358 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. VI., No. 142. 



from. Wreckage of oriental origin, including 

 part of a vessel's rail with a money box cut into 

 it and containing some Chinese coins, had been 

 picked up on the shore of Montague Island, Prince 

 William Sound. The season at Kadiak had been 

 a fine one, the crop of potatoes and especially of 

 cauliflo.wers being very successful, but at Iliamna 

 trading station. Cook's Inlet, a freshet occurred 

 during the summer, by which the course of a small 

 stream was changed and the trader's house 

 actually washed away. A gale in July at Cold 

 Bay, on the peninsula, caught a sea-otter party of 

 Aleuts far from land in their kayaks, and for forty- 

 eight hours they were obliged to use their paddles 

 to keep from foundering. Five were drowned. 

 The volcano of St. Augustin in Cook's Inlet con- 

 tinues to emit smoke and steam from many 

 fissures. Water is still very scarce there, but 

 several white otter hunters have established them- 

 selves upon the island for the winter. In south- 

 eastern Alaska the Treadwell or Paris mine is 

 proving a great success The new miU, number- 

 ing 120 stamps, sent down $95,000 as the result of 

 the first twenty-five days' work, and there is an 

 almost unlimited quantity of low grade ore milling, 

 net, about $5.00 to $8.00 gold per ton. This has 

 stimulated work on the gold mines near Sitka, 

 which are much richer but less extensive. 



ASTRONOMICAL NOTES. 



Meeting of the Astronomische gesellschaft. — 

 Nature (xxxii., 516) gives a rather full accoiuit of 

 the meeting of the Astronomische gesellschaft held 

 at Geneva, August 19-22. Among about fifty 

 members present we see the names of Struve, 

 Newcomb, Christie, Auwers, Krueger, Tisserand, 

 Weiss, and Schoenfeld. Reports were read on the 

 present state of the computation of planetary or- 

 bits, on the zone work of the society, and on the 

 photographic mapping of the stars of the Bonn 

 Durchmusterung begun by Gill at the Cape. 

 Professor Auwers read a paper by Professor 

 Pickering on the photometric survey of the hea- 

 vens, wliich was heard with especial interest ; and 

 Staatsrath Struve, m presenting photographs of 

 the Pulkowa 30-inch refractor, expressed Ms com- 

 plete satisfaction with the instrument. On the 

 last day of the meeting addresses were made by 

 Professor Gylden on the graphic representation of 

 planetary orbits, by Professor Newcomb on per- 

 turbations and their numerical calculation, and 

 by Dr. Mueller on modern photographic apparatus. 

 Other papers were read by Professors Bakhuyzen, 

 Seehger, Safarik and Weiss. The subject of most 

 general immediate interest was the discussion of 

 the sixth resolution of the Washington meridian 



conference, recommending a change in the begin- 

 ning of the astronomical day. Struve, Folic and 

 Pechule seemed to be the only members in favor 

 of the change, while Newcomb, Weiss, Krueger, 

 Duner, Auwers, Tietjen and Safarik, spoke in op- 

 position to it. Professor Gylden thought it inex- 

 pedient to make the change at present, though he 

 was of^the opinion that, in twenty or thirty years 

 hence, the majority of astronomers would be in. 

 favor of a universal time. The statement by 

 Struve that in the Royal astronomical society the 

 majority are in favor of the universal time, has 

 been corrected by Mr. Downing of the Greenwich 

 observatory, who says (Nature xxxii., 353) that 

 "the Royal astronomical society as a body has 

 not expressed any opinion on the subject. And 

 judging from the individual expressions of opinion 

 which have been published, I should imagine that 

 here, as at Geneva, the majority of real workers 

 in our science (with the probable ex(3eption of those 

 engaged on solar work) would be opposed to the 

 proposed change." No resolution in regard to the 

 matter was passed by the geseUschaft. The next 

 meetmg will be held at Kiel in 1887. 



Displacement of solar lines. — In order to ob- 

 tain, if possible, further evidence upon the dis- 

 puted question as to whether the displacements- 

 and distortions of lines in solar spectra are due to 

 actual drag of masses of gas to or from us, some- 

 times caUing for velocities of 400 or 500km. per 

 second, M. Trepied proposes, in the Bulletin 

 astronomique for August, an arrangement of ap- 

 paratus by which, after the light has passed 

 through slit and collimator, the beam shall be 

 divided so as to show two spectra superimposed 

 at any desired, poiot of either, thus allowing^ 

 simultaneous optical examination, or micrometrical 

 measurement, upon two lines from exactly the 

 same part of the sun. He then proposes to test. 

 Fizeau's law that the ratio of displacement to 



wave-length, ^ , should be constant through- 



A 



out the spectrum, for any one velocity of the 

 luminous source to or from us. He will begin 

 with the C and F lines of hydrogen, the ratio of 

 whose wave-lengths is about 1.35 to 1.00. It 

 would seem as if tliis difference should shoTV 

 plainly in the relative displacements, but it must 

 be remembered that the largest of these take the 

 form of very irregular distortions of the lines, and 

 the different brightness and color of the lines and 

 their background may perhaps differently affect 

 their visible or measurable limits. His results will 

 be awaited with interest. 



Parallax of 40 o^ Eridani.— Professor HaU pub- 

 fishes, in No. 2682 of the Astronomische nachrichten, 

 the results of observations made in 1883 and 1884 



