Page:Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Vol 69.djvu/145

Rh images of neighbouring stars of equal magnitude. This peculiarity of the Nova's disc was first remarked by Flammarion and Antoniadi, and later by Max Wolf, Kostinsky, and von Gothard. It owes its origin probably to the exceptionally strong ultra-violet rays emitted by the Nova, which are not brought to the focus for which the objective is corrected.

The recent photographs have been taken by Mr. Butler and Mr. Kolston. The visual observations have chiefly been made by Messrs. Fowler and Butler. Mr. Baxandall has undertaken the reduction to wave-lengths and the discussion of the lines in the photo- graphic spectrum, while Dr. Lockyer and Mr. Baxandali have assisted in the preparation of the present paper.

This investigation was undertaken in the spring of the present year, as'a sequel to analogous work in Egypt and Greece, with a view to deter- mine whether the orientation theory could throw any light upon the date of the foundation of Stonehenge, concerning which authorities vary in their estimate by some thousands of years. We beg to lay before the Royal Society the results derived from a careful study of its orientation for the purpose of arriving at the probable date of its foundation astronomically. This is not, indeed, the first attempt to obtain the date of Stonehenge by means of astronomical considerations. In Mr. Godfrey Higgins' work he refers to a method of attack connected with precession. This furnished him with the date 4000 B.C.

More recently, Dr. W. M. Flinders Petrie, whose accurate plan is a valuable contribution to the study of Stonehenge, was led by his measures of the orientation to a date very greatly in the opposite direction, but, owing to an error in his application of the change of obliquity, clearly a mistaken one.

As the whole of the argument which follows rests upon the assumption of Stonehenge having been a solar temple, a short discussion of the grounds of this view may not be out of place ; and, again, as the approximate date which we have arrived at is an early one, a few words may be added indicating the presence in Britain at that time of a race of men capable of designing and executing such work.