54 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 
TRANSACTIONS FOR MARCH, 1905. 
I. ACADEMY SESSION. 
Los Angeles, California, March 6, 1905. 
The regular monthly meeting of the Southern California Academy of 
Sciences was held this evening in the State Normal School, President 
Dozier occupying the chair. 
The lecture for the evening was the World’s Fair at St. Louis, and 
was delivered by Mr. B. R. Baumgardt. It was a concise statement of 
human progress since the Chicago Fair in 1893, showing the great advance 
made in all branches of science, manipulation of power, transportation, 
electricity, manufacturing and education. The lecture was illustrated 
with calcium light views. 
B. R. BAUMGARDT, Secretary. 
II. BOARD OF DIRECTORS. 
Los Angeles, March 6, 1905. 
The Board of Directors met this evening at 7:30, at the State Nor- 
mal School. President Dozier occupied the chair. 
The following applicants for membership were elected members: 
Mr. Harry O. Carter and Mr. W. Scott Lewis. 
Several bills were audited. 
Adjourned. 
B. R. BAUMGARDT, Secretary. 
III. MEETINGS OF SECTIONS. 
1. Biology. 
: March 13, 1905. 
Owing to a violent rainstorm, the March meeting of the Biological 
Section was postponed for one month. C. A. WHITING, Secretary. 
2. Astronomy. 
The Section met at the usual hour and place on March 20th, Chair- 
man William’ H. Knight, presiding. The discussion took a wide and 
somewhat discursive range. By request, Mr. Baumgardt presented the 
matter of apparent retrograde motion of Venus, explaining by aid of a 
diagram the cause of apparent retrogression. The planet Venus having 
just passed the point of greatest elongation, the question of its move- 
ment and appearance during the next few weeks was of special interest. 
The method of determining its distance from the sun was elucidated, 
and the various phases assumed during its revolution about the sun. 
Mr. Knight then presented some very important things relative to 
the approaching eclipse of the sun, to occur on August 30th next. At 
that time the earth will be near its aphelion point and ‘the moon in peri- 
gee, both of which facts contribute to the greater width of the zone 
covered by the moon’s shadow on the earth and the greater duration 
of the eclipse. 
Great preparations are being made by astronomers all over the 
world to make the best possible use of this rare opportunity for study- 
ing the sun. Lick Observatory will send out three expeditions, one to 
Canada, one to Spain, and one to Egypt; the special aim of the observa- 
tory being also threefold namely, to search for intro-Mercurial planets, 
to secure photographs of the corona, and spectroscopic photographs of 
the chromosphere. The unusual duration of nearly four minutes will 
make it possible, under favorable atmospheric conditions, to secure 
excellent results in each of these directions. 
The enterprise of the Lick Observatory is made the more striking 
in comparison with the observatories of Great Britain, which will send 
