194 



NATURE 



\yan. 6, 1876 



Rodriguez, Mr. Balfour has shown, is, after all, a volcanic 

 island, possessing neither granite nor sandstone, but composed 

 wholly of is^neous rocks, with patches of coralline limestone 

 alon^ the coa'^t. It belongs, therefore, geologically and geo- 

 graphically, to the Mascarene group. The general characters of 

 its fauna and flora approximate very closely to those of the 

 Mauritian group, upwards of 300 miles westward. Dr. Hooker 

 then referred to the remains of extinct birds, including 

 those of the Solitaire, and of extinct tortoises, which have 

 been found in Rodriguez. Mr. Slater is of opinion that both 

 classes of rem.nins were entombed subsequently to the visits of 

 Europeans. With regard to Mr. Balfour's Report on the Flora of 

 Rodriguez, Dr. Hooker stated it as a very remarkable fact that 

 one of the two new genera of flowering plants which have been 

 found belonging to the natural order Turneracese, is most 

 closely allied to a peculiar Panama genus ; and that one of the 

 new species has only a single congener, which is a Pacific Island 

 plant. 



Mr. Eaton's Report on the Natural History of Kerguelen's 

 Land we have already given at length in vol. xi. pp. 35, 75, 

 Full information as to the results obtained by all the naturalists 

 will be published, and, after a complete set has been reserved 

 for the National Collections, the remaining specimens will be 

 distributed. The total expenditure incurred was 1,512/., of 

 which 1,396/. has been contributed by Her Majesty's Govern- 

 ment, and the rest has been defrayed out of the Donation Fund. 



With respect to the Total Eclipse Expedition of April, 1875, 

 Dr. Hooker speaks as follows : — 



" Towards the close of last year {1874) the desirability of obser- 

 ving the total eclipse of the sun, which was to take place in India, 

 engaged the attention of your Council ; and the subject was 

 under its consideration when a letter was received by me from 

 His Majesty the King of Siam, offering hospitality and assistance 

 should the Royal Society deem it expedient to appoint scientific 

 men to observe it from His Majesty's dominions. 



" Your Council being of opinion that both the importance of 

 the occasion (totality during this eclipse being of longer duration 

 than during any other that would be observed in the present cen- 

 tury) and the liberal offer of His Majesty required careful con- 

 siderati )n, appointed a committee of five astronomers and the 

 Society's officers to report upon the feasibility of undertaking 

 such an expedition with a reasonable prospect of success. The 

 Committee was advised that no time was to be lost in arriving at 

 a conclusion, as only four months would elapse before the occur- 

 rence of the eclipse. 



" The first step taken was to communicate with the First Lord 

 of the Treasury and the Secretary of State for India, and ascertain 

 whether, should the attempt be made, Her Majesty's Govern- 

 ment would be disposed to co-operate with the Society. 



" The answers were most favourable ; but still giave doubts 

 were entertained by several of the Committee as to whether it 

 were possible to make the necessary preparations and arrange- 

 ments with sufficient completeness to secure adequate results. 



" After much deliberation it was decided in the affirmative, the 

 Committee's decision bemg based on the following favouring cir- 

 cumstances : — That confidence in its feasibility was expressed by 

 those members of the Committee who had themselves conducted 

 or accompanied eclipse expeditions in foreign countries ; that 

 two eminent observers, Messrs. Janssen and Tacchini, were 

 already in India and their services available ; that Her Majesty's 

 Government would co-operate by proposing to Parliament a grant 

 in aid of 1,000/., which would be augmented by another of 300/. 

 from the Donation Fund of the Society ; that the Secretary of 

 State for India and the Governor-General of India had promised 

 active co-operation by sending an expedition to the Nicobar 

 Islands, where, as well as in Siam, totality would be visible ; 

 that both the Indian Government and the Admiralty had granted 

 passages in their vessels, and that the Peninsular and Oriental 

 Company had offered to give passages to the observers and their 

 asjistants at greatly reduced rates ; that His Majesty the King of 

 Siam would defray all expenses of the party sent to his terri- 

 tories ; and lastly, which perhaps weighed most with the Com- 

 mittee, was Mr. Lockyer's disinterested offer to superintend all 

 the arrangements of observers and instruments, to prepare the 

 instructions for their guidance abroad, and to make all the neces- 

 sary telegraphic and other communications with India and the 

 Straits Settlements previous to, and during the progress of the 

 expedition. 



