SCIENCE- GOSSIP. 



87 



been left flat, it would have been necessary to 

 lengthen the walls of the cells, and one-fiftieth 

 more wax would thus have been expended, whilst 

 the base itself could not have been left so thin for 

 fear of stretching. 



It is well known to observant bee-keepers that 

 Mr. Dickson-Bryson's "precise angle" is by no 

 means always maintained in the case either of cell- 

 walls or base-rhombs, even when no reason can be 

 detected for want of exactness. "The sizes of 

 the rhombs may be so changed that two of them 

 occupy nearly the whole space, while the third 

 nearly disappears, and a fourth makes its appear- 

 ance." So says Mr. Cowan in his concise and 

 well-illustrated little book the "Honey Bee," 

 which I would recommend to anyone interested. 



Finally, although it is not easy to see how 

 natural selection can have influenced bees to pro- 

 duce undeveloped females, it is worth noting that 

 here, too, the principle of economy is involved, 

 seeing that imperfect development is produced by 

 the worker-nurses ceasing after the first three days 

 to feed the larvae with the concentrated and partly 

 glandular food, which they continue to supply in 

 full generosity to those selected for future queens. 



Lee Ford, Uudleigh Salterton. 



THE GREENWICH VISITATION. 



THE day for the official visitation is the first 

 Saturday in June ; but this year, by an Order 

 in Council, it was postponed until Tuesday, June 

 26th, owing to the absence of the Astronomer 

 Royal with the eclipse expedition to Ovar, in 

 Portugal. 



The Observatory is to have better provision 

 against fire, and an open iron railing is to replace 

 the present wooden fence, so that, with an exten- 

 sion of the boundary of the Observatory grounds, 

 the architectural features of the new buildings 

 will be seen more effectively. During the year 

 from May 11th, 1899, to May 10th, 1900, the transit 

 circle was employed in making 10,712 transit ob- 

 servations and 10,001 circle observations. Amongst 

 the latter are 674 determinations of the nadir 

 point and 637 reflection observations of stars. 

 All these observations are completely reduced up 

 to May 1st. 



" The New Ten-Year Catalogue of Stars, 1887- 

 1896," containing 6,892 stars, is printed, with the 

 exception of the Introduction, and that is in the 

 printer's hands. The re-observation of the stars in 

 Groombridge's " Catalogue " will give material for 

 determining the proper motions of more than 4,000 

 stars from observations about eighty years apart. 



The new Altazimuth is now in good working 

 order. One of its pivots has, however, " fired " 

 badly twice, and had to be. re-ground. On the last 

 occasion Y's of bell-metal were substituted for the 

 Y's of cast iron. On September 3rd, the object- 



glass was found loose, and has now been firmly 

 fixed. A large chronograph, for use with this 

 instrument, has been supplied by Sir Howard Grubb 

 and is found quite satisfactory. 



The 28-inch refractor has been used in the micro- 

 metric measurement of 492 stars, 268 very close 

 doubles, and the rest chiefly those bSfttttg very 

 minute companions. Amongst the former 

 CHerculis 3, and •;"> magnitude was distant 0"-(J ; 

 7- Andromedae 3. 5 ; 0"i ; and e Hydrae A.B. 3.5, 

 6 ; 0"-2. Mr. Newall, having discovered spectro- 

 scopically that Capella is a binary with a period 

 of 104 days, suggested in " Monthly Notices" that 

 possibly it might be within the reach of large 

 telescopes. On fifteen nights between April 4th 

 and May 10th it has been noticed by several ob- 

 servers, who all agree that it is elongated, and, 

 moreover, during the period of observation the 

 position angle of the elongation has changed in 

 accordance with the period mentioned. We 

 believe that the compounds are nearly equal in 

 magnitude. 



With the Thompson 26-inch Refractor several 

 photographs of double stars, Swift's comet, and Nep- 

 tune with its satellite, have been taken for micro- 

 metric measurements, as well as plates of the 

 moon, and of Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus, with 

 their satellites. With the 30-inch Cassegrain 

 several photographs of nebulae have been ob- 

 tained. On May 11th the large mirror was re- 

 silvered for the first time. 



Good progress is being made in the photographic 

 chart of the heavens with the 13-inch Astrographic 

 telescope. Each chart plate is exposed for 40 

 minutes, and out of the total number allotted to 

 Greenwich 1,076 have already been successfully 

 taken, only 73 remaining to complete it. The 

 plates for the catalogue are each exposed three 

 times — 6 and 3 minutes, and 20 seconds. Of 

 these, 1,103 have been taken, and 46 more are 

 required. During the year 88,000 measures of 

 pairs of images on these latter plates have been 

 made. 



The photographic spectroscope has been fitted 

 to the 30-inch reflector, and seems to be very 

 satisfactory. 



Photographs have been taken of the sun on 180 

 days either with the Thompson or Dallmeyer photo 

 heliographs. 



Photos from India and Mauritius fill up the 

 gaps so effectually that during 1899 there are 

 photos for 364 days. 



The magnetic observations give the mean de- 

 clination for 1899 16° 34'-2 West, and the dip 

 67° 10' 13". No great magnetic disturbances have 

 occurred, and lesser ones were only recorded on 

 16 days. 



During the past 58 years August has only once 

 been so warm — in 1857. 



The photographs of the corona and spectrum of 

 the solar eclipses of 1900 and 1898 were exhibited 

 in the same room, and evoked a great amount of 

 interest. The smaller photos taken at Ovar showed 

 considerable over-exposure from the brightness of 

 the sky. The detail of the corona was not so 

 pronounced as in the Indian photos. — Frank C. 

 Dennett. 



