122 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XII. No. 291. 



In accordance with the expressed wish of 

 the Society the Council adopted the follow- 

 ing resolutions and directed the Secretary 

 to transmit copies of them to the Chief of 

 the Weather Bureau and to the Western 

 Union Telegraph Company. 



Resolved, That the Astronomical and As- 

 trophysical Society of America extends to 

 the Chief of the U. S. Weather Bureau its 

 hearty thanks for his courtesy in transmit- 

 ting daily weather bulletins to those as- 

 tronomers who observed within the United 

 States the total solar eclipse of May 28, 1900. 



Resolved, That the Astronomical and As- 

 trophysical Society of America extends to 

 the Western Union Telegraph Company its 

 hearty thanks for the courtesies extended 

 by it to those astronomers who observed 

 within the region covered by its lines the 

 total solar eclipse of May 28, 1900. 



The number of papers actually read be- 

 fore the Society at this meeting was ap- 

 proximately the same as at previous con- 

 ferences, but many of these were technically 

 presented to Section A of the A. A. A. S., 

 and were read at joint sessions of that Sec- 

 tion with the Astronomical and Astrophys- 

 ical Society. Only those papers formally 

 presented to the Society and of which ab- 

 stracts have been submitted to the Secre- 

 tary, are summarized below. 



A new feature of the Society's program 

 was the discussion of the observations made 

 at the total solar eclipse of May 28, 1900, 

 accompanied by the presentation of numer- 

 ous photographs of the eclipse and the 

 discussion of a program for observing the 

 planet Eros during its close approach to the 

 earth in the autumn and winter of 1900-'01. 

 A summary of these discussions follows the 

 abstracts of papers presented. 



The Rate of Increase in Brightness of Three 

 Variable Stars in the Cluster Messier 3 : By 

 S. I. Bailey. 

 The proportion of stars found to be 



variable in the cluster Messier 3, N. G. C. 

 5272, is greater than in any other object of 

 the same class. This object is so low, how- 

 ever, at Arequipa, and the stars are so faint 

 that satisfactory photographs of it, with 

 the 13-inch Boyden refractor, cannot be ob- 

 tained with exposures of less than 90 minutes. 

 The rate of increase of the light of many of 

 these stars is extremely rapid and in order 

 to determine this change with the highest 

 precision, photographs of very short ex- 

 posure are necessary. At the request of 

 the Director of the Harvard Observatory a 

 series of most admirable photographs of this 

 cluster were taken with the 3-foot Crossley 

 reflector by Professor James E. Keeler, 

 Director of the Lick Observatory. These 

 photographs were taken on May 20 and 21, 

 1900. The first plate had an exposure of 

 60 minutes, but all the others 24 in num- 

 ber had exposure of only 10 minutes, while 

 showing the variables at minimum mag- 

 nitude. The shortness of these exposures, 

 combined with the high quality of the 

 plates, make the results obtained very sat- 

 isfactory. 



Three variable stars have already been 

 measured on these plates. They are N"os. 

 11, 96 and 119. The series of plates ex- 

 tended from 17" 42" 46' to 20" 24" 11' on the 

 night of May 20th, and from 17" 2" 38' to 20" 

 53" 27', May 21st, G. M. T. These periods 

 of time covered the entire interval from 

 minimum to maximum, for each of the 

 above stars on at least one night. The same 

 stars were also measured and 49 photo 

 graphs made at Arequipa during the years 

 1895-1899. From a study of all these 

 measures I find the periods to be : ]N"o. 11, 

 12" 12"" 25' ; No. 96, 12" 0" 15' ; No. 119, 

 12" 24°" 31'. For the following discussion 

 of the rate of increase, however, only plates 

 made by Professor Keeler, on the night of 

 May 21st, and having exposures of 10 min- 

 utes were used. 



The measures of the brightness of the 



