502 



NATURE 



[June 24, it 00 



adiniitcd, bui at present we have no materials to justify 

 the comlusion that they represent a degradation of culture, 

 even though the steps by which this artistic capacity was 

 acquired may remain one of the unsolved problems of 

 ethnology. The evidence of this " cultural break " between 

 the art of the Palaeolithic people and its comparative 

 absence in the Neolithic people has been recently dis- 

 cussed by Mr. W. Johnson in his " Folk-memory, or the 

 Continuity of British .Vrcha'ology, " which offers as reason- 

 able a solution of this tangled problem as is possible at 

 present 



Mr. I. M. Casanowicz, in the thirty-si.\th volume of 

 the Proceedings of the United Slates Is'ational Museum, 

 gives an account of the collection of rosaries under his 

 charge. It is rather disappointing in numbers and interest 

 when compared with more than one collection in this 

 country, containing only 105 examples, of which twenty- 

 seven belong to the Roman Catholic Church. Strange to 

 say, there is no example of a Brahmanical rosary, while 

 those from Japan, Tibet, and China are of some import- 

 ance. The rosary in its present form is believed to have 

 started among the Hindus, from whom it was adopted 

 by the Mah;iyana, or northern and most advanced school 

 of Buddhism. .Apparently from them it was adopted by 

 the Mohammedans, and some believe that it came to 

 Europe with the returning Crusaders. Some rude mode 

 of counting the repetitions of prayers is recorded by the 

 historian Sozomen to have been in use in Egypt in the 

 fifth century a.d., but the Roman Church attributes its 

 introduction to St. Dominic (1170-1221). Mr. Casanovicz 

 believes that, though the Buddhist and Mohammedan bead 

 chaplets preceded the Christian in order of time, there is 

 net necessarily a causal connection between them. In 

 any case, both in Islam and the early Christian Church 

 the primitive mode of counting the prayers was by means 

 of pebbles or date-slones, and the idea of replacing these 

 by beads threaded on a string may be due to imitation of 

 the practices of eastern religions. 



TtiE U.S. Weather Bureau has favoured us with speci- 

 men copies of its meteorological charts of the North 

 Atlantic and North Pacific oceans for July, and seasonal 

 chart for the South .Atlantic for June to August, corre- 

 sponding very closely to the pilot charts issued bv the 

 London and Hamburg offices, to which we have frequently 

 referred. The Weather Bureau took over the control of 

 meteorological work on the oceans from the Navy Depart- 

 ment a few years ago, and now receives reports from 

 more than jooo observers on vessels of every nationality. 

 From these reports it prepares daily synoptic charts for 

 the purpose of tracing storm (racks, percentage of fogs, 

 prevailing direction of wind, trade-wind limits, pressure 

 and temperature. It is proposed to include a seasonal 

 chart of the South Pacific Ocean in September next; no 

 charge is made for any of these useful publications, which 

 arc of great benefit to the seafaring community. 



In the course of an extended investigation on the residual 

 charges of condensers with dielectrics of various materials, 

 Mr. C. L. B. Shuddemagen, of the Jeffersen Physical 

 Laboratory of Harvard I'niversity, has discovered a 

 method of making condensers with pure parafTm wa.\ 

 instead of waxed paper. Such condensers, he finds, show 

 no residual charge, and on this account are likely to be 

 of great importance in future electrical work. In order 

 'o prepare the thin sheets of paraffin required, Mr. 

 Shuddemagen dips a thin, smoolh board which has been 

 soaked in water for a few days, and is rinsed with water 



NO. 2069, VOL. So] 



immediately befm- use, into a bath of liquid paraffin wax. 

 On withdrawing the board it is found to have on either 

 side a thin shc^l of paraffin, which is readily detached, 

 and allowed lo liang in the air to get rid of all moisture. 

