Abstract
THIS work professes to combine a full account of the most recent physical discoveries in astronomy, with an exact statement of all those points which are commonly met with in handbooks of the science. The present volume, as will be gathered from the title, deals only with the solar system. Certainly it cannot be said to bear out in full the promise of the author. We are particularly struck by the almost entire absence of reference to the labours of English spectroscopists within the bounds of the solar system. Mr. Huggins's researches on cometic spectra are briefly referred to; but his observations on the spectra of the planets are passed over in silence, while place is given to the comparatively less valuable researches of the Padre Secchi on the same subject. We should be far from desiring to undervalue the researches of the eminent Italian astronomer; but no one who is acquainted with the circumstances under which Mr. Huggins and Father Secchi have respectively observed the planetary spectra, could think (we imagine) of comparing the Italian with the English series of observations. A similar remark applies to the solar researches of Father Secchi, which have not been made with sufficient dispersive power to be fairly comparable with the researches of Mr. Lockyer. Yet the labours of the last-named observer are passed over unnoticed, hot only in the body of the work, but in an appendix, wherein the author treats specially of recent solar observations. In a note, a brief and inexact account is given of Mr. Lockyer's discovery that the bright lines of the prominence spectra can be seen when the sun is not eclipsed. After this, it is surprising to find that a full account is given of Professor Tyndall's ingenious theory of comets.
Handbuch der Allgemeinen Himmelsbeschreizbung.
Von Hermann J. Klein. Das Sonnensystem. (Braunschweig, 1869.)
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PROCTOR, R. Handbuch der Allgemeinen Himmelsbeschreizbung . Nature 1, 577 (1870). https://doi.org/10.1038/001577a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/001577a0