Astronomy. 187 
r. Curtis’s report relates to the photographic operations which 
are descnbad i th very great minuteness. To those familiar with 
+ 
Burlington and Ottum arties. For the first, the exposure was 
66 seconds ; but —— of the renin are beautifully shown, 
which would not h ve borne an exposure of one-third that length in 
a tra nsparent wai osphere. Even the lunar motion seems scarcely 
to vate interfered with the definiteness of the image. 
It is to be regretted that a national enterprise carried out at the 
public expense ‘should ever be made an agency for personal pole- 
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any private citizen of the same nation, since he is theoretically 
one of those in whose behalf the investigatio n has been gee 
~ steater part of one of the qua ages is secapied & ya 
in fine print in which Dr. Gould is nathe sharply assailed te his 
views as given on p. 435 of our last number. This is no place for 
resem of those views, but vies -panigonijina deserve a word 
v7 hs Gould adduces, as an additional argument in Psgod ofhis assumption, the 
Servation that the long coronal beams appeared to to be ‘‘variable,” while 
This aureole Be sa in, was evidently “ cine: re Py the: time of totality. 
othe argument howey sug some of its force when it is remembered that to 
T observers the pean appeared to the eye absolutely en both in 
and position during the whole period of the total obscura’ 
We are far from attributing to Dr. Curtis any intention of giv- 
ae infer his language the discourteous significance which some might 
otherwise no mnacnnsen could be possible. But we would 
Inthe ther ange Dr. Curtis says :— 
a mstance affords but another example . of the necessity that 
critic pees, attempting to draw sci ntifio inferences from hotographic repre- 
uld him nee: Seate mer of a photographer. oven Ane se 
t Dr. , 
ae ineciden 
«the art oa, seem aay Bg Tao afforded i in this — published letter by his total mis- 
tion of another purely photographic effect, viz : the apparent e encroach- 
