Januaey 22, 1909] 



SCIENCE 



153 



who had not affiliated with any particular section, 

 for fellowship in the association: Eugene Daven- 

 port, dean of the College of Agriculture, Univer- 

 sity of Illinois; E. K. Putnam, acting director of 

 the Davenport Academy of Sciences; J. E. Stubbs, 

 president of the State University of Nevada. 

 These were also elected as fellows by the council. 

 In addition to the address of the vice-president, 

 the following sixteen papers were read before the 

 section : 



1. v. M. Slipher: "The Spectrum of Mars." 



2. E. B. Frost and J. A. Parkhurst : " Spectrum 

 of Comet Morehouse." 



3. B. E. Barnard: "On the Changes in the Tail 

 of Comet Morehouse." 



4. Frank Schlesinger : " The Orbit of the Algol- 

 type Variable Delta Librae." 



5. Milton Updegraff : " The 6-inch Transit Circle 

 of the U. S. Naval Observatory." 



6. F. R. Moulton: "On Certain Implications of 

 Possible Changes in the Form and Dimensions of 

 the Sun, and Some Suggestions for Explaining 

 Certain Phenomena of Variable Stars." 



7. R. H. Baker: "On the Spectra of Alpha Vir- 

 ginis and Similar Stars." 



8. P. O. Jordan: "The Orbit of Alpha Coronae 

 Borealis." 



9. E. B. Frost : " Radial Velocities in Professor 

 Boss's Star Stream in Taurus." 



10. Philip Fox and Georgio Abetti : " The Inter- 

 action of Sun-spots." 



11. Harris Hancock: "Elliptic Realms of Ra- 

 tionality." 



12. Artemas Martin: "Algebraic Solution of the 

 'Three Point' Problem." 



13. J. B. Webb : " Esperanto and a Sexdecimal 

 Notation." 



14. J. A. Miller and W. R. Marriott : " Comet 

 Morehouse." 



15. L. A. Bauer: "On the Interpolation For- 

 mula of Geophysics." 



16. H. W. Fisk: "A Graphical Aid to the De- 

 termination of Latitude and Azimuth from Polaris 

 Observations." 



In the absence of their respective authors the 

 paper by V. M. Slipher was read by J. A. Miller; 

 the joint paper by E. B. Frost and J. A. Park- 

 hurst was presented by W. S. Eichelberger; the 

 three papers by Frank Schlesinger, R. H. Baker 

 and F. C. Jordan, respectively, were read by J. A. 

 Brashear; F. R. Moulton's paper was read by 

 E. D. Roe; G. F. Hull presented the two papers 

 by E. B. Frost and by Philip Fox and Georgio 

 Abetti, respectively; the papers by E. E. Barnard 

 and Artemas Martin, respectively, were read by 



title. The remaining papers were read by their 

 respective authors and the abstracts which follow 

 bear numbers corresponding to those of the titles 

 in the list. 



1. The paper by Mr. Slipher gives the results 

 of a photographic investigation of the extreme 

 red end of the spectrum of Mars made with special 

 reference to water-vapor in the planet's atmos- 

 phere. It is a part of an extensive and detailed 

 presentation which is to appear ia the Astro- 

 physical Journal. 



2. The comet was observed photographically 

 with a prismatic camera or with a quartz spectro- 

 graph on fifteen nights. The third and fourth 

 carbon bands were identified, and the first, third 

 and fourth bands of cyanogen. The plates taken 

 with the objective prism over the six-inch Zeiss 

 doublet show well the separate spectral images of 

 the tail, running off the plate in most cases at a 

 distance of over 3°. Wave-lengths were given off 

 from unidentified bands. A brief account of the 

 observations by E. B. Frost and J. A. Parkhurst 

 appeared in Science, January 2, 1909. 



3. Professor Barnard's paper deals with the re- 

 markable changes in the appearance of the comet 

 and of its tail as shown by the photographs of it, 

 and an attempt to explain the phenomena. 



There were a number of outbreaks in the comet 

 in which volumes of matter were thrown off which 

 could be traced for several days, on the photo- 

 graphs, as they receded from the comet. On one 

 occasion the tail was violently curved and 

 switched forward in the direction of its lateral 

 motion. At another time the masses not only 

 receded from the comet, but their lateral motion 

 was also accelerated and became greater than that 

 of the comet in the same direction. This accelera- 

 tion was apparently in defiance of the laws of 

 gravitation. 



It is suggested as an explanation of these 

 anomalous phenomena that disturbances of some 

 kind occur in the interplanetary spaces, perhaps 

 temporary in their nature and location, which 

 may accelerate or retard, and bend or break the 

 tail of a comet when they are encountered by it. 

 It is suggested, also, that these regions of dis- 

 turbance may be due to the same or a similar 

 cause as that which produces magnetic disturb- 

 ances on the earth — that is, that they are due to 

 forces which are encountered by the comet and 

 which have their origin in disturbances on the 

 sun. An encounter of this kind might account 

 for the sudden brightening of some comets, such 

 as that of Sawerthal's in May, 1888. It might 

 also cause the disruption of large volumes of the 