 The thickne>^s of the sheet is determined by the tempera- 

 ture of the balh and of the board, and by the time the 

 board is imniersid but 05 millimetre has been found 

 most suitable. .Any irregularities in the surface of the 

 sheet arc smoothed with the blade of a safety razor before 

 the tin foil is placed on the sheets. Mr. Shuddemagen's 

 paper forms Memoir No. 18 of vol. xliv. of the Proceed- 

 ings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 



OVR ASTRONOMICAL COLUMS. 



Discovery 01 a Comet, 1909a. — A telegram from the 

 Kiel Centralslclle announces the discovery of an elcvenih- 

 magnilude comet, by .Mr. Daniel, at Princeton (N.J.) c". 

 June 15. 



.At i4h. om. (Princeton M.T.) on that date the positicn 

 was R..A.= ih. _i<)<)m., dec. = 28° 55' N., and the motion 

 of the conut was recorded as northerly and rapid. 



.\ second teligram states that this object was observed 

 by .M. Javclle at Nice on June 16, when at ijh. 13-3111. 

 (Nice M.T.) the position was R..A. = ih. 41m. 545., 

 dec. = 29° 58' 18' N. 



Thus it appears that the comet is now in the constella- 

 tion Triangulum, apparently travelling, in a direction a 

 little east of north, towards .Andromeda and Perseus ; this 

 position rises about four hours before the sun. It is 

 interesting to remark that comet 19071!, subsequently a 

 naked-oye object, was discovered by -Mr. Daniel on June 

 14 (1907), and was then of the eleventh magnitude. 



.A set of elements and an ephemcris, computed by Prof. 

 Kobold, are given in Circular No. 109 of the Centralstelle. 



Ephemcris (12/1. M.T. Berlin). 

 1909 a i Bright- 



June 22 I 59-5 



26 ... 2 127 



30 2 271 



July 4 ... 2 427 



8 ... 2 59-4 



+ 38 39 ... 08 



+ 42 530 ... 07 



+ 47 47 ••■ 0-6 



+ 51 09 ... o'S 



+ S4 22'9 •■ 04 



Perihelion is given as June 3. 

 .A supplement to Astronomischc Sachrichlcn, No. 4331, 

 informs us that this comet was discovered independently 

 by M. Borrelly, at .Marseilles, on June 14, I4h. 30m. 

 {Marseilles .M.T.). It should therefore be known as 

 comet 1909a (Borrclly-Daniel). 



ELEMIiNTS AND El'IIEMEKlS FOR WiSNECKE's COMET, I9O9. 



— .As Winnccke's comet is due at perihelion in October, 

 Prof. Hillebrand has computed a set of elements and an 

 ephemcris for this return, and publishes them in No. 4330 

 of the .Istronomisclte \acltricblen. 



The time of perihelion is given as 1909 October 40 

 (M.T. Berlin), and the ephemcris covers the period June 31 

 to October u. During July ihc comet should apparently 

 travel in a south-east direction through Leo nearly parallel 

 to a line joining S and fl Leonis ; on July 18 it should be 

 about 1° south of the former, and on .August 2 about 15' 

 north of the l.iiler, star. The position given for June 31 

 is a (app.).- mil. 32m. 46s., 8 (app.) = 24'' 51-7' N. 



The Reckm I.^sar Eclii-se, June 3. — Owing to the 

 persistent clouils, the total eclipse of the moon which took 

 place on Jujv ;-4 was unobservable in London, but that 

 it was will i.l.srrved in other localities is shown by the 

 reports now injlili^hed. 



MM. Borr. Ily and Coggia made obser\'ations at 

 Marseilles, th results of which are published in No. 23 

 (June 7J of III' ('..iii/>/« rendus. 



The forni' : noiid the exceptional intensity of the 

 penumbra ai ilu beginning of the eclipse, anrf a seamy 

 appearance ol ihr umbra which gave the front line of 

 the shadow .1 sinuous appearance. In the telescope the 

 eclipsed moon appeared rose-coloured, but to the naked 

 eye it was n il : many of the lunar circles were visible 

 despite the sh.idow. 



