240 



NA 1 URE 



L> 



1880 



OUR ASTRONOMICAL COLUMN 

 Minor Planets. — The number of discoveries in the group 

 of minor planets during the year 1879 is twenty, against twelve 

 in the preceding year, so that there is no present indication that 

 we are getting to the end of them. Elements more or less 

 approximate have been calculated for seventeen out of the 

 twenty new ones, but no one of the orbits ha-; any peculiarity. 

 We subjoin their ordinal numbers, names so far as published, 

 discoverers and dates of discovery, with their magnitudes at the 

 time. 



192 Nausikaa ... Palisa ... Feb. 17 ... II 



193 Ambrosia ... Coggia ... Feb. 28 ... 12 



194 Procne Peters ... March 22 ... I0'5 



195 Euryclea ... Palisa ... April 28 ... 12 



196 Philomela ... Peters ... May 17 ... 10 



197 Arete Palisa ... May 21 ... 12 



19S Ampclla ... Borrclly ... June 13 ... II 



199 Byblis Peters ... July 9 ... II 



200 Dynnmene ... Peters ... July 27 ... 11 



201 Penelope ... Palisa ... Aug. 7 ... IO'S 



202 Chryseis ... Peters ... Sept. 23 ... 11 



203 Pompeia ... Peters ... Sept. 27 ... II 



204 Callisto Palisa ... Oct. 8 ... 12 



205 Palisa ... Oct. 13 ... 12 



206 Hersilia Peters ... Oct. 15 ... II 



207 Palisa ... Oct. 17 ... 12 



20S Palisa ... Oct. 21 ... 13 



209 Dido Peters ... Oct. 22 ... 11 



210 Pali-a ... Nov. 12 ... 11 



211 Palisa ... Dec. 10 ... 105 



The elements will be found in Nos. 109-127 of the Circular 

 sum Berliner Astronomisches Jahrbuch. 



The Melbourne Observatory. — The fourteenth Report 

 of the Board of Visitors to the Observatory, presented to the 

 Governor of Victoria, with the Report of the Government 

 astronomer for the year ending June 30, 1S79, has been received. 

 The great reflector is stated to be in capital working order, but 

 unexpected difficulties have been met with in placing the re ults 

 of work with it before the astronomical public, tin, work c n- 

 sisting mainly of drawings of nebulae in Sir John Herschel's 

 catalogue. Fifty-four of the smaller nebula: and closte 

 tained in it have been observed and compared, and ft] : 

 majority found to agree well with the Cape description . 

 "Some, however, have considerably changed, whilst other 

 completely altered in appearance." Five nebula; described by 

 Herschel have not been found after careful search. The draw- 

 ing of the great nebula around ij Argus made in March, 1S75, 

 still accurately repre 



trifid nebula No. 4355 were made on ten nights for compari on 

 of those by Holden and Trouvelot u ith the Washington H i 

 Stress is laid upon the need of a transit-circle of increased capa- 

 city, and it is understood that the Government propose a vote 

 for this purpose. 



The Biela Comet Meteors. — Contrary to what had been 

 anticipated by more than one astronomer who has given special 

 attention to the subject, from present information it would 

 appear that the earth passed the descending node of Biela's 

 comet at the end of November last, without encountering any 

 portion of the meteoric swarm, which, in November, 1872, was 

 moving in its orbit. Tiie earth would reach the node on the 

 morning of November 2S, or perhaps earlier ; the comet attains 

 its least distance from our track thirty-two hours after its nodal 

 passage, or, with Michez's orbit of 1S66, in about heliocentric 

 longitude, 67° 19'. 



Uranometria Argentina. — Within the la't week we have 

 received this very important work from the Director of the 

 Cordoba Observatory, Dr. B. A. Gould. Some account of it 

 was lately given in this column from an article in the Buenos 

 Ayres Standard, but we shall revert to it at an early date. Its 

 publication will form an epoch in southern sidereal astronomy. 



The Close Binary 85 Pegasi.— We learn from Mr. Burn 

 ham that his recent measures fully establish the physical con- 

 nection of the close components of this star. A mean of five 

 nights' measures gives : 



• l879 - 46 ... Position 2S4°'6 ... Distance o" - 75. 

 The earlier mean result being : 



18787 ... Position 274°'o ... Distance o"'67. 

 For the stars A and C Mr. Burnliam finds : 



1879-9 ... Position 28°7 ... Distance is"'40. 



