December 4, 1885] 



SCIENCE. 



489 



Benin. Much weight attaches to the opinion of 

 M. Mer, who is a retired naval officer of forty 

 years' experience, including three years of cruising 

 between the equator and Gibraltar on the west 

 coast of Africa. 



The joiu-ney of Messrs. Capello and Ivens in 

 central Africa during the past two years was 

 beset with exceptional hardships. The explorers 

 proceeded from the limits of the Portuguese terri- 

 tory in the direction of Cubango, as far as the 

 lower part of the Mucussu, where they found 

 themselves in a barren region intersected by water- 

 courses and marshes, which obliged them to turn 

 northward tln:ough an unknown region infested 

 with tsetse, and affording little food. Sixteen of 

 their party died from tsetse-bites, without counting 

 cattle and hunting-dogs. After travelling 4200 

 geographical miles, they reached Fete almost 

 exhausted, having lost sixty-two men during the 

 fifteen months. The explorers reached Lisbon on 

 the 17th of September, where they were received 

 by the king, and welcomed by an enthusiastic 

 demonstration of their countrymen. 



Paulitschke has studied the relations of the west- 

 ern branches of the Somali, and the north-eastern 

 tribes of the Gallas, near the Gulf of Aden. His 

 results, with a good map showing their distribution 

 and the route of the author and his companion, 

 Hardegger, are to be found in the September 

 number of the Proceedings of the Geographical 

 society of Vienna. 



The Bulletin of the ItaKan geographical society 

 for September contains exti'acts from the un- 

 pubUshed journals of Pellegrino Matteucci, the 

 African traveller. These have been edited by 

 Dalla Vedova, and are illustrated by a map show- 

 ing the itinerary and also the routes of Nachtigal 

 and Rohlfs. Matteucci's journey, one of the most 

 remarkable on record, extending from the Red 

 Sea at Suakin to Lake Chad, and thence to the 

 Niger and the sea, has hardly attracted the at- 

 tention it deserves ; chiefly, perhaps, on account 

 of the early death of this promising and brilliant 

 explorer. 



The third part of the Tsvestia of the Russian 

 geographical society, for 1885, recently received, 

 contains an important map by General Tillo, 

 showing the lines of equal horizontal and total 

 intensity of ten-estrial magnetism in European 

 Russia for the epoch 1880. It is accompanied by 

 two smaller charts for the middle of the nineteenth 

 century, showing the secular variation of the 

 same elements. The same number contains an 

 abstract of the report of the work done by the 

 topographical corps of the general staff during 

 1884, the important details of which have been 

 already noticed in Science. 



ASTRONOMICAL NOTES. 



Occultations of a Tauri. — The occultations of 

 this bright star and of a few of the other naked- 

 eye stars of the Hyades will be visible again over 

 a considerable portion of this country on the night 

 of Dec. 19 ; but as the phenomena occur well 

 on toward morning, they are not likely to be 

 extensively observed. A most favorable oppor- 

 tunity, however, will occur on the night of 1886, 

 Feb. 12, when a larger number of the stars 

 will be occulted, and most of them early in the 

 evening. Our observatories are so widely scat- 

 tered that prediction for one place is of very httle 

 use for another (so rapidly does the parallax of the 

 moon vary with hour-angle and zenith-distance), 

 and each intending observer must predict them 

 for himself with the data given in the American 

 ephemeris. These recurring occultations of so 

 many of the bright stars of the Hyades. which will 

 continue for several years, afford pretty fan' oppor- 

 tunities for a good determination of the semi-di- 

 ameter of the moon, especially if the fainter stars 

 (to the 8 mag.) can be filled in on a chart, and their 

 occultations be predicted and observed at the dark 

 limb of the moon. They also offer, to those who 

 have the means of determining accurately their 

 local time, but have never made a telegraphic 

 determination of their longitude, the next best 

 method of determining this, if they are willing to 

 go through the somewhat tedious reduction of the 

 observed occultations. 



The shower of Biela meteors. — The earth re- 

 ceived a visit, on the night of Nov. 27, from a part 

 of the ghost of the lost comet of Biela, in the 

 shape of a widely observed meteor-shower, a repe- 

 tition of that of 1872, Nov. 27, and no doubt both 

 of them parts of the meteor-stream which was 

 once Biela's comet. It will be remembered that 

 this comet separated into two during perihelion 

 passage in 1845-46, came roimd in 1852 as two 

 comets 1.5 million miles apart, with most extraor- 

 dinary alternate fluctuations in brightness, and 

 has been wholly invisible as a comet since then. 

 But at its descending node, which the earth 

 passes about Nov. 27, the comet's orbit closely ap- 

 proaches that of the earth, and an exti*aordinaiy 

 meteor-shower from a radiant in Andromeda on 

 1872, Nov. 27, in which some single observers 

 counted them at the rate of 4,000 or 5,000 per lioiu-, 

 has always been attributed to a meteor-stream into 

 which Biela's comet is resolving itseff. The pres- 

 ent shower, so far as reports are at hand, does not 

 seem to have equalled that of 1872, but it was a 

 very decided one. At Georgetown, D.C., two of 

 Professor Hall's sons and Mrs. Hall (the latter 

 watching only a short time) counted 213 meteors 

 between 6^ SO'" and 7^ 50^. i^gelo Hall, who 



