October 20, 1910J 



NATURE 



507 



With the close of the year igog the hundredth volume 

 of the Chemical Sews was completed ; and as these 

 volumes cover a period of fifty years' progress in chemistry 

 and physics, the announcement that a general index has 

 now been prepared, and is in the press, will be widely 

 welcomed. The price of the general index on publication 

 will be 2/., but to subscribers who order it before the date 

 of publication the price will be i/. 15s. 



TiiK first part of an important work on " The Birds of 

 Australia," by Mr. (i. M. Matthews, will be issued by 

 .Messrs. W'itherby and Co. next month. The author has 

 lived all his life in -Australia, and has been a devoted 

 student of its avifauna. He has secured the active assist- 

 ance of a large number of field-ornithologists in all parts 

 of .\ustralia, and his work will incorporate all the avail- 

 able information upon the subject with which it deals. 

 There will also be hand-coloured plates depicting all the 

 known species of .Australian birds. The edition of the 

 complete work is limited to three hundred numbered sets. 



OUR ASTROXOMICAL COLUMN. 



A Bright Projection on S.aturn. — In No. 4445 of the 

 Astronomische Nachricliten Signor .M. Maggini describes 

 a brilliant projection which he observed on the west limb 

 of Saturn at 23h. 36m. (Cent. E.M.T.) on September 29. 

 The observation was made at the Ximeniano Observatory, 

 Florence, with a 350 mm. Calver telescope, and the pro- 

 jection was seen in profile against the shadow cast by the 

 planet on the ring. It was also seen to be near a large 

 whitish spot at the edge of the south equatorial band. 

 The phenomenon remained visible until the whitish spot 

 left the terminator, and was last seen at oh. 20m. 

 September 30. 



Spectru.m and Radi.al X'elocitv of if Persei. — The 

 spectrum of Persei is a peculiar one, in which a dark, 

 narrow, H7 absorption line appears to be bordered by very 

 bright lines, and as this is the most prominent line on 

 which radial-velocity determinations have been made, the 

 values of the line-of-siglit motion have not been in full 

 agreement. 



.\n investigation carried out by Dr. Ludendorff has 

 explained some of the anomalies, and the results now 

 appear in Xo. 4442 of the Astronomische Nachrichten. 

 Photographs were taken at Potsdam on which other faint 

 lines, which could be identified with solar lines in Row- 

 lands's tables, were measurable, and the radial velocities 

 have been determined from these independently. Among 

 other results. Dr. Ludendorff finds that the intensities of 

 the components of the H7 line oscillate, so that when the 

 emission lines are faint the absorption line is strong, and 

 vice I'ersa, but he has been unable to discover any law 

 for the complementary oscillations. The variation curves 

 and the departures from them during several revolutions 

 show that the conditions in the s)stem of if> Persei are 

 very complicated and unusual. 



Metc.4Lf"s Comet, iqioii. — Observations of Metcalf's 

 comet, made by M. Qu(Snisset at the Juvisy Observatory, 

 are placed on record in the October number of the Bulletin 

 de la Societe astronomique de France. On .August 24 the 

 comet was seen as a lenth-magnitude nebulosity having 

 a well-marked condensation and a tail about 4' long in 

 position-angle 120°; with an exposure of sixteen minutes, 

 using a portrait lens working at /.3, a tail 45' long was 

 shown on the photograph. 



New elements and a daily ephemeris for this comet are 

 published by Dr. Kobold in Xo. 4445 of the .istronomische 

 Nachrichten. The elements give the time of perihelion 

 passage as September 16, and, according to the ephemeris, 

 the brightness is now slowly declining from magnitude 

 ii-S. The comet is now travelling northward slowly 

 through Serpens, its position for October 20 being given 

 as a = i5h. 2Sm., 5= 4- 19? 12-5'. 



