October 26, 191 1] 



NATURE 



563 



Beljawsky's Comet, 191 \g. — Dr. Kobold's ephemeris 

 for comet 191 ig is continued in No. 4530 of the Asiro- 

 nomische Nachrichten, from which we take the following 



The comet, then, is travelling down through Libra towards 

 Scorpio, and its increasing south declination, its apparent 

 proximity to the sun, and its decreasing brightness make 

 it an almost impossible object except under the best con- 

 ditions. 



A number of earlier observations are recorded in the 

 same journal, the general result being that about October 

 1-3 the comet was between the second and third magni- 

 tude, had a nucleus of magnitude 6-o, and a well-defined 

 tail -1 une 2 or 3 in length. 



Qcenisset's Comet, 1911/. — New elements and an 

 ephemeris for comet Kill/ are published by Dr. Ebell in 

 No. 4530 of the Astronomische Nachrichten. 



Ephemeris 12I1. Berlin .l/.T. 

 .911 a(lrue) i(m.e) , og 



log A 



mag. 



Oct. 24 ... 15 422 

 ,, 28 ... 15 438 



Nov. 1 ... 15 45-0 

 ,, 5 ••• 15 45'S 

 ,, 9 ... 15 46-4 

 ., 13 ... 15 46-8 



I-22 to-S 



+ 17 47'8 



13 47-6 



-10 60 



- 6 39-1 



- 3 241 



9-9378 ... 0-1019 •■• 6-8 



99230 ... 0-1259 ... 68 



99109 ... 01483 ... 6-9 



9-9020 ... 0-1688 ... 6-9 



9S969 ... 0-1872 ... yo 



9-8960 ... 0-2034 ... 7-1 



Perihelion passage takes place on November 12-39, ar, d 

 the comet is still observable, with increasing difficulty, in 

 the evenings. The path lies through Serpens, and the 

 comet will pass between 8 and 7 Serpentis on October 

 29-30. 



Brooks's Comet, 1911c.-. — Some photographs of Brooks's 

 comet, taken by MM. Que^nisset and Baldet at the Juvisy 

 Observatory, are reproduced in the October number of 

 L'Astronomie. One, on plate paper, taken with 2h. 3m. 

 exposure on September 29, shows a large round head with 

 two fine, slightly divergent streamers ; between these, and 

 at about 21' from the nucleus, emerges the main tail, which 

 presents but few of the undulations and condensations that 

 characterised the tail of Morehouse's comet. A photograph 

 taken with a short-focus camera on September 29 shows 

 a tail 30 long going to the edge of the plate. The photo- 

 graphic intensity of the comet was then much greater 

 than that of Daniel's comet, 1907^, but less than that of 

 Morehouse's, 1908c. 



The Cape Observatory. — Mr. Hough's report of the 

 work done at the Cape Observatory during last year refers 

 to many important pieces of astronomical research, from 

 which we may but select one or two of the more striking 

 facts. The travelling wire micrometer, in a modified form, 

 was fitted to the transit circle, and gave excellent results ; 

 an instantaneous reversing gear has been fitted for use on 

 stars near the pole. The heliometer was used on thirty- 

 five nights for securing 166 observations of the position of 

 Halley's comet. With the four-prism spectrograph 

 attached to the Victoria telescope, 239 stellar spectra were 

 ed, and witli the one-prism spectrograph eleven photo- 

 graphs of the spectrum of Halley's comet were taken. The 

 d-inch equatorial was also used on the comet ; and its 

 mounting also carried other cameras, one. a Ross-Goertz 

 (F = 7-7) camera, having the large prism from the four- 

 prism spectrograph mounted objectively ; with this twenty 

 photographs of the comet's spectrum were obtained, some 

 showing also the tail. The astrographic reductions were 

 submitted to the final control afforded by measures on 

 overlapping plates. With the Dallmeyer photoheliograph 

 550 photographs of thi secured on 260 days 



March 1 and the end of the vear. 



