CHAPTER IV. 



Transit of Mercury Improperly called an "Eclipse" of November Meteors Mr. Huggins 

 Spectrum Analyses of Cometary Light Translation of a St. Kilda Song. 



WE were early astir on the morning of the 5th November [1868] ; 

 with little thought, be sure, of Guy Fawkes or the Gunpowder 

 Plot, intent only on witnessing, if we might be so fortunate, 

 the transit of Mercury over the solar disc. The phenomenon in 

 question we have seen referred to as an "eclipse" of Mercury, 

 which it certainly was not. A celestial body is properly said to be 

 eclipsed when, by the interposition of another and a nearer orb, it 

 is temporarily hid from view. A star or planet so hidden by the 

 body of the moon, for instance, is said to be " occulted." The sun 

 is truly said to be eclipsed when the new moon at a particular 

 conjunction steps in between us and him, and temporarily intercepts 

 his beams. What again, for convenience sake, is called an eclipse 

 of the moon, is really not an eclipse at all, so far at least as the 

 terrestrial spectator is concerned ; it would be more strictly correct 

 to call it simply a lunar obscuration. The temporary appearance 

 of Venus and Mercury as circular and sharply defined black spots 

 on the solar disc, has hitherto always, and very properly, been called 

 in the language of astronomers a " transit " of the particular planet 

 by name, such as the "transit of Venus," or the "transit of 

 Mercury ; " and there is no reason to change the term, for it is 

 expressive and true, which the word eclipse, applied to such a con- 

 junction, certainly is not. 



Be it called what it may, however eclipse or transit we were 

 disappointed in not getting a glimpse of the phenomenon in question 



