New-York tribune., 1879-12-21

cruel experience In the African climate. They
have been recovering from fever at lnpwapwa.
and the chiefs OF the two expeditions are IN
communication. Good accounts are given OF
the Indian elephants used in the second ex.
pediti0n. They have perfectly resisted all
fatigues and privations, continuing sometimes
forty-two hours without water, and thirty y-one
hours without eating, and marching twenty
seven and q half hours loaded with more than
800 Kilograms each.
A NEW GASEOUS NEBULA.-The Rev. T. w.
Webb, a well-known English astronomer an
nounced on November 20 the discovery of a
new gaseous nebula. "On the night of Novem-
stellation Cygnus with low power on my
9.3S IN. silvered speculum by With, l per-
ceived an object resembling, but not quite
identical with, n bluish 8 magnitude star. The
use OF higher magnlfiers at once detected the
existence of an ill-defned bright disc, sub
tending about A.. and surrounded perhaps
with a slight amount of glow. Ii has since
been identified at other observatOries as No.
4,004 in Argelander, i Al. the place for 1850
being r: A.. 21h. Pm. 31s.; d. u Al
45.3. Through the kindness of DIR. Copeland,
by whom it has been carefully examined un-
der the greatest instrumental advantages at
Lord Lindsay's observatory at Dunecht
North Britain, / am enabled to add the follow
ing interesting particulars. 1t Is not circular,
and has a sharp nucleus near the north
preceding edge, with faint effusion OF light
In the opposite direction. Three very meas
urabe bright lines were found in a powerful
spectroscOpe, of which the positions, as given
by the two sets of measures, were respec-
lively 500.1, 1851, 4S7.O, and 500.1, 495.6,
1850. When these values are compared with
those deduced by D'Arrest from the results
of several observers of known objects of this
nature-50O.4. 1851, 4S6.1-there can be no
remaining doubt that the object In question
is of the very interesting and mysterious class
termed planetary, or. more correctly. gaseous
nebue. DIR. Copeland assigns 8, . and l as
the approximate intenslties OF these lines,
reckoning from the least refrangible direction
Ii can occasion no surprise that Its true char
acter should have escaped the piercing and
practised gaze of Argelander, as il would re-
quire a much larger instrument than that
which he employed to give any lntImatlon OF
its nature.
THE TRAPEZIUM OF ORION.-0ne of the most
wonderful of celestial objects, even in a small
telescope Is the great nebula of Orion, which
may be detected by the naked eye as haze
or mist surrounding the middle star (thetal IN
the sword of Orion. In telescopes OF mOdcr-
ate power this middle star is seen to be COM
posed of four comparatively bright stars,
which are so placed as TO form an irregular
figure known as the " trapezium OF Orion"
On November IL, 1926 tine Elder Struve dis
covered with the Derpat refrectOr a fifth star
III the trapeZlum and on February 13, 1880,
Sir John Herschel discovered sixth, while
Bond detected seventh soon after the great
Merz refractOr of 15 inches diameter was set
up at Harvard. This star was discovered
in the direction of the sixth, and its estimated
magnitude was set down rs 1873 on Arge-
lander's scale. Other observers with instru-
ments equally large as that at Harvard
have failed to detect it. In Professor New
combs " Popular Astronomy" a drawing of
the nebull as seen IN the great Washington
refractOr is given, IN which nine stars are
shown connected with the trapezlum, but as
Professor NewcOmD still speaks in the text of
the stars as forming a sextange group, the
extra stars are probably due to errors by the
engraver or printer. The last number of Nd-
tire, however calls attention to the fact that
the seventh star discovered by Bond has been
caught by the great reflector lately mounted
at Ealing for Mr.. Common, the largest silver
on glass reflector In the world, and the same
instrument which first detected the satellites
of Mars at the opposition this year.