June 20, 1907] 



NA TURE 



185 



AcccRATE and interfsling " guides " greatly assist the 

 intelligent visitor to examine and understand the objects 

 exhibited in a museum. The trustees of the British 

 Museum are rendering a great service to natural science 

 in ordering the publication of the excellent series of hand- 

 books to accompany the admirable collections exhibited at 

 the Natural History Museum, South Kensington. The 

 most recent of these volumes is the " Guide to the Fossil 

 Invertebrate .'\nimals in the Department of Geology and 

 Pal.a'ontologv," which, with its seven half-tone plates and 

 ninetv-six text figures, will enable the visitor to the 

 galleries to appreciate the significance and importance of 

 the various fossils on view. We learn from the director's 

 preface that the book has been written by Dr. F. k. 

 Bather, and that the formerly published " Guide to the 

 Fossil Invertebrates and Plants " is partly replaced by the 

 present volume, the price of which is one shilling. 



Sever.\l new volumes belonging to the concise and com- 

 prehensive series of Hoepli manuals have recently been 

 received from" the publisher, Mr. U. Hoepli, Milan. Two 

 volumes by Prof. P. E. .Messandri, entitled " Merceologia 

 Technica." deal respectively with natural and chemical 

 products of commercial and industrial use. Caoutchouc 

 and gutta-percha is the subject of a volume by Dr. L. 

 Settimj, and the preservation of foods of one by Drs. 

 G. B. Franceschi and G. Vcnturoli. Other volumes are 

 on taxidermy, by Dr. R. Gestro ; radio-activity, by Dr. 

 G. .X. Blanc : and limnology, or the scientific study of 

 lakes, by Dr. G. P. Magrini. 



M.\NV publications of deep scientific interest have been 

 issued bv the Carnegie Institution of Washington and de- 

 scribed in the columns of Nature. A list has just been 

 received of ninety-two works available now or shortly 

 which the institution has published or has in the press. 

 Applications for the list or for copies of the works not out 

 of print should be sent to the Carnegie Institution of 

 Washington, D.C., U.S.A. 



The Proceedings of the .\ngIo-Russian Literary .Society 

 for February, March, and .\pril have now been published 

 in one small volume. The papers read at the monthly 

 meetings of the society, one of the objects of which is to 

 promote the study of the Russian language and literature, 

 are here reprinted. We notice in an obituary of the great 

 Russian chemist, Mendel^eff, the remark, " A prophet is 

 not without honour, save in his own country ; Mendel^eff 

 was black-balled at the elections in the Imperial Academv 

 of Sciences.'^ 



Messrs. West, Newman and Co. have published a 

 fifth edition of the late Rev. Joseph Greene's " Insect 

 Hunter's Companion." The little book, which runs to 

 120 pages, gives instructions for collecting and preserving 

 butterflies, moths, beetles, bees, flies, &c., and has been 

 revised by Mr. A. B. Farn. Its price is 15. 6d. net. 



OUR ASTRONOMICAL COLUMN. 

 .'Vnotfier New Comet, Tqo7iJ. — A telegram from the Kiel 

 Centralstelle announces the discovery of the fourth comet 

 of this year by Mr. Daniel, at Princeton, on June 14. 

 The object was of the eleventh magnitude, and at 

 i4h. iqim. (Princeton M.T.) on the day of discovery its 

 position was 



R.A.=23h. 48-53 m., dec. = 1° 8' S., 

 which lies about half-way between X and 29 Piscium. The 

 daily motion is given as +34' in R..A. and + 14' in 

 declination. 



A second telegram from Kiel states that this comet was 



NO. 1964, VOL. 76] 



(ihsprved by Prof. Aitken at tlie Lick Observatory on 

 June 13, when its position at i5h. 7-2m. (Lick M.T.) was 



R..'\. = 23h. sgm. 44-4S., dec.=o° 10' 16" S., 

 which is about 22-501. E. and i^" S. of \ Piscium. This 

 object is apparently becoming brighter at a rapid rate, for 

 Prof. Aitken gives its magnitude us 9-5. 



