XCV1 NOTES. 



(*) p. 272. Arago " sur les moyens d'observer les taches solaires," in 

 the Annuaire for 1842, p. 476-470. (Delambre, Hist, de 1' Astronomic du 

 Moyen Age, p. 394, as well as Hist, de 1'Astr. moderne, T. i. p. 681.) 



( 47fl ) p. 273. Memoires poor servir a 1'Histoire des Sciences, par Mr. le 

 Comte de Cassini, 1810, p. 242 ; Delambre, Hist, de 1'Astr. mod. T. ii. p. 

 694. Although Cassini, as early as 1671, and La Hire in 1700, declared th 

 body of the Suu to be dark, yet estimable elementary works on astronomj 

 still continue to ascribe the first idea of this hypothesis to the meritoriou 

 astronomer Lalande. Lalande himself, in the edition of his Astronomy pub 

 lished in 1792, T. iii. 3240, as well as in the first edition of 1764, T. i 

 2515, merely remains true to La Hire's earlier expressed opinion vi 

 " que les taches sont les eminences de la masse solide et opaque du Soleii 

 recouverte communement (en entier) par le fluide igne." Between 176 

 and 1774, Alexander Wilson formed the first just view of a funnel-shapeo 

 opening in the photosphere. 



( 471 ) p. 273. Alexander Wilson, Observations on the Solar Spots, in the Phil 

 Trans. Vol. Ixiv. 1774, Part 1, p. 6-13, Tab. i. "I found that the umbra, 

 which before was equally broad all round the nucleus, appeared much con- 

 tracted on that part which lay towards the centre of the disk, whilst the 

 other parts of it remained nearly of the former dimensions. I perceived that 

 the shady zone or umbra which surrounded the nucleus might be nothing 

 else but the shelving sides of the luminous matter of the sun." Compare, 

 also, Arago, in the Annuaire for 1842, p. 506. 



( 472 ) p. 274. Bode, in the Beschaftigungen der Berlinischen Gesellschaft 

 Naturforscheuder Freunde, Bd. ii. 1776, S. 237-241 and 249. 



( 473 ) p. 277. William Herschel, in the .Philosophical Transactions of the 

 Royal Society for 1801, Part 2. p. 310-316. 



( V4 ) p. 278. An official notice of a high price of corn occurring in con- 

 nection with obscuration of the sun for several months, is referred to in the 

 historic fragments of the elder Cato. " Luminis caligo" and " defectus Solis' 

 are expressions which, when employed by Roman writers, do not by any 

 means signify on all occasions an eclipse of the sun ; they have, for instance, 

 no such meaning in the accounts of the long-continued dimness of the sun 

 which is said to have followed the death of Csesar. Thus we find in Aulus 

 Gellius, in Noct. Att. ii. 28 " Verba Catonis in originum quarto hsec sunt : 

 non libet scribere, quod in tabula apud Pontificem maximum est, quotiens 

 anona cara, quotiens lunse an solis lumini caligo, aut quid obstiterit." 



( 4 ) p. 278. Gautier, Recherches relatives a I'mfluence que le nombre des 



