October 7, 1922] 



NA TURE 



493 



Society appeals to all British chemists to give assist- 

 ance. Gifts of money, clothing, books, and recent 

 chemical literature should be addressed to the Assist- 

 ant Secretary, The Chemical Society, Burlington 

 House, Piccadilly, W.i. 



In his presidential address delivered before the 

 Royal Anthropological Institute (vol. Hi. part i.) the 

 late Dr. Rivers laid special stress on the difficulties 

 which impede research by the excessive cost of print- 

 ing and book production, and the rise in rent and taxes 

 for accommodation used by scientific societies. He 

 pointed out how closely all the branches of anthropo- 

 logical work — physical, sociological, archasological, 

 psychological — are connected. Numerous societies, 

 like the Royal Asiatic, African, and Japan societies, 

 with the Hellenic and Roman societies and that 

 specially devoted to folk-lore, should become more 

 closely allied than is the case at present. The pro- 

 vision of a common building with adequate accommoda- 

 tion for a lecture room, library, and secretarial quarters 

 would do much to reduce expenditure and promote 

 efficiency. The leading society, the Royal Anthropo- 

 logical Institute, is most inadequately housed, while 

 the Folk-lore Society has no headquarters of its own. 

 It is quite time that an earnest effort was made to 

 reorganise the work of these and similar societies. 

 Individual jealousies and prejudices must be en- 

 countered, but the spirit of conciliation, reinforced 

 by the difficulties of the present situation, should 

 succeed in framing a scheme of co-operation. 



In accordance with arrangements followed for many 

 years past there is to be a series of meetings, generally 



on alternate Mondays at 5 p.m., at the Meteorological 

 Office, South Kensington, for the informal discussion 

 of important contributions to meteorological literature, 

 especially in foreign and Colonial journals. The 

 meetings will commence on Monday, October 16, 

 when, as customary at the first meeting, the dis- 

 cussion will be opened by Sir Napier Shaw. The 

 subject is a paper by V. Bjerknes " On the dynamics 

 of the circular vortex with application to the atmo- 

 sphere and atmospheric vortex of wave motions." 



The third of the series of lectures, under the auspices 

 of the Institute of Physics, on physics and the physicist 

 in industry will be given by Mr. Clifford C. Paterson, 

 who will take as his subject, " The Physicist in Electri- 

 cal Engineering." The lecture will be delivered on 

 Wednesday October 18 at 6 p.m. at the Institution 

 of Electrical Engineers, Victoria Embankment, W.C.2. 



On the recommendation of the committee of 

 management of Science Abstracts, the council of the 

 Institution of Electrical Engineers has appointed 

 Mr. W. R. Cooper to be editor of the publication in 

 succession to the late Mr. L. H. Walter. Mr. Cooper 

 was acting editor of Science Abstracts in the first year 

 of its existence, 1898, and afterwards was editor from 

 1899 to 1901. 



The Home Secretary gives notice that summer 

 time will cease this year at 3.0 a.m. (summer time) in 

 the morning of Sunday, October 8, when clocks will 

 be put back to 2 a.m. The shorter period of summer 

 time prescribed by the Summer Time Act, 1922, does 

 not operate this year. 



Our Astronomical Column. 



October Meteor Showers. — The month of October 

 is usuallv one of the best periods for observing meteors. 

 The moon will interfere this year in the early part of 

 the month, but during the last half, observations may 

 be satisfactorily made. The chief shower generally 

 visible falls in the third week of the month, and is 

 directed from a radiant point at 91°+ 15 on the 

 north-eastern borders of Orion. There is also a strong 

 shower which supplies slow and often brilliant meteors 

 at about the same time as the Orionids, but this 

 radiant in the eastern region of Aries at 42° +21 

 appears to be visible for a long period, and is also 

 seen in the months of November and December. 

 The Taurids often form a conspicuous display to- 

 wards the end of October, but they are generally 

 more abundant in November than at any other 

 time of the year. The latter shower yields meteors 

 very similar to the Arietids, and fireballs are frequently 

 intermingled with the smaller members of the stream. 

 The chief radiant is at 64°+22°; it is difficult to 

 define the date of maximum, but it usually occurs 

 between November 20 and 23. 



The meteoric activity of October is not confined 

 to a few systems, for a very large number, certainly 

 several hundreds, may be recognised. They are, 

 however, for the most part feeble, like the majority 

 of the systems which are distributed over the 

 firmament. 



1 Parallaxes of 22 Cepheids. — Dr. Harlow 

 Shapley's estimates of the distances of the globular 

 clusters rest largely on the assumed absolute magni- 

 tudes of B stars and Cepheid variables. It is very 

 desirable to have as many independent determina- 



NO. 2762, VOL. I 10] 



tions as possible of the distances of the brighter 

 Cepheids, in order to check their assumed absolute 

 magnitudes. Dr. S. A. Mitchell has determined the 

 trigonometrical parallaxes of 22 of them, and publishes 

 the results in the Observatory for September. Perhaps 

 the most doubtful point is the mean parallax of the 

 comparison stars ; they are of the 10th magnitude, 

 assumed parallax o"-oo5. The deduced absolute 

 parallaxes for the Cepheids range from + o"-046 

 (p Cassiopeiae) to -o"-oi8 (41 Cygni). There are 

 only 3 negative parallaxes. The mean parallax 

 agrees very closely with the mean of the spectro- 

 scopic values ; rejecting p Cassiopeiae, the mean 

 difference, Mitchell minus spectroscopic, is only 

 o"-ooo3. It is concluded that the latter are very 

 accurate. 



Nova T Coronae (1866). — This Nova is exceptional 

 in two ways. It is the only Nova that was a cata- 

 logued star before the outburst (BD +26° 2765), and 

 it is much farther from the Galaxy than other Novae. 

 Mr. K. Lundmark investigates its proper motion and 

 parallax in Publ. Ast. Soc. Pacific, August 1922. 

 The proper motion is given as o"-oi2 annually, towards 

 position angle 41° ; from this the parallax is inferred 

 to be o"-ooio, while the spectroscopic parallax is 

 o"-ooi4. Adopting o"-ooi3, its present absolute 

 magnitude is +0-2, while that at the outburst was 

 — 7-4, in good agreement with the maximum value 

 for other Novae. The star is an M giant, and appar- 

 ently is now in the same condition as before the out- 

 burst. If the above parallax is near the truth, the 

 star is considerably more remote than Nova Persei 

 (1901) or Nova Aquilae (1918). 



