Page:History of the Royal Astronomical Society (1923).djvu/196

 168 HISTORY OF THE [1870-80 a severe pecuniary loss through the failure of a New Zealand bank, and was practically compelled to earn his living by authorship. He had joined the Society in 1866 and began his long series of contributions in the Monthly Notices by papers in 1867 and 1868 on the rotation of Mars. The coming transits of Venus in 1874 and 1882 were now engaging attention, and in 1868 December, Airy presented a paper " On the Preparatory Arrangements which will be necessary for efficient Observation of the Transits," in which he pointed out that the method of observation known as Halley's, failed for the transit of 1874, and though it was suitable for that of 1882 there was a difficulty in finding a suitable southern station ; and that it would be advisable to plan the observations of the first of the pair according to Delisle's method. Mr. Proctor communicated a paper to the Society in 1869 March, showing that Halley's method was quite suitable for the 1874 transit, a view taken by M. J. Puiseux in a contribution to the Comptes Rendus of 1869 February, and he followed this with a more complete and detailed paper read at the meeting in May, which will be found in the Monthly Notices of 1869 June. Mr. Stone took up the discussion on the part of the Astronomer Royal. The feeling that existed with regard to this matter appears from the following extract from a letter written by Mr. Proctor to the Astronomer Royal on 1869 May 15, the day after the meeting of the Society : The high respect and esteem in which the scientific world holds the name of the Astronomer Royal for England is shared in by no one more fully than by myself. But I should consider that no greater discourtesy could be shown to that name than by an attempt to modify statements of scientific fact in presence of it. Mr. Stone praised such a course on M. Puiseux 's part as a piece of courtesy ; but M. Puiseux must in justice be acquitted of so serious an offence against scientific morality and of what would have been a gross rudeness towards yourself. I think I stated the simple truth when I said last night that no man living has so earnest a desire to see the coming transits properly utilised as yourself : and I conceive that in pointing to a certain application of Halley's method in 1874 as the most powerful mode of determining the sun's distance available until the twenty- first century, I was fulfilling what no one would admit more readily than yourself to be a duty. The subject of the Transit of Venus and this discussion will be treated in more detail later, as the incidents are being related to some extent in chronological order. At the meetings in the year 1870 the subject of observation of the total solar eclipse of December 22 was repeatedly brought before the Society. The central line of this eclipse passed over