July 31, 1885.] 



SCIENCE 



95 



ASTRONOMICAL NOTES. 



Since the resignation of J.-C. Houzeau as director 

 of the Koyal observatory of Brussels, the management 

 of its affairs has been in the hands of a commission 

 consisting of Liagre, Mailly, and Stas. Mr. F. Folie, 

 of the university of Liege, has lately been appointed 

 the director of the observatory. 



The journal Ciel et terre claims for Royers, a Bel- 

 gian engineer, the credit of the first suggestion of 

 the device now known as the * floating dome,' of the 

 form lately built for the observatory at Nice, France. 

 Eoyer's connection with the subject dates from the 

 year 1880, while letters-patent were issued to a well- 

 known American engineer, covering a device much 

 the same in principle, as long ago as 1863. 



The bi-annual meeting of the Astronomische 

 gesellschaft of Leipzig will this year commence 

 on the 19th of August, and continue several days.^ 

 Several American members of the society will be 

 present at the session, and among them Professor 

 Newcomb, who is now making a tour of the north 

 European observatories. The society meets this year 

 at Geneva. 



We learn from The observatory that a very lauda- 

 ble effort at teaching the general public astronomy is 

 being made in Christiania. An optician, A. Olsen, 

 has erected a great refracting telescope in the Eoyal 

 park. For a small fee, any one can observe the 

 celestial bodies with this instrument, and receive 

 instruction and explanations of their nature. The 

 interior of the pavilion in which the telescope is 

 mounted is hung with celestial charts and diagrams, 

 also views of the sun, moon, and planets for facili- 

 tating the study of the various objects. This tele- 

 scope is said to be the fifth in size at present in 

 existence, and its cost was nearly ten thousand 

 dollars. 



In The observatory for July, Prof. E. C. Pickering 

 of the Harvard-college observatory publishes the re- 

 sults of photometric observations of Ceres (D, Pallas 

 (D, and Yesta ®, with the meridian photometers of 

 the observatory. For Ceres, the mean result for 

 nine observations is 7.71 ± 0.05 magnitude ; and for 

 Pallas, 8.55 ±0.02. These observations were made 

 in April and May of the present year, while in 1880- 

 82 observations of Yesta were made which gave the 

 result 6.47 ± 0.04 as the magnitude of the planet for 

 mean opposition. 



In addition to minor matters, the last annual report 

 of Prof. C. Pritchard, the Savilian professor of as- 

 tronomy at the Oxford university observatory, states 

 that the memoir on the evidences of mutual gravita- 

 tion among the components of the group of the 

 Pleiades has been published by the Royal astronomi- 

 cal society; that the photometric survey of the rela- 

 tive lustre of all stars visible to the unaided eye 

 between the north pole and 10° of south declination 

 has been completed with the wedge photometer; and 

 that an examination is now being conducted with 

 reference to ascertaining the relative capacity of two 

 large telescopes — the one a refractor of twelve and 

 a quarter inches aperture, and the other a silver-on- 



glass reflector of thirteen inches aperture — for the 

 transmission of light. 



In the correspondence of a late number of The 

 observatory, Mr. W. T. Lynn directs attention to the 

 fact that an erroneous impression has widely pre- 

 vailed, and is still to be found in many even of the 

 most modern works in astronomy, that Bayer, in affix- 

 ing Greek letters to the principal stars in the different 

 constellations, arranged them strictly in the order of 

 the alphabet. This error is to be found in Dr. Ball's 

 ' Elements of astronomy,' in the article ' Astronomy,' 

 of the ninth edition of the 'Encyclopaedia Britan- 

 nica,' and in Chambers's ' Handbook of descriptive 

 astronomy,' and elsewhere. An examination of Bay- 

 er's 'Explicatio' sufficiently indicates that such was 

 not the course adopted by him ; and this was also 

 pointed out by Argelander in his academic disserta- 

 tion, * De fide Uranometriae Bayeri,' published at 

 Bonn in 1832. Bayer divides the stars in each con- 

 stellation into classes of magnitude, according to the 

 ordinary principal divisions. The stars of the high- 

 est order of magnitude in each have assigned them 

 that number of the first letters of the Greek alpha- 

 bet; those of the next, their number of the next fol- 

 lowing letters ; and so on. But no attempt was made 

 to arrange the stars in each class according to their 

 respective magnitudes; or rather, as Dr. Gould ex- 

 presses it, "For the stars of each order, the sequence 

 of the letters in no manner represented that of their 

 brightness, but depended upon the position of the 

 stars in the figure, beginning usually at the head, and 

 following its course until all the stars of that order of 

 magnitude were exhausted." 



The Rev. Mr. Saxby of the Royal astronomical 

 society has arranged for a summer's outing in the 

 high Alps, and will use a six-inch equatorial at an 

 elevation of 5,300 feet ; also he has arranged for a 

 series of observations on the Schwarzhorn, at an alti- 

 tude of 10,400 feet, and is supplied with a spectro- 

 scope ranging from A in the red to well below the H 

 lines, and calculated to do good work. 



LA TE NE WS FR OM ALA SKA . 



Midsummer advices from Alaska report that the 

 military party on the Copper River are advancing 

 toward the Yukon. The navigation of the stream is 

 said to be very difficult. Copper ore had been found, 

 but not conveniently situated, nor in so large quan- 

 tities as had been supposed. The salmon-canning 

 industry was flourishing, especially at Karluk and 

 Cook's Inlet. The first shipment was made July 1. 

 Robert King, formerly of Unalashka, noted for his 

 kindness to scientific travellers in the territory, and 

 who had made useful contributions to local meteor- 

 ology andfgeography, died suddenly. May 29, at San- 

 nakh Island. He was an Englishman by birth, and 

 leaves seven orphan children. 



The volcano island of Chernabura, or St. Augus- 

 tin, in Cook's Inlet, is reported to still pour out 

 smoke and steam from innumerable fissures. A 

 hunting-party stationed there this spring reports 



