1867.] Astronomy. 385 



real complexity of the arrangement of continents and oceans on 

 the southern hemisphere, with which Mr. Phillips's chart and Mr. 

 Dawes's admirable (and consistent) views have familiarized us. 



We have an account of a meteor-shower seen at " noon, under a 

 cloudless sky," in Australia, October 25, 1866. One part of the 

 description is not intelligible ; we are told that " during (? after) 

 the whole display the sky was filled with a phosphorescence so 

 strong that it gave considerable light to the earth. A river at 

 some distance, which in the clearest moonless nights is invisible 

 from here, glistened quite brightly, even when scarce a star was to 

 be seen through the clouds," — the hour being noon, and the sky 

 cloudless ! 



Mr. Masters sends an account of the November meteor-shower 

 as seen at Kishnagur, Bengal. He determined for the radiant- 

 point a position very near that assigned by observers in England. 

 The apex of the Zodiacal light appeared to be some degrees south 

 of the radiant-point. 



M. Hoek, in a letter to Mr. De la Eue, discusses the question of 

 solar spots. Taking the mass of a planet and the inverse cube of 

 its distance as the measure of the planet's influence in raising waves 

 of disturbance on the sun, he assigns to Mercury, Yenus, the 

 Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, effects proportional to the 

 numbers 12, 24, 10, 0, 23, and 7, respectively. This estimate is 

 undoubtedly more correct than that referred to in our last Chronicle. 



Sir John Herschel has presented to the Koyal Astronomical 

 Society a series of MS. charts, containing the estimated magnitudes 

 of nearly all the stars visible to the naked eye in both hemispheres. 

 The labours of Professor Argelander in the same direction, having 

 been given to the world while Herschel's work was in progress, he 

 was induced to relinquish a task of great labour, and henceforth 

 only of secondary interest. But a large amount of labour having 

 been bestowed on the subject, Sir John considered, and all interested 

 in stellar observation must agree with him, that it would be a pity 

 that the charts should not be preserved. 



Mr. Stone has investigated the question of the sun's motion in 

 space by a new and very simple method, founded, however, on 

 views already arrived at on this question. He arrives at the con- 

 clusion that there is decisive evidence of the sun's motion, but that 

 the effects of parallactic displacement arising from this motion are 

 on the average much smaller than the independent proper motions 

 of the stars. 



Mr. Chambers has compiled a catalogue of temporary stars. 

 Many of the objects included in this catalogue were doubtless 

 comets. 



We commend Mr. Dawes's paper on the micrometrical measure- 

 ments of double stars to the careful study of the telescopic observer. 



