May 6, 1898.] 



SCmNGE. 



631 



widely distributed, but the most important 

 deposit, discovered last year, is on the 

 northeast side of ' N"ew Zealand ' {sic, Tas- 

 mania), midway between Enim Bay and 

 Circular Head. The deposit covers an area 

 of 105 acres and has a thickness of 20 

 centimeters. It is composed almost entire- 

 ly of zircon and is extracted simply by 

 washing. It runs 62 to 64 per cent, zir- 

 conia, with variable quantities of the other 

 rare earths. The author, in conclusion, 

 states that the supply of rare earths tends 

 to increase more and more, and, great as 

 may become the development of incandes- 

 cent gas-lighting, the demand can never 

 exceed the supply. 



In a paper before the Cambridge Philo- 

 sophical Society, Messrs. Heycock and 

 Neville continue their studies of alloys, 

 exhibiting Eontgen-ray photographs of 

 plates of various gold alloys. In gold- 

 sodium alloys with less than 30 per cent, 

 gold they consist of well-developed, very 

 transparent crystals of sodium in a matrix 

 which contains gold. Alloys with more than 

 30 per cent, gold show very opaque needles 

 of gold in a less opaque matrix, which was 

 the same as the matrix of the former alloy. 

 Similar results were obtained with gold- 

 aluminum and gold-copper alloys. The gold- 

 aluminum alloys showed well-defined crys- 

 tals of Roberts- Austen's compound AuAI^. 



In the Gomptes Renclus E. Finck describes 

 three compounds formed by the action of 

 carbon monoxid on palla,dium chlorid, 

 PdCl^CO, PdC],(CO)„ and (PdClJ.CCO),. 

 These compounds are interesting in that 

 they are analogous to the similar com- 

 pounds of carbon monoxid with platinous 

 chlorid. J. L. H. 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 



THE RECENT ECLIPSE OF THE SUN. 



In the last number of the Independent Pro- 

 fessor C. A, Young^ condenses from the Observa- 

 tory an account of a recent meeting of the 



Royal Astronomical Society devoted to the 

 solar eclipse at which several of the observer& 

 presented preliminary reports of then- work, 

 and exhibited some very interesting photo- 

 graphs of the corona, and of various eclipse 

 spectra. Professor Young writes : 



According to Professor Turner's photographs 

 (and, of course, all the others agree substan- 

 tially, which is by no means the case with vis- 

 ual observations of that phenomenon ), the 

 corona was of the type expected and predicted 

 for the present stage of the sun-spot period. 

 It had the form of an irregular four-rayed star, 

 with long streamers projecting from the sun- 

 spot zones to a distance considerably exceeding 

 the sun's diameter, and others, shorter and 

 narrower, but more distinct in outline, from 

 the polar regions. In one of the long stream- 

 ers Professor Turner's polariscopic camera 

 showed distinct polarization, indicating the 

 presence of something besides gas — dust or 

 mist of some kind. 



The corona was hardly as bright as usual, so 

 that Mr. Newall did not succeed in his attempt 

 at a spectroscopic determination of its rotation f 

 but Captain Hills, of the Astronomer Royal's 

 party, was able to get fine photographs of its 

 spectrum, and to reobserve the violet lines first 

 detected in 1893, and to determine their position- 

 accurately. 



He also obtained (and with a sfe7-spectroscope, 

 a new success) excellent photographs of the 

 ' flash spectrum.' It shows hundreds of bright 

 lines, and so far is in entire agreement with the 

 visual observation of the writers' made twenty- 

 seven years ago ; but Captain Hills agrees with 

 Sir Norman Lockyer that it cannot be described 

 as a reversal of the Fraunhofer lines, as re- 

 garded by most astronomers, because ' the lines 

 have different relative intensities ; strong Fraun- 

 hofer lines are absent in the flash, and bright 

 lines are present in the latter which are absent, 

 or very faint, in the solar spectrum. ' Mr. Fowler, 

 Sir Norman Lockyer's assistant, was also pres- 

 ent with his prismatic-camera negatives, and 

 concurred with Captain Hills on this point. 

 Both gentlemen, however, have always been 

 faithful followers of Lockyer in his peculiar 

 views, and took the same ground in regard to 

 Mr. Shackleton's photograph in 1896. 



