March 4, 1880] 



NATURE 



4^5 



THE GREAT SOUTHERN COMET 



BY letters from Mr. Gill received by the mail leaving Cape 

 Town on February 3, it appears that the large comet of 

 which Dr. Gould telegraphed from Buenos Ayres was discovered, 

 so far at least as regards a part of the tail, on February 1, from 

 the west side of Table Mountain. Mr. Gill received information 

 that a comet's tail " h d been reen to set" from this quarter on 

 the follow ing afternoon, and the same evening the extreme portion 

 of the tail was viable over the mountain from the Royal Obser- 

 vatory ; by toing a quarter of a mile south of the Observatory, 

 the near shoulder of the mountain was cleared, and the tail, 

 rapidly brightening, was traced further; it passed parallel to 

 a line joining /3 and 5 Gruis, about 10' to W., but could not be 

 traced bejond the former star. Mr. Gill thought the nucleus 

 had set almost at sunset. 



The following telegram has been received by the Academy of 

 Sciences at Paris from the Emperor of Br; zil, who takes a per- 

 sonal interest in the affairs of the Observatory at Rio Janeiro, 

 which is in charge of M. Liais : — "Rio de Janeiro, 20 fevrier, 

 1880. Deuxicme note de Liais. Comete seulement observes 

 4 et S. Renseignexnents ; observations faites ailleurs. Ap- 

 proximativement, distance perihelie, 0x35 a 010 : passage peri- 

 helie, 11 ; inclinaison, So ; longitude du nceud ascendant, 120°; 

 longitude du perihelie, S5°. — Fed. Alcantara." 



If the time of perihelion passage is assumed February 1 1 "5 

 G.M.T., and the perihelion di-tance 0*075, with direct motion 

 in the orbit, the comet's position on February 2 at Sh. 30m. 

 mean time at the Cape would be in R.A. 314°, with 22° south 

 declination ; so that it would be distant only about 5° from the 

 sun, thus confirming Mr. Gill's conjecture as to the | 

 the nucleus, but unless the comet became very rapidly fainter, 

 after perihelion, it is diff.cult to explain with the above elements, 

 its not being observed in Europe. 



The last great comet which .was observed in the southern 

 hemisphere without becoming visible in the-e latitudes was that 

 of January, 1S65, which had also a snail perihelion distance 

 with large inclination ; this comet was north of the ecliptic le>s 

 than twenty-eight hours. It became suddenly visible in Tas- 

 mania, near the western horizon, on January 17, and was 

 observed until the last week in March. The best orbit i; that 

 given by Mr. Tebbutt, from his own observations at Windsor, 

 N.S.W. [Astnm. Nach., No. 1541). 



GEOLOGICAL NOTES 

 A little pamphlet under the title of "Melanges geolo- 

 giques," by MM. Cogels and Baron van Ertborn, has just 

 appeared at Antwerp, in which some interesting new facts are 

 given respectirg the post-tertiary formations of Belgium. Much 

 controversy has for a long time been carried on as to the relative 

 positions of some of the quaternary deposits of that country. 

 The "Sables campiniens " and the "bim.n hesbayen " were 

 regarded by Dumont as of contemporaneous origin, albeit he 

 placed the I.imon above the Sables in the legend of his geological 

 map of Belgium. D'Omalius d'Halloy and*M. Dewalque ranged 

 the Hesbayan mud above the Campinian sands and gravels. 

 MM. Winl ler, Cogels, and Van den Broeck, on the other hand, 

 have concluded the reverse to be the more probable order. But 

 in no case had the true order of succession been observed in any 

 actual section. This question, which might have been answered 

 long ago by a few shallow borings, appears to have been recently 

 settled in this way by the gentlemen above named. They have 

 found that at Menin and Conrtrai, places some ten kilometres 

 apart, the same order of sequence is observable, and that in 

 each case the yellow sands of the Campinian series overlie the 

 yellow and grey mud with Cyclas, Pupa, I.ymnta, &c, forming 

 the Hesbayan zone. 



