UliDickestcr Meiiiuirs, Vol. I. (1906), A'^. 1. 7 



there was a dense fog which rendered all our long and 

 arduous preparations futile. In the same year another 

 party had what may be called an inverse experience. 

 After we had lefc England for Japan, and after other 

 observers had set out for Norway, Sir George Baden 

 Powell took in his private yacht Mr. Shackleton and the 

 late Mr. Stone to Nova Zembla. They narrowly escaped 

 shipwreck, running on a rock not marked on the chart, so 

 that for some days the ship's deck lay at an angle of 45° ; 

 when ultimately they got off and effected a landing, the 

 weather was atrocious and hampered their preparations ; 

 but the day of the eclipse was fine, and they got excellent 

 photographs, one of which (taken by Mr. Shackleton) of 

 what is now called the "flash-spectrum," marks a definite 

 epoch in such work. Sometimes Fate is cruel enough not 

 only to inflict hardship, but also to rob the observers of 

 the compensation of a fine eclipse. Last }'ear the Labrador 

 expeditions were particularly unfortunate in this way. 

 Mr. and Mrs. Maunder have told us how on arrival they 

 found their intended station occupied by some Indians, 

 who had caught measles, and wished to be near a white 

 doctor ; and how in order to reach the next clearing, nearly 

 a mile away, it was necessary (in default of any kind of 

 labour or horses) to wheel thither all their instruments in 

 wheel-barrows, during a protracted shower of rain lasting 

 some days ; and how, after they had braved all these 

 discomforts and hardships, they were rewarded by a hope- 

 lessly cloudy day for the eclipse. And we must not for- 

 get that these expeditions are not only liable to disappoint- 

 ment and fraught with hardship, but are sometimes 

 accompanied by positive danger. In 1889 Father Perry, 

 of Stonyhurst, who, although always a martyr to sea- 

 sickness, never shirked the longest expedition in the cause 

 of science, bravely started to occupy a station in a malarious 



