Dec. 17, 1885] 



NATURE 



161 



Messrs. Macmillan and Co. will publish next week the 

 Essex Field Club Report on the East Anglian Earthquake of 

 April 22, 1884. This Report has been drawn up by Prof. 

 Raphael Meldola and Mr. William White, and will contain 

 maps and several illustrations. 



The jubilee volume of the Statistical Society will shortlylbe 

 published by Mr. Stanford, of Charing Cross. It will contain 

 the proceedings of the jubilee meeting of the Society held m 

 June last, and will comprise valuable papers by the President, 

 Sir Rawson W. Rawson, Dr. F. J. Mouat, M. Levasseur, and 

 Prof. Neumann-Spallart, at whose initiation the International 

 Statistical Institute was then founded. 



Fresh earthquake shocks have been felt in the district round 

 M'sila during the last week and principally on Saturday, 

 December 12. They have also been felt at Bordj-ban-areridj 

 and Setif. The new road from Setif to Bordj has been cut by 

 rocks falling from the surrounding mountains. A bridge has 

 been destroyed and a railway station demolished. It is impos- 

 sible up to this time to state whether the commotion originated 

 in the Atlas or in the Hodna region, where M'sila is placed, 

 not far from a large Sebbha, which, although almost dry in 

 summer-time, contains a large quantity of water in rainy periods. 

 Official documents will be sent to the Paris Academy of Sciences 

 as soon as collected, but it is feared they will lack precision ; no 

 seismograph, so far as our knowledge goes, having been esta- 

 blished in Algiers. 



Advices from Smyrna in .Asia Minor to November 25 state 

 that a series of earthquakes, commencing on the 13th, had up to 

 that time been felt at Denizlu in the interior, about 200 miles to 

 the east. These disturbances were slight, but accompanied with 

 subterranean noises. 



We are glad to see that the extremely valuable meteorological 

 observations which were made at Sagastyr, the Arctic Station in 

 the Delta of the Lena, during the years 1882 to 1S84, are already 

 being published. The last issue of the I~jiStia of the Russian 

 Geographical Society contains a preliminary report, by M. 

 Yurgens, and several meteorological tables, namely, the obser- 

 vations in full, from September i, 1882, to September I, 1883, 

 of the barometer, temperature of the air, of the surface of the 

 soil and of the snow, and of the soil at a depth of i metre, the 

 relative humidity, force of wind, and nebulosity ; and the 

 monthly averages of the above for each hour of the day. The 

 magnetical observations for the same period are being calcu- 

 ' lated, as also those for 1883 and 1884. The whole, together 

 with observations of the temperature of the soil at depths of 80 

 ' and 160 centimetres, temperature and density of water, tides, 

 ) and aurora: will be pablished in a separate form. A map of the 

 j Delta of the Lena, based on new surveys, and a plan of the 

 station accompany the report of M. Yurgens, which is very 

 interesting, as it contains many details as to the life at the 

 I station, and varied information as to the Delta, and the excur- 

 ' sions made during both summers. It is worthy of notice that 

 I the meteorologists of the station, although lost amidst tundras 

 in the 73rd degree of latitude, were not so secluded from the 

 world as might have been supposed. They received letters 

 regularly from Yakutsk, together with newspapers and reviews, 

 I which reached them four months after their publication at St. 

 I Petersburg — a delay which is not so great if it be taken into 

 account that letters take nearly one month to reach Irkutsk, the 

 I capital of Eastern Siberia. As to the frozen mammoth whose 

 ^ remains were explored by Dr. Bunge, only pieces of bones and 

 ; traces of the contents of the stomach were found and brought to 

 St. Petersburg. 



The additions to the Zoological Society's Gardens during the 

 past week include a Rhesus Monkey (Macaciis rhesus 9 ), two 



Grey-breasted Parrakeets (Bolborhynchus monachus) from Monte 

 Video, presented by H. R.H. the Prince of Wales, K.G. ; two 

 West Indian Agoutis (Dasyprocta cristatd) from West Indies, 

 presented by T.R. H. Prince Albert Victor and Prince George 

 Frederick of Wales ; a Macaque Monkey (Macacus cyno- 

 molgns i ) from India, presented by Mr. Jan Smidt ; a Pig- 

 tailed Monkey {Macacus neiiiestnnus) from Java, presented by 

 Miss Ethel Rodger ; two Tigers {Felis tigris) from Hyderabad, 

 presented by the Nawab Salar Jungh Bahadur ; a Cheetah 

 (CyniElunis JidialHs) from Afghanistan, presented by the Nawab 

 Mahomed Hassan Ali Khan ; a Tiger (Felis tigris). 



