Astronomy. 403 



Fernandez, the Southeastern Moluccas, the Admiralty Islands^ 

 etc. And the work has been done, with admirable promptness, 

 by Wm. B. Hemsley. To the proper systematic part, he has 

 prefixed a general discussion of the present state of our knowl- 

 edge of the principal insular floras, adding a copious bibliog- 

 raphy; and finished with an appendix, on the dispersion of 

 plants by ocean currents and birds. So here is much matter for 

 consideration. We can at this moment only announce the recep- 

 tion of this volume and indicate the general character of its con- 

 tents. A. G. 



1 7. Methods of Research in Microscopical Anatomy and Em- 

 bryology ; by Charles Otis Whitman, M.A., Ph.D. Boston: 

 S. E. Cassino&'Co. 1885. 8vo, pp. viii, 255. — To those who 

 have used Dr. Whitman's notes under the head of Microscopy in 

 the American Naturalist for several years past, this work, to a 

 large extent based on them, will certainly be welcome. The book 

 well accomplishes its purpose of supplying the need created by 

 the recent rapid development of the methods of research in 

 microscopical anatomy and embryology, for it judiciously brings 

 together all the more important new processes used in these 

 departments. The author says that no effort has been made to 

 give the treatise an encyclopaedic character, and perhaps for this 

 very reason, the work appears to be much more satisfactory than 

 Mr. A. B. Lee's Microtomist's Vade-Mecum (Philadelphia, P. 

 Blakiston, Son & Co., J 885), which covers much of the same 

 ground. s. i. s. 



III. Astronomy. 



1. The Star System 40, o 3 Eridani. — Professor A. Hall has pub- 

 lished, in the Astronomische JVctchrichten, No. 2682, the results of 

 thirty sets of measurements, made with the 26-inch refractor to 

 determine the parallax of the principal star of this remarkable 

 system. This star is of the fifth magnitude, having the very 

 large proper motion of 4" a year. At a distance of 81" from it is a 

 binary whose distance is now about 3" and whose components are 

 of the 9th and 11th magnitudes, and this binary has the same 

 extraordinary proper motion as the principal star, the three stars 

 being presumably physically related. 



Professor Hall made observations in March and September, 1884, 

 and March, 1885, comparing with a 10th mag. star 32 3, 5 follow- 

 ing and a little south of 40 Eridani. His result is 

 7r=0"-223 ± -0208. 



Although the observations were made with difficulty, owing to 

 the small field of view of the telescope, yet Prof. Hall expresses 

 much confidence in his result. 



Since the commencement of Prof. Hall's observations in March, 

 1 884, Dr. Gill has published the measurements made by himself 

 and Dr. Elkin upon several Southern stai-s, and among these is a 

 determination by Dr. Gill of the parallax of 40 o 2 Eridani, viz : 

 7T = // -167±0 // '018. 



