The year has had two startling poetic sensations: the discovery of a fragment of Sappho, and of Alcæus, already noticed, and of two hitherto unpublished Sonnets of Keats. Deeply interesting, yet weakly characteristic of him as these are, it cannot be said that their publication adds any further lustre to a reputation which in the great genius of sonnet-writing can scarcely be enhanced.
Looking back on the year that has passed we are particularly grateful for two literary gifts we have received: the Address of Mr. Balfour to the British Association on May 8 last, and Mr. Frazer's completed edition of his great life-work, The Golden Bough (Macmillan).
With the output of the year's Fiction it is absolutely impossible to cope in this brief article. One of the fascinating literary articles of the year has been Mr. Henry James' critique upon The Younger Generation, issued in The Times' Literary Supplement for March and April.
Alice Law.
SCIENCE OF THE YEAR.
Astronomy.
A total eclipse of the sun took place on August 21, but owing to the war the observations were much interfered with, the expeditions to Riga and Kieff having to be abandoned. The Greenwich party obtained good results at Minsk, as also the Royal Astronomical Society's party at Hormosand (Sweden). The prominences were numerous and active, and took fantastic forms; the corona was of a slightly modified minimum type, and the solar plexus was very pronounced. In London, 65 per cent. of the surface was obscured, as against 92 per cent. in 1912. The eclipse was one of a long series which began in 1211, and will end in 1986. There will be no total eclipse during the present year, the next two dates being February, 1916, and June, 1918.
The dearth of sunspots, which had not been so marked for over a century, came to an end late in March, when a spot about 25,000 miles in diameter appeared on the N.E. limb, and became doubled shortly afterwards. From August 13 to August 25 a spot was visible to the naked eye.
Dr. St. John, using the 60 feet spectrograph on Mount Wilson, finds that vapours rush outwards radially from the interior of a spot, while the motion of chromospheric matter is inwards.