308 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
"bered that the articles found show differences from those of the Swiss Lake- 
stations. Many objects, such as the large sickles and lance-heads, the most 
abundant form of fibulae found at Bologna, the protections for the arm made 
of bronze wire, the elegant hollow cylinders, probably ornaments for the hair 
( tutuli ), axes such as would serve for chopping wood, and large nails from 
six to eight inches long, are either rare or entirely wanting so far as we know 
north of the Alps, or, in place of them, other forms are found. On the other- 
hand we miss, at Bologna, the large, hollow, engraved bracelets, and the 
round-headed hairpins of Switzerland. 
The determination of the age of these remains would be important, as it 
must at the same time throw light on that of the Swiss lake-stations. 
Whether belonging to the first development of the Etruscans (“ Proto-Etrus- 
cans ”) or to another people, the civilization of Villanova and Bologna was 
certainly earlier than the true great Etruscan period. Upon this question, 
and in what relation if any these inhabitants stood to the Mediterranean 
peoples who in the fourteenth century before our era made head against the 
Pharaohs both by land and sea, further information is much to be wished for*. 
— ( Neues Jahrb. fur Min . Geol. tyc., 1878, Heft 3.) 
ASTRONOMY. 
Transit of Venus in 1874. — It would seem we may now expect a succes- 
sion of new determinations of the sun’s distance from observations made on 
this transit ; for the Continental and American astronomers have still to- 
announce their results, and from Greenwich alone we have already received 
several different determinations. It will be remembered that the first result 
announced from Greenwich made the solar parallax 8'76 // , corresponding to 
a mean solar distance of 93,375,000 miles. The Astronomer Royal expressed 
the opinion that this value could not be changed by any re-examination of the 
observations, and that considered in its relation to other values, it should be 
preferred to all. u I think there will be nothing to compete with the value 
we have deduced,” he said. We ventured at the time to express a very 
different opinion, namely, that this value would have to be modified largely,, 
and that it could not compete with the estimate of about 92,300,000 deduced 
by Newcomb. The result has confirmed our views. All the observations 
have been re-examined ; “ different interpretations have, in a few instances,, 
been put on the records; several observations from colonial stations have 
been combined ; instead of using different phases in the observations (both 
of ingress and of egress) attempts have been made to ascertain the one phase 
of “contact of limbs;” the notes of a few unpractised observers have been 
rejected; and the result for parallax has been increased to 8'82" or .8’83"f 
corresponding to a mean solar distance of 92,676,000 or 92,571,000 miles, or 
say to a mean distance of 92,620,000 miles. This is a long stride in the 
direction we predicted. 
Photography in the Transit Observations . — The results from photography 
have been very disappointing. “ The failure,” says Sir George Airy, in the 
Greenwich report, “ has arisen, perhaps, from irregularity of limb, or from 
atmospheric distortion, but more frequently from faintness and want of clear 
