clix 



great refractor at Washington cost only $44,000, it may be well understood 

 that the California instrument may, at the price of $100,000 or $200,000, 

 surpass anything yet attempted in this line. Add to this fact the marvel- 

 ous purity of the atmosphere in the Sierras, and we may anticipate some- 

 thing of a new revelation of the starry depths. The long looked for transit 

 of Venus has come and gone. Our absolute distance from the Sun is pro- 

 bably ere this well fixed, but no report has yet reached us of these calcula- 

 tions. The American stations for the observation of the transit were eight 

 in number, and located at Kladiwostock, Pekin, Nagasaki, Hobart Town, 

 Bluff Harbor, Chatham Island, Kerguelen Island, and Possession Island — 

 three stations being in the northern hemisphere and five in the southern. 

 The chances of foul weather at all the points of either hemisphere were 

 very small, and the event has justified anticipations. The parallax as 

 determined by Encke was SfVo'A seconds, while from other observations 

 made on Mars the parallax has been placed at S^VA (American Naut. Al.) 

 or SjVj (Brit. Naut. Al.) Thus our present results vary jV^ths of a second. 

 The probable error of the coming result will not equal xffsths of a second. 

 Besides, whatever experience teaches in this experiment as desirable in 

 the observation of transits will be made available at the next transit, which 

 fortunately occurs in 1882, only seven years hence. While the recent tran- 

 sit was visible in the longitude of Asia only, the next one can be most 

 favorably observed in America. 



While mentioning these matters of astronomic interest, we should not 

 omit to mention the labors of Dr. Gould at the new observatory, located 

 at Cordoba, in the Argentine Republic. The mapping of the stars in the 

 southern hemisphere has been vigorously prosecuted by him, and is the 

 basis for future great discoveries which we may look for. 



The investigations of Lockyer and Secchi into the composition of the 

 Sun are still progressing, and new and more reliable results are continually 

 reached. Some most remarkable phenomena are reported, which seem to 

 indicate a temporary change of diameter in the Sun accompanying the 

 appearance of spots and protuberances. The minimum diameter of the 

 Sun seems to coincide with the maximum manifestation of spots and 

 protuberances. 



In this connection should be named certain fluctuations of the American 

 lakes observed by Dawson, the geologist of British North America, to be 

 synchronous with the development of sun-spots. This comparison extends 

 from 1790 to 1870. In Lockyer's work on Solar Physics is exhibited the 

 parallelism of the periods of solar energy as denoted by the outburst of 

 «olar spots, with the maximum periods of rain-fall and cyclones. In this 

 we have the clew to the variation of water-level of the lakes, which is ex- 

 hibited in a diagram and shown to fluctuate almost exactly in correspond- 

 ence to the maxima and the minima of the sun-spots. 



THE earth's motion. 



Of equal interest are the researches of Professor Newcomb into the varia- 



