Febeuaey 14, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



241 



23. Glasgow 2,080 27. Columbia 1,816 



24. Rome 1,916 28. California 1,731 



25. Barcelona 1,887 29. Cornell 1,686 



26. Helsingfors 1,861 30. Halle 1,666 



The number of students in the Paris faculties 



was 11,010. Auditors are included in the 

 number of students, which detracts from the 

 value of the statistics. Thus there were 4,963 

 auditors at Naples, and only 77 matriculated 

 students. At Berlin there were 4,807 auditors, 

 but the number given above does not include 

 students (2,632) In the Technical School, those 

 (780) in the Agricultural School, nor those (398) 

 in the Veterinary School. The order of the 

 American universities and colleges having more 

 than 1,000 students is: Harvard, Michigan, 

 Pennsylvania, Yale, Minnesota, Columbia, 

 California, Cornell, Chicago, Wisconsin, Ne- 

 braska, New York, Toronto, Boston, Wesleyan, 

 Princeton, Stanford, Montreal. 



The south division of Hope College, at Brown 

 University, was badly damaged by fire on the 

 4th inst. The total loss to the University, and 

 to the students who occupied the building as a 

 dormitory, was about six thousand dollars. 



On February 3d the Trustees of Columbia 

 College adopted the following resolution : ' ' That 

 in all ofiicial publications hereafter issued by or 

 under authority of the Trustees, all the depart- 

 ments of instruction and research maintained 

 and managed by this corporation may, for con- 

 venience, be designated collectively as ' Colum- 

 bia University, ' and the School of Arts, as the 

 same is now known and described, may here- 

 after be designated as ' Columbia College, ' or 

 'The College.'" They also resolved that the 

 new site of the University should be dedicated 

 on May 2d, at which time the corner stone of 

 three of the new buildings will be laid. Ex- 

 Mayor Hewitt, class of '42, has been invited to 

 deliver the oration. 



Nature states that the Council of the Royal 

 Geographical Society offer in the University of 

 Cambridge for the present academical year a. 

 Studentship of £100, to be used in the geographi- 

 cal investigation (physical or historical) of 

 some district approved by the Council. Candi- 

 dates must be members of the University of not 

 more than eight years' standing from matricula- 



tion, who have attended the courses of lectures 

 given in Cambridge by the University lecturer 

 in geography. Applications should be ad- 

 dressed to the Vice-Chancellor not later than 

 March 13, 1896. 



DISCUSSION AND COBBESPONDENCE. 



THE DECLINATION SYSTEMS OP BOSS AND 

 AUWEES. 



The recent paper by Dr. Chandler on the 

 declination systems of Boss and Auwers has 

 been followed by another paper on the same 

 subject by no less an authority than Prof. New- 

 comb. This paper appears in the Astronomical 

 Journal of February 3d. Prof. Newcomb comes 

 to the same conclusion as Dr. Chandler, namely, 

 that the system of Auwers has now become so 

 erroneous as to be quite unfitted for use as a 

 standard. It is of course well known that 

 Auwers' system is in need of revision ; indeed 

 we believe that such a revision is now in prog-- 

 ress under the direction of the author himself. 

 We cannot see, however, that Prof. Newcomb' s 

 paper throws any new light on the matter. As 

 we pointed out in our notice of Dr. Chandler's 

 paper, it is at present a matter of individual 

 opinion how much weight should be attached to 

 Bradley's observations. The vast majority of 

 astronomers think that they are entitled to 

 some weight in the formation of a system. Yet 

 they receive no weight whatever in Boss' system 

 which Dr. Chandler and Prof. Newcomb think 

 should now be employed in place of Auwers' . 

 Prof. Boss has not made public his opinion 

 as to the weight due to Bradley's observations, 

 so far as we know. That he attached no weight 

 to Bessel's reduction of Bradley appears of 

 course from his work on standard declinations, 

 but whether he would do the same with Auwers' 

 reduction of Bradley we do not know at present. 



Coming now to the actual arguments ad- 

 vanced by Prof. Newcomb, we will first state 

 very briefly what they are. Passing over those 

 which appear to be of minor importance, we 

 would call special attention to the results pre- 

 sented in Section III. of Prof. Newcomb' s 

 paper. Here are tabulated the corrections to 

 Boss' declinations of twenty stars, divided into 

 two groups of ten each, and each covering about 



