198 The Examination of Noherfs Nineteenth Band. 



proceeding from eacli band to the next. The nineteenth band 

 would in that case have had sixty-one Unes and sixty spaces, and 

 its breadth would have been yo'VVoths or sf o-ths of a line hke all the 

 rest. In point of fact, the number of lines added in passing from 

 band to band is three in only twelve instances, two in five instances, 

 and four in one instance. An apparent law regulates this matter 

 till we approach the more difl&cult bands. Thus, there are first 

 two threes, then two twos, then two threes again, and then two 

 twos once more ; but then follow three, four, three, and we are 

 now at the twelfth band where the difficulties become serious. My 

 opinion is that Mr. Nobert introduced this irregularity to make it 

 impossible for anyone to state with certainty the number of fines 

 in any of the higher bands without having actually counted them. 

 Had the law of threes been followed throughout, it would of course 

 have been easy to ascertain the number of fines in any band by a 

 simple calculation. He did not believe that any band beyond the 

 fourteenth would ever be optically resolved. He stuck at that 

 band for a long time himself, and in its divisions he had reached 

 the limit of visible magnitude assigned by Fraunhofer. Knowing 

 then himself, and he only knowing, the numbers of lines on these 

 higher bands, and having made it impossible with certainty to 

 calculate them, he had an infallible criterion for determining 

 whether an imagined resolution had been real. Colonel Woodward 

 having met this difficult test, and having counted for him his lines 

 in every band, he has been satisfied, and has frankly admitted that 

 the thing he deemed impossible has been accomplished. 



July 19th, 1871. 



