168 G. H. KNIBBS. 



of the question, but he contributed nothing fundamental to the 

 then existing material. His memoir gives however a fair idea of 

 the state of knowledge of the question in his day, but is meagre 

 from a bibliographical or historical point of view. 



(51) Gautier, A., 1859} — Gautier contributed in the same year 

 a notice on the later researches of Madler. 



(52) Peters, 1860. — In 1860 Peters again discussed the nature 

 of the proper motion of the fixed stars, with reference to the 

 hypothesis of Madler, that the stellar system revolved round 

 Alcyone as a central sun. 2 



(53) Babinet, 1862. — In a paper on the influence of the motion 

 of the earth on optical phenomena, 3 in October 1862, Babinet 

 quotes the coordinates of the direction of our motion in space as 



R.A. = 260°, D.= +34-°5, V. = 0-25S. 

 S being the annual orbit of the earth. These are evidently 

 Struve's results for the direction. 



(54) Carrington, 1863. — Carrington discussing very briefly the 

 consequence of motion of translation of our whole system through 

 space, concludes that any attempt to deduce the direction of 

 motion from the apparitions of non-periodic comets is nugatory. 4 



o o 



(55) Angstrom, 1863. — Angstrom in 1861 suggested to the 

 Royal Scientific Society of Upsala a purely optical method of 

 determining the motion of translation of the solar system, which 

 was practically identical with Babinet's, previously briefly referred 

 to. In 1863, he published results of an attempt to thus deduce 

 proof of the motion, experiments shewing that the influence of 



1 Notice sur les dernieres recherches de M. Madler relatives au mouve- 

 ment general des etoiles autour d'un point central. — Archiv. d. Sci. phys, 

 et nat. iv., 1859, p. 305. 



' z Ueber die Eigenbewegungen die Fixsterne, mit Bezug auf Herrn 

 Madler's Hypothese der Bewegung der Sterne um Alcyone als Central- 

 sonne.— Peters, Zeitschrift i., 1860, pp. 88-130. 



3 Comptes rendus, t. lv., 1862, pp. 561 - 564. 



4 Monthly Notices, Eoy. Astr. Soc, Vol. xxxiii., pp. 203-204. 



