Gylden has reached the conclusion that the mean parallax of stars of the first inagnitude is about one tenth of a second. With this result, the average distance of these bodies would be two million times greater than that of the sun-a distance requiring more than thirty-one years for the transmission of their light to the earth.

Distribution of the Variable Stars.-In the "Observatory" for June, 1883, T. E. Espin, VicePresident of the Liverpool Astronomical Society, concludes his interesting paper on the distribution of the variable stars. (See "Annual Cyclopædia" for 1882.) The shortest period in his second class of variables is 135 days; the longest, 570. The variation in brightness is from one to nine magnitudes. The number of stars in relation to different periods is as follows:

"Class I. With short periods and small variation.

"Class II. Long period and great variation. "Class III. Period of several years and small variation.

"Class IV. Temporary stars."

The "Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society" for March, 1883, contains a note by the Rev. T. E. Espin, of Birkenhead, Eng., on the variability of Beta Cygni and 63 Cygni. The former is placed in the table of suspected variables in "Chambers's Astronomy," and this suspicion has been confirmed by Mr. Espin. The change in brightness is not great - about one magnitude - while the period, though not well ascertained, is undoubtedly several years. The period of 63 Cygni is about five years, and the observed variation is from the sixth to the 4.7 magnitude.

Dr. Peters's Star-Charts.-Dr. C. H. F. Peters, of Hamilton College, N. Y., has recently published the first installment of a very elaborate series of star-charts. They are to contain all stars down to the 14th magnitude, as far as 30

From his examination of these tables Mr. Espin infers:

1. That the number of stars increases with the length of the period.

2. That the number of stars increases with the variation in magnitude.

3. That more than two thirds of the variable stars of class second vary more than four and less than six and a half magnitudes; and, 4. That nearly two thirds of the variable stars of class second have periods between 320 and 420 days.

Mr. Espin concludes as follows: "When, nearly eighteen months ago, I commenced the first of these papers, I believed that all cases of stellar variation might, with the exception of temporary stars, be included in classes first and second. Lately, however, I have become aware of the existence of a new class-stars which have a small fluctuation in magnitude once in several years. The observations of 63 Cygni first led me to this conclusion, and some of the stars suspected of variation now under observation go far to confirm it. For the greater part of the time the light of these stars is constant, but then it alters a magnitude or so; but, after a month or two, it returns to its ordinary magnitude. Many of the stars suspected of variation undoubtedly belong to this class third, and it is obvious that only long and careful determinations of magnitude during many years can determine the periods and variation of such stars.

"Summing up our results, then, we find four classes of variable stars:

out the whole of the twenty-four hours. Dr. Peters has himself done all of the observing as well as the draughting, and the charts are published at his own expense, for gratuitous distribution. The construction of these charts has occupied his time and attention for the past twenty years. In his laborious observations, he not only carefully marked the place of every one of the 60,000 stars or more already mapped, but, after receiving the proof, he again compared the positions with the actual condition of the heavens, so as to insure the utmost possible accuracy. It has been while engaged in this work that Dr. Peters has picked up so great a number of small planets; these interesting discoveries being merely incidents connected with his systematic observations for another and, perhaps, more important purpose.

Recent Papers on Astronomy.-The following astronomical papers were read at the Minneapolis meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, August, 1883:

1. The Total Solar Eclipse of May 6, 1883; by Prof. E. S. Holden.

2. Internal Contacts in Transits of Inferior Planets; by Prof. J. R. Eastman.

3. Physical Phenomena on the Planet Jupiter; by Prof. G. W. Hough.

4. Observations of the Total Solar Eclipse of May 6, 1883; by Dr. J. Janssen.

5. Orbit of the Great Comet of 1882; by Prof. Edgar Frisby.

6. Some Observations on Uranus; by Prof. C. A. Young. 7. Observations on the Transit of Venus made at Columbia College, New York city; by Mr. J. K.

Rees.

Astronomical Prizes.-At the annual meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society, Feb. 9, 1883, the society's gold medal was awarded to Dr. B. A. Gould, Director of the Observatory at Córdoba, South America. "The work for

which the medal was chiefly awarded may be considered as an extension of Argelander's scale of magnitudes to all the stars which can be seen by a good eye, without instrumental aid, between 10° north declination and the south pole, together with a series of charts exhibiting, on a stereographic projection, the positions of all these stars to the sixth magnitude, and a proposed revision of the boundaries of the southern constellations."

