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f 



G, Jones on the Zodiacal Light. 375 



Pro£ M.j who was farnislied witli charts, agreeing to make obser- 

 rations simultaneously with those of Mr. Herrick. Both of these 

 gentlemen entered readily and cordially into the work : and I 

 was able also, on the way to Ecuador, to join to our corps of 

 observers a valuable coadjutor in Dr. Drayton, U. S. Navy, then 

 attached to the sloop-of-war St. Mary's^ stationed at Panama. 



Quito is much troubled with clouds and rains. Nine months in 

 the year are rainy ; and only June, July and August are usually 

 favored with clear skies : sometimes the clouds and rains continue 

 through all the year. I was detained at Washington on duty till 

 July: was then kept two weeks at Panama waiting for the English 

 steamer to proceed south: a friend accompanying me was taken 

 sick with the Panama fever and died on board the steamer : other 

 I passengers were dying when we arrived at Guyaquil ; and we 



were ordered off without being permitted to land.N Consequently 

 I was not able to reach Quito till the close of August; from which 

 time on, during all my stay of eight months on the Cordilleras, 

 I had to contend unceasingly with the clouds. The work of 



observing was most laborious : for the clouds, in that region, 



come and go, without a minute's warning, forming suddenly in 

 the sky without apparent cause, and in the same mysterious 

 manner presently leaving it perfect!}^ clear. Sometimes, while 

 tracing the boundaries of the Zodiacal Light by a cluster of stars, 

 I would find the cluster in a moment blotted out by some imper- 

 ceptible agency, while all around it would be clear and bright: 

 a few minutes' waiting would show it again in all its brightness ; 

 the vapor not having floated away, but having vanished as sud- 

 denly and as strangely as it had come. All this makes an ob- 

 server's life there an anxious and watchful one. But when the 

 sky is clear, it is a superbly glorious sight, such as I have never 

 beheld in any other part of the world. The heavens are then 

 fairly crowded with the smaller stars : and the Milky Way has 



a brightness and an apparent proximity wonderful to behold. 

 It is to be lamented that there is not an observatory, with good 

 telescopes, at that place. The government of Ecuador, unable to 

 accomplish such a work itself, would be glad to see it done, and 

 ^ould furnish every facility that its means will allow. 



I found there, that every thing distinctive in any celestial phe- 

 i^omenon, was brought out with a distinctiveness I had never 

 before witnessed. Soon after reaching these altitudes, on going 

 out, about midnight, to see whether I could find the Zodiacal 

 Light over both horizons, as I had done when under peculiarly 

 favorable circumstances in other parts of the world, T saw this 

 light not only over the horizons but also quite across the sky. It 

 formed a complete arch, passing near my zenith from the east to 

 ^est ; and was most distinctly and decidedly marked— looking 

 as if a belt of thin white gauze were drawn across the heaven 



