not only he but all his 
neighbours attributed the blood-red light in the sky to the burm- 
ing of Paris. ‘Gad, how it blazes!’ I heard a man remark. 
‘They’re a gettin’ it hunder now,’ said another; and so on 
through all the village. At a garden gate of nearly the last 
house I observed a respectable-looking man with a telescope, 
with which he was rolling the sky: ‘It is rum,’ he said to me, 
‘and very sublime ; but the d——d asses, I can’t make ’em ~ 
believe it is only the Southern Cross,’ 
the schoolmaster of the parish.” 
I rather think he was 
PROF, PETERS, of Clinton, New York. announces the dis- 
covery of a new planet (No. 112) on September 19th, of the 
eleventh magnitude, to which he gives the name Iphigenia. 
The following are given as the elements of planet No. 111 
(Ate) -— 
Epoch, 1870, Sept. 0, o mean Berlin time 
M = 205 730721" 50 
a ee 3) 
X = 306 26 28 ‘4 > mean eq. 1870 
2 = Hie alk Bi 4) 
2p = 5 gem 
R= 858 “392 
log. a= 04108808 
The planet is 
magnitude. 
PROFESSOR LUTHER, of the Konigsherg Observatory, records 
in the Astronomische Nachrichten the death, at the early age of 
26, of Dr. F. Tischler, Observer in the same Observatory. Dr. 
Tischler was born at Breslau in 1844, and after pursuing his 
studies at Konigsberg and Bonn, and publishing a treatise on the 
path of Tuttle’s comet, was appointed Observer at the former 
place in 1867. At the outbreak of the Franco-German war, he 
obeyed a summons to serve in the Prussian infantry, and was 
seriously wounded in the battle before Metz, on August 14th, and 
succumbed to his injuries on September 3oth. 
now nearly stationary, and is of the twelfth 
THE first meeting of the Zoological Society for the session 
will take place on Tuesday, the rst of November, when the fol- 
lowing papers will be read :—1. The Secretary: ‘On Additions 
to the Society’s Menagerie.” 2. Prof. W. Peters, F.M.Z.S.: 
‘Contributions to the knowledge of /ectinator, a genus of 
Rodent ‘Mammalia from North-Eastern Africa.” 3. Mr. C. 
Darwin, F.R.S.: ‘Note on the Habits of the Chrysoptilus 
campestris.” . 
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