[468] Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. xxviii. p. 264.
[469] It would seem to be absurd to repeat the profuse expenditure of 1874 at the approaching transit in 1882. The aggregate sum spent in 1874 by various governments and individuals can hardly be less than £200,000, a sum which, wisely expended on scientific investigations, would give a hundred important results.
[470] Philosophical Transactions (1856), vol. cxlvi. p. 342.
[471] Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, for 8th Nov. 1844, No. X. vol. vi. p. 89.
[472] Philosophical Magazine, 2nd Series, vol. xxvi. p. 61.
[473] Clausius in Philosophical Magazine, 4th Series, vol. ii. p. 119.
[474] Watts’ Dictionary of Chemistry, vol. iii. p. 129.
[475] Preliminary Discourse, §§ 158, 174. Outlines of Astronomy, 4th edit. § 856.
[476] Proceedings of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, 28th November, 1871, vol. xi. p. 33. Since the above remarks were written, Professor Balfour Stewart has pointed out to me his paper in the Proceedings of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society for 15th November, 1870 (vol. x. p. 32), in which he shows that a body moving in an enclosure of uniform temperature would probably experience resistance independently of the presence of a ponderable medium, such as gas, between the moving body and the enclosure. The proof is founded on the theory of the dissipation of energy, and this view is said to be accepted by Professors Thomson and Tait. The enclosure is used in this case by Professor Stewart simply as a means of obtaining a proof, just as it was used by him on a previous occasion to obtain a proof of certain consequences of the Theory of Exchanges. He is of opinion that in both of these cases when once the proof has been obtained, the enclosure may be dispensed with. We know, for instance, that the relation between the inductive and absorptive powers of bodies—although this relation may have been proved by means of an enclosure, does not depend upon its presence, and Professor Stewart thinks that in like manner two bodies, or at least two bodies possessing heat such as the sun and the earth in motion relative to each other, will have the differential motion retarded until perhaps it is ultimately destroyed.
[477] British Association Catalogue of Stars, p. 49.