REPORT OP THE SECRETARY. 47 



Geodetic Survey, Mr. G. K. Putnam was detailed to inak(^ the rccjui- 

 site determinations of latitude and lono-itude and also to determine the 

 position of the great horizontal telescope and the like accessory fea- 

 tures, and most acceptable service was rendered b}- him. 



So full an account of the eclipse is given in Mr. Abbot's report that 

 it is onl}' necessary to say here that the observations were almost 

 luiiforml}^ successful. A considerable numl)er of photographs of the 

 corona were secured, some of which are upon an unprecedentedl}' 

 large scale, and these, it is believed, will be of value in investiga- 

 tions of the nature of this still enigmatical solar appendage. A 

 photographic search for hitherto unrecognized objects near the sun 

 developed the fact that even in an ordinary sky, in an eclipse in which 

 the reflected sunlight was brighter than usual, stars as small as the 

 8.3 magnitude could l)e secured. 



The apparatus was designed not so much for this, however, as for 

 the obtaining evidence of possible intramercurial planets, but upon 

 this latter point we have not yet obtained any certainty. Certain sus- 

 picious objects are found on the plates, but unfortunately observa- 

 tions of the same kind at other stations were unsuccessful, so that 

 there is nothing with which to compare them. Studies are still going 

 on, however, and it is possible that this part of the observations may 

 yet 3deld results of interest. 



The delicate and difficult observations upon the heat of the inner 

 corona were made b}^ means of the bolometer, and appear to have 

 been quite successful, being perhaps the first trustworthy observations 

 of the kind; and, as will be seen in the more detailed report, these 

 lend some additional weight to the view that the corona is something 

 analogous to an electric phenomenon. 



NECROLOGY. ' 



WILLIAM PRESTON JOHNSTON."^ 



At a meeting of the Regents on Januaiy 24, 1900, Dr. Angell sub- 

 mitted the following minute to go upon the records in regard to the 

 death of William Preston Johnston, president of Tulane Universit}^: 



President Johnston died at Lexington, Virginia, on Julj^ 16, 1899, 

 in the sixty-ninth year of his age. He Avas born in Louisville, Ken- 

 tucky, January 5, 1831. His father, the distinguished officer. Gen- 

 eral Albert Sidney Johnston, was of New England descent; his mother 

 was of the Preston family, long conspicuous in Virginia and Ken- 

 tuck} . Our late colleague, while a student in school and college, gave 

 promise of his future eminence. After graduation at Yale College he 

 studi(>d law and entered on the practice of his profession at Louisville. 

 But his dominant taste even then was for letters rather than for law. 

 On the outbreak of the civil war, like his father, be entered the 