Titanium Flutings in the Spectrum of a Orioxis. — 

 From the examination of the spectrum of a Orionis taken 

 with the four-prism spectrograph, Mr. Nevvall believes that 

 he has discovered the presence of three titanium flutings 

 in the red end of the spectrum of that star. The wave- 

 lengths determined for the heads of the flutings, viz. 

 \\ 7053, 7087, and 7124, agree fairly well with those found 

 by Messrs. Hale and Adanis in the spectrum of the 

 titanium-arc flame, whilst collateral evidence, based on the 

 analogy between the spectra of sun-spots and third-type 

 stars, " suggests that these bands are to be expected in 

 stellar spectra of the a Orionis type, because they have 

 been found in sun-spot spectra. Two other flutings, with 

 heads at W 5166-8 and 5447-1 respectively, were also 

 found, and agree with the heads of the two strongest Ti 

 flutings found by Prof. Fowler. 



.•\n inter-comparison of sun-spot spectra and the spectrum 

 of a Orionis shows that numerous spot lines occur in the 

 stellar spectrum (Monthly Notices R.A.S., vol. Ixvii., 

 p. 482, May). 



Tin in Stellar Atmospheres. — On examining some 

 spectrograms of a Scorpii for radial-velocity determin- 

 ations, Mr. Goatcher, of the Cape Observatory, found a 

 persistent discrepancy occurring when measurenifnts of the 

 wave-length of a line at about A 4525 were reduced, this 

 line always giving a velocity about 6 km. per second too 

 low. This discordance was examined by Mr. Lunt, who 

 arrived at the conclusion that it is probably due to the 

 hitherto unsuspected presence of a tin line, the wave- 

 length of which, according to Exner and Haschek's tables, 

 is \ 4525-00. In the region covered by the spectrum which 

 was examined, the latter observers give only one other 

 tin line, and as this, according to Sir Norman Lockyer's 

 published tables, is an enhanced line, it is not to be ex- 

 pected in the spectrum of a Scorpii (.\ntarian type). .Should 

 Mr. Lunt's conclusion be confirmed, it will be the first 

 occasion on which tin has been shown to exist in the 

 atmosphere of a star (Monthlv Notices R..\.S., vol. Ixvii., 

 p. 487). 



NON-POLARISATION OF THE LiGHT OF PROMINESXES. In a 



note appearing in No. 21 (May 27) of the Coniptcs rcndus, 

 M. Salet states that, although he was ab'e, during the 

 total solar eclipse of 1905, to show that the coronal 

 radiations down to the edge of the moon were polarised, 

 he was unable to observe any trace of polarisation in the 

 prominence radiations. M. Salet then points out that this 

 result appears to introduce a contradiction to the theory of 

 Prof Julius, that the monochromatic light of a point on 

 a prominence comes in reality from a point on the photo- 

 sphere, for, according to Schmidt, such a ray would be 

 strongly deviated by the successive refractions of the solar 

 cns'elopcs, and should then become partially polarised, the 

 quantity of polarisation depending, by Fresnel's theory, 

 only on the value of the deviation. The absence of 

 polarLsalion seems, therefore, to argue that the light is 

 not deviated, and, consequently, that it does not have to 

 pass through the solar atmospheres from the disc. 



Nova T Coron.-e of 1S66. — Some interesting observ- 

 ations concerning Nova Coron;e are made by Prof. Barnard 

 in vol. XXV., No. 4 (p. 279, May), of the Astrophysical 

 Journal. Before its outburst this star was of magnitude 

 9-5, then it increased to the second magnitude, finally re- 

 lapsing to 9-5. Nova; generally fade away to a much 

 less brightness than this. 



Prof. Barnard has repeatedly examined this star with 

 the 40-inch refractor, but can find no difference of focus 

 such as usually exists between the light from faded Nov;e 

 and the stars in general. Estimations of magnitude show 

 that the star still has essentially the same magnitude that 

 it had before 1866 ; there is no definite indication of motion 

 in the Nova. Prof. Barnard found a faint nebula in the 

 field with the Nova, the nebula being of magnitude 14-0 

 or 15-0, and having a diameter of 5" to 10" with no 

 nucleus. 



