Feb. 12, 1880] 



NATURE 



359 



Himalayas, a Temminck's Tragopan (Ceriornis temmincki) from subjects to which attention is directed are chosen, so as to avoid 

 China, a Spotted Turtle Dove (Turlur suralensis) from India, unnecessary or useless duplication of work, is not the least 



presented by H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, K.G. ; two Black 

 Lemurs (Lemur macaco) from Madagascar, presented by the 

 Rev. G. r. Badger, D.C.L., F.Z.S. ; a Sykes's Monkey [Cava- 

 pithecus albogularis) from East Africa, presented by Miss Mabel 

 Beale; a Sambur Deer (Cerius aristolelis) from Malacca, pre- 

 sented by Mr. W. H. Stevenson ; a Stanley Crane (Tetrapleryx 

 paradisia) from South Africa, presented by Capt. Edward Jones, 

 R.M.SS. Conway Cas'le ; a Wood Owl (Syrninm aluco), 

 European, presented by Mr. W. Addison ; a Kittiwake Gull 

 (Rissa telradaclyla), European, presented by Mr. II. R. B wet ; 

 Hairy-nosed Wombat (P/iascolomys latifrons) from South 

 Australia, deposited. 



OUR ASTRONOMICAL COLUMN 

 The Harvard College Observatory. — We have received 

 the Thirty-fourth Annual Report of the Director of this Obser- 

 vatory, presented to the Visiting Committee on December J. 

 Prof. Pickering notifies that the subscription of 5,000 dollars a 

 year for five years, suggested in his previous Report, for relieving 

 the immediate needs of the Ol servatory, more especially with 

 regard to the publication of accumulated work, has been com- 

 pleted through the liberality of some seventy ladies and gentlemen, 

 who have thus shown their interest in the establishment, an 

 example of scientific zeal, we may say, by no means unique in 

 the United States, nor indeed in the history of the Harvard 

 Observatory ; it may be remembered that the beautiful plates 

 illustrating Mr. G. P. Bond's great work upon Donati's comet 

 (Harvard Annals, vol. iii ) were contributed by a few citizens of 

 Boston and vicinity. The success attending the subscription has 

 enabled both the equatorial and the meridian circle to be actively 

 used during the year, the former frequently through the night. 

 Photometry is still made the prominent feature in the work ; 

 vol. xi. of the Annals will contain the results of over 25,000 

 photometric observations, principally made with the large 

 equatorial ; amongst them are measurements of the outer satellite 

 of Saturn, Japetus, on 101 nights in the autumn and winter of 

 1S7S-79, which, with similar observati .ns on twenty-eight nights 

 in the previous year, will furnish a determination of the law 

 followed by this satellite in its changes of brightness. Another 

 work of some extent, in the same direction, was commenced in 

 1S79, viz., a determination of the light of all stars visible in the 

 latitude of Harvard College ; a preliminary catalogue has 

 been formed containing all the stars in the Uranometries 

 of Argelander and Heis, and in Behrmann's Atlas, with 

 the stars of the Durckmusterung to the sixth magnitude 

 inclusive. Most of the stars being inconspicuous objects, 

 Prof. Pickering remarks, there would be much loss of time 

 in identifying them in the field of a photometer mounted on 

 an ordinary stand. This he avoids by observing them in the 

 iianas with a transit-instrument. " The photometer con- 

 sists ol a horizontal telescope pointing to the west, and having 

 two objective-. By means of two prisms mounted in front of 

 the telescope the pole-star is reflected into one object-glass, and 

 the star to be measured into the other. The cones of light are 

 made to coincide by a double-image prism, the extra images 

 ig cut off by an eye-stop. The star to be measured is thus 

 a ai the same field with the p..le star, with the same aperture 

 and magnifying power." Errors to be apprehended in the use 

 of the Zollner photometer and other instruments, when the 

 comparison is made with an artificial star are by this means 

 eliminated. Of the work with the meridian circle, the observa- 

 tion ol eight thoui and stars in the zone + 50 to + 55 undertaken 

 by the Observatory, and which has occupied Prof. Rogers during 

 the greater part ol eight years, was completed on January 26, 

 1879, and is mentioned as one of the largest astronomical under- 

 takings which have been carried to completion in the United 

 States; some years, it is added, will still be required to finish 

 the reductions and publication of this work. The General 

 Catalogue, 1874-75 (in vol. xii.) will be issued shortly, over two 

 hundred pages being in type. Vol. xi., to which we have alluded, 

 will be distributed in the course of the present year. 



