522 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE, 



Since astronomical time begins at noon, and counts to 25 hours, we may say- 

 that contact I. began December 5th, 1882, at 2oh. 55m. 34s., or December 6th, 

 1882, at 8h. 55m. 34s , mean Washington, or 2oh. im. 41s., mean local time. 

 But all our labors will prove of no value to science, as we are still in doubt as to 

 the actual time. We are not sure whether the time was 8h. im. 39s., 41s. or 42s., 

 all because the cloud was followed by a train of vapors that caused the sun to 

 " boil" furiously. All the care of the telegraph company, the trouble of regu- 

 lating clocks and watches and other labors will be of no real value, we regret to 

 say, so far as this observatory is concerned, since there is an uncertainty of three 

 seconds — an error that will destroy the result of any delicate astronomical com- 

 putation. To telescopists we remark that this vajjor mass caused a violent "boil- 

 ing" of the solar periphery, making it assume the appearance of a seething, tur- 

 bulent mass of fire, in such agitation as to preclude anything like accurate deter- 

 mination of time of contact. The planet advanced, cutting a deeper and deeper 

 curved black space from the solar limb until, when two-thirds on the sun, a most 

 beautiful spectacle was seen. This was a semi-circle of light suddenly made vis- 

 ible on the external edge of Venus, and was caused by the refraction of the sun's 

 rays by the planetary atmosphere. 



The air on Venus must be deep — much deeper than that on earth ; for, near 

 as we could judge without micrometrical measurement, we should say that 

 the band of light was equal to one-thirtieth the radius of Venus. Some say the 

 earth's atmosphere is 45 miles deep; others think it is a hundred, but one hun- 

 dred miles is only the one-tortieth part of its semi-diameter. 



Finally the moving black sphere approached contact II., that is, the exter- 

 nal edge came within the solar periphery. 



The vapor in our atmosphere at the time was dense, and the " boiling " fu- 

 rious ; but the time of internal, or contact II., near as possibly could be deter- 

 mined, was 8h. 22m. 20s., Venus requiring 20m. 39s. to traverse a distance equal 

 to its own diameter, as projected on the sun, and seen from the earth. This time 

 would have been much shorter had the earth remained motionless in its orbit, but 

 our world moves in the same direction around the sun that Venus does, though 

 not so fast, hence the apparent motion of Venus on the sun was what it gained 

 on the earth. We saw no "black drop," a phenomenon sometimes seen at trans- 

 its of Venus, when a dark band lingers a few moments between the edges of the 

 sun and Venus. When the planet was fully on the solar disc, we made close ex- 

 amination, hoping to detect a halo around it caused by its atmosphere, but failed 

 to see it, but the seeing was not first-class, owing to the turbulence in the terres- 

 trial atmospheric envelope. The angular diameter of the sun is 1,924 seconds of 

 arc, and that of Venus at transit was 65, hence the apparent diameter of the sun 

 was 29. 6 times greater than that of the planet moving across its disc. The scene was 

 calculated to impress one's mind with sublimity, and when we saw the first con- 

 tact we could not repress a sense of admiration for those students who made 

 known the minute details of that vast mechanism, the solar system, and calcu- 

 lated the phenomenon one hundred years ahead — true to less than one minute of 