The Stectrum of P Cygni. — The enigma presented by 

 the mixed spectrum of P Cygni is somewhat further com- 

 plicated by a preliminary note published by Mr. P. Merrill 

 in No. 201 of the Lick Observatory Bulletins. It will be 

 remembered that the spectrum is of the Orion type, with 

 adjacent bright and dark lines, the latter being displaced 

 toward the violet. Mr. Merrill now finds that the bright 

 lines due to silicon are differentially displaced. Assuming 

 that the wave-lengths of the bright lines of H, He, and N 

 in the spectrum are those found for the same lines in 

 laboratory and ordinary stellar spectra, the three bright 

 silicon lines 4553, 4568, and 4575 are displaced 0-26 V.1 

 towards the red; the lines are also said to differ .appreciably 

 in appearance from the other lines in the spectrum. 



\"0 2 iq I, VOL. 87] 



MUSEUM CONFERENCE AT LIVERPOOL. 



A CONFERENCE of members of the Museums Assoi ia- 

 ■^ tion and others interested in the work of museums 

 was held at the Public Museum, Liverpool, on Wednes- 

 day, October 18. About sixty were present, including re- 

 presentatives from public museums at Manchester. 

 Sheffield, Hull, Leicester, Stoke-on-Trent, Bolton, Warring- 

 ton, and other towns. 



After an address of welcome by Mr. F 1 . J. Leslie, chair- 

 man of the libraries, museums, and arts committee, Dr. 

 Clubb, director of museums, gave a brief description of 

 the collections, and conducted the party on an inspection 

 of the galleries. After tea the chair was taken by Mr. 

 H. R. Rathbone, chairman of the museum subcommitt.. . 

 Mr. E. Rimbault Dibdin directed attention to a clause in 

 the Copyright Bill which has passed the House of 

 Commons, the effect of which would be to take away the 

 copyright in any work of art exhibited in a public gallery, 

 and appealed to museum authorities to agitate for its 

 rejection. 



Dr. Clubb read a paper on the educational value of 

 museums for schools, which was illustrated by the exhibi- 

 tion of some of the cabinets of natural history specimens 

 which the museum circulated amongst the elementarv 

 schools of Liverpool, and by a number of drawings. 

 wood carvings, and plasticine models made by pupils of 

 one of the schools after a visit to the African gallery of the 

 museum. Mr. P. Entwistle described the introductory 

 series to the ceramic gallery in the Liverpool Museum, 

 which exhibits the development of pottery from the earliest 

 times, and includes a technological series explaining tin 

 process of manufacturing earthenware as now carried on. 

 Mr. W. S. Laverock, in a paper on the botanical gallery of 

 a public museum, said that he was forecasting an arrange- 

 ment which did not as yet exist anywhere, which should 

 include exhibits of English plants grouped according to their 

 habit. This method would be more intelligible to the 

 beginner than the usual systematic arrangement. Mr. J. W. 

 Catmore described modern methods in taxidermy, which he 

 illustrated by means of work in process and with examples 

 of old and new specimens from the collections. The chair- 

 man suggested the desirability of adding pictorial back- 

 grounds to some of the naturaily mounted groups. 



NEW BUILDINGS OF THE ROYAL ALBERT 

 MEMORIAL UNIVERSITY COLLEGE. 



T^RIDAY last, October 20, was a red-letter day in the 

 history of education in Devonshire, for the formal 

 opening of the new University College buildings by the 

 Lord-Lieutenant of the county was attended by such a 

 gathering of influential people as to show that the Countv 

 of Devon is now as much in earnest as the City of Exeter 

 itself in the determination to maintain a fullv equipped 

 University College in its capital. 



Dr. Alex. Hill, late master of Downing College, Cam- 

 bridge, visitor of the college, delivered an address on the 

 need for the highest branches of education and the import- 

 ance of bringing such teaching within easy reach of all. 

 Money spent in the establishment, endowment, and main- 

 tenance of such colleges, he said, would return to future 

 generations an hundrdedfold. The Lord-Lieutenant, Earl 



