424 



Annicersary Meeting. 



[Dec. 1, 



1877, has afforded an opportunity for testing the connexion (first 

 suggested by Sir E. Sabine and afterwards investigated as regards the 

 element of declination by Professor R. Wolf) between magnetic 

 variations and sun-spots. Mr. Ellis has compared the diurnal ranges 

 of magnetic declination and horizontal force with Professor Wolf's 

 curve of sun-spot frequency, with the result that not only is there a 

 general correspondence in the two sets of phenomena, but the minor 

 irregularities of the sun-spot curve are reproduced in the curves of 

 diurnal magnetic range for both elements, and further that the well- 

 marked annual inequality in the latter is itself variable, being greatest 

 at the time of maximum of sun spots and least at that of mini- 

 mum. 



The spectroscopic determination of the motions of stars in the line 

 of sight by the displacement of lines in their spectra, has been recently 

 extended at Greenwich to stars of the third and fourth magnitude, 

 raising the number of stars available for the application of this 

 method to 200 or 300. Up to the present time, the motions of 63 

 stars nave been thus determined at Greenwich. Mr. Seabroke, at 

 Rugby, has also applied the method to 28 stars, and his results, though 

 presenting some discordances inter se, generally support those obtained 

 by Mr. Huggins and by the Greenwich observers.* 



A new determination of the Figure of the Earth, in which the 

 results of recent measurements of the Indian arc of 24° are included, 

 has been made by Colonel CJarke.f 



A connexion between the Sun's Outer Corona and Meteor Streams 

 has been suggested by several observers, Professor Cleveland Abbe, 

 Mr. F. C. Penrose, and others, J of the Solar Eclipse of 1878. 



From a discussion of the distribution of aphelia and inclinations of 

 cometary orbits, Professor H. A. Newton has come to the conclusion 

 that comets have come to us from the stellar spaces (in accordance 

 with Laplace's hypothesis), and that (with the possible exception of 

 the comets of short period) they have not originated within the solar 

 system as Kant supposed. § 



Mr. Gill has deduced from his extensive series of Heliometer 

 Observations of Mars at Ascension, the value 8""78 + 0"'015 for the 

 Sun's Mean Equat. Hor. Parallax. || This agrees nearly with the first 

 published result of the British Transit of Venus Expeditions, and also 

 with the result of Cornu's determination of the velocity of light com- 

 bined with Struve's constant of aberration. 



* " Monthly Notices," 1879, June. 1879, October 10. 



f "Phil. Mag.," 1878, August. 



X " Monthly Notices," 1878, November. 



§ "Amor. Journ.," 1878, September. 



|| " Monthly Notices," 1879, June. 



