320 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



station chosen, as it seemed to offer some advan- 

 tages, and their treatment by their hosts was 

 worthy of great eulogy. 



The expedition had its drawbacks however. The 

 first was shortness of funds. The time for prepara- 

 tion was also somewhat limited. On arriving at 

 Malya Karmakoulj-, poor meteorological conditions 

 made it very difficult to get the true position of the 

 place or to adjust the instruments, besides proving 

 a discouraging factor to the observers themselves. 



On the day of the eclipse itself, at two o'clock the 

 sky was quite cloudy, but towards four the clouds 



for observing contacts with. M. Hansky, with 

 Prince Galitzine, arranged the meteorological 

 observatory. 



The equatorial, not having been constructed for 

 so high a latitude, had to be fitted up in an abnormal 

 position, the consequence being that the clock did 

 not work regularly, which becomes painfully appa- 

 rent in some of the plates. 



The programme arranged was to observe the first 

 and fourth contacts with four telescopes and the 

 second and third with two. During the time of 

 totality M. Kostinsky was to take five photographs 



Fig. 2. — ToT.'O, Eclipse of the Sun, Augu.st 9TH. 1S56. 



began to disperse. During the eclipse the skv was 

 tolerablj' serene, though at first light cirrus clouds 

 were over the sun. and make their presence manifest - 

 in some of the photographs. 



It was resolved that, whether the eclipse was 

 successfully observed or not, the expedition should 

 not be fruitless. Amongst the instruments taken 

 were an equatorial with a 4-in. objective corrected 

 for photography, a photographic camera with a 

 2j-in. objective attached to the tube of the equato- 

 rial, an ordinary photographic camera, a reflecting 

 circle, two box chronometers, and four telescopes 



with the refractor, and M. Hansky three with the 

 camera fitted on to the tube. M. Hansky also pro- 

 posed to draw the corona during totality. Prince 

 Galitzine proposed to photograph the corona with 

 the ordinary camera, as also the spectrum with the 

 spectrograph. M. Backlund was to take observa- 

 tions around the sun and to give signals, whilst M. 

 Jacobson had to beat the seconds. The party had 

 frequent rehearsals of the plan' beforehand, so that 

 when the critical time arrived all might be well 

 prepared to make the best use of the 106 seconds at 

 their disposal. 



