In the November and December
numbers, a popular account of Donati's Comet was given by Geo. P. Bond,
then assistant, now chief director of the Observatory at Cambridge. This
paper has been issued separately, very finely illustrated by twenty-one
cuts, and by two beautiful engravings. No papers, readily accessible to
the public, contain, in a form so entirely devoid of technicalities, and
so clearly illustrated to the eye, so much information relative to the
nature of cornels in general, and in particular to the phenomena of this
most beautiful comet of the present century.
The purely mathematical articles are all original, many are of great
value, and some are, to those who understand their secret meaning,
peculiarly interesting. A note of Peirce's, for example, in the number
for February, proposes two new symbols, one for the mystic ratio of
the circumference to the diameter, a second for the base of Napier's
logarithms,--and then, by joining them in an equation with the imaginary
symbol, expresses in a single sentence the mutual relation of the three
great talismans in the magic of modern science. Another article, in the
April number, by Chauncey Wright, contains a new view of the law of
Phyllotaxis, approaching it from an _a priori_ stand-point, and showing
that the natural arrangement of leaves about the stems of plants is
precisely that which will keep the leaves most perfectly distributed for
the reception of light and air.
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