It will be seen from this summary of the contents of Prof. 

 Pickering's Report that the Harvard College Observatory is fully 

 maintaining the high reputation it acquired under the manage- 

 ment of his predecessors, and the discrimination with which the 



important point to be remarked. If this should hardly appear 

 to apply to the proposed determination of Ihe light of naked eye 

 stars, it must be remembered that the previous determinations of 

 Argelander, Heis, &c, were made from eye-estimation, not by 

 photometric in truments. 



The Minor Planets in 1SS0. — The specialty of the 

 Berliner astronomisches yahrbuch is well known to be the 

 ephemerides of the small planets, which at the expense of a 

 great amount of labour Prof. Tietjen has for many years kept 

 up so nearly to our knowledge of these bodies. In anticipation 

 of the appearance of the volume for 1S82, these ephemerides 

 applying to the year 1880 have just been circulated amongst 

 observers. In addition to fifty-nine accurately computed ephe- 

 merides about the times of opposition of as many planets, there 

 are approximate places for every twentieth day of the first one 

 hundred and ninety-nine of this numerous group, excepting only 

 Dike and Scylla, for v Inch adequate material for calculation 

 does not exist. Only two out of the number approach the earth 

 during the >ear, within the distance l"o, viz., Ariadne, in the 

 middle of May, distance C923, and Frame, in the middle of 

 Augu t, distance o'996. 



That Dike, No. 99, should be still adrift, notwithstanding it 

 was discovered as far back as May, 186S, is not perhaps a 

 matter for surprise, considering that M. Borrelly, when he 

 detected it, did not estimate its magnitude over I3'I4, though it 

 was within ten degrees from the perihelion. Scylla was ob- 

 served for a fortnight in November, 1875, and may have been 

 in opposition during the last autumn, though not found : from 

 the elements in the Annulare for 1879, it would not appear to 

 be identical with No. 206, discovered by Prof. Peters at Clinton, 

 N.Y., on October 13, 1S79, and only observed for three or four 

 days. 



A Great Comet. — Dr. Gould, in charge of the Argentine 

 National Observatory at Cordoba, telegraphs ihus from Buenos 

 Ayres to Prof. Peters, the editor of the Aslronomische A'ac/i- 

 rkh'.cn : — " Great comet passing sun northwards ; " the telegram 

 was received at Kiel en the 5th inst. The ocean cables may in 

 future prevent such a surprise as was experienced in these lati- 

 tudes on the sudden appearance of the huge comet of June, 1S61, 

 which, rising rapidly in declination and passing the sun, as Dr. 

 Gould describes ihe new one, was observed simultaneously^ or 

 nearly so, throughout Euro|e, with a tail upwards of 100 in 

 length. The astronomical phenomena of the present year which 

 admit of prediction, do not offer any feature of special interest, 

 and a large comet will therefore come the more opportunely. 



PHYSICAL NOTES 



Two researches on singing condensers, such as that employed 

 in Varlcy's telephone, have lately been published. M. R. 

 Chavannes, in the first of these, maintains that ur, 

 currents produce no sounds in suchconden ers ; that intermittent 

 currents are absolutely necessary. M. Treve has shown, in the 

 second that a pressure exerted upon the leaves of the condenser 

 sufficient to drive out the air from between them will destroy 

 the production of the tones ; and that if the condenser is placed 

 in an exhausted chamber it ceases to emit sounds. 



IT will be remembered that in 1S76 Prof. Rowland discovered 

 (he magnetic effects of electric convection. M. Lippmann has 

 di-cu sed, in a recent number of the C ■ the con- 



verse case of the ponderomotive force exercised upon material 

 bodies charged with electricity by the relative motion of a 

 magnet. 



Cast-iron magnets are now being made of a superior 

 quality by M. Carre 1 , who publishes in the Re-cue Indiistndle an 

 account of his process. A soft and very slightly carburetted 

 inetal is melted in earthen crucibles. Just previous to running 

 into the moulds 10 to 15 per cent, of steel filings are added. In 

 0"der to produce a metal which w ill stand tempering at a cherry- 

 red beat, there is added either l to I -5 per cent, of nickel, with 

 o"25 per cent, of copper, or 2X> per cent, of tin and 0.5 percent, 

 of copier. 



An "acoustico-electrical kaleidoscope," the invention of M. 

 Michelangiol 1 Monti, is mentioned in I.cs Monties. It consists 

 of a microphone used in conjunction with an induction-coil and 

 a Geissler tube, and is, like Edmunds's 1 honoscope, which it 



