920 



SCIENCE 



[N". S. Vol. XXXI. No. 



-i(a+h){\ — lx— (1 — a;)i}, 

 and this is tlie same as 



The application of the process to the numbers 

 2, 3, 5 is illustrated by the following table of 

 values : 



The simplicity and precision of the calculations 

 required are shown by the figures given below for 

 the number 2. 



99/70 = 1.4142857143, 



— 1/2 . 1/70 . 1/99 = - 0.0000721501, 



Sum= V^ = 1.4142135642, 



Errors— 18. 



{'s and other Comets: Professor Asaph 

 Hail, of the U. S. Naval Observatory. 

 The speaker gave some interesting points about 

 Halley's comet, including the date of its reappear- 

 ance, its physical appearance, its relative bright- 

 ness and orbital elements. This comet has been 

 surely identified back to the year 1066 and prob- 

 ably to a much earlier date. The supposed phys- 

 ical constitution of comets was discussed at some 

 length. Among the other comets mentioned were 

 Brook's, Swift's and Encke's. The orbits of most 

 comets are parabolic, or nearly so. A number of 

 planets have their own family of comets. Comet 

 captures by planets and the perturbation effects 

 of the sun and the planets were briefly discussed. 

 Is there an Emanation from a Magnetized Sub- 

 stance? L. A. Batjee, of the Carnegie Institu- 

 tion of Wasnington. 



The purpose of the paper was mainly to direct 

 attention to the fundamental assumptions which 

 underlie our explanations of magnetic phenomena. 

 The question was raised as to what evidences 

 there may be for or against the hypothesis of a 

 possible " emanation "—using that word in its 

 most general sense, radiation, pulsation or emis- 

 sion—due to the presence of a magnetized sub- 

 stance so. that the force exerted, by the latter 

 might, like electric force, be corpuscular in its 

 nature. The corpuscles in magnetism might be 

 atomic systems in which an electron is revolving 

 about an inner nucleus consisting, for example, of 



a positive ion, such as assumed by Righi for the 

 formation of his so-called " magnetic rays." Righi 

 calls his atomic system an electron-positive ion, 

 and Thomson, who independently of Righi had 

 occasion to consider the possibility of similar 

 systems, termed them " doublets." Since the sys- 

 tem creates an atomic magnetic field whose axis 

 passes through the center of rotation of the elec- 

 tron and perpendicular to the plane of rotation 

 the speaker suggested calling such systems " mag- 

 netons." These magnetons, carrying a free mag- 

 netic charge, if given a translational movement 

 along the magnetic axis, will possess all the prop- 

 erties ascribed to the lines of magnetic force— 

 the translational movement giving the tension 

 along the lines of force and the centripetal accel- 

 eration of the revolving electron supplying the 

 cross pressure. 



Some results obtained by the speaker in con- 

 nection with his careful weighings, in a wholly 

 non-magnetic balance, of magnetized and un- 

 magnetized substances, led him to consider the 

 hypothesis of a mechanical force being exerted on 

 a magnet by the outside medium due to a possible 

 emanation or pulsation of some kind from the 

 magnet. Further experiments are to be made. 



If the hypothesis as above set forth is correct 

 we may look upon a magnetized substance as a 

 source of " magneto-activity " just as a radio- 

 active substance is of radioactivity. 



(The abstracts of the first and third of the 

 above mentioned papers are by their authors.) 



R. L. Faeis, 

 Secretary 



THE AMEEICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY 

 NORTHEASTERN SECTION 



The ninety-eighth regular meeting of the sec- 

 tion was held at the Twentieth Century Club, 

 Boston, on April 29. Professor Henry Carmichael 

 presented a paper entitled " Electrolysis of Chlo- 

 rides Theoretically Considered," in which he de- 

 scribed the advantages of a partition of asbestos 

 cloth impregnated with portland cement, as a 

 means of separating the electrode products in the 

 analysis of brine. Mr. Jasper Whiting, in a paper 

 upon " The Electrolysis of Brine," described in 

 detail his electrolytic cell which makes use of the 

 formation of sodium amalgam but is not open to 

 many disadvantages possessed by the " Castner 

 process." 



K. L. Maek, 

 Secretary 



