70 



NA TURE 



[November 19, 1908 



or physiography. They are also free from the con- 

 troversial matter which is rather obtrusive in the 

 cliapters on Highland schists and Old Red Sand- 

 stone. We must cong"ratulate the author also on the 

 excellence of the illustrations, most of which are from 

 photographs. .Many of them are very beautiful and 

 appropriate, and should be of great help to those who 

 are not specially versed in geological literature. .\n 

 exception may be made in the case of some of the 

 photomicrographs of rock sections, which are not up 

 to the general high standard of the book. A really 

 good geological ma[) of the area described is also a 



coronal radiations. Readers of Nature will remember 

 that this island was also selected by Mr. F. K. 

 McClean as the locale of the expedition which he 

 fitted up and carried through at his own expense, and 

 Prof. Campbell remarks that they (the McClean party) 

 were found to be " helpful and congenial com- 

 panions." 



The programme of the Lick observers comprised 

 the determination of the contact times, the photo- 

 graphy of the corona, on large and small scales, and 

 of the coronal and chromospheric spectra, and 

 a photographic search for any possible intra- 



lit of Ben Lawers looking i 



P/i^U. by IV. L. //«!' 

 " The Cieologyand Scenery of ihe Grampians.' 



desideratum which should be supplied if the book 

 reaches a second edition, as we hope it will. 



.1. S. F. 



THE LICK OBSERVATOKV-CROCKER 

 ECLIPSE EXPEDITION. JANUARY, 1908. 



OY the courtesy of Prof. Campbell in furnishing 

 ^ advance proofs of Lick Observatory Bulletins 

 Nos. 131 and 132, and from preliminary reports 

 published by himself and Dr. .Mbrecht,- we" are able 

 to form an idea of the perfect organisation of, and 

 the results obtained by, the expedition from Lick 

 Observatory which went to Flint Island to observe the 

 total eclipse of the sun of January 5. 



The whole of the expenses of the Lick expedition 

 was defrayed by Mr. W. H. Crocker, this making the 

 ninth occasion on which his generosity has rendered 

 such an expedition feasible. The party was conveyed 

 from Tahiti to Flint Island by the U.S. gunboat 

 Annapolis, and arrived at the latter place, which is in 

 latitude 11° S., and is 450 miles N.W. of Tahiti, on 

 December 9, thus leaving twenty-four clear davs for 

 the erection and adjustment of the instruments. In 

 .uldition to the Lick party, consisting: of Prof. Camp- 

 liell, Messrs. Perrine, .\itken and Albrecht, and Mrs. 

 Campbell, the expedition included Prof. Lewis, of 

 Herkeley, and Prof. Boss, and was accompanied by 

 .•in expedition dispatched by the Sinithsonian Insti- 

 tution; the latter consisted' of Prof. .Abbot and his 

 .issistant, Mr. .\. F. Moore, who were charged with 

 the task of making bolometric observations of the 

 1 Publi 



-' The Tour 

 No. 3, p. H5. 



IS of the Astronomical Society of the Pacitic, No. iig, .Apri!, 

 al of tlie Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, vol. ii., 



inercurial planet. .As Mr. McClean has already 

 reported, the weather on the morning of tlie 

 eclipse was extremely sensational, rain falling in 

 torrents between five minutes before and two or three 

 seconds after the commencement of totality, but 

 happily the clouds dispersed, and the remainder of 

 the eclipse was observed in a comparatively clear sky. 

 That results were obtained which are likely to pro- 

 vide valuable additions to our knowledge of solar 

 physics may be inferred from the following brief 

 risitmi of the preliminary reports of the observers. 



The observations of the contacts showed that mid- 

 eclipse took place some 27 seconds earlier, whilst 

 totality lasted some g seconds less, than the predicted 

 times. 



In the intra-mercurial planet research two quadruple 

 sets of cameras were emi)l"yed, each .set so arranged 

 as to include an area 9° broad and 28° long in the 

 direction of the sun's equator. Three hundred star 

 images, going down to the ninth magnitude, were 

 recorded, and all have been identified with known 

 stars by Prof. Perrine. It now seems certain that 

 no planet brighter than the seventh mag^nitude e.xists 

 nearer the sun than Mercury, and, as it would need 

 a large number of seventh-magnitude planets to 

 account for the outstanding anomalies in the motion 

 of Mercury, Dr. Albrecht considers that the observa- 

 tional side of this research should now be considered 

 as closed. The raison d'etre of the Mercury anomalies 

 must be sought elsewhere ; possibly, as suggested by 

 Prof. Seeliger, the material responsible for the 

 Zodiacal Light may be suflicient to account for them. 



With the Floyd camera, having a Clark lens of 

 5 inches aperture and 67 inches focal length, fed by ;i 

 12-inch coelostat, eight exposures, varying from 

 " instantaneous " to 16 seconds, produced excellent 



NO. 2038, VOL. 79] 



