THE TRANSIT OF VENUS. 219 



for by others. He had time only to warn a friend of the expected 

 event, then close at hand, and prepared himself to observe it, by form- 

 ing, through a small aperture in a darkened room, an image of the sun 

 upon a sheet of paper. This he watched continuously on the important 

 day, a Sunday, till the time came for church. Though knowing that 

 the opportunity, which would not occur again to any one then living, 

 might j>ass in his absence, he left it for what he deemed a religious 

 duty, and did not resume his observation till late in the afternoon. 

 " At this time," said he, " an opening in the clouds, which rendered 

 the sun distinctly visible, seemed as if Divine Providence encouraged 

 my aspirations, when, oh, most gratifying spectacle! the object of so 

 many earnest wishes ! I perceived a new spot of unusual magnitude 

 and perfectly round, which had just entered on the left limb of the 

 sun." His friend had been equally fortunate, " and thus," says Mr. 

 Grant, in his " History of Physical Astronomy," whence this account 

 is taken, " did two young men, cultivating astronomy together in a 

 state of complete seclusion in one of the northern counties of England, 

 enjoy the privilege of witnessing a phenomenon which human eyes had 

 never before beheld, and which no one was destined again to see till 

 more than a hundred years had passed away." Horrocks attempted 

 to obtain the sun's parallax, but without much success ; good results 

 from such observations requiring, as will be inferred from what has 

 been said, to be made by a pair of observers removed from each other, 

 nearly as far as the limits of the earth will allow. 



In 1761 and 1769 astronomers were fully aware of the importance 

 of the occasion. Special preparations were made by different Euro- 

 pean governments, especially for the latter year, when parties were 

 sent, as now, to various portions of the illuminated hemisphere of the 

 globe. Among the names of those employed are the familiar ones of 

 Captain Cook, who made his first voyage to Tahiti for this purpose, 

 and of Mason and Dixon, the surveyors of the " line " which bore 

 their name, and which was once so frequently heard of in our own 

 affairs. 



One, who is less known, but whose singularly bad luck deserves 

 sympathy, was Le Gentil. Sailing for Pondicherry, where he ex- 

 pected to observe the transit of 1761, he was unable to land, and 

 got no other observations than such as could be made at sea. A 

 voyage from Europe to the Indies in those days was something so 

 formidable, that Le Gentil, who was resolved to see the transit of 

 1769, decided on waiting for it abroad through eight years of volun- 

 tary exile, but, by a cruelly hard fortune, when the long-expected day 

 came, the sun was shut out from his view by clouds which had left the 

 sky clear till the eventful occasion. 



It is perhaps worth while to recall such a disappointment, to re- 

 mind us that all the skill, means, and labor, which have gone to fit 

 out the expeditions now absent, are equally liable to frustration by 



