British Association for the Advance7nent of Science. 283 



cane, — as the circles of its gyrations open and extend, the storm 

 is progressing towards spending its fury, and disappearing. Al- 

 though it did not bear directly on the question now under discus- 

 sion, yet he could not help saying, that there are circumstances 

 connected with the spots on the sun, which forcibly impressed 

 his mind with the idea of tornadoes in the solar atmosphere, 

 which, by scattering and opening out the luminous superficial 

 matters, laid bare the opake and dark mass beneath. It had at 

 all times been a question with astronomers, how the spots were 

 formed, supposing the luminous matter of the sun to be a merely 

 superficial and uniformly spread stratum ; but something like vio- 

 lent hurricanes being supposed to take place in the solar atmos- 

 phere, the difficulty is much diminished, if it did not entirely 

 disappear ; and in truth the appearance of the spots within the 

 last year or two, was such as farther to induce the supposition of 

 something in the solar atmosphere very like our trade-winds, for 

 whereas, most usually, the spots have been scattered not very 

 regularly over each hemisphere, they have latterly appeared 

 more in lines following each other in succession, and having ap- 

 parently an inclination towards the sun's equator on each side. 

 If decided indications of any thing like trade-winds should, by 

 this or other circumstances connected with the spots, be detected, 

 the other conclusions would be much strengthened. 



HerscheVs Astronomical Observations at the Cape of Good 

 Hope. These were reported under the following heads. 1. Re- 

 duced Observations of 1232 Nebulce and clusters of Stars, made 

 in the years 1834, 5, 6, 7, 8, at the Cape of Good Hope with the 

 'iOfeet Reflector. 2. Reduced Observations o/ 1192 Double Stars 

 of the Souther7i Hemisphere, made as above. The observations 

 in these two papers form parts of two catalogues of southern neb- 

 ulge and double stars respectively, which comprise the chief re- 

 sults of his astronomical observations at the Cape. They are 

 complete only as far as the first nine hours of R. A. In the other 

 hours, only a few of the objects which occur are added, being 

 the results of a partial and very incomplete reduction of the ob- 

 servations in those hours. Sir. J. thought that when all the ob- 

 servations are reduced for the catalogues, the number of objects 

 contained in them will be nearly doubled. The first catalogue 

 contains all the numerous nebulae and clusters comprised in the 

 two Magellanic clouds. Each reduced observation expresses the 