On presenting the medal, the president of the society, E. J. Stone, F. R. S., delivered an address in which the labors of Dr. Gould were briefly reviewed, and concluding as follows: "The Uranometria Argentina' is a work of very considerable extent; it has been planned with great care, and executed with the most scrupulous attention to details. It will remain an enduring record of the relative brightness of the southern stars for its epoch; and will be accepted for many years as the chief authority upon questions of their magnitude."

The "Comptes Rendus," vol. xcvi, No. 14, announced that the French Academy of Sciences had awarded the Lalande prize to M. Souillart, Professor in the Faculty of Sciences in Lille, for his investigations into the theory of Jupiter's satellites. A prize of 2,000 francs was given to Dr. W. Schur for his determination of the mass of Jupiter, and of the eccentricities of the orbits of the first and second satellites. The first Valz prize was awarded to Dr. Huggins, of England, chiefly for his spectroscopic determination of the motions of stars in the line of sight. The second Valz prize was given to M. Cruls, director of the observatory at Rio Janeiro.

Lick Observatory.-The dome for the 12-inch equatorial telescope of the Lick Observatory, as well as buildings for the transit and the photo-heliograph, was finished some months since. The instruments have been mounted, and are said to be in excellent working order. The walls of the main building are approaching completion, and arrangements are in progress for the reception of the great 36-inch equatorial. The house for the meridian circle has been begun, and a residence for the director and his assistants will be provided as soon as practicable.

Potsdam Observatory.-Prof. H. C. Vogel, Director of the Astrophysical Observatory of Potsdam, has undertaken the preparation of a complete spectroscopic star-catalogue. The examination of the zone extending from 1° south declination to 20° north has been completed, and the second zone, from 20° to 40° north declination, will soon follow. "To prepare such a catalogue," says Vogel, "is a duty which the present generation owes to posterity. The changes taking place in the stars are of special interest to us, and are of importance to science; and although it may be conjectured that changes in the spectra will show themselves soonest in those stars which have proceeded further in their development, that is,

in the red stars, yet this can not be positively affirmed a priori. Equally with those wonderful spectra of the red stars, which so enchant the eye of the observer, will changes take place in the course of time in the simple spectra of the white and yellow stars, so that investigations of as large a number of starspectra as possible, without limiting them to particular classes of stars, are absolutely necessary for future researches."

The

The Annual Report of the Council of the Royal Astronomical Society of London, read February 9, 1883, contains an account of the proceedings of the British observatories, public and private, for the past year. Most of the results, however, have been already given. At the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, arrangements have been made with the committee on solar physics by which the gaps in the Greenwich series of sun-pictures may be filled up by photographs taken in India, thus rendering the series almost perfectly continuous. Oxford University Observatory has been chiefly directed to the photometry of the brighter stars of the northern hemisphere. At Mr. Huggins's observatory, Upper Tulse Hill, the director has obtained photographs of the sun's corona without an eclipse. "In the longer exposed plates," Dr. Huggins remarks, "the outer corona with its rays of varying length and peculiar rifts is seen; in the plates with a shorter exposure the inner corona, which is more nearly uniform in height, may be seen under suitable illumination. The average heights of the outer and inner coronæ agree closely with the coronæ as seen on the plates taken in Egypt," during the total eclipse of May 16, 1882.

AURORA BOREALIS. The phenomena of the aurora borealis have recently been made the object of several special studies. They have long been regarded as of electrical origin, but nothing was known of the source of the electric currents that produced them, or of the manner of action under which the different kinds of auroral phenomena were manifested. M. de la Rive, a physicist of Geneva, set forth the hypothesis, about 1850, that the earth is charged with positive, and the upper strata of the atmosphere with negative electricity, and that two currents, very strong in the tropical regions, are constantly proceeding toward the polar regions, where they meet through the medium of an air containing infinitesimal vesicles of water and crystals of snow and ice, and consequently having higher conducting powers. He constructed an apparatus by the aid of which, establishing conditions similar to those he regarded as fundamental to his theory, he produced, on a minute scale, luminous phenomena comparable in appearance to those of the aurora.

Mr. Nordenskjöld, the Swedish explorer, when wintering near Bering Strait, in 1878, observed on perfectly favorable nights a faint luminous are having its culminating point in

with a long base north and south, are always erroneous, as the two observers never see the same aurora." Occasionally the characteristic auroral line was revealed in the spectroscope when no aurora was visible to the eye; and the phosphorescent "shine," or diffused luminosity, was observed so regularly as to induce the conclusion that that manifestation is a nearly constant accompaniment of the winter nights of Northern Lapland, and is of auroral origin. From his observations as a whole, Prof. Lenström has drawn the conclusion that "the experiments at Luosmavaara in 1871 and at Oratunturi and Pietarintunturi in 1882 clearly and undeniably prove that the aurora borealis is an electric phenomenon,"; and also prove "that aurora borealis may be produced in nature by a simple contrivance assisting the electric current flowing from the atmosphere to the earth."

