1896 - 97 .] Notes on the Total Eclipse of the San. 
493 
Mr Prebensen, Amtmand of Finmark, we fixed our station on the 
Fossefjeld, some 2| kilometres to the north of the town and about 
120 metres above sea-level. We were most favourably placed on 
level ground, sufficiently raised to escape the low fogs on the fjord, 
should any occur, and quite close to the east end of the northern 
base line of the Norwegian trigonometrical survey. Our latitude 
and longitude were thus known with great exactness. From the 
day of our arrival until the 8th August we were busily engaged in 
transporting and mounting the instruments ; the weather was often 
wet and trying, but happily by the eve of the eclipse we had 
everything mounted and satisfactorily adjusted. Owing to prevail- 
ing bad weather we had much difficulty in securing astronomical 
observations for the exact azimuth of the 40-foot telescope; but 
provided with the Yadso sheet of the excellent Norwegian survey, 
we were able at once to place both it and the other instruments 
approximately in position. The exact adjustments were made 
later, when the partial twilight of the Arctic summer night enabled 
us to get some star observations. To make doubly sure that the 
40-foot tube was correctly placed, Mr Ramsay computed the time 
at which the sun should appear in the tube on several mornings 
preceding the eclipse, and found, to our great satisfaction, that the 
sun’s image appeared at the right time and in the right position on 
the plate-holder. 
In accordance with a scheme already worked out in Edinburgh, 
each member of the party had a particular instrument allotted to 
him. Mr Ramsay, as our photographic expert, was in charge of 
the 40-foot, my son managed the 4-inch camera, MTherson looked 
to the 6-inch prismatic telescope, while I was responsible for the 
ultra-violet spectroscope and the whole-plate camera. Late on the 
evening before the eclipse Mr Ramsay filled all the photographic 
slides, and arranged them in the order in which they were to be 
exposed, in accordance with the indications of a chronometer and 
a loud-beating metronome. Early the next morning we were again 
at our posts with the covers removed from the instruments. 
Deferring for the present the attempt to describe the general 
impression produced by the great natural phenomenon, I shall first 
tell you how we fared with our various cameras. 
With a sky almost covered with clouds, one edge of the sun just 
