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NA TURE 



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The difficulties of the old Paris Municipal Council with the 

 gas company were not adjusted before its dissolution. We 

 believe that the new Municipal Council is sure to accept all 

 the proposals coming from any gas company which has proved 

 practically by some previous experiments the value of their system, 

 and are willing to accept a remuneration proportional to the 

 quantity of light produced on a scale similar to the Lontin agree- 

 ment, viz. 10 deniers for each 120 or 130 sperm candles. 



The French Government has appointed an engineer of the 

 Fonts et Chausees. M. de Villier du Terroge, to report on the 

 possibility of establishing in Paris underground railways. The 

 difficulty is in the length of the tunnels to be excavated, which will 

 be gi'eater than on the Metropolitan Railway, and the necessity 

 of procuring smoke-consuming engines. 



On the 7th inst. a silver tea and coffee service was presented 

 by the Mayor of Liverpool, in the name of a large number of 

 subscribers, to Mr. A. Norman Tate for his disinterested efforts 

 to promote scientific education in that city. 



A General Horticultural Exhibition will be held at Frank- 

 fort-on-Main from May i to October i this year. Particulars 

 may be obtained by applying to " Die Gartenbau Gesellschaft " 

 at Frankfort-on-Main. 



The Electric Railway, constructed by Siemens and Halske 

 between the Anhalter Station, in Berlin, and the suburban 

 village of Lichtenfeld, has been satisfactorily completed, and 

 will be opened to public traffic on the 1st of next month. 



A NEW electric lamp has been brought out in Paris; it is a 

 combination of the Werdermann with a perforated carbon filled 

 by an insulating medium. It is said to work well. 



At a meeting of the Council of the Epping Forest Naturalists' 

 Field Club, held on Saturday evening, January S, the following 

 resolution was passed on the motion of Mr. Francis George 

 Heath, seconded by Mr. N. F. Robarts, F.G.S.— "That the 

 Council of this Society, on behalf of the large section of the 

 population of London interested in the pursuit of Natural 

 History, desires to record an emphatic protest against the pro- 

 posal of the Great Eastern Railway Company to carry a line 

 across Epping Forest, believing that it is wholly unnecessary for 

 the Railway to take the route projected, and that it would not 

 fail to prejudicially affect the advantages secured by the Epping 

 Forest Act, which directs that the forest is to be preserved as far 

 as possible in its natural aspect." 



OUR ASTRONOMICAL COLUMN 

 Janson's Star of 1600. — The so called A^ova of i6oo, which 

 is 34 Cygni of Flamsleed, and P Cygni of Schonfeld's catalogues 

 of variable stars, was discovered by Wilhelm Janson, a pupil of 

 Tycho Erahe's, and entered upon his globe in that year. It has 

 been erroneously stated in some astronomical works (as in 

 Cassini's "Elements d' Astronomic) that Kepler was a co- 

 discoverer of this star, of which he himself informs us to the 

 contrary in his treatise, '* De Stella tertii honoris in Cygno, qure 

 ad annum MDC fuit incognita necdum extinguatur, Narratio 

 astronomica " ; this is appended to lii^ well-known \\ork, " De 

 Stella nova in pede Serpcntarii," published at Prague in 1606. 

 At p. 154 we read, " Cum mense Majo anni 1602 primiim Uteris 

 monerer de novo Cygni phrenomeno," &c., while at p. 164 

 Kepler says distinctly that Janson was the discoverer, "Primus 

 est Gulielmus Jansomus, qui hanc novam a se primiim anno 

 1600, conspectam profitetur iiiscrij^tum in globum c£elestem anno 

 1600 editum facta." Kepler gave the position of the star for the 

 Ciid of 1600 in R.A. 300' 46', Decl. + 36° 52'. He observed it 

 during nineteen years, it became fainter in 1619, and disappeared 

 in 1621, though Fortuni Liceti dates a reappearance in the same 

 year. In 1655 Dominique Cassini observed it again ; it increased 

 during five years, until it attained the third magnitude, and 

 afterwards diminished. On the testimony of Hevelius, it re- 

 appeared i;i November, 1665, it was again faint in the following 



year, but subsequently brightened without reaching the third 

 magnitude, in 1677 and 16S2, it was only of the sixth magnitude. 

