374 - G, Jones on the Zodiacal Lisht. 



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Art, 



Qaito 



dor^ with deductions; by Kev. Georqe Jones, Chaplain U. S. 

 Kavy.* 



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The deduction wliicli I drew from observations made on the 

 Zodiacal Light while engaged on the Japan cruise, namely, that 

 there is a great nebulous ring having the earth for its centre, has 

 been variously received ; but I believe it is now beginning to be, 

 among the astronomers of this country, an admitted fact. The 

 book containing my detailed observations has gone abroad so 

 recently that we have not yet had time to hear how the subject 

 has been received in Europe. There have been some opinions 

 advanced antagonistic to my conclusions (one of them an article 

 in this Journal) to which I have made no replies : for I do not 

 intend to be drawn into controversy, but to rely quietly on the 

 facts of the case to do their work of conviction in the minds of 

 thinking men. 



In the Introduction to the 3d vol of the Keport on^ the Japan 

 Expedition I intimated my intention to spend a year, if possible, 

 at or near the equator ; and to procure there additional data on 

 this subject, of which I felt greatly the need. It is customary, 

 when an officer has returned from a long cruise, to give him 

 some time on "leave of absence :" wliich custom I pleaded with 

 the Navy Department, when I had finished bringing out my 

 volume of the Japan Eeport ; and thus I obtained permission to 

 be absent from the country, on my own business, for a year. My 

 desire was to proceed to Quito, where, in its proximity to the 

 equator and in the transparent atmosphere of its great altitude, 

 I hoped to have peculiar advantages for my work. At the equa- 

 tor, an observer must have the ecliptic vertical to him, at some 

 hour or other, every night throughout the year; and it must at 

 all hours, have an angle with the horizon sufficiently high to 

 show the Zodiacal Light to the very best advantage. My hope 

 was to be able to ascertain exactly the position of this nebulous 

 ring in regard to the ecliptic : I had a faint hope also,— a very 

 shght one,— of being able to learn something about the nature 

 of nebulous matter — which, in astronomical science, may now 

 perhaps be considered the greatest question of the age. 



Before starting on this expedition I prevailed on Mr. Edwara 

 C. Herrick of Yale College, who had previously had much expe- 

 rience on this subject, to agree to make observations m r^e^ 

 Haven, on the 1st, 10th and 20th of each month, and to record 

 them on star-charts left with him for that purpose, and, soon 

 after, succeeded in enlisting in the same cause Professor Moes*^; 

 Superintendent of the National Observatory at Santiago, Chiie j 



Contributed to tliis Journal by the special request of the Editors. 



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