ASTRONOMY. 387 



careful sketch of which was made by Dr. Dixon. The azimuths of the 

 shadow-friuges at the beginning and end of totality were obtained, and 

 their distances from each other estimated. The meteorological obser- 

 vations made by Mr. Upton showed a slight but well-defined rise in 

 barometric pressure, a rise in humidity, and a fall in temperature. The 

 temperature reached the values given at night, while the radiation ther- 

 mometers indicated that the receipt of heat by the earth was almost 

 wholly checked. The direction and velocity of the wind were unchanged 

 during the time of the eclipse. 



The photographs obtained by Messrs. Lawrence and Woods, the Eng- 

 lish members of the party, who were assisted by Mr. Qualtrough, of the 

 Hartford, include a series of negatives of the corona to its outer limits, 

 and also of the coronal spectrum. The latter contains a few bright lines, 

 but not as many as were obtained by the same observers in Egypt a year 

 ago. The phenomenon of reversal of the Frauenhofer lines was also suc- 

 cessfully photographed. 



The "Hartford" returned to Caroline Island on the 8th of May, and on 

 the 9th sailed for Honolulu, which was reached on the 30th; a stop of 

 four days having been made at Hilo, Hawaii, to allow a visit to the vol- 

 cano of Kilauea. The party reached the United States June 11. 



Mr. J. Janssen, the leader of the French expedition which visited 

 Caroline Island to observe the solar eclipse of May 6, has made a report 

 to the French Academy of Sciences, which is published in full in the 

 Bulletin hebdomadaire de V Association scientijique, No. 181. It contains, 

 first, an interesting account of the voyage to Caroline Island, and a 

 brief description of the island, with the difficulties encountered in land- 

 ing the instruments ; then follows a statement of the instrumental outfit 

 and the plan of observations. The search for intra-mercurial planets 

 was assigned to Messrs. Palisa and Trouvelot. The former used an equa- 

 torial of 0.16 m. aperture, having a short focus and a large field; the 

 latter was provided with an equatorial of the same size, which had a 

 finder of 0.08 m. aperture, thus giving the observer two telescopes. 

 The finder had a field of 4°.5, and was used in examining the region in 

 the vicinity of the sun, while the larger instrument was intended to 

 give the position of any strange object that might be noted by means 

 of its position-circles. In order to avoid the necessity of reading the 

 circles, an attachment was made to both right ascension and declination 

 circles, by which fine marks could be made upon the circles and verniers 

 by the observer's assistants, and the corresponding readings determined 

 at leisure. The finder was also furnished with a reticule containing 

 cross-threads, and a position-circle for use in noting the appearance of 

 the corona, to the drawing of which Mr. Trouvelot gave a portion of the 

 time of the local phase. 



The search for intra-mercurial planets was also conducted by the aid 

 of photographic apparatus, which Mr. Janssen thus describes: 



" At my order, Mr. Gauthier had prepared an equatorial mounting 



