230 Chronicles of Science. [April, 



spicuous at an epoch preceding only by an hour or so the time of 

 Mr. Baxendell's observation. We ventured in our last to express 

 agreement with Schmidt's view, — considering it highly improbable 

 that so experienced an observer, examining the very constellation 

 in which the strange star appeared (in the search, too, for a 

 variable star), would have overlooked a star brighter than 

 Alphecca, the " brilliant " of the Crown. Mr. Stone has since care- 

 fully examined Mr. Barker's claim, and, at a late meeting of the 

 Astronomical Society, he expressed the opinion (fully supported 

 by the evidence adduced) that " Mr. Barker's observations, previous 

 to those of May 14th, are not entitled to the slightest credit." 



Mr. J. Norman Lockyer has commenced the spectroscopic ob- 

 servation of sun-spots. His object is to test the rival theories of 

 M. Faye on the one hand, and Messrs. De la Bue. Balfour Stewart, 

 and Loewy on the other. According to M. Faye, the interior of 

 the sun is " a nebulous gaseous mass, of feeble radiating power at 

 a temperature of dissociation," — a sun-spot is caused by the heating 

 effects of an up-rush from the interior breaking through the less 

 intensely heated photosphere. The English physicists named 

 above refer the appearances connected with sun-spots to the cooling 

 effects of a down-rush from the exterior. Mr. Lockyer has not 

 yet obtained results which he can consider quite satisfactory ; 

 but, so far as he has gone, he sees confirmation of the latter view. 

 In the spectrum of light from the spot the absorption bands 

 were visible, as in the spectrum given by the photosphere ; they 

 appeared even to be thicker. Further, no bright lines were 

 visible. The observation, if confirmed by the examination of 

 larger spots, would establish the presence of descending currents, 

 but would leave the question of greater or less heat in the neigh- 

 bourhood and interior of spots undecided. Eepeated observations 

 have been afforded of the apparent descent, with diminishing 

 brightness, of a large portion of the photosphere into the interior 

 of a spot, but whether the change indicates a cooling process, or 

 rather a process corresponding to the transformation of clouds into 

 invisible vapour, is a question which observation has not yet 

 enabled us to answer. 



It is gratifying to hear that the speculum prepared by Mr. 

 Grubb, of Dublin, for the Melbourne Observatory, is a perfect 

 success. The telescope will, doubtless, soon be at work. Mr. 

 Le Sueur, of Pembroke College, Cambridge (a wrangler of 1863), 

 is entrusted with the charge of the observatory. He has been 

 engaged in studying sidereal astronomy under Professor Adams, at 

 the Cambridge Observatory ; and we understand that Mr. Delarue 

 has kindly undertaken to instruct him in the principles and practice 

 of celestial photography. 



In the new edition of ' Lyell's Geology ' there are presented the 



