September 9, 1909] 



NA TURE 



i'5 



experiments with photographic colour-filters would furnish 

 no definite evidence cither for or against the cosmical 

 absorption or scattering of the violet rays. 



In the same journal Mr. Paul R. Heyl also discusses 

 the question of the apparent dispersion in space, and, whilst 

 preferring Nordmann's monochromatic-photometry method, 

 suggests that too great an importance has been attached 

 to the parallax values used in measuring the dispersion ; 

 this would possibly account for the considerable differences 

 between the values obtained by Tikhoff and Nordmann. 

 Mr. Heyl also indicates that the objections urged by M. 

 Lebedew against the methods are not unanswerable. 



Planets and their Satellites. — In a note appearing 

 in No. 4351 of the A^trononixschc Nachr'ichien (p. 97, 

 August 27), Prof. Lowell shows that throughout the solar 

 system there exists a remarkable parallelism between the 

 ratios obtained by comparing the speeds of the satellites, 

 about their primaries, with the velocities of the latter in 

 their own orbits. .'\ table showing the ratios for the 

 systems of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune displays 

 relations which are too systematic to be merely fortuitous. 

 In a brief discussion as to the effect of the calculated 

 speeds, during the time the systems were evolving, in 

 determining the relations between the satellites and the 

 interplanetary particles through which they were passing, 

 Prof. Lowell shows that the total effect of the particles 

 on the large satellites was to retard the latter and cause 

 them to approach the primaries. For retrograde satellites 

 the effect was greater than for the direct, which may 

 account for the preservation of the latter. Incidentally, 

 this is shown to be antagonistic to the planetesimal hypo- 

 thesis, wherein it is reasoned that the impact of the inter- 

 planetary particles on a direct satellite would accelerate it 

 and thus prevent it being drawn down on to the planet ; 

 this is exactly contrary to the fact with any of the major 

 satellites. 



Meteor Observations. — As in previous years, organised 

 observations of the Perseids were carried out by the 

 members of the Belgian Astronomical Society at seven 

 different stations, and the results are briefly reported in 

 No. 21 of tile Gazette astronotnique. Each observing party 

 kept watch from loh. to i4h., each night, from August 7 

 to August 15, and the detailed discussion of the collected 

 observations should provide some very useful information 

 concerning this important shower. At Antwerp two 

 observers recorded 492 meteors, 129 of which were of the 

 first magnitude, or brighter, and the maximum display, 

 both there and at Uccle, appears to have taken place on 

 August II; the horary numbers were 514 and 44.2 

 respectively. 



Observations of the Perseids in 1908, and the Lyrids in 

 1909, were made at the Kasan Observatory, and the results 

 are published in detail in No. 4350 of the Astronomische 

 Nachrichten. .Altogether, the paths of 132 Perseids and 

 59 Lyrids, with notes on their appearances and the values 

 determined for the radiants, are given. 



New Spectroscopic Binaries. — No. 19, vol. i., of the 

 Publications of the Allegheny Observatory contains the 

 preliminary announcement that spectrograms taken with 

 the Mellon spectrograph show the following five stars to 

 be spectroscopic binaries: — (i) 30 H. Ursa; Majoris ; range 

 of 100 km. and period of 11. 6 days. (2) B.D.-l-32867° ; 

 134 km. range and short period. (3) B.D. + 6-2875° ; range 

 of 80 km. {4) 25 Serpentis ; range of 90 km. and a short 

 period. (5) 1 Corons ; range 40 km., period short. 



Observations of Perrine's Comet. — Photographic 

 observations of Perrine's comet, 19096, were made at 

 Greenwich on .\ugust 14 and 16, and at the Kbnigstuhl 

 Observatory on .'August 12, 15, and 19 ; on the latter date 

 the magnitude was 15.0. 



These observations show that, between the extreme dates, 

 the ephemeris published by Prof. Kobold was nearly 

 correct, the corrections in R.A. varying from 4- 5s. on 

 August 12 to —6s. on August 19 ; those for declination in- 

 creased from -10-8' to -14' {Astroiioinisclic Nachrichten, 

 No. 4350, p. 96). 