Dr. Tromholt's Observations in Finnmarken.-Dr. Sophus Tromholt, of Norway, spent the winter of 1882-'83 at Kautokeino, in North Finnmarken (latitude 69° north, longitude 23° east), making observations in connection with the Norwegian station at Bossekop, about one degree north, and the much more distant Finnish station at Sodankylä, southeast of his post, for the purpose of obtaining the parallax of the aurora. The station is peculiarly favorable, for it is in a zone where the auroral displays attain their maxima, and are nearly constant. He made several attempts to photograph the phenomena, but without success, even the most sensitive English dry plates failing to give a trace of a negative. This he believes to be because of the exceedingly limited substance of light possessed by the glow; a flood of which, illuminating the whole heavens, would not altogether possess a lighting power equal to that of the moon when full. He has confidence in the practicability of his plan for measuring the height of the arc, and estimates it at 150 kilometres; and he believes that its plane is to be found far above that of the clouds. Prof. Lenström, while he admits that the height is variable, is of the opinion that it has been greatly overestimated." Dr. Tromholt expected to spend the winter of 1883-'84 in Northern Iceland, experimenting with Prof. Lenström's "utströmnings" apparatus.

AUSTRALIA AND POLYNESIA. Consolidation.— The movement for the consolidation of the Australasian colonies into a federal union, on the lines of the confederation of British North America, is gaining ground in Australia, and receives the strongest encouragement from the present Government of Great Britain. The tendency toward union became apparent in 1883 in different acts of co operation and manifestations of a sense of common interests. A second conference to discuss the question to what extent confederation is practicable at the present time met at Sydney in November. The legislatures of the different colonies were represented by delegates selected from their

number. The conference was appointed at the suggestion of the Victorian Parliament and Government. It arrived at no practical conclusions on the main question. The question of the annexation of the Melanesian Islands gives a new import to the movement. All the colonies of Australia, through resolutions of their legislatures during the year, called upon the Imperial Government to occupy those islands to prevent their falling into the hands of other powers. The British Government holds out the hope that their wishes will be gratified as soon as they shall combine in a strong political union, and show that they can, at some future time, take into their care and governance the new possessions, and meanwhile bear their share of the cost of the occupation, administration, and defense of these vast regions.

Postal Union.—A conference of delegates from all the colonies, except New Zealand, which refused to join, was held at Sydney, for the purpose of considering the question of adopting the arrangements of the Universal Postal Union. The meeting was called at the instance of Mr. Fawcett, the English PostmasterGeneral, who wished to have the votes of Australian delegates at the Lisbon conference in 1884, in order to help the interests of the British steamship lines. The Postal Union expects to reduce the maximum rate of ocean postage to ten cents a letter. The Sydney meeting took action in conformity with Mr. Fawcett's views, and appointed commissioners to attend the congress. The effect of the proposed arrangements will be to give the bulk of the business of carrying Australian mails to the Peninsular and Oriental Steamship Company, diverting that portion which is carried across the United States, and entailing losses on the colonies which have mail contracts with the Pacific Mail and other steamship companies. Such losses the colonies agreed to share with one another.

Defenses. The various colonies are proceeding with the organization of a militia, and have already spent large sums in a system of coast defense fulfilling the latest requirements of naval science. The approaches to the principal ports are guarded by batteries mounted with modern artillery and by sunken torpedoes. A considerable fleet of powerful gunboats and torpedo-boats of improved construction is building for the colonial governments in England. Victoria ordered two gunboats, one of 530 tons' displacement and a speed of 12 knots, to carry a 25-ton gun, two smaller guns in the stern, and improved Gatling guns; the other, with a displacement of 350 tons and a speed of 10 knots, to be similarly armed, with a lighter gun in the bow. South Australia is having built a vessel which is rather a cruiser than a gunboat, with a displacement of 900 tons and a speed of 14 knots, to be armed with an 8-inch gun in the bow, four 6-inch broadside guns, another in the stern, and five

machine-guns. Queensland ordered two gunboats identical with the smaller Victorian vessel. Victoria will have three torpedo-boats, New Zealand four, Queensland two, and Tasmania one. One of the Victorian boats is the largest yet constructed, except one built for the Russian Government, being 113 feet long, with a displacement of 58 tons. It was launched in 1883, and is armed with four large Whitehead torpedoes and two Hodgkiss machine-guns. The smaller boats will be armed with McEvoy spar torpedoes, or Whitehead projectile torpedoes.

