276 SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE ON VENUS—CAMERON, 
There have been two superior conjunctions since then, and at 
each of them a better observation than the above was made. 
At Denver, Colorado, on October 30th, 1894, Mr. Roger 
Sprague saw Venus with the naked eye at 9.45 a.m. This was 
thirty-one days before the superior conjunction of November 
30th. 1894. The angular distance was 7° 46’. Mr. Sprague 
says that the planet was “quite a difficult object to distinguish 
with the naked eye and required very persistent and careful 
looking to make it out at all.” The difficulty of his observation 
led him to doubt the possibility of seeing Venus at all under 
the conditions that prevailed on July 6, 1892, Venus was fiva 
times as bright to him in October, 1894, as to me in July, 1892; 
she was nearly a degree farther from the sun; and Denver is 
5000 feet nearer heaven and is blessed with a clearer atmosphere 
than Yarmouth. As the feat of seeing the planet was found 
extremely difficult under this fourfold set of favorable condi- 
tions, it was quite natural for the observer to think it impossible 
under the unfavorable conditions. I would think so too, had I 
not had experience of its possibility, and of the wonderful 
change that even a few minutes sometimes make in the seeing 
quality of the atmosphere or in the clearness of some particular 
patch of the sky. The clearest and purest blue is found 
between broken masses of cloud, and it was in such a swept and 
garnished bit of sky that I found Venus at her inferior con- 
junction in 1892. Another thing—she was 28° nearer my 
zenith then than she was to Mr. Sprague’s zenith when he made 
his observation, and all observers know what a deal of difference 
that makes. Had he looked again an hour and a half later, 
when she was on his meridian, he would probably have found 
her—if his sky was clear—absurdly easy instead of extremely 
difficult. 
Mr. Sprague’s observation was the best one near superior 
conjunction that I had any record of up to that date. 
The date of the next superior conjunction was July 9, 1896, 
at Y a. m., 60° W. time. 
