Notices respecting New Books, 389 



Huggins has proved that Sirius is receding from us at the rate of 

 several hundred miles per second. Now Dr. Huggins has done 

 nothing of the sort ; his earliest determination of the motion of 

 Sirius before Mr. Proctor wrote his essay was twenty-five miles per 

 second ; he has since found reason to reduce the velocity to eighteen, 

 or at most twenty-two miles per second. Another instance is, that 

 the equatorial belts of Jupiter and Saturn are in no sense comparable 

 with the zone of calms or doldrums — in their being persistent, whereas 

 our zone of calms travels far north of the equator in summer, and far 

 to the south in winter. We were not aware, until thus enlightened 

 by Mr. Proctor, that a zone about 6° broad, its mean position 

 being north of the equator with its northern edge somewhere near 

 the parallel of 8°, was removed yjzr from this position ; perhaps his 

 readers would have been really more enlightened had the two limits 

 of 15° N. and 5° S. been given ; and we ttiink that in both the cases 

 alluded to " clearness of illustration " would not have been sacrificed 

 by giving these quantities with scientific exactness. 



On the subject of "other habitable worlds," much as has been 

 written, we cannot possibly obtain any definite knowledge, beyond 

 that of ascertaining ^y observation the conditions of habitahility of 

 " the orbs around us." One, and only one, has yielded us any 

 definite information on this head. It is now seven years since 

 Professor Phillips constructed a map of Mars, and showed, from the 

 oscillations of the snow-zones of the planet, that its climatic rela- 

 tions are similar to those of the earth — in other words, that it is a 

 suitable residence for beings of a similar constitution to the human 

 race. One or two quotations from Phillips occur in Mr. Proctor's 

 description of Mars ; but the map is passed over unnoticed, although 

 we have a map constructed by our author from drawings by the late 

 Mr. Dawes. A comparison of the two is very suggestive. In the 

 essay entitled ''The Rosse Telescope set to New Work," we find 

 large reflecting telescopes described as inadequate to present objects 

 in a perfectly distinct manner, their value consisting in their light- 

 grasping powers. The new work of the Parsonstown reflector is 

 that of testing its heat-grasping powers ; and in this it has been suc- 

 cessful in furnishing us with a measurable amount of heat derived 

 (or rather reflected) from the moon ; and this result our author cha- 

 racterizes as " Lord Rosse's discovery." It appears that Mr. 

 Proctor must have forgotten, or he would certainly have referred to. 

 Professor Piazzi Smyth's work in this direction, recorded on pages 

 212, 213 of the account of his celebrated astronomer's experiments. 

 It is, however, quite possible that this particular passage escaped his 

 attention ; but what are we to think of the following ? In his essay 

 on shooting-stars, alluding to the theory of meteors being propelled 

 from the moon, he speaks of the inadequacy of the force of propul- 

 sion to give them their observed velocities, " even," he says, '* if it 

 were proved (which is far from being the case) that any active 

 volcanoes now exist in the moon." This was published in the 

 * Cornhill Magazine ' for November 1867. We have now before us 

 the Number of ' Temple Bar,' published only three months earlier, 

 viz. in August 1867 ; and in it we find an article headed, *' A Lunar 