NO. 20S0, VOL. 81] 



THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION AT WIN MPEG. 

 SECTION D. 



ZOOLOGY. 



Opening Address by A. E. Shipley, M.A.Cantab., 

 Hon. D.Sc. Princeton, F.R.S., President of the 

 Section. 



I. 



Charles Darwin. 



This is the year of centenaries. Perhaps in no other 

 year in history were so many men born destined to impress 

 tneir genius on the literature, the politics, and the science 

 of the world as in 1809. 'the number of literary men who 

 first saw the light in that annus niirabitis is almost too 

 long to mention — .Mark Lemon, the genial editor and one 

 ot the founders of Punch; "Crimean" Kinglake ; John 

 Stuart Blackie, until lately a well-known figure in Edin- 

 burgh ; Monckton Milnes, the first Lord Houghton, "poet. 

 Clitic, legislator, the friend of authors " and the father of 

 Lord Crewe, who at present presides over that most 

 important of all Government offices — that of the Colonies. 

 One could prolong the list ; and one must at least mention 

 the names of Louis Braille, the inventor of the Braille 

 type for the blind, of Fanny Kemble and of Elizabeth 

 I.arrett Browning, before passing on to remind you that 

 this year is also the centenary of Tennyson, who, with 

 Browning, formed the twin stars of poetry during the 

 reign of Oueen Victoria, and who from his intimate 

 knowledge of natural history and his keen power of 

 observation was essentially the poet of Darwinism. Of 

 his life-long friend, born the same year, Edward Fitz- 

 gerald, the translator — one feels almost inclined to say 

 aumor — of Omar Khayy/im, and of the gifted musician 

 Mendelssohn there is no time to speak. 



On this side of the Atlantic, and yet not wholly on 

 this side, for he spent five impressionable school years at 

 Stoke Newington, we have that " fantastic and romantic " 

 genius Edgar Allan Poe.' Later he studied at West Point, 

 where surely he must have been as incongruous a student 

 as Jajiies Whistler himself. We have also that kindly, 

 humorous physician Oliver Wendell Holmes, a nature 

 " sloping towards the southern side " as Lowell has it. 

 .\mongst many recollections of literary men I cherish none 

 more dearly than that I once entertained him in my Cam- 

 bridge and once visited him in his. 



Three other names stand out. William Ewart Glad- 

 stone, that leader of men, a politician and a statesman 

 capable more than most men at once of arousing the 

 warmest affection of his followers and the bitterest hatred 

 of those who went the other way. Cultured as he was 

 and widely read, he had his limitations, and although his 

 tenacious memory was stored with the humanities of all 

 the ages, he was singularly devoid of any knowledge of 

 science. If we may paraphrase the words of Lord Morley 

 in his estimate of Gladstone's writings, we would say that 

 his place is not in science, " nor in critical history, but 

 elsewhere." 



Abraham Lincoln, the greatest man born on this con- 

 tinent since the War of Independence, was some ten months 

 older than Gladstone. Both men were great statesmen, 

 both men were liberators ; for we must not forget that in 

 many minds the help Gladstone gave to Italy in her 

 struggle for freedom and union remains the most enduring 

 thing he achieved. 



Yet in externals how different ! One the finished, 

 cultured product of the most aristocratic of our public 

 schools and the most ancient of our universities, the other 

 little read in the classics or in mediaeval and ecclesiastical 

 lore, yet deeply versed in the knowledge of men and how 

 to sway them. Rugged, a little rough if you like, 

 humorous and yet sad, eminently capable, a strong man, 

 and at heart " a very perfect gentleman." 



On the same day, February 12, upon which Lincoln 

 first saw the light, was born at the " Mount," Shrews- 

 bury, a little child destined as he grew up to alter our 

 conceptions of organic life perhaps more profoundly than 



1 Poe lived from his eighth to his thirteenth year at the " Manor House 

 School," Stoke Newington, at th:it time a village, now swallowed up bv 

 the metropolis. Poe described the place as he knew it, and his school- 

 master, Dr. Eransby, in '* William Wilson." 



