Mr. Stone said that however much he was in favour of the first resolution, he was equally opposed to the present one. It was extremely undesirable that there should be appeals from the Council to the general meetings. If they had no confidence in the Council, if they were not represented by proper men, let them elect proper men to the Council. There might be disagreements on the Council, and a member would appeal to the general. meeting. He did not think anything more deplorable could be conceived than a meeting of this Society being called where no heed whatever was taken of the arguments on the two sides, but the question simply depending upon which member had the largest number of proxies.

Sir Edmund Beckett said he was sorry to say Mr. Stone had not convinced him. Before he spoke he had felt doubtful whether to vote for or against the resolution, but his arguments had convinced him the other way. He did not see why men who were absent had not as good a right to express their opinions on matters of policy as those present, and on the same principle that he voted for the former resolution he should vote for this, after Mr. Stone's speech.

Captain Noble, as a country member, said he should only be too glad to be able to express his opinion without having to come up to London to do it.

Admiral Ommanney asked how many members must be present to constitute a general meeting.

The President replied 30.

Mr. Knobel said the bye-laws did not state the number of members necessary to be at the annual meeting, but it was necessary to have 12 at ordinary meetings.

Dr. Schuster said he felt very strongly on this matter. The only argument brought forward in favour of the resolution was that men were not influenced by discussions. If once that principle was admitted, he thought they should go one step further, and say they would take the voting first and the discussion afterwards.

Mr. Ranyard said if a member chose to vote without attending to what might be said on either side, he certainly had the right to do so. If it was proposed to disfranchise members who had not heard the discussion, they ought to be logical and take away the right of voting from deaf members who attended the meetings, as well as from those who would not listen. The second resolution only proposed that absent Fellows should be allowed to vote on all subjects besides the election of the Council. There were many subjects besides the personal merits of candidates for the Council which could never be properly discussed at the

meetings. The subject of endowment of research could never be discussed, that is to say, nothing against it was ever allowed to be said, for one member after another immediately rose on points of order, though the meeting would listen patiently to pleas for large telescopes, or any other excuse for getting money out of the government. Such matters could never properly be discussed before the Society, and it would be better that the vote should be taken silently.

The resolution was then put to the meeting and lost, 35 voting for and 38 against it.

The President: I have to report officially, that in reply to the post cards sent out by order of a resolution passed at the Annual General Meeting, requesting Fellows to say whether they desired a change in the hour of meeting or not, the following is the result: Those in favour of the meeting continuing at 8 o'clock, 106; at 5 o'clock, 125; neutral 150; and other hours, 17; so that it will be seen there is no decided preference, if we take into account the number of neutrals.

Mr. Chambers moved "that in accordance with those figures it is expedient that the hour of the meeting should be 5 o'clock." He complained that Fellows had been asked whether they were "neutral" on the post card, instead of, simply, whether they preferred 8 o'clock or 5 o'clock.

Mr. Ranyard said he thought it was understood at the general meeting, that unless there was a very decided majority in favour of a change, that nothing should be done. There did not seem to be a decided majority.

Mr. Knobel said that if the meeting was to be held at 5 o'clock the Council would have to hurry over a great deal of important business.

Lord Crawford said that had the question been definitely put for 5 o'clock or 8 o'clock, he should have been for 8 o'clock, but it occurred to him that 7 o'clock would have been more convenient, as a great deal of important business was now not done for want of time, and he therefore voted for 7 o'clock.

The resolution proposing that the ordinary meeting be held at 5 o'clock, was then put and lost.

The following papers were taken as read :—

Rev. S. J. Johnson: Observing weather.

G. L. Tupman: Observations of comet, 1884, III. (Wolf) at

Harrow.

N. E. Green: Observations of Saturn.

E. J. Spitta: A note of an observation during the transit of Jupiter's satellite 1V., April 18.

W. G. Thackeray: On the diameters of the Sun and Moon as observed with the Greenwich transit circle.

D. Gill: Reply to Mr. Stone's paper on screw errors, as effecting the N. P. D., of the Cape Catalogue for 1880.

THE LIVERPOOL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY.

The fourth session was closed on Monday evening by a meeting at the Association Hall, the Rev. T. E. Espin, B.A. (President), occupying the chair. In a paper On the possible origin of comets, Mr. J. R. Sutton said the recent return of Encke's and Tempel's comets to our evening skies afforded an opportunity of considering what might have been their origin. The periodic time of Encke's comet had been observed to decrease by an average of about two hours in each revolution, and there could be no doubt that this would eventually land it on the sun's surface. The most natural explanation of this peculiarity was that some retarding influence gave the sun's attraction greater power than would otherwise be the case. The theory that comets had been erupted from the interior of planets was very ably argued by Mr. Proctor, but the only factors that could support such an hypothesis seemed to be that the aphelia of periodical comets crowd upon the orbit of Jupiter, and that the ascending_node of Tempel's comet was very near to the orbit of Uranus. But the connection which we now know to exist in so many instances between comets and meteor-systems was fatal to Mr. Proctor's view, because, if Tempel's comet were erupted from Uranus, so also must have been the meteor-system to which it belonged. But he contended that no planet could by eruption generate a quantity of matter which would revolve in a continuous ring around the sun. In fact, he would point out that the enormous length of these meteor-systems which form rings, unbroken perhaps throughout their entire extent, quite precluded the idea that they could have originated anywhere within the bounds of the solar system. Whether they came to us from the stars might reasonably form a matter for dispute, though spectroscopic analysis certainly seemed to point to their formation by stellar processes. But certain it was that a sufficient retardation had been proved to render either the planetary capture or eruptive theories unnecessary for the argument.

