260 



NA TURE 



[August 19, 1922 



of the rains. During the 12 hours ending 6 p.m. on 

 August 6 the fall of rain at Bournemouth was about 

 if inches. At Harrogate the aggregate rainfall was 

 nearly 5 inches for the three days ending Wednesday, 

 August 9. Nottingham registered 3-4 inches of rain 

 for the 24 hours ending 7 p.m. on August 7. Sheffield 

 experienced exceptionally heavy rain on this date, 

 which occasioned floods, and there was a renewal of 

 the floods in the late evening of the following day. 

 At Leeds, between the morning of August 7 and mid- 

 day of August 9 the rainfall measured 3-44 inches, 

 which is said to be the highest ever recorded in the 

 • ity. At .Milton Mowbray the rain measured 4-83 

 inches for the 24 hours ending 9 p.m. on August 7, 

 and at Doncaster the measurement was 4-08 inches 

 between midnight on August 6 and 6.30 p.m. on August 

 7. Violent thunderstorms occurred generally in the 

 south and east of England, and in London on the 

 afternoon of August 9 a storm was accompanied 

 by a heavy fall of hail. At Hampstead the hail- 

 stones remained unmelted on the ground for several 

 hours. 



Swatow, situated on the China coast at the mouth 

 of the river Han and in the Formosa Strait, was 

 visited by a typhoon of terrific violence during the 

 night of August 2-3 ; the storm lasted about six 

 hours, starting at 10 p.m. on August 2. The pre-war 

 population of Swatow is given as 60,000, and an 

 estimate, made a week after the disaster, of the loss 



of life at Swatow and the surrounding district is said 

 to be probably 50,000. Six other towns besides 

 Swatow are said to be destroyed. The water rose 

 quite suddenly, partly submerging houses and 

 buildings. Trees were uprooted and telegraph poles 

 blown down. Sampans and native craft were blown 

 hundreds of yards inshore, most of the occupants 

 being drowned, and many large vessels were driven 

 ashore. More than 2000 vessels annually enter the 

 port. The occurrence and characteristics of typhoons 

 in the China Seas have long been studied and are 

 comparatively well understood. The recent storm 

 was probably one of the type shown in the " Baro- 

 meter Manual for the use of Seamen " published by 

 the Meteorological Office. The period of occurrence 

 is from June to September. These storms usually 

 originate in the neighbourhood of the Philippines 

 and travel northward or north-eastward, striking or 

 skirting the China coast and afterwards passing near 

 to Korea and Japan. The typhoons are commonly 

 warned from Manila or Hong-kong, but the warning 

 can, at the best, only lessen the amount of damage. 

 The Hong-kong Government has greatly aided in 

 relieving the distress occasioned, and the British have 

 been helped in this by the Japanese. In the Backer- 

 gunge, Bay of Bengal, cyclone, in October 1876, the 

 loss of life by drowning was estimated at 100, ooo, 

 and the deaths afterwards from disease directly due 

 to the inundation added another 100,000 to the 

 number. 



Our Astronomical Column. 



Conjunction or Venus and Jupiter. — A con- 

 junction of these brilliant planets will occur on August 

 26 at i8h. G.M.T., when Venus will be 2 29' south of 

 Jupiter. Venus will set at Sh. 11m, and Jupiter will 

 set at 8h. 24m. G.M.T. Sunset occurs at 7I1. G.M.T., 

 so that the two planets will set about \\ hours after 

 the sun. Twilight will be very strong in the western 

 sky just before the setting of the two planets, and in 

 order to observe them it will be necessary to look 

 from a position which commands a clear open view 

 of the western sky near the horizon. 



On August 25 Venus and Jupiter will be in con- 

 junction with the moon soon after midnight following 

 the date mentioned, and on August 30 will be in 

 conjunction with Mars in the evening. The west- 

 ern sky during the last week of August will be ex- 

 tremely interesting, the new moon being there and 

 Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn also visible in the same 

 region. 



The Orbital Distances of Satellites and Minor 

 Planets. — Prof. G. Armellini in 1918 published a 

 law of planetary distances in the form 1-53", where n 

 is given successive integral values from - 2 for 

 Mercury to +8 for Neptune. The two integers +2 

 and +3 are assigned to the asteroids, while +6 is 

 left unused. It can scarcely be claimed that (except 

 in the case of Neptune) it shows great superiority 

 over the law of Bode. However, in a further paper 

 {Scientia, August 1922) he notes that his colleague 

 Prof. Burgatti has applied the law to the satellite 

 systems of Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus, the formulae 



NO. 2755, VOL. I io] 



being i-8o n , 1-34", and 1-31" respectively. In the 

 case of the Jupiter family the indices are -3, -2, 

 -1, o, +1 for V and the four bright satellites; +2, 

 + 3 are unused, + 4 is assigned to the two satellites 

 VI, VII, while +5, +6 are given to VIII, IX re- 

 spectively. The author erroneously gives a distance 

 to IX half as great again as that of VIII. The two 

 in reality form a twin pair like VI, VII. Since the 

 law gives no explanation of vacant spaces or of pairs 

 of satellites, its claims to rest on a physical basis are 

 not convincing. 



The remainder of the paper deals with the asterodi- 

 orbits. The gaps at the distances where the periods 

 are half and one-third of Jupiter's are not ascribed 

 to the direct action of that planet, but to some 

 primitive agency which determined both its distance 

 and theirs. It is, indeed, likely that the asteroids 

 will play an important part in future discussions on 

 the cosmogony of the solar system. 



Prof. Armellini cites an interesting point about 

 planet 434 Hungaria. Its distance from the sun, 

 1-95, is the precise distance at which Leverrier stated 

 that enormous perturbations in inclination would 

 develop, causing oscillations of 53°. Charlier, how- 

 ever, pointed out that Leverrier had included only 

 first-order perturbations ; he estimated that the 

 inclusion of higher terms would diminish the oscilla- 

 tion to 1 7 or less. Finally, Prof. Armellini himself 

 has effected the complete integration of the expres- 

 sions, using elliptic functions, and finds that the 

 oscillation of the inclination is only 3^°, a quantity 

 of the same order as that of the major planets. 



