November ii, 1909] 



A^A TURE 



53 



This will give a focal image of tlie sun about i6 inches 

 in diameter, in which small spots, as well as large ones, 

 can be studied. 



Although it now seems to be demonstrated that sun- 

 spots are electric vor- 

 Doublet Triplet tices, judgment should 



K 6301-72 A 6302-71 be reserved as to the 



various theories which 

 have been advanced to 

 account for their origin. 

 Many of the results I 

 have described appear 

 favourable to Emden's 

 solar theory, but it 

 seems to be opposed by 

 the important investi- 

 gations of Evershed, 

 who has found that the 

 metallic vapours in sun- 

 spots flow radially out- 

 ward from the umbra, 

 parallel to the photo- 

 sphere. The further 

 development of Ever- 

 shed 's work, and the 

 continued study of 

 solar vortices and mag- 

 netic fields, should soon 

 permit a trustworthy 

 theory of sun-spots to 

 be formulated. 



It is evident that the 

 rapid decrease upward 

 of the strength of the field in spots would prevent this field 

 from having an appreciable influence on the higher solar 

 atmosphere, .^t the distance of the earth, as Schuster has 

 shown, the combined magnetic effect of several spots, all 

 assumed to be of the same polarity, and having no such 

 rapid decrease in field strength at higher levels as is 

 actually observed, would be altogether incompetent to 

 account for terrestrial magnetic storms. 



In concluding, I wish to express my appreciation of the 

 assistance I have received from my colleagues at . Mount 

 Wilson. I am particularly indebted to Messrs. .'\dams, 

 EUerman, King, Nichols, and St. John for aid in connec- 

 tion with the present investigation. 



Fig. 8— Iron Doublet (A b^oi'Ti) and 

 Triplet (A 6301-71) in Two Spot .-pectra, 

 showing Field Strengths of 2900 and 4500 

 Gausses respectively. 



I'ilE jVEir ROOMS OF THE ROYAL 

 SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH. 

 r^ N Monday, November 8, the new rooms of the Royal 

 ^"^ Society of Edinburgh were formally opened by an 

 itppropriate inaugural address from the • president, Sir 

 William Turner, followed by a brilliant reception. For the 

 purposes of the reception the ordinary meeting-room was 

 transformed into the cloak-room, and the president's 

 address was delivered in the Freemasons' Hall, a few 

 blocks further west in George Street. After the address 

 the audience re-assembled in the society's new abode, and 

 had every opportunity of inspecting the arrangements which 

 had been made for the accommodation of the large and 

 growing library and for other possessions of the society. 



The important events which led up to the migration of 

 the society from its historic haunts in the beautiful build- 

 ing in Princes Street were described by the president in 

 his address. The National Galleries of Scotland Bill, intro- 

 duced into the House of Commons in 1906, provided that 

 the Royal Jnstitution, so long the home of the society, 

 should form a part of the National Gallery of Scotland 

 and be applied to the promotion of the Fine Arts. As the 

 result of representations made by the society, a clause was 

 introduced into the Bill by which the Treasury was 

 empowered to provide funds both for the purchase and 

 equipment of a new habitation for the society, and for 

 an annual grant of 600/. to assist in the discharge of the 

 scientific work. The natural feeling of regret at having 

 had to give up one of the finest sites to be found in any 

 city of the world is partly balanced by the knowledge that 

 now the society has, for the first time in forty or fifty 

 years, ample accommodation for its valuable library. 

 NO. 2089, VOL. 82] 



When the building now occupied by the society was 

 vacated two years ago by the Edinburgh Life Assurance 

 Company, operations were at once begun by the Board of 

 Works to fit it for its new function. No structural changes 

 of magnitude were needed to make the rooms effective for 

 their purpose. The late librarian, Mr. Hardy, whose 

 lamented death last spring deprived the society of a singu- 

 larly efficient and devoted officer, had meanwhile been 

 plaiining the whole arrangements of the library, and what 

 is now seen is largely the result of his forethought and 

 attention to details. 