 Ca-sini says on June 24, 171 5, a star of this magnitude was seen 

 ill the position of P (Bayer) equal to the three which are near 

 that marked b in Cygnus by Bayer. 



Edward Pigott was at some pains to elucidate the history of 

 this star in a communication presented to the Royal Society in 

 17S6 {Philos. Ti-ans. vol. Ixxvi. p. 189). He says he had 

 minutely examined the observations made in the previous century 

 with the following results as to the star's fluctuations : — 



1. Continues at its full brightne.-s for about five years. 



2. Decreases rapidly during two years. 



3 Invisible to the naked eye for four years. 



4. Increases slowly during seven years. 



5. All these changes, or its period, are completed in eighteen 

 years. 



6. It was at its minimum at the end of the year 1663. 



It does not always increase to the same degree of brightness, 

 being sometimes of the third, and at other times only of the sixth 

 magnitude. He adds that he was entirely ignorant whether it 

 were subject to the same changes since the beginning of the 

 eighteenth century, as he had not met with any series of obser- 

 vations upon it. 



It cannot be said that Pigott's conclusions (which Schonfeld 

 appears to think are only indifferently supported by the observa- 

 tions upon which they are stated to be founded) have received 

 any confirmation since his time. If in the absence of systematic 

 series of observations we consult the catalogues of the present 

 century, we have the following estimate-; of magnitude amongst 

 others: — Piazzi, 5'6; Be^sel, 67 (on September 14, 1825); 

 Argelander's Uranometria, 5 ; and Durchtnusterung^ 5*3 ; 

 Varnall, 5-2 ; Kadcliffe observations, 1870, 5"8. But in view of 

 the undoubted variation in the brightness of this star in past 

 times, more regular observation seems desirable. Has it ever 

 been carefully examined under the spectroscope? Its light has 

 a strong yellow cast. Madler found no api^reciable proper 

 motion. The star occurs in the second Radcliffe catalogue, and 

 in the Greenwich catalogue of 1864. The position carried back 

 to Kepler's epoch from these authorities is in close accordance 

 with that given in his treatise. 



The New Cape Catalogue. — At the meeting of the Royal 

 Astronomical Society on the 14th inst. the Radcliffe observer, 

 Mr. E. J. Stone, laid upon the table the complete sheets of his 

 great Catalogue of Southern Stars, observed during his superin- 

 tendence of the Royal Observatory, Cape of Good Hope, which 

 has been printed since his return to England. This very im- 

 portant work contains the places of between twelve and thirteen 

 thousand stars, including, in addition to the stars observed by 

 Lacaille, a considerable number of stars falling within similar 

 limits of magnitude. "A stereographic projection, showing the 

 distribution of the stars contained in the Cape Catalogue, 1880, 

 between 110° and 180° N.P.D." has been lithographed by Mr. 

 Stone. We believe a number of su pected cases of large proper 

 motion amongst the southern stars di-appear under the new 

 determination of their positions .xt the Cape. 



BIOLOGICAL NOTES 

 ArcH/EOPTERyx macrura, — A very able article on this 

 strange-feathered animal by Prof. Carl Vogt was read before the 

 Saint Gall Meeting of the Congress of Swiss Naturalists, and 

 was published in the Revue Scientijique for September, 1879. 

 This has been translated in the recently-published number of 

 Ibis, with a photograph of Herr Haberlein's specimen. H. von 

 Meyer, in 1861, described this species (under the specific name 

 lith'igraphica) from the impression of a "bird's" feather in the 

 Solenhofen slate. Prof. Owen, 0,1 ihe discovery by Dr. 

 Haberlein of a specimen (imperfect) described it "as he alone 

 knows how to do." The head of this specimen was wanting. 

 Dr. Haberlein's son, about 1875, succeeded in splitting a slab 

 so skilfully as to have on one of its halves the whole animal, and 

 on the other its impressi. m. This specimen Herr Hiiberleinis 

 anxious to dispose of, and it is the one described by Carl Vogt. 

 1 he animal preserved in the slab is of the size of a ringdove. 

 The remains described by Prof. Owen belong to the same species, 

 but to an example greater by a fifth. It is entire ; the head, 

 neck, trunk, and hind-quarters are placed in profile, the 

 head is bent backwards, so that its top nearly touches 

 the back. The wings, united at the shoulder girdle, are 



