September 28, 191 1] 



NATURE 



427 



pleted, an aggregate of 100,000 horse-power, half of which 

 has just been installed. The Swedish State now controls 

 the entire water-power of the Gota River, which connects 



m rn, the largest lake in Sweden, with the sea, 

 there being a difference in level of 144 feet, of which 



occur in the Trollhattan Falls. The present low- 

 water volume is 1 1,520 1 ubii feet per second, and the high- 

 level volume of water is about 32,400 cubic feet per second. 

 VVhen Lake Vanern is regulated, the State will be able 

 to reckon on an aggregate of not fewer than 200,000 

 horse-power at the Gbta Falls. The district is at no great 



torn Gothenburg, and is in the midst of a populous 

 part of the country. Francis turbines of a nominal 

 capacity of 10,000 horse-power and a maximum capacity 

 i [2,500 horse-power have been installed. The generators 

 produce three-phase current, twenty-five periods, and 

 10,000 volts. The energy is distributed partly at 10,000 and 

 partly at 50,000 volts. 



OUR ASTRONOMICAL COLUMN. 

 Astronomical Occurrences for October : — 

 Oct. I. I2h. 4111. Uranus in conjunction with the Moon 

 Ur.inus 4 44' N.). 



4. 5h. om. Venus stationary. 



5. 1 5h. om. Uranus stationary. 



10. 6h. 2S111. Saturn in conjunction with the Moon 



(Saturn 4° 27' S.). 



11. Ijh. 52m. Mars in conjunction with the Moon (Mars 



4 21' S.). 



17. I2h. om. Mars stationary. 



,, I9h. om. Neptune at quadrature to the Sun. 



19. I2h. om. Uranus ,, ,, 



21. ijh. 55m. Sun eclipsed, invisible at Greenwich. 



22. 4I1. om. Venus at greatest brilliancy. 



23. 9h. om. Mercury in superior conjunction with the 



Sun. 

 ,, nil. 31m. Jupiter in conjunction with the Moon 



(Jupiter 2 40' N.). 

 27. 14ft. om. Neptune stationary. 



2i. 20I1. 40m. Uranus in conjunction with the Moon 



(Uranus 4' 4^ N-). 



\nother New Come:. [9 1/ -A telegram from the Kiel 



: y of a new comet by 



isset, at Juvisy, on September 23. Its position 



at ioh. 25m. (Juvisy M.T.) was 



R. A. = 1411. 24.8m., dec. = 75° 4' N., 

 and its daily movement was +3-Sm. in R.A. and — 2° n' 

 in declination. 



We also learn that this comet was discovered independ- 

 ently by Mr. Francis Brown, of Lee, S.E., on Sunday, 

 September 24, at 9 p.m. Mr. Brown gives its position 

 'hen as R.A. = 1411. 37m., dec. = 73° 40' N. 

 The magnitude of the new comet is given as 7-5, and, as 

 tip in Lisa Minor, it should not 

 prove a difficult object. 



Discovery of Borrelly's Comet (1905 II., 191 ie). — 

 According to a telegram from the Kiel Centralstelle, the 

 credit of rediscovering Borrelly's comet, for which, as we 

 mentioned in last week's issue. M. Fayet has just pub- 

 lished search-ephemerides, belongs to Mr. Knox Shaw, of 

 the Helwan Observatory, Egypt, who found it in 

 R.A. 3I1. 40m. 20s., dec— 32 54', at 15b. 5m. (Helwan 

 M.T.) on September 19. The discovery was probably 

 made on a photograph taken with the Reynolds 30-inch 

 reflector, which, it will be remembered, was the first instru- 

 ment to secure a recognised photograph of Halley's comet ; 

 the magnitude is given as 13-0. 



M. Fayet gave three ephemerides based on the assump- 

 tions of perihelion passage taking place on December iS-6, 

 14.6, or 22-6; the observed position is more nearly in 

 accordance with the first of these. He also shows that 

 by the middle of October the quantity 1 : r 2 A 2 will be as 

 great as it was at the time of the comet's maximum 

 Brightness after that it will increase consider- 



ably, from 057 to 1-90, so that the conditions of this 



NO. 2187, VOL. 87] 



return will be much better, for southern observatories, 

 than at the previous apparition. 



