XXXIV INTRODUCTION. 



UNITED STATES NAVAL ACADEMY, 

 Annapolis, Maryland, June 21, 1855. 



MY DEAR SIR: What I Lave already seen of your remarks on the Zodiacal Light, makes me 

 extremely desirous of seeing the whole. I hope all your observations will be published, with 

 the utmost detail. We have heretofore had but few accurate observations on this Light. 

 Vague and general descriptions, by different observers, at distant periods of time, without the 

 aid of diagrams, except in very few instances, are all that we possess. The exact outline pre- 

 sented by the Light, from day to day, and its position in the heavens, as determined by the 

 stars near which the outline passes, are obviously indispensable in prosecuting research on it. 

 Your drawings (if published just as you made them on the spot, with the phenomena before 

 you), will supply these desiderata, and astronomers will be put in a position to judge, as they 

 might have done, had they enjoyed the same rare opportunities which you not only enjoyed, bat 

 so industriously improved. Not a single observation should be omitted, nor should any mere 

 abstract be made in lieu of a complete publication. We want the facts just as they are, and as 

 they will be shown by your faithful charts. 



Whatever theories may be held with respect to this Light, the publication of your series oi 

 observations will be a most important contribution to science, if it will not, in fact, furnish the 

 means of deciding one of the questions of astronomy heretofore most obscure. 



Very respectfully, yours, 



WILLIAM CHAUVENET, 



[Prof, of Astronomy, &c., in the U. S. Naval Academy.] 



Rev. GEORGE JONES, United States Navy. 



