May 3, 1912] 
The Paris Conference of October, 1911: W. 8S. 
EICHELBERGER. 
At the recent conference of the directors of the 
several national nautical almanacs held in Paris in 
October, 1911, cooperation among the respective 
offices was recommended to their several govern- 
ments. <A full account of the work of the confer- 
ence is contained in the Astronomische Nach- 
richten, No. 4535, for November 12, and in Nature 
for November 30. 
Attention was called particularly to three of the 
resolutions adopted by the conference. 
1. The conference strongly recommends that the 
ephemerides of the stars, that is to say, their cor- 
tection from mean to apparent place, should be 
calculated for the upper transit at the meridian of 
Greenwich. 
2. The conference is of the opinion that the 
adoption of the meridian of Greenwich for all 
ephemerides should be realized as soon as possible. 
3. The ordinary ephemerides of the stars shall 
be calculated to 0%.001 in right ascension so far 
as 60° of declination and 0”.01 in declination. 
The first two resolutions quoted imply that each 
office in computing results which are to be fur- 
nished the other almanacs will do so for the 
Greenwich meridian. The question naturally arises 
with reference to the American Ephemeris, for 
instance: 
1. Should the ephemerides for the physical ob- 
servations of the sun, moon and planets and the 
ephemerides of the satellites of Mars, Uranus and 
Neptune which will be computed by the office of 
the American Ephemeris for Greenwich mean noon 
and in that form furnished to the other almanacs, 
be printed in our almanac for Greenwich mean 
noon, or is there sufficient reason to require us to 
make the necessary additional computations to 
enable us to publish these data for Washington 
mean noon as at present? 
2. Should the apparent places of the stars which 
will be furnished to the office of the American 
Ephemeris by the European almanac offices for 
superior passage over the meridian of Greenwich 
be published in our almanac for transit at Green- 
wich or transformed to transit at Washington as 
at present? 
3. Is it to the advantage of astronomers in gen- 
eral to have the apparent places of stars given to 
08.001 in R.A. so far as 60° of declination and 
0”.01 in declination? 
It is not intended to increase the labor of com- 
puting to obtain the additional decimal, but simply 
SCIENCE 
713 
to publish the additional decimal which is at 
present always computed in the various almanac 
offices. Nor is it intended that this last decimal 
shall be accurate to within a unit. In fact it may 
be in error several units. The object in publish- 
ing the additional decimal is to permit any one 
to interpolate to the time of observation, the 
apparent place as given; to apply the short period 
terms for whose calculation convenient tables will 
be provided; and finally to obtain his computed 
right ascension at the time of observation accu- 
rately to the hundredth of a second of time and 
his declination to the tenth of a second of are. 
It is upon these questions that the Naval Ob- 
servatory would like to have an expression of 
opinion from the astronomers of the country.. 
The Spectrum and Orbit of B Scorpti: Z. DANIEL 
and F, SCHLESINGER. 
This is one of the spectroscopie binaries (dis- 
covered by Slipher at the Lowell Observatory) for 
which the H and K lines, due to calcium, appear to 
be nearly or quite stationary. Only two of these 
objects have thus far been studied: 6-Orionis by 
Hartmann and o-Persei by Jordan. From 73 spec- 
trograms secured in 1911 with the Mellon spectro- 
graph of the Allegheny Observatory, the following 
elements have been derived by means of a least- 
squares solution. f 
P= 6.8283 days + 0.0001 day, 
K = 125.66 km. £1.18 km., 
e= 0.270 + 0.008, 
T= J.D. 2419163.923 G.M.T. + 0.034 day, 
== 200.1 Se 27.2, 
y= — 11.0 kn. 
Measurements of the secondary spectrum could 
also be made on some plates, and these yield 
K,= 197 km. + 10.5 km., 
m . sin?i = 13.0, 
Ms - sin? i= 8.3, 
the unit of mass being that of the sun. Using 
Rowland’s wave-length for the K-line, the mean 
velocity derived from it is —8.6km.+1.7km., 
which is not far from that of the center of mass 
of the system, a result in accord with those for 
6 Orionis and o Persei. 
Report of the Committee on Comets, December, 
1911: G. C. Comstock (chairman). 
Owing to the absence of its chairman abroad 
during a major portion of the past year the work 
of the committee on comets has consisted mainly 
