SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY. 
85 
Professor Huxley or to the suhdolichocephalic group of Broca. It is to be 
observed that the only skulls coming from Sumatra with which Dr. Ricciardi 
was able to compare his specimen were seven described by Dr. Barnard 
Davies in his “Thesaurus/’ and amongst these there is not a single example 
of an Achinese skull. On comparison with the skulls of Javanese, Dyak, 
Papuan, Malay, and Chinese the measurements of the Achinese cranium 
were found closely to agree with the Dyak, but to differ in many important 
respects from the Malay ; while there is a certain amount of agreement 
between it and the Chinese skull, though it differs materially in the character 
of the orbits, facial bones, and upper jaw. Interesting as the description of 
this skeleton must prove to anthropologists, it must be remembered that from 
a single specimen it is unsafe or rather impossible to draw any sound con- 
clusions, as the peculiarities observed may be due, not to specific variations 
but to an abnormal development of the individual. 
ASTRONOMY. 
Photographs of the Total Solar Eclipse of July last. — Mr. Ranyard thus 
presents the results of photographic work during this eclipse : — “ The 
photographs taken by Dr. Brackett during the recent eclipse with a six-inch 
telescope of rather more than seven feet focal length, seemed, as far as I could 
judge, to be equally dense with the photographs of similar exposure of Lord 
Lindsay’s and Colonel Tennant’s series, taken in India, 1871. I speak with 
some caution, as I have not had an opportunity of comparing the negatives 
side by side ; but the density of the Indian negatives is very well impressed 
on my mind, as I spent more than a year in making out and cataloguing the 
details which are visible upon them. It must be borne in mind, that during 
the Indian eclipse, the sun, as seen from the two photographic stations, was at 
a lower altitude than as seen at Denver, Dr. Brackett’s station ; but while the 
angular aperture of Dr. Brackett’s instrument was less than one in fourteen , 
Lord Lindsay’s and Colonel Tennant’s cameras were of four inches’ aperture, 
and about thirty inches focus, or one in seven and a half — that is, in the two 
Indian cameras, which were of similar construction, the pencil of light fall- 
ing on an element ot the plate, was nearly four times as intense as the pencil 
falling on a similar element in Dr. Brackett’s telescope camera. We have no 
data, of course, for comparing the diactinism of the Indian and Colorado 
atmospheres. But we may, I think, feel justified in asserting that as far as 
the evidence derived from the photographs of 1870, 1871, and 1876 goes, 
the corona does not wax and wane with sun-spots. In fact, the corona with 
by far the greatest equatorial extension is found at a period when there are 
hardly any spots upon the sun’s disc, and it should also be remembered that 
the difference between the coronas of 1870 and 1871 does not at all corre- 
spond with the development of sun-spots at the two periods.” 
Polarisation of the Corona. — Mr. Schuster notes that the polarisatioffof the 
corona seems at first to increase with distance from the sun, and then 
to decrease rapidly. Doubtless, the explanation suggested by Mr. Ran- 
yard is the correct one. Near the sun the matter of the corona is in- 
