Page:History of the Royal Astronomical Society (1923).djvu/227

 1870-80] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 199 the lunar theory, one being Professor Newcomb's investigation of the motion of the moon by examination of observations of early eclipses and occultations ; others were by Dr. G. W. Hill and Professor Adams on the motion of the moon's perigee and the motion of the node respectively, and the fourth the numerical lunar theory on which Sir George Airy had been engaged for several years, and on the progress of which he occasionally made reports. Mr. Neison communicated four papers in the session 1877-78, one on " Hansen's Terms of Long Period " being specially instructive. Meteoric Astronomy is represented in the Annual Reports of 1876 and 1877 by long notices prepared by Professor Alexander Herschel, who also published in the Monthly Notices for 1878 May a long list of known accordances between cometary and observed meteor showers. It is made evident in several ways that the study of meteors was making progress. Mr. Denning, who was elected a Fellow of the Society in 1877 June had published several extensive lists of radiant points from observations by himself and others, and in 1878 January he contributed one which contained his first suggestion of Stationary Radiant Points. The satellites of Mars were naturally mentioned in the 1878 Report, and the Council were fortunate in receiving a graphic account from Professor Asaph Hall of the circumstances attending the discovery, which, as he explained, was the result of an organised search. The nova in Cygnus discovered by Schmidt at Athens on 1876 Novem- ber 24, received little attention in its early stages from English astronomers, as immediate announcement of the discovery was not made. The Society took no concerted action and there was no grant from Government funds or those of other Societies for observing the total solar eclipse of 1878 July 29, when the track of totality passed across the western states of America, though several Fellows of the Society made the expedition at their own expense. Professor Thorpe and Dr. Schuster were the guests of Professor Asaph Hall. Mr. Lockyer took up his position with Professor Watson at a place known as Separation, on the Union Pacific Railway. The eclipse was well observed in several respects, a sensational item being the reported discovery by Professor Watson and Mr. Lewis Swift, independently, of an object of magni- tude 4 J, near the sun, which was neither a known star nor a planet, and was supposed to be the long-sought -for intra-Mercurial planet, Vulcan.* This, however, has not proved to be the case. The appearance of the corona was of the kind now known as the minimum type, and this distinction between types appears to have arisen on this occasion, for Professor Young remarked, " The
 * See Observatory, 2, 161, 193,235.