The New York herald., 1874-12-12
the Great Transit and the Sermon
of Science.


century has transpired, and the expectation OF
all civilized nations is on tiptoe to learn the
full results Of observation. The inspiring
motive which has actuated universal interest
and cooperation in the transit observations Is
not alone the desire to crafty science IN her
cherished researches nor to secure the great
practical ends which successful soiuuon OF
the solar parallax has SO long promised the
world. These, important as they are 70 the
cause Of navigation, commerce and astronomi-
cal investigations Of every kind, are lost sight
of in the sublime aspiration to gauge the
depths of the stellar universe. The notions
of mankind regarding the solar system can be
rightly shaped only as we determine the dis
tance of the sun from the earth. This dis
tance is the basis of measurement for the
iimitable celestial expanse, or at least the best
meteorological unit for surveying the heay-
ems which astronomy has yet proposed. The
grand aim, therefore, in the observations of
the transit Of Venus has been to construct
true map of the universe and to determine the
earth's relations to its most remote frontiers.
In o word, we may regard the worldwide en-
thusasm in this great astronomical investiga-
tion-in which scientists have been only the
leaders and directors of the popular wishes
as mans eager effort to locate himself in the
geography of the heavens, and, as it were, to
feel his way through their undiscovered terri
tory.
Such an ambition, whether uttered or un-
expressed, has lain dormant in the human
mind in all ages, but ever and anon wakened
into intense activity with every announce
ment that there was possibility OF its graft
fication. If evidence were needed we have
it in the enormous expenditure of time,
money and labor, which, from imme-
moral ages, has been lavished in such re-
searches as We are now recording The
sciences, upon the development of which
human wealth and material prosperity mainly
depend, have been left far behind by that
which gratifies the human mind in its cravings
for the infinite and its outreachings after the
mysteries Of the celestial world. A great
writer on the science Of agriculture adverts to
the strange fact that, though national develop
ment and opulence are chiefly conditional
upon the accumulation Of agricultural knowl-
edge, it lags behind many branches which
concern US but little. 1t is the Consciousness
however, of need deeper than any that
material abundance can supply that has
constantly impelled man to grope after higher
things though they lie beyond the sphere of
the visible. 1t is the restless spirit of intel
lectual labor which, unsatisfed with the seen,
as Humboldt says, is ever striving toward
the infinite and grasping all that is revealed
to us amid the boundless and inexhaustible
fulness of creation"
When the enthusiastic astronomer LIE Gentl
had resolved to observe the transit of Venus
in 1863, he spent eight years in preparation,
and as the critical computed time approached
he repaired to Manila as the most eligible sta
ton. When the great day, 80 ardently looked
for, arrived, and Venus approached the suns
disk, though the sky had been for several days
before cloudless, the whole phenomenon of the
transit was completely cut off from the OBJ
server. But in the modern transit no such
astronomer. 1t was hardly within the range
of possibility that the seventy or eighty bands
of observers now in the East could have been
simultaneously foiled, as the network of sta
tons was more extensive than the largest
cloud canopy ever known to have intercepted
the suns rays. And the intelligence which
has already reached Us shows that the expert
ence of the past century has not been lost on
our scientists.
The immense undertaking Of observing the
recent transit as our special dispatches have
told US, is an accomplished success, and the
rapidly advanced. The Photographic observa-
tons secured in the northern hemisphere
suffice to solve the great problem involved,
even should the observers in the southern
hemisphere have failed. The weather at the
southern stations, now experiencing their sum-
mer, was probably better than the winter
weather with which the northern stations had
to contend. The several hundred photographs
known to have been taken will be carefully
examined by the aid of the micrometer. Each
photograph contains an image of Venus at q
gIven moment of time as she appeared on the
suns face. This appears as small spot, and
all such spots ore laid down and marked by
the micrometer, SO that they make dotted
line, or curve, from which. by the mathemati-
cal method of least squares, the problem can
be finally worked out. While the work Of re-
ducing the Photographic observations is going
on atthe home observatories the undetermined
longitudes of the stations will be ascertained,
and all the computations proceed pdri passu.
Thus, it may be expected, in less than year
our American results will be finally announced.
These, unless we except the probable deduc-
tions from the similar transit in 1882 (when
America will be in the most favorable position
for observations) will, perhaps, make the most
extensive and exact contribution to astron-
omy which the nineteenth century will