[55] North British Review for August 1860.

[56] He had, indeed, at an earlier stage, shown a marvellous ignorance of astronomy by the remark, which doubtless appeared to him a safe one, that when he saw a planet on the sun in September he supposed it was Mercury; a September transit of Mercury being as impossible as an eclipse of the sun during the moon's third quarter.

[57] It is, by the way, somewhat amusing to find Baron Humboldt referring a question of this sort to the great mathematician Gauss, and describing the problem as though it involved the most profound calculations. Ten minutes should suffice to deal with any problem of the kind.

Transcriber’s Note

The following typographical errors were corrected.

PageErrorCorrection
[4]JuliasJulius
[35]genuisgenius
[36]artficersartificers
[37]signfiessignifies
[footnote 14]preplexingperplexing
[45]ChaldeanChaldæan
[46]ChaldeansChaldæans
[225]peruquierperruquier
[237]peruqueperruque
[281]NorthfolkNorfolk
[350]ascantaskant