- 
Sept. 30, 1886] 
WE have received the report for the past year of the School 
of Mines, Ballaarat, an institution which its Council believe is 
in a fair way of becoming the leading School of Science in the 
colony of Victoria. The increasing number of the students 
who avail themselves of the constantly extending opportunities 
for instruction offered by the School renders additional teaching 
power a necessity, and this requires, first of all, an increased 
income. It is to be hoped that the Council have been successful 
in its request for double the present annual subsidy from the 
Government. A School of Mines is perhaps the most imme- 
diately useful and paying one a young community can have. A 
new and enlarged museum has been added to the School, and 
Mr. Oddie, the Vice-President, has undertaken at his own ex- 
pense to erect and equip an astronomical observatory. Two 
rooms, each 16 feet by 18, were erected when the report was 
drafted, and in one of these a 124-inch Newtonian reflector has 
been placed in position. The second room is to be utilised for 
spectrum analysis, solar physics, testing specula, &c. A system 
of meteorological observations with the latest instruments, in 
connection with the Melbourne Observatory, has also been in- 
troduced. A recent task of the School authorities, in which 
many of our readers may be presumed to be interested, is ‘the 
collection of rocks and minerals representing the geology of 
Western Victoria in the Colonial and Indian Exhibition. 
At the close of the Exhibition it will be presented to the Museum 
of the Geological Survey of Great Britain. The reports of the 
individual professors show progress in almost every direction— 
in the number of students, of subjects taught, and of average 
attendances of each student. We observe that the benefits of 
the School are largely extended by means of a concession from 
the Government railways permitting students to travel over long 
distances at exceedingly low fares. This is one of those con- 
cessions which cost so little, yet are worth so much, and which 
are more common in the United States or the colonies than 
they are in England. 
In a very interesting paper contributed to the Bulletin 
of the Essex Institute of Salem, Mr. A. McFarland Davis 
writes on some of the games of the Indian tribes of North 
America. Several of these are described at considerable 
length, mostly from the early Jesuit records. Lacrosse is the 
first and most important of these ; it was, as it is now, purely a 
game of skill, but it was a contest of grave importance, not a 
mere pastime, and was domesticated over a wide extent of 
territory. Another very widely-spread game was “ platter,” 
which was played with dice, and was wholly.a game of chance ; 
the third was a game of chance and skill combined, and in some 
of its forms was exceedingly complicated. It was called 
“*straws,” because a bundle of straws was divided, the game 
turning on the odd or even numbers in the heaps. It resembles 
the celebrated Chinese game of fantan, which forms one of the 
principal sources of revenue of one European colony in the East. 
Sundry other games not so widely spread as these are also 
described by Mr. Davis. The extraordinary importance at- 
tached to these games, the strange and solemn ceremonies with 
which they were frequently initiated, give them an interest in 
the eyes of anthropologists beyond that of mere curiosity. 
THE additions to the Zoological Society’s Gardens during the 
past week include a Rhesus Monkey (Macacus rhesus) from 
India, presented by Mrs. Faulkner ; two Golden Eagles (Aguzla 
chrysaetos) from the Isle of Mull, Argyllshire, Scotland, pre- 
sented by His Grace the Duke of Argyll, K.G., F.Z.S.; a 
Stock Dove (Columba nas), British, presented by Mr. Charles 
Whymper, F.Z.S.; an Anaconda (Zuwsectes murinus) from 
South America, deposited ; a Lesser White-nosed Monkey (Cev- 
copithecus petaurista) from West Africa, purchased ; a Maned 
Goose (Bernicla jubata) from Australia, received in exchange ; 
a Spotted Hyzena (Hyena crocuta), born in the Gardens. 
