Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 67.djvu/581

Rh Assuan, took extensive photographs in | search for a possible planet between the sun and Mercury. The photographs have probably not as yet been examined, but Professor Perrine's results in Sumatra make the existence of such a planet unlikely.

As events of general interest in connection with the eclipse, it. may be noted that the Spaniards made special arrangements when the circumstances were so auspicious for them. Thus the Jesuit Observatory, at Tortosa, was in the line of the shadow, and no fewer than eighty Jesuit fathers skilled in astronomy assembled there. Japan has been justly praised for not letting its scientific and educational activities be interrupted by the war. and it seems fair to note that Russia was represented by several expeditions in Spain and Egypt. A large party, chiefly of amateur astronomers, observed the eclipse from the steamer Arcadia.

As it will be some time before the scientific results will be made public, readers of this may be referred to the article by Director Campbell, of the Lick Observatory, printed in the issue of June of last year for an admirable account of the problems of the present eclipse. It may also be well to mention the articles on the two preceding eclipses that were observed, that by Professor Perrine on the eclipse of 1901 (August, 1(10.3), and that by Secretary Langly on the eclipse of 1900 (July, 1900).

The last part of an extensive study of the fishes of the Hawaiian Islands, by President David Starr Jordan and Dr. W. Barton Evermann, published by the United States Fish Commission, contains a discussion of the commercial fisheries by Mr. John M. Cobb. He describes the fish ponds of the islands, which are on a much larger scale than can be found elsewhere in the United States. Some of the ponds are supposed to have been built as long as two hundred and fifty years ago, and are attributed by the natives to a mythical race of dwarfs, distinguished for cunning industry and engineering skill. The ponds are mostly in the bays indenting the shores of the islands, but there are also many ponds in the interior, and at least one is an old volcanic crater. In the sea ponds the walls are about five feet in width, and are built loosely to let the water percolate.