490 



NATURE 



[March 26, 1908 



month. Neither of these would be convenient; the 

 first is, for other reasons also, inadmissible. 



On one point we at,'ree with Mr. Pcarce, and that 

 is as regards the incidence of Easter. There is a 

 common, but false, impression that the existing- cum- 

 brous arrangement has the authority of the Council of 

 Nic^a. All that that council decreed was, in opposi- 

 tion to the so-called Quartodecimans, that Easter 

 should always be kept on a Sunday ; the particular 

 Sunday was regulated by various cycles, the Metonic 

 being usually followed, and the present rule was ini- 

 tiated by the advisers of Pope Gregory XIII., the 

 English Prayer-Book rule arriving at the same end, 

 when our calendar was reformed, bv a slightly dif- 

 ferent process. It has not secured uniformity in 

 Christendom because the Eastern church still follows 

 the Julian calendar, and therefore its Easter is usually 

 different from ours. A rule to keep Easter on the 

 second Sunday in April (when the first Easter in all 

 probability fell) would be very convenient, but it is an 

 ecclesiastical question, and the alteration should be the 

 act of the whole church. To make it always on the 

 same day of the month, as well as week, as Mr. 

 Pearce proposes, could not be done without accepting 

 his other drastic and inadmissible proposals. 



W. T. L. 



PECULIARITIES IN THE STRUCTURE Ot 



SOME HEAVENLY BODIES. 

 pROF. SUESS has recently contributed a sugges- 

 ^ tivc paper on peculiarities in the structure of some 

 of the heavenly bodies ' to the Academy of Sciences of 

 Vienna. He remarks at the outset that the present 

 phase of geology is similar to that of anatomy at the 

 time when the structure of the human body was first 

 compared with that of other living organisms. For 

 the purpose of comparative study it is essential that 

 the earth should be regarded as a whole, and when 

 this is done it becomes fairly obvious that acid rocks 

 and their derivatives, which form so large a portion 

 of the visible surface, are far less important as con- 

 stituents of the globe than might at first sight be sup- 

 posed. We see but little of those heavy substances to 

 which the earth owes its high density, and which 

 appear to be more closely associated with the basic 

 than with the acid rocks. Our author considers that 

 for the general purpose which he has in view three 

 main types of rock should be recognised — SiAI rocks 

 (sal or salic rocks), SiMg rocks (sima or simic 

 rocks), and NiFe rocks (nife or nific rocks). For the 

 simic rocks containing chromium and iron he uses 

 the term crofesima. The most important occurrences 

 of platinum are in the crofesimic rocks, which also 

 contain almost always traces of nickel. These rocks 

 are of deep-seated origin, and it is a significant fact 

 that they frequently occur as intrusions along planes 

 of movement in the younger mountain chains, such 

 as the Alps, e.g. zone of Ivrea. 



In 1901 the author, in a letter to Sir Norman 

 Lockyer (Nature, October 24, 1901, p. 629), directed 

 attention to the fact that the metals associated with 

 the basic rocks are not only distinct from those which 

 often accompany the acid rocks, but that they agree 

 closely with those which stand out prominently in the 

 Fraunhofer spectrum and in a Cygni. This led Sir 

 Norman to institute a special research, with the 

 result ' that " the views of Prof. Suess were con- 

 firmed . . . and that the metals conspicuously repre- 

 sented in the spectra of the sun, the chromosphere, 

 and o Cygni are, in the main, those which are asso- 



' " U't.er Einzelheiten in der Besoh.iffenheit einiser Himmelskorper " (,Siiz. 

 "■, ,.0''" ""■ "''"■ Mathem-uatiitiK. Klasse, Bd. cxvi., October, 1907.) 



- Speclroscopic Comparison of Mela's present in Certain Terrestrial and 

 Celestial Light-sources." (.Solar Physics Committee, 1907.) 



NO. 2004, VOL. ']']'\ 



elated with basic rocks ; also that, with the possible 

 exception of yttrium and lithium, the metals typical 

 of acid rocks are not represented in a Cygni. There 

 is, of course, evidence that several of the acid-rock- 

 metals such as potassium, beryllium, cerium, tin 

 and zirconium are represented in the Fraunhoferic 

 spectrum, but the solar lines are in each case incon- 

 spicuous. " 



Commenting on the above quotation, Prof. Suess 

 points out that if the composition of the earth be 

 considered quantitatively there is every reason to be- 

 lieve that it would, if subjected, to the necessarv 

 physical conditions, yield a sun in which the basic 

 group of metals would spectroscopically dominate 

 over the acid group. 



In considering the distribution of metals of the 

 basic, or, as he now expresses himself, of the simic 

 group, the author directs attention to the local pre- 

 dominence in terrestrial occurrences of certain metals, 

 e.g. titanium over nickel and vice versA. Similarly, if 

 y Cygni be compared with a. Cygni, titanium, stron- 

 tium, and scandium will be seen to be more im- 

 portant, and iron, chromium, and magnesium less 

 important in the former than in the latter. 



The special importance of titanium in sun-spots is 

 compared with the predominance of this metal 

 (ilmenite) over nickel in the contents of the diamond- 

 pipes of South Africa, which are regarded as the 

 most striking terrestrial examples of gaseous erup- 

 tions. 



In the concluding part of the paper the author 

 briefly reviews the theories as to the origin of 

 meteorites, and favours the view that they, together 

 with the planetoids, represent the fragments of an 

 anonymous planet which formerly occupied a position 

 between Mars and Jupiter. " The centre of this 

 planet," he says, "consisted of nife like that of 

 Agram or Elbogen. Towards the exterior the pro- 

 portion of magnesium increased, and a transition 

 from nife to sima took place, as is probably the case 

 with the earth, although the supposition cannot be 

 verified by observation. A salic outer crust was 

 absent unless it be represented by the perfectly 

 molten tektites." ' 



SIR JOHN ELIOT, K.C.I.E., F.R.S. 



THE news of the death of Sir John Eliot, K.C.I.E., 

 F.R.S. , in his sixty-ninth year, at his residence, 

 Bon Porto, Cavalaire, \"ar, France, will be received 

 with great regret by a very large circle of friends. 

 His death was extremely sudden, and took place in 

 the early morning of Wednesday, March iS. He was 

 walking on a steep hill in his own grounds, super- 

 intending the work of his men, when he suddenly 

 sat down and passed away. The cause of death is 

 said to have been apoplexy. 



.Sir John Eliot was throughout his life a most inde- 

 fatigable worker, and since his retirement from the 

 Indian Service about five years ago he had continued 

 to work with unabated vigour. Indeed, the strenuous 

 work which he undertook may perhaps have under- 

 mined his health, and have caused his premature 

 death. He was one of the most genial companions 

 possible, having a most charming personality, to- 

 gether with a keen sense of humour. He was 

 most widely read and well informed in almost 

 every subject, and at the same time he was one of 

 the most modest of men. He was a most accom- 

 plished musician, and played the organ and piano 

 with very great execution and feeling. He was also 



1 This term has been proposed by Dr. F. E. Suess (" Die Herkunft der 

 Moldavite und verwandter Glaser."/''^''- ^t^^^. Reichsansi.. 1900, p. 193) for 

 peculiar vitreous bodies which he refers to an extra- terrestrial origin. 



