14 



NA TUBE 



[May 2, 1907 



MAY METEORS. 



IN Spring months meteoric observers cnn hardly 

 expect very productive results. The weather is 

 often fine and' pleasant, it is true, but meteors arc 

 usually scarce, and an average night will not present 

 more "than about four or five per hour. In 1886, 

 during the month of May, I counted 127 meteors in 

 twenty-five hours of observation. In 1903, May, I 

 saw seventy-two meteors in iSJ hours, and, if allow- 

 ance is made for time engaged in recording paths, 

 the deduced horary number was about five. 



I have noticed that at this season of the year there 

 are comparatively few meteors leaving definite 

 streaks. In July' (last half) and August there are, 

 however, a large proportion of streak-producing 

 meteors, but the majority of these are obviously 

 Perseids belonging to the great July-August shower. 

 .Some years ago I counted out the number of meteors 

 with streaks seen by me in June and July (1873-1901), 

 and the relative figures were : — 



June, of 252 meteors, thirty-one had streaks, pro- 

 portion 8 to I. 



July, of 641 meteors, 141 had streaks, proportion 

 4j to I. 



It cannot be held that May offers any special 

 inducement to meteoric observers, but some very 

 interesting showers are visible. In the early part of 

 the montfi there are the .Aquarids, supposed to be 

 connected with Halley's comet. At about the middle 

 of May the Coronids are often .-ictive from radiants 

 at about 23i'' + 27° (near a Coronse) and 246° + 3i'' 

 (f Hcrculis), and at the close there are the 

 >) Pegasids from 330° + 26°, maxiinum on May 30. 



There are many other showers from Hercules, 

 Draco, Libra, Serpens, Scorpio, &c. Fireballs are 

 tolerably numerous during the month, and they are 

 apparently directed from a number of different 

 radiants. 



This epoch is likely well to repay investigation, as 

 it has never been amply studied in past years. More 

 observations should therefore be obtained, so that the 

 leading showers of the present day may be ascer- 

 tained. 



Though the majority of streams are probably of 

 annual occurrence, a few of them are undoubtedly 

 periodical, giving perhaps only one pretty rich ex- 

 hibition once in a long series of years. The latter 

 class of shower would escape notice unless observ- 

 ations were maintained with great assiduity and 

 regularity. As an instance of a rich periodical 

 shower of this kind. I may mention that on 1879 

 August 21-25 ' witnessed the flight of fifty-six bright 

 meteors from a radiant at 2qi° + 6o°, near the star 

 o Draconis, but though I frequently endeavoured to 

 re-observe this display, it never returned except under 

 a very feeble aspect. W. F. Denning. 



NOTES. 

 The annual conversazione of the Royal Society will be 

 held at Burlington House on Wednesday next, May S. 



Sir James Dewar, F.R.S., has been elected a foreign 

 member of the National Academy of Sciences, Washington. 



The Soci^t^ chemique de France will celebrate its fifty 

 years' jubilee by special meetings on May 16-18. 



Reuter messages from Messina report that a violent 

 eruption of Stromboli occurred at 10 p.m. on April 27. 

 It was accompanied by a strong shock of earthquake, 

 which shattered windows and caused other damage in the 

 vicinity. The cable between the Lipari and Stromboli 

 islands has been broken. 



NO 1957. vni,. 76] 



The Meteorological Committee has appointed Mr. 

 Ernest Gold, fellow o( St. John's College, Cambridge, 

 superintendent of instruments in the Meteorological Office. 

 to the readership in dynamical meteorology established 

 for three years from October i. The readership is con- 

 stituted from funds contributed by Dr. Arthur Schuster, 

 F.R.S., and is tenable, under certain conditions, at any 

 university in the United Kingdom. 



The exposition which is to be held at Berlin in con- 

 nection with the fourteenth International Congress for 

 Hygiene and Demography, on .September 23-29, promises 

 to be an interesting one. The fight against infectious 

 diseases, principally colonial and tropical diseases, hygiene 

 work of the State and municipality, especially the care 

 of infants, provision of good drinking water, removal of 

 waste, and the hygiene in schools, will be represented by 

 many exhibits. In consideration of the importance of 

 hygiene to private and public life, it has been resolved 

 to keep open the exposition, which is to be hpld in the 

 " Reichstag," to the end of September. 



The Destructive Insects and Pests Bill was read a 

 second time in the House of Lords on Monday. The Bill 

 is intended to grapple with several matters of importance 

 to the agricultural world, and in particular with the 

 disease called the gooseberry mildew. It provides that 

 the Board of Agriculture may make such orders as are 

 thought fit to prevent the introduction or spread of any 

 particul.nr insect, fungus, or other pest destructive to 

 agricultural or horticultural crops, or to trees or bushes. 

 The Bill gives the Board power to regulate the landing 

 of plants and to authorise the removal or destruction of 

 any diseased plant. Local authorities are empowered to 

 pay compensation for any crops or trees so destroyed. 



At a special general meeting of the Geological Society, 

 to bp held on Wednesday, May 15, a new section of 

 the bye-laws, providing for the election of women as 

 associates, will be considered and voted upon. The first 

 clause of the proposed new section reads as follows : — 

 " Any woman who has distinguished herself as a geo- 

 logical investigator, or who has shown herself able and 

 willing, to communicate to the Society original and 

 important geological information, or who has exercised 

 signal liberality towards the Society, and is desirous of 

 being elected, provided she be a British subject, or be 

 domiciled in the British dominions or their dependencies, 

 may, subject to the provisions hereinafter contained, be 

 elected an Associate, the number elected being limited to 

 forty." 



At the second National Poultry Conference, to be held 

 at Reading on July S-ii, the discussions have been 

 arranged under si.x sections, dealing respectively with 

 poultry farming and production, breeding, hygiene and 

 disease, women and the poultry industry, education and 

 research, and commercial subjects. Among papers to be 

 read at the conference we notice the following : — the 

 Mendelian laws and their application to poultry breeding, 

 by Mr. C. C. Hurst ; hybridisation experiments with 

 Ceylon jungle fowl (Callus slanleyii), by Dr. J. Llewellyn 

 Thomas ; the economic values of external characters, by 

 M. Louis van der Snickt ; parasitic liver disease in 

 poultry, by Prof. F. V. Theobald ; the influence of heredity 

 upon the diseases and deformities of poultry, by Dr. 

 H. B. Greene ; methods of instruction in poultry-keeping, 

 (a) in the United Kingdom, by Mr. F. W. Parton, (b) in 

 .Australia, by Mr. W. H. Clarke ; results of experimental 

 work, (a) in the United Kingdom — (b) in America, by 



