for the year 1883. xxi 



observed a thin shining cloud of matter to break off from 

 the comet, move away and disappear. The most recent 

 calculations of the elements of this comet's orbit leave but 

 little doubt that it is of very long period — 793 years — and 

 not of one almost counted by days, as at first appeared 

 probable. It has been surmised that it is a second return of 

 a great comet which appeared 371 years before Christ. The 

 last glimpses of it with the naked eye were obtained from 

 the 7th to the 10th February. Our last measure obtained 

 with the great telescope was on 27th April. I have, how- 

 ever, been informed it was seen later than this in New 

 Zealand. 



The Transit of Venus of December, the last for 125 years, 

 was successfully observed at various points of the earth's 

 surface, and the results are now in process of computation ; 

 and astronomers are awaiting with great interest to know 

 the outcome : whether the sun's distance given by this, the 

 direct method, or that by the indirect methods, shall be 

 accepted as the most probable. Our actual knowledge of 

 the sun and its surroundings, although a great advance has 

 taken place during the past few years, is still very small. 

 Year after year adds, however, something to it ; but it must 

 be remembered that it is only on the occasion of total 

 eclipses that, until very recently, any opportunity has been 

 afforded to study the immediate surroundings of our luminary 

 outside its visible surface. In his work on the sun, Professor 

 C. A. Young says, regarding the structures around the sun, 

 " which are hidden by the glare of our atmosphere, the pro- 

 gress of our knowledge must be very slow, for the corona is 

 visible only on about eight days in a century in the aggre- 

 gate, and then only over narrow strips of the earth's 

 surface, and but from one to five minutes at a time by any 

 one observer." What he says here of the corona applies also 

 to other portions of the solar surface and surrounding regions ; 

 and although since the eclipse of 1870, when Janssen and 

 Lockyer showed that some of the curious phenomena 

 hitherto witnessed only during moments of total eclipse 



