By means of a battery under the seat of the chair, with which 

 the patient is put in communication by two electrodes which he 

 will hold, he will be so effectually galvanised that he will lose 

 all sense of pain. It is claimed for this invention that it will be- 

 come an effectual substitute for anaesthetics, in cases where they 

 cannot be safely employed." 



To turn from the subject of electricity to a higher branch of 

 science, namely astronomy, perhaps the most interesting event of 

 the year was the annular eclipse which took place on the 17th of 

 last June, and of which I had a good view from Lucerne. The 

 moon being at the time in apogee, her apparent diameter was not 

 large enough to cover the entire face of the sun, but at places 

 where the eclipse was central, a ring of light was visible round the 

 moon's dark disc, hence the term annular eclipse. This amount 

 of light is sufficient to deprive an annular eclipse of that scientific 

 interest with which a total eclipse is invested, nevertheless it 

 presents by no means an uninteresting spectacle, and the gloom of 

 the sky is in some cases so deep as to render visible the planet 

 Venus, bright stars, and sometimes also Mercury ; delicate plants 

 too have been known to close their flowers, as during the total 

 eclipse. 



Professor Schiaparelli, who has been observing the planet 

 Mercury for upwards of nine years, finds that it revolves round 

 the sun in the same way as our moon revolves round the earth, 

 always presenting to it the same face, hence its axial rotation is 

 performed in the same time as its orbital revolution, that is to 

 say, in eighty-three days. The spectrum of Saturn's rings has 

 been under close observation at the Lick Observatory, and as no 

 lines but those of the solar spectrum can be detected, it is con- 

 cluded that the rings are not self luminous. An interesting 

 conjunction was expected last autumn between the large red spot 

 in Jupiter, which has been now observed for twelve years, and a 

 dark spot on the southern belt which has been gaining for some 

 time on the red spot. The result of the observations has not yet 

 been published ; it was thought that it would take two months for 

 the one spot to pass before and obscure the other. 



The phenomenon of variable stars, namely those which periodi- 

 cally lose their brilliancy, and then after a fixed interval resume 

 it, is one which affords immense interest to all astronomers. 

 During the past year Professor Vogel, of Potsdam, has published 

 most valuable reports of his observations ; he finds that in the 

 star Algol (as indeed is thought to be the case with all variable 

 stars), the periodic comparative darkness is caused by the revo- 

 lution of a dark satellite across the disc of its primary. Professor 

 Vogel shows that the respective diameters of Algol, and its 



