NOTES BY THE EDITOR. XVII 



From Albany, a similar party went to Matt oon, Illinois; others, 

 from Clinton and Chicago, went to Des Moines, from Cincinnati 

 to Sioux City ; and the number of private astronomers who estab- 

 lished themselves along the central line with telescopes and other 

 apparatus of investigation must have been exceedingly large. 



The beginnings and end of the eclipse seem to have been ob- 

 served a few seconds later, and the beginning and end of the 

 totality about fifteen seconds later than the predictions of the 

 American Nautical Almanac. As regards the exact position of 

 the central line, and of the limits of the total belt, we have as 

 yet insufS-cient information to determine the degree of accordance 

 with computation. There can be no doubt that materials have 

 been collected capable of improving the adopted values of the 

 moon's diameter and horizontal parallax. One of the most inter- 

 estino; results is the introduction of a new and accurate method of 

 determining the time of first contact, by observing with a spectro- 

 scope the gradual occultation of the bright lines of the chromo- 

 sphere. This we owe to Prof. Young, of Dartmouth College, who 

 formed one of Prof. CoflS.n's Nautical Almanac party at Burling- 

 ton. By keeping the centre of the slit directed to the j)oint at 

 which the contact is to take place, the observer is forewarned of 

 the approach of the moon's limb, by the shortening of the bright 

 lines belonging to the chromosphere. The line C is well adapted 

 to this purpose, and is seen to grow steadily shorter, until it is 

 totally extinguished. The moment of disappearance of the last 

 bright ray is of course that of the first contact, which is thus ob- 

 served with the same care and accuracy as any other appulsive 

 phenomenon. Although the first contact, as determined in this 

 way by Prof. Young, was noted some five seconds before its rec- 

 ognition by any other observer, it was subsequently found by 

 Prof. Maj'er to accord within a small fraction of a second with the 

 time as determined by measurement of a series of photographs 

 taken during the first minute. 



Prof. Harkness, of Washington Observatory, observed at Des 

 Moines the spectra of five protuberances, no two of which gave 

 the same lines. In the corona spectrum he found no absorptive 

 lines, and but one bright line. Measures of the protuberances 

 were made by Prof. Rogers, at Des Moines, who found the 

 largest to be nearly a minute and a half high, and observed a 

 peculiar honeycombed or cellular appearance in all of them. 

 Special search was made for intra-mercurial planets by Prof. 

 Newcomb, at Des Moines, according to the plan suggested by 

 2* 