NATURE 5 
ios) 
i 
OUR ASTRONOMICAL COLUMN 
STELLAR PHOTOMETRY.—Mr. Chandler, of Cambridge, 
U.S., presented an interesting and important paper to the 
Section of Mathematics and Astronomy of the American Asso- 
ciation at the recent meeting, the title being ‘‘ A Comparative 
Estimate of Methods and Results in Stellar Photometry.” Ac- 
cording to the account of the paper given in Scéence (Vol. viii., 
No. 187), Mr. Chandler took for his text the general statement 
that instrumental photometry had thus far proved a failure ; that 
is, it had not developed a more uniform scale than Argelander’s, 
nor had the accuracy of individual determinations been in- 
creased, but they were, on the contrary, far more uncertain than 
the old differential naked-eye estimates. In support of his views 
Mr. Chandler showed that, for stars of Argelander’s scale be- 
tween magnitudes 2 and 6, the photometric catalogues of Seidel, 
Peirce, Wolf, Pickering, and Pritchard differed among them- 
selves as much in their measures of what Argelander called a 
difference of one magnitude, as they did in their measures of 
his successive magnitudes. Their average values of the logarithm 
of the light-ratio for one of Argelander’s magnitudes between 
2 and 6, ranged between “30 and °38, about *35 for the mean of 
all the above-mentioned catalogues. Between magnitudes 6 and 
g of Argelander’s scale, the catalogues of Rosén and Ceraski 
averaged about °35 for the light-ratio, while Pickering’s late 
results with the meridian photometer gave (between magni- 
tudes 6 and 8:5) :48 instead of °35 for this ratio. Coming 
to accidental errors, Mr. Chandler showed that, from a dis- 
cussion of the naked-eye estimates of Gould, Sawyer, and 
himself, the probable error cf a single estimate was a 
little over — ‘06 of a magnitude when the stars were 
at considerable distances from each other, and about + ‘o5 
of a magnitude when near ; while the probable error of a single 
measure in the ‘‘ Harvard Photometry” was +17 of a magni- 
tude, and in the ‘‘ Uranometria Oxoniensis” about +'1o of a 
magnitude. The large residuals in the ‘‘ Harvard Photometry” 
appear to arise, according to Mr. Chandler, from the wrong 
identification of stars in many cases, one instance being cited 
where no bright star exists in or near the place given in the 
observing-list, on account of a misprint in the Durchmusterung, 
and yet some neighbouring star was observed on several nights 
for it. The author, in conclusion, pointed out that we must 
obtain better results from photometers if we ever expect to use 
their results for the detection or measurement of variable stars, 
since several variables have been detected, and their periods and 
light curves well determined by eye-estimates, whose whole 
range of variation is no greater than the whole range of error in 
the photometric observations upon a single star with the meridian 
photometer. 
A New OBSERVATORY IN LA PLATA.—In the Bulletin 
Astronomique, tome iii. Aotit 1886, M. Mouchez gives an 
account of a new Observatory which is being built in the town 
of La Plata. The Observatory appears to have a remarkably 
good instrumental equipment, including a telescope of o’$om. 
aperture, an ‘‘équatorial coudé” of 0°43m. aperture, a meridian 
instrument of 0°22m. aperture, an apparatus for celestial photo- 
graphy of the same dimensions as that of MM. Henry at the 
Paris Observatory, a Thollon spectroscope with objective of 
025m. aperture, besides a collection of geodetical instruments. 
The new Observatory is under the direction of M. Beuf, lately an 
officer in the French Navy, and his first efforts are to be directed 
towards the carrying out of a geodetic survey of the vast terri- 
tory of the province, including the measurement of an extensive 
meridian arc in the plains of Chaco and Patagonia. The mea- 
surement of this.are will supply a want which has bezn long felt by 
geodesists, and will give new and valuable data for an increase in 
our knowledge of the terrestrial spheroid. He trusts that M. 
Beuf will be successful in this arduous and important under- 
taking, and also that he will have sufficient energy, and be 
supplied with a sufficient staffof observers, to work to advantage 
the numerous and powerful instruments which the Observatory 
possesses. 
HELIOMETRIC OBSERVATIONS OF THE PLEIADES.—In the 
note on this subject, printed in last week’s “ Astronomical 
Column,” the words “‘since 1860” should read ‘‘since 1840,” 
the latter being the date of Bessel’s determinations resulting 
from his observations with the Kénigsberg heliometer made 
during the years 1829-41. 
