262 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XV. No. 372. 



this is due to the fact that owing to the 

 vicinity of Mauritius to the beginning of 

 the eclipse, the minute eclipse magnetic 

 storm did not have time to develop itself 

 or vsras just in the embryonic state, cannot 

 be said. The magnetic effect observed at 

 Karang Sago and at Sawah Loento does 

 not appear to have extended very far out- 

 side of the belt of totality, it being scarcely 

 appreciable at the Batavia Magnetic Ob- 

 servatory. My grateful and appreciative 

 aclaiowledgments are due to all who have 

 participated in this interesting investiga- 

 tion — one to my mind of fundamental im- 

 portance to the theory of the diurnal varia- 

 tion of the earth's magnetism as elaborated 

 by Schuster and von Bezold. 



Meridian Circle Positions of Nova Persei: 



R. H. Tucker. 



Meridian circle positions were obtained 

 on eight evenings in February and March, 

 and on four evenings in November. The 

 difference in the right ascensions resulting 

 from the two series of observations is 0.05 

 seconds. The star was more than four mag- 

 nitudes brighter at the time of the first 

 series than at the second. Making allow- 

 ance for the magnetic equation, the differ- 

 ence between the right ascensions for the 

 two series reduces to 0.01 seconds. The dec- 

 linations in the two series differ by 0.05". 

 It is therefore evident that these observa- 

 tions indicate a very small parallax and 

 proper motion. The large proper motion 

 recently reported by a Eviropean astron- 

 omer is not confirmed. 



On the Parallax of Nova Persei: P. L. 



Chase. 



This paper was based tipon observations 

 made with the Tale heliometer, the first 

 set in February and March, the second in 

 July and August and a third in December. 

 The result derived for the parallax con- 

 firmed the value found from the first two 

 sets alone, in which the proper motion 



could not be taken into account, which 

 value was published in a paper presented 

 at the Denver meeting of the A. A. A. S. 

 last August. This value was practically 

 zero relative to the mean parallax of the 

 two comparison stars employed, stars of 

 about the eighth magnitude. In conclusion 

 the author remarked that, considering its 

 probable error, the value found was not in- 

 compatible with that required by the 

 hypothesis advanced by Wolf and others, 

 viz., that the apparent displacements in the 

 nebula surrounding the Nova represent a 

 velocity corresponding with that of an elec- 

 tric wave. 



Note on the Parallax of Nova Persei: 



li. G. AlTKEN. 



An attempt was made to determine the 

 parallax of Nova Persei from the micro- 

 metric measures of six faint stars near it. 

 The first set of measures was obtained, 

 under very unfavorable conditions, shortly 

 after the appearance of the Nova, and a 

 second set on two nights in the latter part 

 of July. The resulting values of the rela- 

 tive parallax were all negative, so that no 

 conclusion can be drawn, unless, possibly, 

 that the parallax of Nova Persei is very 

 small. No account was or could be taken 

 of possible proper motion. 



The Energy of Condensation of Stellar 



Bodies: By E. S. Woodwaed. 



This paper considers the density, pres- 

 sure and energy of condensation from a 

 state of infinite diffusion, of a spherical 

 stellar body in which Laplace's law of 

 density holds. Denoting the potential, 

 density, and pressure at a distance r from 

 the center of such a mass by V, p and p, 

 respectively, the problem is stated in three 

 equations, namely: 



dp = cpdp = pdV, 

 wherein k is the gravitation constant and 