Mr. W. F. Denning, F.R.A.S., would remind Mr. Sutton that the number of certainly known cases of identity between cometary

and meteoric orbits was remarkably small, amounting, in fact, to only four instances. The connection between comets and meteors was proved rather by the precise agreement of their orbital character than by the mere number of such agreements. He thought, also, it was quite possible that comets might have a derivative source in planetary eruptions. A planet might, for example, have evolved a certain quantity of matter in the form of an immense cloud of meteoric pellets, or, say a volcanic outburst similar to the great Java eruption of August, 1883, and this cloud would, if ejected with sufficient force to leave its parent planet, certainly tend towards the sun, and in process of time assume the form of a meteor-ring. The foremost particles of the original mass would primarily gain ground on the central portion, and this would cause an extension of the stream. Then, as the mass passed perihelion, there would naturally be a slight difference in perihelion distance, and this meant a difference in periodic time. The mass would thus be resolved into a train of particles, and ultimately into one complete ring. granting that comets and meteors had been erupted from planets, their subsequent resolution into rings could only be a question of time.

Therefore,

Mr. Joseph Baxendell, F.R.S., &c., said Captain W. Noble had lately drawn the attention of the Royal Astronomical Society to an apparent discrepancy between the proportions of Saturn and his rings as seen in a telescope, and those derived from data given in the Nautical Almanac. Since the publication of Captain Noble's communication, it had struck him that a phenomenon he had witnessed in October, 1882, strongly supported the position Captain Noble had taken. At the date mentioned, the outer minor axis of the outer ring had, according to the Nautical Almanac elements, become relatively less than the polar diameter of the ball, but he had observed the S. Polar limb of the planet to extend sensibly beyond the southern edge of the outer ring, though no trace of the N. polar limb could be perceived on the northern edge of the ring. This appearance became well marked on the 28th October, when it was readily seen with a power of 180. As the elevation of the sun above the plane of the ring was at this time about 11 minutes less than that of the earth, the invisibility of the northern limb of the planet could not have arisen from the shadow of the ring being thrown upon it. Assuming the elements in the Nautical Almanac to be correct, the only explanation appeared to be that the centre of the ball was not coincident with the centre of the ring-system, but was at a sensible distance on the S. side, and therefore was not the centre of gravity of the planet.

Mr. R. C. Johnson read a paper by Mr. Geo. Knott, LL.B., &c., On the variable star U Geminorum. It was seldom the case that circumstances favoured the obtaining a complete observation of a maximum of Mr. Hind's remarkable variable star. In addition to cloudy skies, a further disturbing cause was to be found in the moon, whose path was comparatively near the star's place, and whose presence sometimes seriously interfered with, if it did not entirely prevent, all effective observations. The brightness of the star had been observed to vary from 14.5 m. on the 1st of April, 1885, to 9.5 m. on the 6th, when it slightly decreased in brightness. It reached its principal maximum of 9.2 m. on the 8th. It would, therefore, appear that on this occasion the maximum was a double one, with a subsidiary minimum intervening, a phenomenon which had already been observed in the maxima of this star. Professor Schönfeld had pointed out in his Zweiter Catalog, that not only were the intervals between successive maxima of this star subject to great irregularity, but that the duration of the maximum phase (or length of time taken in rising to maximum and falling to minimum again) had a varying range of from 10 to 20 days. It would seem, indeed, that the maximum might be broadly divided into two types, one well marked with a duration time of 10 days, the other (not, perhaps, presenting quite such distinct characteristics, but still well marked) with a range of from 15 to 20 days. The longer maximum was sometimes marked by a slight subsidiary minimum. Whether the maximum was of longer or shorter duration the rise appeared to be rapid. He had not found any regularity of sequence as to long or short maxima, nor did there appear to be any decided relation between successive maxima and the lengths of the duration. Neither, on the other hand, did it appear that the point of magnitude touched was in either case higher or lower than in the other. But at the same time it must be admitted that the observations were hardly sufficiently complete to enable one to speak decidedly on points of this nicety.

The President read a paper on the probable period of the variable star LL 14551. This star had been observed to be variable by him in 1883, so photometric observations of it were published in the Monthly Notices of the R. A. S., Vol. XLIII. P. 432. During 1884 it had been observed with a photometer of his own contrivance, but only very casually, as the star was badly situated in our English sky. Mr. W. E. Jackson, of Constantinople, had, however, kindly taken up the observations, and, as an example of the magnificent opportunities enjoyed by astronomers in that part of the world, no less than 16 complete observations were obtained last month, 8 of them being on consecutive nights.