•' As in the case of former eclipse expeditions, invitations to 

 take part in the observations were addressed to foreign men of 

 science distinguished for their researches in solar physics ; but 



Prof. Tacchini was the only one who could accept. At the same 

 time Dr. Vogel, of Berlin, a well-known photographer, was 

 asked to assist, and he accompanied the expedition. 



"A communication was received from M. Dumas, the per- 

 petual Secretary of the Paris Academy of Sciences, with refer- 

 ence to Mr. Janssen's proposed observation of the eclipse ; and 

 instructions were sent to Singapore that every assistance should 

 be afforded to that distinguished physicist. 



" As a final result of these preliminary arrangements, there 

 were two strong parties in position on the morning of the 6th of 

 April, of whose members no less than six were sent out from 

 England. One party, a combination of Italian, Indian, and 

 English, went to Camorta in the Nicobar Islands ; the other, 

 French and English, made their way to Chulai Point in Siam. 

 In the first party were Prof Tacchini, Capt. Waterhouse, Prof. 

 Pedler, Dr. Vogel, and Messrs. Meldola and Reynolds ; in the 

 second were Dr. Janssen, Dr. Schuster, Messrs. Lott and 

 Beasley, each amply provided with assistants. 



*' The Committee decided that at both stations the observa- 

 tions should be mainly photographic ; and the instruments fur- 

 nished had for their object the registration of the violet spectrum 

 of the corona and chromosphere as a whole, and that of the 

 spectrum of an isolated portion of the image. 



" Ordinary photographs of the corona and of the polariscopic 

 effects of its light were also provided for, 



" In spite of the most hopeful anticipations, the weather at 

 Camorta proved bad on the morning of the eclipse, and, as has 

 been observed on former occasions, the reduction of the tempe- 

 rature, due to the withdrawal of the sun's heat, produced a mass 

 of cumulus cloud which prevented a most thoroughly equipped 

 party from making any ol:)servations whatever during totality. 



" The success of the Siam party has been also far less than 

 was anticipated. An unfortunate break-down in the Suez Canal, 

 and some misunderstanding, in consequence of which the pro- 

 mised Government steamer was not forthcoming, caused delays 

 which left so little time for the final adjustment of the instru- 

 ments when the observers at last reached their station, that some 

 records are altogether wanting ; and the attempt to photograph 

 the spectrum of an isolated portion of the chromosphere proved 

 a failure. 



"The most important results obtained are (i) a series of pho- 

 tographs of the corona, taken with a prism of small angle in 

 front of the object-glass, which show several rings and part of 

 the form of the outer corona ; and (2) a series of views of the 

 corona, ceiefly taken at different times of exposure. The dis- 

 cussion of the observations has not yet been taken in hand ; but 

 it is not too early to state that several results of great interest 

 and value have been secured. 



' ' The King of Siam himself made a sketch of the corona and 

 forwarded it to the Society. In common with others which 

 accompany the reports, it does not differ very greatly from the 

 figure photographed on the plate. 



" I cannot conclude this short reference to one branch of our 

 activity during the past session without congratulatmg English 

 Science upon the fact that the eclipse was not suffered to pass un- 

 observed, and without expressing our obligations to all those 

 whose names will be mentioned at length in the report, who 

 both here and abroad at each stage of the arrangements afforded 

 us valuable assistance, not forgetting the observers themselves, 

 who in the service of science volunteered for a duty not vdthout 

 risk, and from the performance of which, indeed, some have 

 suffered in health." 



Dr. Hooker next referred to the Challenger expedition, and 

 to the interesting discoveries " which seem literally to have 

 crowded along the course of the vessel." He referred to] the 

 light thrown by the C/iallefiger- researches on the formation of 

 azoic clays and schists, on submarine geography, and on the dis- 

 tribution of pelagic life. 



" In the depths of the sea, as on the surface of the land, are 

 contiguous areas peopled by very different assemblages of living 

 things. As on the land we ascend to meet a colder temperature, 

 accompanied by forms of life of wider distribution than at lower 

 elevations, so in the seas of warm and temperate regions we 

 descend to meet with analogous conditions. The ocean thus 

 mirrors one of the most striking features of the distribution of 

 terrestrial life, and, minor- like, it turns the picture upside dowiL 

 Furthermore, this analogy is confined to the warm and temperate 

 zones of the sea ; in the cold zones this order of things is 

 reversed ; there, as on land, we descend to warmer temperatures, 

 and the deepest sea is peopled by animals proper to a much 

 lower latitude. The total result is a uniformity in the genaal 



