Inielligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



349 



with 3|-feet telescopes by DoUond and Fraunhofer, were enabled di- 

 stinctly to see some of these appearances through the red eye-piece of 

 the former, thougR none was visible through the green screen of the 

 latter instrument. At Washington, where the eclipse was nearly 

 central, no distortion of the limb of the moon could be seen through 

 the double screen above mentioned, and the cusps of the sun, just 

 before and after the ring, were as pointed as needles. The Committee 

 of the Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, in their report on this 

 eclipse, say, ' This suggestion is one of great importance, as it seems 

 to furnish evidence of the existence of a lunar atmosphere, through 

 which, as through our own, the red rays have the greatest penetra- 

 tive power. It also leads to new views concerning the cause of the 

 remarkable appearances of the beads of light and the dark lines fre- 

 quently noticed ; .since it shows that their appearance may be com- 

 pletely modified by a change in the colour, and. consequently, in the 

 absorbing power of the screen glass through which they are ob- 

 served.' It is believed that on another account will this suggestion, 

 if well founded, be of great importance, \dz. in its obvious tendency 

 to diminish, if not wholly remove, the discordances not unfrequently 

 found in the best observations on solar ecHpses and transits of Venus, 

 and which, with regard to the latter in 1761 and 1769, were so great 

 as materially to diminish the value of this method of determining the 

 distance between the earth and the sun. 



" Phases of the Eclipse at some of the principal Cities of Europe." 

 The longitudes are reckoned from Greenwich, and the times indicate 

 mean civil times at each place respectively, on July 8, 1842. 



