356 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
phenomena, he addressed the Navy Department upon the 
subject of their employment in Europe in observing the eclipse 
of December 1870 ; the Department promptly detailed the pro- 
fessors who had been the observers of the previous year ; ” and 
it was doubtless through the energy thus displayed by Kear- 
Admiral Sands, that other skilful American astronomers were 
enabled to cross the Atlantic for the purpose of observing that 
important eclipse. Unfavourable weather prevented observa- 
tions of this eclipse at some of the best stations, but the 
American observers succeeded in establishing the accuracy of 
the observations made in 1869; and to them must be attributed 
in large part the definite demonstration of the fact, which though 
now admitted was then much disputed, that the corona is a 
solar phenomenon, and not due to the illumination of our own 
atmosphere only. 
The part taken by the Washington Observatory in preparing 
for and co-operating in the observation of the transit of Venus, 
on Dec. 8, 1874, is too recent to need full description in this 
place. I may be permitted, however, to dwell with special 
commendation on the manner in which American astronomers 
devoted themselves at that time to a task which they might 
fairly have thought the business of their European brethren. A 
transit of Venus is to occur in 1882 which will be specially 
American, being visible wholly or in part from every portion of 
the United States ; and if America had reserved her energies for 
that occasion, no complaint could reasonably have been made. 
It was indeed the prevalent idea in Europe that that would be 
the course she would adopt. But with singular generosity and 
scientific zeal, she not only devoted to the work of observing the 
earlier transit a sum largely exceeding the amount granted by 
any other government (and nearly twice as large as Great 
Britain paid), but undertook some of the most , difficult portions 
of the work, which otherwise would have been left unprovided 
for. I cannot but recall with a feeling of something like personal 
satisfaction (though conscious that such a feeling ought to find 
no place in the mind of the true student of science) the gratifi- I 
cation with which I welcomed the announcement, early in 1873, 
that America had undertaken to occupy positions, the import- 
ance of which I had long pointed out, but which, but a fortnight 
before that announcement reached Europe, had been confidently 1 
described as astronomically inferior and geographically unsuitable. 
The pleasure I then felt was only surpassed by that which I 
experienced subsequently, when news received from the various 
observing stations showed that at those just mentioned were 
achieved some of the most important successes of the occasion, i 
Another noble contribution made to science at Washington 
has been the erection of the splendid refractor, 26 inches in 
