424 
SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY. 
ASTRONOMY. 
The Transit of Venus. — M. Faye has been lecturing on this subject in 
France, “ to an audience which filled to overflowing the concert-room of the 
Cercle du Nord.” “ St. Paul’s Island,” we read in the Times , “ the utterly 
desolate nature of that volcanic excresence to which Captain Mouchez is 
obliged to convey food, fuel, water, and shelter, in addition to instruments, 
the self-sacrificing devotion of the sailors and savants, relegated for six, or 
possibly twelve and more months, to an inhospitable storm-beaten rock, 
were leading features in M. Faye’s expose of the problem which all civilised 
nations have combined to solve. The lecturer demonstrated by means of 
diagrams and instruments why the expeditions of 1761 and 1769 failed under 
such observers as Captain Cook and La Caille ; why an uniform method of 
observation and registration could not be arranged in our days ; why the mode 
invented in the eighteenth century by Halley, and now supplemented by 
photography, was adopted this year by France and England, while (in 
addition, the account should have said) other processes are followed by the 
Germans, Russians, and Americans ; and finally, what results the success of 
labours undertaken at some seventy stations (six being the share of France) 
in the Austral and Boreal hemispheres would secure for navigation.” 
The Total Solar Eclipses of 1860, 1869, and 1870. — We understand that 
the volume of the “Memoirs of the Astronomical Society,” containing the 
results obtained during these eclipses, will be in a few months ready for issue. 
The delay as respects the eclipse of 1860 can but be regarded as monstrous. 
For this, however, Mr. Ranyard, the nominal sub-editor, ^but in reality the 
editor, of the volume, has been in no sense responsible. The volume will 
be a most valuable contribution to science ; and if the literary excellence 
correspond to the amount of labour which Mr. Ranyard has devoted to this 
subject, the work will also be a notable contribution to scientific literature. 
The matter treated in our next paragraph affords significant evidence of the 
care with which Mr. Ranyard is dealing with the materials placed in his 
hands. It is also very interesting. 
Strange Feature in the Photographs of the Solar Eclipse of December, 12, 
1871. Traces of a Comet ? — “ The structure which I am about to describe is 
by no means a marked feature on the Indian photographs ,* indeed, it was 
not observed until after nearly a year had been spent in cataloguing the 
details which are to be made out on the different negatives. When, how- 
ever, it has once been pointed out, no careful observer can have any doubt 
