1879J TAtf Transit of Venus in 1874. 809 
The following is an excerpt from a letter by the late Rev. 
H. D. James to Mr. Hennessey, who was stationed 19 miles 
from him to the north-west : — 
“ Chakatra, N.W.P., December 9, 1874. 
“ Through your kindness in sending me a diagram of the 
planet’s progress across the sun’s disk I had as satisfactory 
a view of it as was possible. My son was with me. At 
6.56 we noticed the sunlight on the snowy range. Ten 
minutes and twelve seconds after that we saw the rim of the 
sun rising above the mountain which intervened between us 
and the horizon. We keep an eye on Mussoorie and Lan- 
dour, and thought they had but two minutes’ advance of us 
in seeing the sun. Eighteen minutes and ten seconds after 
our first glimpse of the sunlight Venus began nibbling at the 
rim of the sun. Between this and her entire entrance on to 
the disk was twenty-seven minutes and ten seconds ; that is, 
we saw her external contact at 7 0 14' 10", and her internal 
contact at 7 0 4T 20". When she was about half-way on, we 
both noticed a fringe of white light illuminating that rim of 
the planet which was yet on the dark sky. When she went 
off we noticed the same fringe of light, but for a much 
shorter time, and when only about one-eighth of her had 
passed the sun’s disk. The internal contact for departure 
took place at 11 0 30' 15", and the external at 11 0 57' 25, as 
near as it was possible to say, for there was a sort of 
flickering, which rendered it difficult to fix on the precise 
moment of contact. 
“ The spots on the sun were but insignificant, in mag- 
nitude about the same as yesterday, though in position very 
different.” 
Vol. ix. (n.s.) 
3 * 
