October 17, 1884.] 



SCIENCE. 



381 



mathematical student for that year in Univer- 

 sity college. She was awarded the principal 

 prize in applied mathematics and mechanics, 

 and the Mayer de Rothschild exhibition ; and 

 Professor Clifford said, at the meeting for the 

 distribution of prizes, that a few more students 

 like Miss Watson would certainly raise Uni- 

 versity college to a status surpassing that of 

 institutions twent}^ times as rich, and which 

 had been two hundred years longer in exist- 

 ence. Praise like this from Professor Clifford 

 would have been remarkable if it had followed 

 years of preparation under such skilful train- 

 ing as English tutors know how to give. Ellen 

 Watson had not only carried on her studies lry 

 herself, but she had been from the age of six- 

 teen the governess, the playfellow, the nurse, 

 of a large family of younger brothers and sis- 

 ters. In order to get a little uninterrupted 

 time for the study of quaternions and the cal- 

 culus of variations, she had been obliged to 

 form the plan of going to bed with the children, 

 and getting up at four o'clock in the morning 

 to begin her day's work. Such success, under 

 such circumstances, gives reason to believe, 

 that, if she had lived, she would have been one 

 of the most remarkable women of her time. 

 Her disease was consumption ; and it does not 

 appear that her death, at the age of twenty- 

 four, was hastened by overwork. No less 

 remarkable than her intellectual ability were 

 the sweetness and elevation of her character. 

 Her later correspondence shows a lofty aspira- 

 tion, a passion for some high undertaking for 

 the good of the world which her early death 

 prevented her from entering upon. Great 

 minds of either sex are not so common that 

 one can feel less than profound regret that one 

 more has been extinguished without great work 

 accomplished. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



The parental relation of the large cyclonic areas 

 of low pressure that frequently pass over our coun- 

 try, and which might well be called simply cyclones, 

 to the tornadoes that are formed in them, has lately 

 been discussed by W. M. Davis in the American me- 

 teorological journal for August; and by H. A. Hazen 

 in the same, and in the American journal of science 

 for September. The former gives a graphic illustra- 

 tion of about one hundred tornadoes that occurred 

 last spring, according to Lieut. Finley's maps; the 

 latter gives a tabular statement of a number of tor- 

 nadoes of earlier years. The results agree in show- 

 ing the close limitation of tornadoes to a district 

 south-south-east of cyclone centres, as has already 

 been pointed out in these notes ; but the authors 

 differ as to the theoretical meaning of this limitation. 



— Professor Simon Newcomb, LL.D., superintend- 

 ent of the U. S. nautical almanac, has been ap- 

 pointed professor of mathematics and astronomy in 

 the Johns Hopkins university. 



— The comet discovered by Wolf at Heidelberg, on 

 Sept. 17, proves to belong to the interesting family of 

 periodical comets, according to the calculations made 

 at the Harvard college observatory by Mr. S. C. 

 Chandler, jun., and Mr. Wendell. An attempt was 

 made to compute an orbit from observations, Sept. 

 20, Oct. 1, and Oct. 11; but it was found that they 

 could not be represented within several minutes of 

 arc on the assumption of parabolic motion. The 

 parabola obtained was, perihelion passage, 1884, 

 Nov. 14, 23,309, Greenwich mean time; perihelion 

 from node, 170° 40' 36". 0, 1884.0; node, 197° 16' 24".3, 

 1884.0; inclination, 34° 0' 46".S, 1884.0; log. peri- 

 helion distance, 0.273507; which gave the deviation 

 of the middle place (C — O), A I cos (3 = + T 35".8, 

 A/3 = + 4' 40 // .5. These residuals could not be sen- 

 sibly reduced by varying the ratio of the extreme 

 curtate distances. Accordingly an orbit was com- 

 puted without any assumption as to the form, with 

 the following result: perihelion passage, 1884, Nov. 

 17, 71,070, Greenwich mean time; perihelion from 

 node, 172° 36' 40".5 ; node, 206° 27' 36 // .5 ; inclination, 

 25° 10' 54". 3; log. perihelion distance, 0.196049; mean 

 distance, 3.53638; eccentricity, 0.555885. The cor- 

 responding period is 2,429 days, or about 6.65 years. 



This comet accordingly appears to belong to the 

 group of the Faye-M oiler comet, 1857, iv., and 1874, 

 iv., all of which have general features of resemblance. 

 There is no evidence of any known previous appear- 

 ance of this comet. If, indeed, the period above 

 given is not considerably in error, it would be visible 

 from the earth only at every third return to perihelion, 

 or once in twenty years. 



— Dr. Charles Rau, curator of antiquities in the 

 U. S. national museum, Washington, D.C., is about to 

 publish, under the auspices of the Smithsonian insti- 

 tution, a most valuable and interesting work entitled 

 1 Prehistoric fishing in Europe and North America.' 

 This work will form No. 509 of 'Smithsonian contri- 

 butions to knowledge,' and consists of about 350 

 pages quarto. The book is illustrated with four 

 hundred and five cuts from drawings by Mr. Trill, 

 being either copies of already published designs, or 

 correct representations of objects specially drawn for 

 this work, the majority of the latter being specimens 

 belonging to the U. S. national museum. As regards 

 America, objects termed ' prehistoric ' include such 

 as are found in mounds and other ancient burial- 

 places, on and below the ground, or in caves, shell- 

 heaps, etc.; in fact, to use Dr. Rail's words, "all 

 articles of aboriginal workmanship, that cannot with 

 certainty be ascribed to any of the tribes which are 

 still in existence, or have become extinct within his- 

 torical times, or, to speak more distinctly, within the 

 recollection of the white successors of the Indians." 



This book is divided into two parts : part i. Europe ; 

 part ii. North America. Part i. is divided into three 

 sections: 1°. Paleolithic age, 2°. Neolithic age, 3°. 

 Bronze age. In part i., Europe, a short characteri- 



