392 Literary Notices. 



intended, according to Mr. Glaisher's report, to enable observers of 

 shooting stars to record their observations in an exact and systematic 

 form. The object of providing star-charts for meteor observations 

 engaged at a very early date the attention of the distinguished 

 astronomer, Bessel, who, in a long and elaborate article on shooting 

 stars contained in the Astronomische NachricMen, vol. xvi., p. 347, 

 thus describes his own experience : — " The course of phenomena so 

 fugitive as shooting stars, too swift to be followed with our instru- 

 ments, can only be noted and drawn exactly among the stars of an 

 ordinary star-map by hand and by careful watching. Such maps I 

 have always found very inadequate for the purpose, partly because 

 they represent only a small portion of the visible heavens, and partly 

 because they are rendered indistinct for the most part by the images 

 of the constellations drawn upon them. The net or web of these 

 maps is also seldom engraved so close as to allow positions on the 

 maps to be read off to a part of a degree." Regarding these 

 objections as fatal to the use of ordinary star-maps, Bessel devised 

 a new atlas, to be constructed especially for observations of 

 meteors. The project was carried out, and the atlas was completed 

 by G. Schwincke, of Pillau, and published at Leipzic in 1843. It 

 consists of five stereographic charts, 18| Prussian inches long, and 

 16j wide, representing the visible heavens at Konigsberg, as far as 

 the thirtieth parallel of S. declination, and containing one chart for 

 the North Pole, and four for the region of the equator. Adopting 

 identically the same plan of arrangement, and projecting the sphere 

 upon its circumscribing cube, the late Sir John Lubbock had 

 previously figured the whole visible vault of the heavens upon an 

 atlas of six maps, containing four maps for the equator, and one for 

 either pole. These maps, published in 1836 by the Useful Know- 

 ledge Society, owing to their remarkably simple mode of projection, 

 are better fitted for recording shooting stars than those afterwards 

 produced by Bessel. Following the example set before them by 

 Sir John Lubbock in the maps of the Useful Knowledge Society, 

 the Committee of the British Association last year undertook to 

 prepare the present series of star-maps, on the principles of plane 

 perspective projection. As the result of their exertions during the 

 year, Mr. Glaisher presented to the British Association fifty litho- 

 graphic copies of the complete set of maps. Each map represents 

 the sky as it might be imagined to appear at Greenwich, traced 

 through on a fiat transparent ceiling, placed four inches above the 

 eye of the spectator. A single map of the series, twenty-two 

 inches long and eighteen inches wide, includes the whole visible 

 heavens at Greenwich, to within 25° from the horizon on either side, 

 to within 20° degrees at the ends, and to within 16° at the corners of 

 the map. Since the heavens revolve, twelve maps in succession aro 

 made to represent, in order, the appearance of the sky at intervals 

 of every two hours throughout the twenty-four, or, according to 

 another commodious form of their adaptation, from month to 

 month throughout the year. The set is numbered and named, from 

 No. 1, January, to No. 12, December, according to the month, in 

 which each map represents faithfully the appearance of the sky at 