OUR ASTRONOMICAL COLUMN 

 Bright Lines in Stellar Spectra. — Mr. O. T. Sherman 

 has continued his researches on the spectra of 7 Cassiopeiae and 

 and yS Lyra;, and announces in the Ameyican y ournal of Science 

 for December the discovery of no fewer than fifteen in the 

 spectrum of the former star, and seventeen in that of the latter. 

 The lines seen in 7 Cassiopeice are as follows : — Ha, \ 6356, 

 6160, D.„ A 5840, 5557-5, 5422. 5309-8, 5167-5, 4990, Hfl, 

 A. 4623, H7, A 4180, and H5, bright lines ; and K 62S0, 5760. 

 5020, 4920, 4673-5, and 3993, dark lines. The bright lines 

 agree closely in position with the principal lines observed by 

 Prof. Young in the spectrum of the chromosphere. 



Mr. Sherman has also examined a large number of other 

 stars, and ' ' in each case many or few bright lines have been seen, 

 lines, so far as I know, formerly unsuspected." It is clear, if 

 Mr. Sherman's observations can be satisfactorily confirmed, that 

 we have here a most important discovery ; but looking to the 

 fact that these stars have probably been frequently observed by 

 experienced spectroscopists without any bright lines being 

 detected in them, whilst a false appearance of bright lines is 

 readily produced in stellar spectra under certain circumstances, 

 it would appear hazardous to accept Mr. Sherman's result with- 

 out further evidence. 



PHOrOMETRY OF THE PLEIADES. — A valuable memoir 

 (Mlmoires de r Academie ImpSriale des Sciences de St. Pitersliourg, 

 vii. serie, tome xxxii. No. 6) by Herr Ed. Lindemann of 

 Pul'Kowa, " On the Magnitudes of Bessel's Stars in the Pleiades," 

 has recently reached us. A special point of interest lies in the 

 fact that Profs. Pickering and Pritchard have likewise deter- 

 mined the brightness of many of these stars with their respec- 

 tive photometers, each assuming the magnitude of Merope, 

 to which the other stars of the group are referred, as 4-22. 

 Herr Lindemann has also adopted the same magnitude 

 for Merope, which he has used as his standard star. He also 

 employed, as reference stars, Celasno and Anon 32, the magni- 

 tudes of which he had determined to be 5-27 and 6-51 respect- 

 ively. The stars, fifty-two in number, were each observed on 

 two separate nights, only one star of the fifty-three observed by 

 Bessel proving too faint for Herr Lindemann's telescope of five 

 inches aperture. Comparing his own results with those of Profs. 

 Pickering and Pritchard, Herr Lindemann finds, on the whole, 

 a very gratifying agreement ; twenty-five stars observed by Prof. 

 Pickering showing a mean excess over the Pulkowa observations 

 of 0-04 of a magnitude, and thirty -three stars observed by Prof. 

 Pritchard giving a mean excess of 0-05. Prof. Pritchard's later 

 observations give a yet smaller difference, viz. o-oi of a magnitude. 

 When it is remembered that the three photometers employed — 

 Herr Lindemann using a ZoUner photometer — differed entirely in 

 principle, construction, and method of employment, this close 

 agreement would seem to indicate that each may be relied 

 upon with very considerable confidence, when the differences 

 of stellar magnitude determined by their means are not 

 very great. The stars Nos. i, 4, 21, 31, and 33 would 

 appear to be variable, and possibly two others likewise. 

 Pogson's scale has been employed for the conversion of the 

 logarithm of the light of the star into magnitude. 



Fabry's Comet. — The following elements and ephemeris 

 have been computed for this comet by Dr. H. Oppenheim : — 

 Perihelion Passage, 1886 March 9-7944 Berlin M.T. 



a. = 132 36 19 "I 



fl. = 32 17 32 l-Mean Eq. 1885-0 



log-? 



47 18 oj 

 = 9 69654 



