Note 33 — CONTENTS. (continued 4)

Still a circumstance must be mentioned which tends to show that the star may have been visible a few hours earlier than Dr. Schmidt supposed. Mr. M. Walter, surgeon of the 4th regiment, then stationed in North India, wrote (oddly enough, on May 12, 1867, the first anniversary of Mr. Birmingham's discovery) as follows to Mr. Stone:—'I am certain that this same conflagration was distinctly perceptible here at least six hours earlier. My knowledge of the fact came about in this wise. The night of the 12th of May last year was exceedingly sultry, and about eight o'clock on that evening I got up from the tea-table and rushed into my garden to seek a cooler atmosphere. As my door opens towards the east, the first object that met my view was the Northern Crown. My attention was at once arrested by the sight of a strange star outside the crown' (that is, outside the circlet of stars forming the diadem, not outside the constellation itself). The new star 'was then certainly quite as bright—I rather thought more so—as its neighbour Alphecca,' the chief gem of the crown. 'I was so much struck with its appearance, that I exclaimed to those indoors, "Why, here is a new comet!'" He made a diagram of the constellation, showing the place of the new star correctly. Unfortunately, Mr. Walter does not state why he is so confident, a year after the event, that it was on the 12th of May, and not on the 13th, that he noticed the new star. If he fixed the date only by the star's appearance as a second-magnitude star, his letter proves nothing; for we know that on the 13th it was still shining as brightly as Alphecca, though on the 14th it was perceptibly fainter.