M.-P.— Vol. I.] DAVIDSON— APPARENT PROJECTION, ETC. 8l 



Similar Phenomena at Total Solar Eclipses. ' 



Many reports of observations of total solar eclipses and 

 transits of Venus and of Mercury over the Sun's disc are 

 painfully discordant, misleading and uninstructive. They 

 betray inexperience and lack of knowledge of the local 

 physical disabilities that may present themselves. It would 

 almost appear as if those who had the least experience were 

 the most authoritative in their opinions. And certainly, 

 when the results are published, there is little or no discrim- 

 ination made in assigning proper weights to them. Some 

 observers make no mention of their defective eyesight, and 

 ' we have personally known observers, quoted as authority, 

 that should never have been trusted to attempt any observa- 

 tion of precision. 



The elaborate reports of the total solar eclipse of 1869, 

 in the United States, by many observers in different locali- 

 ties, are quite instructive in the unconscious exhibition of 

 contradictory statements and inappropriate adjectives. Two 

 observers at the same station reported directly opposite 

 conditions of the steadiness of the limbs of the Sun and 

 Moon. One said they were defined with the utmost clear- 

 ness; another sent us drawings to explain his statement that 

 they were "boiling excessively." And yet the observer 

 who reported steadiness was in doubt twelve seconds of 

 the time of contact, and took the mean of his limits of 

 doubt. And it is evident that the many observers had dif- 

 ferent conceptions of what constituted the phenomenon of 

 " Baily's beads." Some looked for, and evidently ex- 

 pected, the exhibition as a necessary and normal physical 

 condition. The tabulated descriptions of the phenomena 

 at totality range wildly; we find recorded: "no trace of 

 Daily's beads;" "the phenomenon of Daily's beads lasted 

 but a few moments;" "Daily's beads beautifully distinct 

 and spreading over an arc of 30°;" "Daily's beads were 

 seen fifteen seconds or more; they were long and thin, 

 moved with the moon, and were unquestionably the effect 

 of the irregularities of the Moon's contour exaggerated by 