Comets and Electrons. — In an address to the Royal 

 -Academy of Science, Bologna, Prof. Righi discussed at 

 length the functions of electrons in producing cometary 



NO. 2138, VOL. 84] 



phenomena ; this address now appears, with a French 

 translation, in No. 16, vol. viii., of Scientia. Prof. Righi 

 outlined the several theories which have been evolved to 

 account for the various phenomena, paying special atten- 

 tion to the experimental proof of light-pressure, and then 

 showed how the electrons emitted by the sun could pro- 

 duce ionisation, which in turn would lead to such repulsion 

 as would cause the development of a tail. In concluding, 

 he described the results of some experiments carried out 

 at Bologna during the earth's passage through the tail 

 of Halley's comet on May ig. No remarkable variations 

 in the atmospheric potential were recorded, but a greater 

 degree of ionisation than usual was found to exist. The 

 existence of radiations capable of travelling through black 

 paper to a photographic plate was also demonstrated, but 

 this experiment alone is not considered definite enough to 

 warrant the assumption that these radiations could be 

 a.scribed to the proximity of the cometary matter. 



Measi;res of Double Stars. — In No. 4445 of the .Astro- 

 nomische Nachrichten the measures of double stars made 

 by Mr. Sellors at the Sydney Observatory during 1S97-1900 

 are published. Notes appended tc many of the sets of 

 measures give important information as to changes in 

 position-angle and distance during definite periods, &c. 

 No double-star observations were made at Sydney during 

 the years 1901-8. 



Recent Results in Solar Physics. — .\s an extract from 

 the .itti della Societa italiana per il progresso delle 

 sciense we have received a brochure in which Prof. Ricco 

 gives a very interesting, important, and comprehensive 

 resume of the results obtained from the study of solar 

 physics during recent years. .After briefly summarising 

 the earlier researches. Prof. Ricco directs attention to the 

 importance of correlating solar and meteorological pheno- 

 mena, and refers briefly to the results obtained by 

 Meldrum, Kbppen, Lockyer, Bigelow, Nordmann, and 

 others. Then he describes the different organisations 

 which deal with solar research, and passes on to the 

 spectroscopic results. This leads to a long discussion of 

 the spectroheliographic results, and finally to the know- 

 ledge obtained from eclipse work. 



THE MXTH INTERN.ITIONAL CONFERENCE 



ON TUBERCULOSIS. 

 'T'HE International Conference on Tuberculosis held its 

 ninth series of sessions at Brussels on October 5-8 

 under the patronage of King Albert of Belgium, who 

 throughout took a very keen interest in the conference. 

 The first day, October 5, was devoted to the meetings of 

 the council and to the organisation of permanent com- 

 missions, some dealing with entirely new subjects, others 

 with subjects already under consideration. To six of 

 these commissions are referred questions of a more or less 

 scientific character ; to another six questions in which 

 social elements predominate. 



In the first group predisposition occupies the first place. 

 In this group also are the commissions dealing with 

 channels of infection ; milk ; methods of treatment, scien- 

 tific and vaccinal ; international method of notation ; and 

 the action of the solar rays. 



In the second group are included the part played bv 

 women in the crusade against tuberculosis ; child life and 

 school hygiene ; prophylaxis and the part played by the 

 dispensary; the cure (?) of tuberculosis; public measures 

 to be taken against tuberculosis ; and the statistics con- 

 cerning tuberculosis. 



On these commissions are represented, so far as possible, 

 the different nationalities taking part in the work of the 

 congress. 



On Thursday morning, October 6, the opening ceremony 

 of the conference was under the presidency of M. Berryer, 

 Minister of the Interior, who in a thoughtful and well- 

 informed address compared the Tuberculosis Congress to 

 the great Peace Congress at the Hague, " both inspired 

 by the same profound thought and both wishing to obtain 

 the same results," the former, indeed, helping the latter, 

 " the warring of man against man being gradually re- 

 placed, thanks to a more humane sentiment, by a bringing 

 together of all men in common action against the universal 

 ills, vice, misery, disease, and death," a sentiment that 