The Kiess Comet, ig 1 ii>. — Numerous observations of 

 comet 191 16 are published in No. 4525 of the Astro- 

 nomische Nachrichten, all of which direct attention to the 

 diffused nebulous character of this object. On August n 

 Herr Ernst, at the Kbnigstuhl Observatory, found the 

 diameter to be 12', the coma appearing slightly elongated 

 in the direction N.-S., and the nucleus being easy to see. 



Dr. Konkoly at O'Gyalla found the three hydrocarbon 

 bands to be very bright, their relative intensities, reckon- 

 ing from the red, being o-6, i-o, and 0-3 ; a short con- 

 tinuous spectrum passed through the middle of the lines. 



Dr. Holetschek gives a list of brightnesses of the whole 

 comet and the nucleus as observed at Vienna, the maxi- 

 mum brightness, 5-5 mag., of the former occurring on 

 August 3, although the greatest estimated magnitude of 

 the nucleus, 70, was recorded on July iS. 



Photographic observations at Innsbruck indicated possible 

 changes in the extent of the tail on successive nights, and 

 Herr Prey records tails up to J° in length. Considerable 

 changes of form are also recorded by M. Ouenisset, who 

 reproduces an excellent photograph of the comet on a 

 plate accompanying the September number of L' Astro- 

 nomic. This was taken at Juvisy on July 29 with an 

 exposure of 78m., and shows a tail 5J long issuing as 

 a hard, fine streamer from the centre of the coma ; but 

 M. Ouenisset records that on August 6, when the tail was 

 fainter and 2J long, it was strongly eccentric, and 

 certainly appeared to emerge from the northern edge of 

 the coma. 



In La Nature for September 23 Dr. Mascart discusses 

 the observed form and spectrum of this comet, and directs 

 attention to the method of repeated copying by contact 

 for the purpose of strengthening the fainter details on 

 comet photographs. The advantage accruing from this 

 process is well illustrated by two reproductions of one of 

 the photographs of Halley's comet which he took at 

 Tenerife in April, 1910. That direct from the original 

 negative is very weak and shows little tail, whereas the 

 one from the recopied negative is much stronger and 

 shows a fair amount of tail. 



Brooks's Comet, 1911c. — M. Ouenisset also reports that 

 he has taken several photographs of Brooks's comet, which 

 is now such a prominent object in Bootes. Photographs 

 taken on August 24. 25, and 27, the last with 5I1. ex- 

 posure, show a head having a diameter of 12' or more 

 in a direction perpendicular to that of the tail ; the latter 

 feature shows a length of 4 , and is slightly divergent. 



The Spectrum of Morehouse's Comet (1908c). — Count 

 de la Baume Pluvinel and M. Baldet have a paper in 

 No. 2, vol. xxxiv., of The Astrophysical Journal in which 

 they discuss twenty-eight negatives of the spectrum of 

 Morehouse's comet, which they photographed at the Juvisy 

 Observatory during October and November, igoS. 



The discussion is a very thorough one, in which the 

 authors show that the spectrum of the comet agrees 

 excellently with the spectrum discovered by Prof. Fowler. 

 The doubling of the bands in the cometary as in the 

 laboratory spectra is very striking. The four band-spectra 

 disclosed are attributed by the authors to carbon monoxide, 

 nitrogen at low pressure, cyanogen, and carbon ; in addi- 

 tion, there are some fainter radiations, not yet origined. 

 While cyanogen and carbon were restricted to the head, 

 carbon monoxide and nitrogen were distributed through- 

 out the comet. The bands were also studied from the 

 point of view of "series," and the authors find them 

 classifiable into a " strong " and a " weak " series. An 

 excellent reproduction of the spectrum accompanies the 

 paper. 



Meteor Observations. — A number of observations of 

 bright meteors are reported in No. 4525 of the Astro- 

 nomische Nachrichten. Mr. Denning gives the paths and 

 velocities of eleven meteors seen in July and August, Prof. 

 Konkoly reports 200 meteors seen at Nagy Tagyos during 

 the July and August swarms, and Herr Dziewulski gives 

 particulars of two bright meteors seen at nh. 55.6m. 

 (M.E.T.) and nh. 57.6m., respectively, on July 6. At 

 Cracow the apparent paths were 317 , —2° to 350°, +10 

 and 307 , +23 to 327 , +46 , respectively; the first lasted 



