1870.] Instruction in Science for Women. 43 



totality, the sky grew ashen, or rather leaden in hue, and as, with 

 face turned towards the sun, I kept the count from the chronometer 

 for the first exposure, Venus and Mercury came out shining beau- 

 tifully on a ground of bluish grey. I thought I saw a flashing, 

 twirling motion in the corona, or in the last rays of the sun ; but of 

 this I will not be positive, for my attention was not, at the time, 

 specially directed to minute observation. Moths and insects in 

 profusion passed between me and the sun, while a flock of birds 

 with troubled irregular flight seemed seeking cover from the un- 

 natural gloom which surrounded them. A low moaning wind now 

 sprang up, and the whole atmosphere seemed filled with a lead- 

 coloured vapour, and I experienced an indescribable feeling of op- 

 pression when I tapped the trigger, and, from that instant until 

 the sun appeared, I had nothing but an instrumental consciousness, 

 for I was nothing but part of the telescope, and all my being was in 

 the work which I had to perform. I reset the slide, made circuit, 

 exposed, and so on over again, until the six photographs were taken, 

 when I had the mortification to find 50 seconds of totality, and that 

 no plate could possibly be obtained; we were too quick." 



Photographs were now taken leisurely at intervals of about four 

 minutes until 14 h. 47 m. 484 s., when the first of the series for the 

 end of the eclipse was secured ; this was followed by four others at 

 intervals of about a quarter of a minute. The work was finished in 

 a few seconds, the eclipse of August 7th, 1869, was of the past, 

 but its history had been faithfully recorded in forty-one perfect 

 photographs. 



IV. INSTRUCTION IN SCIENCE FOE WOMEN. 



It would seem hardly necessary, in this day of awakening common 

 sense, to put the questions, Is it necessary to impart scientific in- 

 struction to the female sex ? and what kind of information should 

 be conveyed to women ? 



As to the first inquiry, there are, no doubt, still a great many 

 old women of both sexes who consider that if a girl be taught to 

 read, write, and know sufficient of arithmetic to enable her to 

 detect errors in her butcher's or washerwoman's book, any further 

 intellectual instruction is superfluous, and unfits her for household 

 duties. But it being once admitted that such a proposition could 

 only emanate from old womanhood, in the disrespectful sense of 

 the term, and that scientific instruction would be of the greatest 

 benefit to those whom we shall still delight to call the fair sex — 

 not the less fair because more intellectual — we need have no diffi- 

 culty in determining what should be taught to them, and in what 

 manner the instruction should be imparted. 



