f)0 THE INDIAN ECLIPSE, 1898. 



setting up the instruments, adjusting, sighting and focussing 

 them, making trial plates, and drilling the assistants. The 

 last was not only done during the day, but also at night, to 

 accustom them to work in the dark. Our American friends 

 rather astonished the natives, for there "was nothing they could 

 not do, and did not do, with their own hands from driving in 

 a screw or sawing a plank to the most delicate adjustments of 

 their instruments. Visitors might have passed them by at 

 their work in looking for more presentable professors. Having 

 brought their own tools and implements, they were certainly 

 independent of the village carpenter. 



The central line of the eclipse was shown upon some maps as 

 passing through Targaon, on the S.M. Eailway, and Jeur, as 

 nearly as possible ; but the American parties were not satisfied 

 with this alignment, and pitched camp farther eastward, they 

 having concluded that it would cut the railway line between 

 Jeur and Kem, about four to five miles from the former place. 

 Professor Campbell's camp was within two miles north-west of 

 this line. Adjoining his camp, but farther from the line, was 

 Mr. Naegamvala's, while the Japanese were a hundred yards 

 farther on again. Professor Burckhalter was at the village of 

 Vangi, about five and a half miles from Jeur and one mile and a 

 half beyond the other camps, but on a parallel line with the rest 

 so far as distance from the central line was concerned. 



The Lick camp was conspicuous by the long 40-foot tele- 

 scope, which, with its end planted in a pit some 8 ft. deep, shot 

 up into the air above the tree-tops. A marked feature, too, 

 was the Stars and Stripes which, supported by the Union Jack, 

 very appropriately floated above the chupper roof of their 

 banqueting hall. It was a sign of good feeling and comrade- 

 ship which characterised the whole intercourse between the 

 camps. In the shadow of the gigantic tube, and looking quite 

 dwarfed beside it, were the Professor's other instruments for 

 spectrum photographs and smaller coronal images. The great 

 telescope gave a disc of nearly 5 in. in diameter, the largest 

 obtained in the camp. But it was interesting to note that the 

 astronomers were not too proud to use the humbler and smaller 

 everyday camera for snapshots all were pressed into service. 



Professor Naegamvala's largest and most important instru- 

 ment was a large objective prism mounted upon a very heavy 

 substantial stand, upon which it moved by clockwork. Another 

 instrument for spectrum photography worked with others off 

 the crelostat, \vhilst an integrating spectroscope, working direct, 

 w r as manipulated by hand. A telescopic camera giving an 

 image off the ccelostat nearly an inch in diameter, an ONV 

 spectroscope, two smaller telescopes, a small camera, and ther- 

 mometers of sorts, with wire-encircled discs mounted at the 

 top of poles for drawing the corona, swelled the number of his 



