52 CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



Island in the South Pacific, to observe the total solar eclipse, 

 of May 6th, 18.82. 



The members of this Academy will recollect that Jannsen 

 and his associates, upon their return via San Francisco, were 

 invited to attend our meeting. Messrs. Palisa and Tachini 

 and Rockwell were absent. All these gentlemen had been ob- 

 servers of the eclipse, and some of them had specially di- 

 rected their attention to the question of intra-mercurial plan- 

 ets. No one had seen any sign of these bodies, butM. Trou- 

 velot made known to the Academy that at the time of totality 

 he had seen a star — a red star — of the fourth magnitude, 

 about three degrees north and three degrees west of the sun, 

 and that the star had no definite disk or appreciable phase. 

 He had no opportunity to consult star charts, and therefore 

 he could not pronounce judgment upon its being a star or an 

 intra-mercurial planet. 



The next day I placed the sun in its proper position on 

 the star charts of Agelander, and then found 6 Arietis, of 

 the fourth magnitude, situated two and three-fourths de- 

 grees north and two and three-fourths degrees west of the sun. 

 I had to be absent during the day, but M. Trouvelot came and 

 examined the charts and my location of the sun. This to 

 my mind was the solution of of M. Trouvelot's red star. But 

 6 Arietis is not a red star, and we can only suppose that 

 there were such conditions present as gave to the star a red- 

 dish hue, or that M. Trouvelot sees objects red where other 

 observers do not. 



I have been thus particular about details, because we now 

 read published statements that are somewhat different. It 

 is mentioned that he saw a decidedly red star ' 'a little to the 

 north and a little to the west of the sun." He, moreover, 

 is reported to have stated (Nature, page 546) that on Sep- 

 tember 5th and 7th, he examined the part of the sky where 

 the sun was then situate, with a telescope of the same aper- 

 ture that he used in observing the eclipse, and with the eye- 

 piece then employed, he recognized the two white stars which 

 he had noted as 41 and € Arietis, but the red star was not 



