Proceebixgs of the P olttechnic Associatiox. 827 



occiiri'ed at the right moment, and six pictures of the complete eclipse 

 were secured. The telescope used had a lens six inches in diameter, 

 with a focus of six feet. The diameter of the picture was three- 

 quarters of an inch. Two prominences appeared, their maxima 

 being about 120 degrees apart, and on the opposite side a remarka- 

 ble hook or horn, projecting to an immense height, estimated at nearly 

 one-fourteenth of the diameter of the sun, or about 60,000 miles. 

 ISTo comparison of photographs taken at different stations has yet 

 been made. The spectroscope examination in India has settled an 

 important question regarding .the character of these projections 

 beyond the moon's edge. They are now supposed to be gaseous ema- 

 nations. 



Gold Quaetz in New York. 



IS^ear Clinton, N. Y., an auriferous vein of quartz, varying in 

 width from six t© twelve inches, has been traced to a distance of 

 3,000 feet on the surface. Samples of it have been found to contain 

 $15.45 per ton of gold and about three dollars of silver. 



The Fall of Rain as Affected by the Moon. 



Dr. George Dines has published in tlie " Proceedings of the Meteo- 

 rological Society," tables of the rain fall during nearly every day of 

 the moon's age for forty years, as found in the journal of Miss Caro- 

 line Moleworth, of Cobham Lodge, Surrey, England. From these 

 data he drew the conclusion that the tall of rain is in no way influ- 

 enced by the changes of the moon, or by the moon's age. Pliny 

 Earl Chase, of Philadelphia, in a paper read before the American 

 Philosophical Society, takes exception to the method of Mr. Dines, 

 by which certain important variations are entirely eliminated. By 

 regarding the day of each change of phase as the middle day of a 

 week (counting the half sum of the flfth and twelfth days in the first 

 quarter, and the half sum of the twentieth and twent^'-seventh days 

 in the third quarter) with the seven days aggregate furnished by Mr. 

 Dine's tables, Mr. Chase has been enabled to construct a new table of 

 the ratios of the number of rainy days from 1825 to 186-1, by which, 

 he says it may be seen that, notwitjistanding the complete veiling of 

 all disturbances which may be due to the moon's variable distance 

 and declination, there was a marked tendency to increase at quadra- 

 ture and to decrease at syzygy, both in the amount of rain and in the 

 number of rainy days. Mr. Chase finds that the observations made 

 at Pennsylvania Hospital, demonstrate the existence of similar tides 