BIOLOGICAL NOTES 



A BLIND IsoroD. — For so/ne years past, Prof. Forel, of the 

 Academy of Lausaune, has been engaged in investigating the 

 animal forms to be met with in the great depths of the Lake 

 I. email. These researches have been published from time to 

 time since 1S69 in the Journal of theVaudois Society of Natural 

 History, and the series is apparently brought to a close in the 

 recently published number of the journal in which he sums up 

 the general results, and enumerates no less than seventy-six 

 species of animals described as discovered in the Lake at 

 depths of from 100 to 3C0 metres. Amorg these is one new 

 blind form, closely related to our own very common fresh-water 

 Isopod called Ascllus aquaticus. When drawn up from the 

 water it is found constantly associated with Niphareus puteanus. 

 It is of a whitish colour, through which the brownish-coloured 

 alimentary canal is easily perceptible. When placed in an 

 aquarium it lives but a short time. The organs of vision are 

 only rudimentary. The species comes near to A. cavaticus, and 

 has been named by PL Blanc A.forellii. 



Notes on Crustacea. — Dr. P. P. C. Hoek of Leiden has 

 published some very interesting results of his investigations 

 among the smaller crustacean forms made at the Netherlands 

 Zoological Station. One series of notes are devoted to the 

 anatomy and systematic descriptions of the species of Caprelli- 

 dae met with, viz., Podalirius typicus, Kroyer, Caprelhi linearis, 

 I. in., and Leptomera pedata, Abilgaard. Another series treats 

 of several species of Corophidae. Those met with were: Coro- 

 phium crassieorne (Hoek confirms Norman's statement that the 

 C. Bonellii of Bate and W'estwood is the female of this species) ; 

 C. longkorne, Cera/us dijjormis, Podocerus falcatus, Ortho- 

 palatne Terschellingi, nov. gen., nov. sp. (this new genus belongs 

 to the sub-family 1'odocerinre), and Amphitoe littorina. A third 

 is devoted to an account of Orchestia cavimana, Heller, 

 by Dr, Noman at Zalt-Bommel, a town in the province 

 of Gelderland. It is more than 80 kilometres from the sea ; the 



1 brackish, but the amphipods were not even found 

 in the neighbourhood of a stream, but in a walled-in garden 

 some slight distance therefrom, in a corner of which, under some 



, and while in search for onisci, the species was taken. 



It would appear to be the same as the one described by Heller 



as found on Olympus by Dr. Kotschy, at a height of some 4,000 



feet, in moist spots in the neighbourhood of a spring. Mr. 



Noman f. mud the species in the same locality again in August last 



(1879). The listribntionof some of the other species of Orchestia 



is also referred to. Series four treats of some insufficiently-known 



, such as Atylus suammerdammi, Calliopius Icevius- 



culus, Melila obtusata, Ci. a. sp., Ampelisca 



me short anatomical remarks on 



Garmuaridae. Thee researches are illustrated by six plates, and 



.1111 of the Reports of the Netherlands Zoological 



Station. 



PTYALINE and Diastase. — Physiologists have differed in 

 to the action of the gastric juice on ptyaliue 

 and on diastase. While some hold that the saliva is de- 

 stroyed in the gastric juice, others maintain that it continues, 

 in the stomach, its action on starch. Recent researches by 

 M. Defresne (Camples rendus) appear to throw light on the 

 subject ; they prove, on the one hand, that the saliva i.s 

 paralysed in pure gastric juice, whereas with mixed gastric 

 juice, containing only organic acids, saccharification proceeds as 

 well as in the mouth. Ptyaline, then, like pancreatine, is an 

 excellent reagent for demonstrating the difference between mixed 

 and pure ga-tric juice. The latter, as M. Defresne has proved, 

 owes its acidity to hydrochloric acid, combined doubtless wit!) 

 leucine ; the former to organic acid--, probably combined also 

 ed matters. Ptyaline and diastase, therefore, are net 

 two identical substances, from a physiological point of view. 

 Ptyaline saccharifies the starch in mixed gastric juice, as well as 

 in 'the mouth ; it is only paralysed an instant in pure gastric juice, 

 and then recovers its action in the mixed gastric juice an 1 in the 

 duodenum. Diastase or maltine is irrecoverably destroyed in 

 hydrochloric solutions or in pure gastric juice, and after haying 

 pa-sed into the mixed juice it is profoundly altered ; for, if it 

 still dissolves starch, it no longer saccharifies it. 



Existence of the Chamois in the AitRuzzi.— A recent 

 communication of Mr. C. J. Forsyth-Major to the Bulletin of 

 the Club Alpino Italiano, records the occurrence of the Chan' 01s 

 (Kupieapra tragus) on the Gran Sasso d'ltalia in the Northern 



