Page:History of the Royal Astronomical Society (1923).djvu/199

 ] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 171 Director of the Madras Observatory, the Astronomer Royal consenting to act as an intermediary. It was, however, proposed by Mr. Lockyer, Mr. De la Rue seconding, that the Imperial and Indian Governments should be asked to provide facilities for a few competent observers, who might volunteer, to proceed to India and Ceylon free of expense to make observations at those places. A Committee was appointed to consider this proposal, and at a meeting on June 28 it was resolved that the observations should be limited to a complete examination of the corona, and that Mr. Huggins and Mr. Lockyer should be asked whether they would go to India to undertake this. At a subsequent meeting of the Committee on July 7, at which Mr. Lockyer was present, it was reported that Mr. Huggins could not go, but Mr. Lockyer expressed his willingness to do so if he could get leave from his duties. He also mentioned that he knew that the officers of the Royal Society were prepared to join the Royal Astronomical Society Committee in applying to the Treasury for a grant, and gave the outlines of a scheme of observation that he had prepared, which included spectroscopic as well as photographic observations of the corona. The Committee resolved that they had no power to form part of a joint Committee, and adhered to their resolution of June 28, that only a complete examination of the corona, not comprising spectroscopic work, should be attempted. To this Mr. Lockyer would not agree, and he declined to go. Under these circumstances it was decided to proceed no further in the matter, and the organ- isation of observation of the eclipse passed into the hands of the British Association. At the Annual Meeting of the Association, which was held at Edinburgh in that year, a Committee was formed, Lassell, De la Rue, Airy, Stokes, and Lockyer being the active members, to take in hand matters relating to the eclipse. A grant of 2000 was obtained from the Government, and eventually an observ- ing party went to Ceylon under the leadership of Mr. Lockyer, and met with complete success. Arrangements for observation of the eclipse in India were put in the hands of Major J. F. Tennant by the Indian Government, who provided the necessary resources. This expedition, and those sent out by other Governments to various stations on the line of totality, were equally successful, but the observers in Australia were not favoured with good weather conditions. It seems appropriate to mention here the origin of the volume of the Society's Memoirs (41) known generally as the Eclipse Volume. It was the outcome of a suggestion by Airy, that the results obtained by the observers of the eclipses of 1860 and 1870, who were subsidised by the Government, should be published at public expense. The Treasury refused to grant funds for the