80 Chronicles of Science. | Jan., 



dess of heaven, Nepte, supporting the sun, which is connected by the 

 Scarabaeus with certain divinities in a boat, held in the outstretched 

 arms of a figure, supposed to represent the ocean. That part of the 

 picture relates to some Egyptian dogma respecting the soul, which 

 has not yet received a satisfactory explanation. 



In a letter from Mr. A. Herschel, detailing some account of the 

 observations of Professor Hees, of Minister, ' On the Radiant Points 

 of Shooting Stars,' we find the following important points established. 

 1. The interval of a quarter of a century may produce no sensible 

 alteration in the direction of a meteoric stream ; and 2. Two meteoric 

 streams may arrive at the earth at an interval of not more than ten 

 days apart, almost exactly transverse to one another in dirtdion. These 

 facts are exceedingly difficidt to explain upon general grounds ; they 

 are both, however, perfectly conformable to the hypothesis that shoot- 

 ing stars are cosmical bodies revolving round the sun. 



Lieutenant-Colonel Strange has described a zenith sector, for the 

 use of the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India. Owing to the grave 

 imperfections of the old form of zenith sector, the Astronomer-Royal 

 designed, and had executed, a new instrument for the Ordnance 

 Survey. This instrument is one of the most original ever devised, and 

 the work executed with it is of a very high order, but owing to its 

 massive construction and great weight, being altogether 1,140 lbs., it 

 is evidently unsuited for crossing the higher Himalayan ranges. The 

 weight of Airy's Zenith Sector is chiefly due to the manner in which 

 the azimuthal motion is obtained, namely, round two points external 

 to the telescope and sector. The abandonment of this primary feature 

 involved the abandonment of the whole design ; and the subject 

 had to be taken up de novo. Mr. Airy's fundamental principles being, 

 however, preserved as a basis. A brief account of the new instrument 

 is given by Lieutenant-Colonel Strange, in the monthly notices of the 

 Astronomical Society, No. 9, to which we must refer those of our 

 readers who wish to pursue the inquiry further. The work is being 

 executed by Messrs. Troughton and Sims, and it is expected that it 

 will not weigh more than 600 lbs. 



A notice of Dr. Steinheil's stellar spectroscope has been given by 

 W. G. Lettsom, Esq. With this instrument the colours of the stellar 

 spectra are as distinctly pronounced as when one examines the light of 

 the sun by means of a prism. The spectra of the larger stars are dis- 

 played with such brightness when the spectroscope is used with a nine- 

 inch refractor, that there is hardly any doubt that it would give very 

 satisfactory results with stars up to the second magnitude, when applied 

 to instruments of not more than four inches aperture. 



An elaborate paper has been communicated to the Society by 

 Lieutenant-Colonel J. T. Walker, R.E., on the method of determining 

 heights in the trigonometrical survey of India. The difficulties which 

 beset observations of vertical angles in the plains of India are so great, 

 and the inaccuracies to which they are liable, so serious that the observa- 

 tions taken before the year 1856 by the method of reciprocal vertical 

 angles were a cause of much anxiety and uncertainty, because if errone- 

 ous, the lengths of the base lines and all operations emanating therefrom 



