16 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



best way to view the partially eclipsed sun is to secure three strips 

 of thin colored glass, one and a half inch wide by five inches long 

 —red, blue, and green; bind them over the eye end of a good 

 opera glass, and adjust focus on the sun. This makes the light 

 safe for the eyes and brings out the spherical aspect of the sun's 

 ball. The time of the eclipse can be read by interpolating within 

 the lines marked on Chart VII. 



No other eclipse track will occur in this country till June 8, 

 1918, when one of the first kind will pass from Oregon to Florida, 

 two minutes in duration. Another will occur in New England, 

 January 24, 1925. Eclipses seven minutes in duration will occur 

 in India in 1955, and in Africa in 1973, the longest for a thousand 

 years. The remoteness of the last two, both in time and place, 

 put them out of reckoning for most of us, but those of 1918 and 

 1925 give additional zest to the approaching eclipse of May 28th, 

 as affording further opportunity for confirming facts and noting 

 differences based upon the observations now made. 



THE MOST EXPENSIVE CITY IN THE WORLD. 



By Hon. BIKD S. COLEE, 



COMPTROLLER OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK. 



r T^ HE annual expenses of the city of New York are larger than 

 -L those of any other municipality in the world, and the finan- 

 cial transactions of a year represent the receipt and expenditure 

 of more than $200,000,000, counting temporary loans, sinking 

 funds, and bond issues. The gross budget of the city for 1899 was 

 $20,000,000 greater than the expenses of the city of London, 

 $18,000,000 in excess of the budget of Paris, and only $1,000,000 

 less than the combined expenditures of Boston, Chicago, and Phila- 

 delphia. 



The expenses of New York last year for local purposes, exclu- 

 sive of bond issues, amounted to $19.56 per capita of an estimated 

 population of 3,500,000. The combined annual expenditures of 

 the six largest States in the Union are less than those of the city 

 of New York, and the financial transactions of the latter are equal 

 in amount to one seventh of those of the national Government. 



The credit of the city, it may be stated at the outset, is second 

 only to that of the Federal Government, and the property owned 

 by the municipality, if sold at market value, would pay the entire 

 funded debt several times over. 



The consolidation of ninety municipalities with the former city 



