396 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVFRY. 



angle is forty-five degrees ; but in order to i-eflcct light at this angle it must 

 be near the sun. A solar atmosphere seems to furnish the necessary con- 

 ditions. 



In connection with the eclipse, some curious solar phenomena remarked in 

 Brazil by M. Liais, who has been engaged there for some time in various 

 scientific researches, may be of interest. On the llth of April, 18GO, about 

 noon, the brightness of the sun was suddenly diminished so much that it 

 might be looked at without pain to the eye, although the sky was remarkably 

 clear and fine. At the same time several persons saw distinctly, with the 

 naked eye, a star close to the sun, which, from its position, must have been 

 the planet Venus. It was afterwards calculated that the brilliancy of Venus 

 on that day was only three-fifths of that which would make it as distinct 

 under ordinary circumstances, a fact which proves that the obscuration of 

 the sun was not due to atmospheric causes. Had the state of the atmosphere 

 produced that effect, it would, of course, have rendered the planet still more 

 invisible. This phenomenon is, therefore, considered by M. Liais as similar 

 to those which are stated to have occurred in 1106, 1208, 1547, and 170G, and 

 which have been attributed to the passage of cosniical clouds of asteroids 

 across the sun's disk. 



METEORIC PHENOMENA OF 1860. 



Meteor of July 20/A, I860. On the evening of July 20th, I860, one of the 

 most remarkable meteors on record appeared over a portion of the earth's 

 surface at least a thousand miles in length (from N. N. W. to S. S. E.) by 

 seven or eight hundred miles in width, or from Lake Michigan to the Gulf 

 Stream, and from Maine to Virginia. The following approximate results 

 respecting the direction of the path of the meteor, its height above the earth, 

 etc., have been deduced by Mr. C. S. Lyman, of New Haven, Conn., from a 

 comparison of some of the most reliable of the observations which were 

 made upon it : 



1. The vertical plane in which the meteor moved cuts the earth's surface 

 in a line crossing the northern part of Lake Michigan, passing through, or 

 very near to, Goderich, on Lake Huron, C. W., Buffalo, Elmira, and Sing 

 Sing, X. Y., Greenwich, Conn., and in the same direction across Long Island 

 into the Atlantic. 



2. In this plane the path that best satisfies the observation is sensibly a 

 straight line approaching nearest to the earth (forty-one miles) at a point 

 about south of Rhode Island, and having an elevation of forty-two miles 

 above Long Island Sound, of forty-four over the Hudson, fifty-one at Elmira, 

 sixty-two at Buffalo, eighty-five over Lake Huron, and one hundred and 

 twenty over Lake Michigan. The western observations, however, which are 

 few and imperfect, seem to indicate a somewhat greater elevation than this 

 for the western part of the path. Possibly, therefore, its true form may have 

 been a curve, convex towards the earth, resulting from the increasing resist- 

 ance of the atmosphere as the meteor descended into denser portions of it. 

 The observations made this side of Buffalo, which are somewhat numerous, 

 and many of them good, are very well satisfied by the straight path already 

 described. Further and more accurate observations beyond Buffalo are 

 greatly needed for determining the true form and position of the orbit, both 

 in respect to the earth's surface and in space. 



3. The close approximation to parallelism to the earth's surface of tl.o 