Annexation Schemes.-The impulse to colonial extension observed in European Continental nations, the result chiefly of their protectionist policy, and excessive expansion of industrial activity, diverted the movement for Australian confederation from its original purpose in 1833. The prospect of a further "division of the world" became more imminent after the British occupation of Egypt. France began the movement by casting about among the unclaimed regions of the earth for compensation. The Australian colonists, who at this time started embryonic military and naval establishments, and began to form a conception of the power of union, determined to take a stand against the establishment of any foreign colonies in Australasia, and to claim for Australia pre-emptive rights to all the islands of the Pacific. In the absence of a federal union, the colonies began individually to agitate for the annexation of the more important islands. European nations have for years debated over the question of establishing colonial plantations in Australasia. The party in Germany in favor of colonizing has directed attention by turns to every unoccupied group in Australasia, and nearly every other uncivilized region in the world. German commerce has been extending in the neutral markets, and the Government has given some tentative aid and protection in Polynesia; but the German Government is more cautious in this respect than any other, and has resisted every temptation to establish a dominion over uncivilized races. Italy has discussed various fields for colonizing, and claims a sort of priority in New Guinea, by virtue of the explorations of Beccari and D'Albertis. France, as the only active colonizing power, was the most dreaded by the Australians, and is the most firmly seated in Australasia, possessing New Caledonia, and having interests in the New Hebrides. In 1878 France and Great Britain entered into reciprocal engagements not to annex the New Hebrides. Since then a private company, composed of colonists of New Caledonia, has obtained trading concessions on those islands, and acquired some of the smaller ones by purchase. The colonists of New South Wales urged the home Government to acquire possession of the Solomon Islands and the New Hebrides, in order to prevent them from becoming French penal colonies. In New Zealand the old agitation for the annexation of

the Friendly and Navigator groups was renewed. But the oligarchy of Queensland, who, enriched by colored labor, consider it their vocation to rule over native races, showed the most impatient and aggressive spirit. They conceived the ambitious design of annexing to their little colony the great island of Papua, with its vast population and inexhaustible natural wealth. To establish a dominion over Papua, and derive any material benefit from the possession, would not only necessitate cruel oppression, which the mother-country would not permit, but would cost a long struggle, which would require considerable military resources. The Papuans are a brave and vigorous race, who live in large villages, cultivate the soil, and hold the land by fixed proprietary titles.

In May the British Foreign Office received a dispatch from the Governor of Queensland, saying that the Queensland Government, in order to prevent other powers from occupying Papua, had taken formal possession of that island in the name of the Queen. The home authorities, who had had knowledge of this purpose since February, would not allow their hand to be forced by the Queenslanders. They repudiated the proceeding of the Governor, which could only be consummated by the power of Great Britain. Yet Lord Derby asserted the pre-emptive claim of England to Papua, by declaring that they should "not view it as a friendly act if any other country attempted to make a settlement on that coast." They obtained assurances that the French Government had no designs on the island. The British Government would go no further than to extend its jurisdiction over the southern coast of New Guinea, between which and Australia a considerable trade had sprung up, by giving the High Commissioner of Feejee power to enforce discipline over British subjects.

The western half of Papua was claimed by Holland, by virtue of a cession from the Sultan of Tidore, in the Moluccas, a title like that of Portugal to the Congo Basin, which Great Britain might acknowledge, if expedient, and yet at any future time set aside. On the eastern end Lieut. Yule had raised the British flag in 1848, as did Capt. Moresby on the islands off the east coast in 1873.

The annexation of Papua by Great Britain had been mooted about five years before, when gold was discovered at Port Moresby on the south coast. There was a rush of gold-diggers to the spot, but the new field was not as productive as was supposed, and the hostility of the natives made it dangerous for the miners to remain and explore further. The Torres Strait, which separates Papua from the northern point of Queensland, is only 80 miles wide; but Brisbane, the capital of the colony, is 1,000 miles from the coast of Papua. The island, which Sir Thomas Mcllwraith, the head of the Queensland Government, and Sir Arthur Kennedy, the Governor, attempted to add to the