242 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 
THE SOLAR ECLIPSE OF MAY 6TH, 1883. 
We cull the following items from the reports of Professors Holden, Hastings,, 
and others, regarding the journey to Caroline Island and the phenomena of the 
eclipse as observed by them on May 6th. Professor Holden's report is made to 
Professor C. A. Young, Chairman of the Eclipse Committee of the National 
Academy of Sciences, and contains some details concerning the voyage and the 
stay of the observers on the island which, while out of the usual run of ofificial 
reports, will be none the less interesting to the readers of the Review. Prof. E, 
S. Holden belongs to the U. S. Naval Observatory, but is temporarily in charge 
of the Washburn Observatory, at Madison, Wisconsin, and was the principal 
officer of the American Expedition : 
Journey from New York to Colon (1,989 miles), from Colon toCallao (1,722 
miles), and from Callao to Caroline Island (4,324 miles). The six members of 
the American party sailed frpm New York March i, 1883, on a Pacific mail 
steamship Acapulco (Capt. W. Shackford), and arrived at Colon March 11, after 
touching at Castle Island, March 7, to send off a mail. At Colon the expedition 
was joined by the English photographic party. As the steamer on the west coast 
of South America did not leave until the evening of March 12, the American 
party remained in Colon till the morning of that day, and went thence to Panama. 
Every day during May a rehearsal for the eclipse observations was gone 
through with, and two days before May 6 everything was in complete readiness. 
On the morning of May 6 there were three showers and several persistent banks 
of clouds. The sky was clear at first contact (about loh. 3m. local m. t.), cloudy 
at intervals till near totality, clear during totality, except slight haze during the 
first minute of totality, cloudy a few minutes after third contact, and finally clear 
at fourth contact. The observations of the various parties may be considered to 
have been successful. But the success was owing to the apparent accident of 
the dissipation of a local cloud. I am more than ever convinced that my con- 
clusion to go to Flint Island, had I found the French party occupying Caroline 
Island, was a sound one. 
On the twenty-third day out from Callao, we sighted one of the islands of 
the Marquesas group, and at 8 A. M., of April 20, CaroHne Island was seen as a 
low green streak on the horizon. We had come 4,324 miles in twenty-nine days, 
mostly under sail (an average of 149 miles per day) without seeing a single sail 
or any land, except Magdelena Island, of the Marquesas, which we had gone out 
of our course to sight. I cannot refrain from quoting here Darwin's entry in his 
''Journal of a voyage in the Beagle," under date of December 19, 1835 • " ^^ 
now consider that we have nearly crossed the Pacific. It is necessary to sail 
over this great ocean to comprehend its immensity. Moving quickly onward for 
weeks together we meet with nothing but the same blue, profoundly deep ocean. 
Even within the archipelagoes the islands are mere specks, and far distant one 