The building is entered by two doors. The east door 

 is open daily, and through it entrance is at once gained 

 to the front saloon, where there is every convenience for 

 reading and writing. The west door is opened only on 

 meeting days. It leads directly into a staircase, by which 

 immediate ingress is gained to the meeting-room, which 

 is fitted with a lecture table and appliances of various 

 kinds. By the same staircase, also, access is had to the 

 reception room on the first floor and to various library, 

 rooms on the second floor. 



The guests on the night of the reception passed up the 

 west staircase, at the first turn of which a fine bust of 

 Cuvier greeted them with calm dignity. 



.•\long the walls of the meeting-room (transformed for the 

 occasion into the cloak-room) some other interesting busts 

 are to be seen — Berzelius, John Playfair, Rev. Sir H. 

 Moncrieff' Wellwood, and Sir Walter Scott; also _an 

 engraving of the statue of Sir Joseph Banks in the British 

 Museum, e.xecuted by Chantrey. A photograph of Sir 

 Richard Griffith and an engraving of D. Milne Home also 

 decorate the walls. 



Passing out of the meeting-room and up a few steps 

 we come to the ante-room, with oil portraits of James Watt 

 and William Murdock, one of the pioneers of gas light- 

 ing. In the handsome reception-room immediately adjoin- 

 ing are portraits of former well-known presidents and 

 secretaries— Sir T. Makdougall Brisbane, Sir James Hall, 

 Profs. J. D. Forbes and John Robison, the last a Raeburn ; 

 also a "bust of Sir Roderick- Murchison occupies one corner. 

 Passing across the reception-room we emerge at the head 

 of the east staircase, which leads down to the front saloon 

 and to the east door. The portraits which decorate the 

 walls of this fine staircase are (beginning from the top) 

 those of Piazzi Smyth, Patrick Neill, Sir David Brewster, 

 Sir Robert Christison, Sir Walter Scott, and the first 

 president, Henry, Duke of Buccleuch. In addition to these 

 there are several good engravings of portraits of Henry 

 Mackenzie (the " Man of Feeling "), the Right Hon. Jas. 

 Moncriefi', and Dr. William Robertson, the historian (a 

 fine engraving by J. Dixon from the portrait by Sir Joshua 

 Reynolds). 



The front saloon has its walls covered with books, and 

 contains a life-like bust of James Gordon, the late librariaii. 

 Opening off it at the north-west corner is the librarian's 

 room or office, with a portrait of Sir Humphry Davy over 

 the mantelpiece. Adjoining it is the council-room, with 

 the w^ell-known portrait of Prof. Tait (by Sir George Reid) 

 hanging above the fireplace, and on each side a drawing 

 of the birthplace of Sir Isaac Newton, presented to the 

 society by a son of Prof. Robison. The same donor also 

 gave a small carved door, which formed part of a book- 

 press belonging to Newton. Passing out of the council- 

 room by a door in front of the foot of the east staircase, 

 and turning along a passage to the right, we come to a 

 large oblong room called the back saloon. Round the 

 walls are steel book-cases filled with the Transactions and 

 Proceedings of various scientific societies of foreign 

 countries. The countries are arranged alphabetically, and 

 under each country the towns are similarly arranged, so 

 that a visitor has not the least difficulty in finding the shelves 

 on which the publications of any given society are placed. 



Near the council-room door a staircase leads down to the 

 basement, where, in addition to rooms set apart for shelv- 

 ing books, are strong-rooms for storing the society's own 

 Transactions and Proceedings, and the blocks and plates 

 of illustrations. These are all admirably arranged, so that 

 the stock in hand can be estimated almost at a glance. 



Taking a general survey of the contents of the many 

 book-cases which line the walls of the various rooms, we 

 soon recognise the guiding principle of the whole. The 