The same authors have in a similar manner fixed the horizon 

 of the deposit from which were obtained the numerous bones of 

 the mammoth found i-i 1S60, the more perfect of which form so 

 imposing a part of the remarkable collections in the Brussels 

 Museum. According to their reading of the data the following 

 is the :ectton at Lierre : — 



Metres. 

 Sands with gravelly base ... 5'30 Campinian. 



Peaty sand and peat 070 ) Fluviatile Quaternary 



Black glauconitic sand ... o 60 > (containing the mam- 

 Gravelly glauconitic sand ... 070) moth bones). 

 Argillaceous glauconitic ) l Antwerpian (sands v. ith 



green sand \ j Panoptra menardi). 



The sands containing Panopaa menardi and Pccttincu/us pi/osus, 

 which MM. Cogels and Ertborn include in their widely l.s- 

 tributed "Antwerpian ' group were evidently succeeded in the 

 Lierre district by a wide marsh which must have been a favourite 

 haunt of the mammoth and its contemporaries. Arranging the 

 geological formations of the neighbourhood of Antwerp in 

 chronological order these writers regard them as capable of the 

 following subdivisions : — 



Polder clay 



Stratified sand with derivative fossils 



Peat I _ 



Grey clay ^Recent. 



Peaty black clay I 



White sand J 



Sand 



Massive argillaceous sand ... 

 Stratified sands and clays ... . 

 Gravel and shell debris ... . 

 Stratified sands and sandy clays 



Peat and peaty clay f Fluviatile 



Various sands w ith broken and rolled shells, ( Quaternary. 



bones in situ or rolled ) 



Sandy clay with marine shell--, gravels, | Lower 



pebbles, and large rolled fragments ... ) Quaternary. 



E. Pure or argilla- "| 

 ceous green sand 



D. Sands with Cor- Sands with 

 bula striata ... \ Trophon 



C. Upper shell-bed 



B. Middle sands ... 



A. Lower shell-bed 



Bluish-grey glauco- 

 nitic sand 



Upper \ 



Lower ! Campinian. 



•diquum. ScaWesian . 



Gravels ... . 

 Glauconitic sand . 



Sands with 



Isocardia 



cor. 



Sands with 



Terebratula 



grandis. 



1 Sands with 



and g ' mlCOmUC \ Pcdunadus 



Diestian. 



Green or black 

 glauconitic sand, j 

 pure or argilla- I 

 ccous j 



Do. wither without 

 fossils, scattered 

 gravels 



Bluish-grey fossili- 

 ferous argilla- 

 ceous sand, glau- 

 conitic black 

 sand 



Gravels, and large 

 rolled blocks ... 



Boom clay 



pi/osus. 



Sands with 

 Panopaa 

 menardi. 



Antwerpian. Miocene. 



Rupelian ... Oligocene./ 



In a recent communication to the Royal Geological Society of 

 Cornwall Mr. J. II. Collins continues his observations on the 

 existence of Lower Silurian rocks in Cornwall, and shows that 

 they cover a much larger area than has been supposed. lie has 

 founel remains of Orlhis ill the quartzite of Manaccan like those 

 already known from the quartzite of Cam Gowan. He is 

 engaged in a microscopical and chemical investigation of the 

 hornblende-rock and serpentine of the same district, and is 

 disposed to regard thee masses as highly altered Lower Silurian 

 stratified rocks. 



Prof. Marsh chronicles the discovery of a new species of 

 Sauranodon from the upper Jurassic series of Wyoming. Since 

 the first discovery of the genus by him eight additional specimens 

 have been obtained, enabling him to distinguish two species (S. 

 nalans, the original form, and S. discus) and to throw consider- 

 able light on the limbs of this interesting type of mesozoic rep- 

 tile, which he regards as 1 resenting an earlier stage of differentia- 

 tion thsn Plcsiosaurus and Ichthyosaurus. 



Under the name of Titanomorphite, A. von Lasanlx describes 

 a new lime-titanate from the gneiss of the Eulengebirge. It 

 forms a fibrous granular aggregate surrounding kernels of rutile 

 or titanic iron, of which it must be regarded as an alteration-pro- 



