The Reminiscences of an Astronomer

by Simon Newcomb

It appears that Judge Black was an absent-minded man, as any man engaged in thought on very great subjects, whether of science, jurisprudence, or politics, has the right to be. Garfield asked him whether it was true that, on one occasion, when preparing an argument, and walking up and down the room, his hat chanced to drop on the floor at one end of the room, and was persistently used as a cuspidor until the argument was completed. Mr. Black neither affirmed nor denied the story, but told another which he said was true. While on his circuit as judge he had, on one occasion, tried a case of theft in which the principal evidence against the accused was the finding of the stolen article in his possession. He charged the jury that this fact was prima facie evidence that the man was actually the thief. When through his business and about to leave for home, he went into a jeweler's shop to purchase some little trinket for his wife. The jeweler showed him a number of little articles, but finding none to suit him, he stepped into his carriage and drove off. In the course of the day he called on a street urchin to water his horse. Reaching into his pocket for a reward, the first thing he got hold of was a diamond ring which must have been taken from the shop of the jeweler when he left that morning. "I wondered," said the judge, "how I should have come out had I been tried under my own law."

The outcome of the matter was that the appropriations were duly made; first, in 1872, $50,000 for instruments, then, the year following, $100,000 for the expeditions. In 1874, $25,000 more was appropriated to complete the work and return the parties to their homes.

The date of the great event was December 8-9, 1874. To have the parties thoroughly drilled in their work, they were brought together at Washington in the preceding spring for practice and rehearsal. In order that the observations to be made by the eye should not be wholly new, an apparatus representing the transit was mounted on the top of Winder's building, near the War Department, about two thirds of a mile from the observatory. When this was observed through the telescope from the roof of the observatory, an artificial black Venus was seen impinging upon an artificial sun, and entering upon its disk in the same way that the actual Venus would be seen. This was observed over and over until, as was supposed, the observers had gotten into good practice.

In order to insure the full understanding of the photographic apparatus, the instruments were mounted and the parties practiced setting them up and going through the processes of photographing the sun. To carry out this arrangement with success, it was advisable to have an expert in astronomical photography to take charge of the work. Dr. Henry Draper of New York was invited for this purpose, and gave his services to the commission for several weeks.

This transit was not visible in the United States. It did not begin until after the sun had set in San Francisco, and it was over before the rising sun next morning had reached western Europe. All the parties had therefore to be sent to the other side of the globe. Three northern stations were occupied,—in China, Japan, and Siberia; and five southern ones, at various points on the islands of the Pacific and Indian oceans. This unequal division was suggested by the fact that the chances of fair weather were much less in the southern hemisphere than in the northern.

The southern parties were taken to their destinations in the U. S. S. Swatara, Captain Ralph Chandler, U. S. N., commanding. In astronomical observations all work is at the mercy of the elements. Clear weather was, of course, a necessity to success at any station. In the present case the weather was on the whole unpropitious. While there was not a complete failure at any one station, the number or value of the observations was more or less impaired at all. Where the sky was nearly cloudless, the air was thick and hazy. This was especially the case at Nagasaki and Pekin, where from meteorological observations which the commission had collected through our consuls, the best of weather was confidently expected. What made this result more tantalizing was that the very pains we had taken to collect the data proved, by chance, to have made the choice worse. For some time it was deliberated whether the Japanese station should be in Nagasaki or Yokohama. Consultation with the best authorities and a study of the records showed that, while Yokohama was a favorable spot, the chances were somewhat better at Nagasaki. So to Nagasaki the party was sent. But when the transit came, while the sky was of the best at Yokohama, it was far from being so at Nagasaki.

Something of the same sort occurred at the most stormy of all the southern stations, that at Kerguelen Island. The British expeditions had, in the beginning, selected a station on this island known as Christmas Harbor. We learned that a firm of New London, Conn., had a whaling station on the island. It was therefore applied to to know what the weather chances were at various points in the island. Information was obtained from their men, and it was thus found that Molloy Point, bad though the weather there was, afforded better chances than Christmas Harbor; so it was chosen. But this was not all; the British parties, either in consequence of the information we had acquired, or through what was learned from the voyage of the Challenger, established their principal station near ours. But it happened that the day at Christmas Harbor was excellent, while the observations were greatly interfered with by passing clouds at Molloy Point.

After the return of the parties sent out by the various nations, it did not take long for the astronomers to find that the result was disappointing, so far, at least, as the determination of the sun's distance was concerned. It became quite clear that this important element could be better measured by determining the velocity of light and the time which it took to reach us from the sun than it could by any transit of Venus. It was therefore a question whether parties should be sent out to observe the transit of 1882. On this subject the astronomers of the country at large were consulted. As might have been expected, there was a large majority in favor of the proposition. The negative voices were only two in number, those of Pickering and myself. I took the ground that we should make ample provisions for observing it at various stations in our own country, where it would now be visible, but that, in view of the certain failure to get a valuable result for the distance of the sun by this method, it was not worth while for us to send parties to distant parts of the world. I supposed the committee on appropriations might make careful inquiry into the subject before making the appropriation, but a representation of the case was all they asked for, and $10,000 was voted for improving the instruments and $75,000 for sending out parties.

Expeditions being thus decided upon, I volunteered to take charge of that to the Cape of Good Hope. The scientific personnel of my party comprised an officer of the army engineers, one of the navy, and a photographer. The former were Lieutenant Thomas L. Casey, Jr., Corps of Engineers, U. S. A., and Lieutenant J. H. L. Holcombe, U. S. N. We took a Cunard steamer for Liverpool about the middle of September, 1882, and transported our instruments by rail to Southampton, there to have them put on the Cape steamship. At Liverpool I was guilty of a remissness which might have caused much trouble. Our apparatus and supplies, in a large number of boxes, were all gathered and piled in one place. I sent one of my assistants to the point to see that it was so collected that there should be no possibility of mistake in getting it into the freight car designed to carry it to Southampton, but did not require him to stay there and see that all was put on board. When the cases reached Southampton it was found that one was missing. It was one of the heaviest of the lot, containing the cast-iron pier on which the photoheliograph was to be mounted. While it was possible to replace this by something else, such a course would have been inconvenient and perhaps prejudicial. The steamer was about to sail, but would touch at Plymouth next day. Only one resource was possible. I telegraphed the mistake to Liverpool and asked that the missing box be sent immediately by express to Plymouth. We had the satisfaction of seeing it come on board with the mail just as the steamer was about to set sail.

We touched first at Madeira, and then at Ascension Island, the latter during the night. One of the odd things in nomenclature is that this island, a British naval station, was not called such officially, but was a "tender to Her Majesty's ship Flora," I believe. It had become astronomically famous a few years before by Gill's observations of the position of Mars to determine the solar parallax.