The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1874-12-07
MONDAY, DECEMBER Z, 1874.
CIRCULATION.
The average daily circulation Of DAILY GLOBE,
n the periods named below, was as follows;
THANSlT OF VENUS.

months and ten days ago-namely on June
9TH. 176i-two young students of Harvard
college, accompanied by their professor,
John Winthrop, witnessed, near st. Johns,
Newfoundland, for the second time since
the creation of the world, the transit of
Venus over the disc Of the sun. One of |
these students was subsequently that pro-
fessors successor in the chair of mathcmat- |
les and natural philosophy in Harvard col |
lego came to Vermont and was the first |
to preach to the Congregational church of
the cast parish of Rutland, and is known
by reputation, to most of our readers as
Rev. Samuel Williams, LII. d., the hsto-
ran of Vermont. Tomorrow, Tuesday, Dec
Sih. 1874, another transit of Venus will
take place, the second since the one we
have referred to. 1t is safe TO say that no
event has so deeply interested the sci
cntific world for the past half century, and
the preparations for its observation arc
complete and ample. This may be seen
from the fact that twcnty-seven eXpcai-
lions have been sent out by the Russian
govcrnmc; t, several each by Great Britain,
France and Germany, while the United
States has appropriated one hundred and
fifty thou ,and dollars fcr the same object,
and has dispatched cove Imcnt vessels with
cighi different scieniiti expeditions
TIE only observe ION of the trarst of
i6l, mad in this ,untry, was the ono Mt
IL ,,,1 is-yn 10, lint RI
oh government took good care that the
cause of science should lot suffer by the
failure of one attempted observation tor
clouds or rain at Il { place selected would
nugatoiy-and there fore dispatched cXpe
ditions TO the most distant parts Of Africa
aud Asia, and, ais, provided for the neccs
sary work in thc royal observatory at
Greenwich. This year the transit can only
be seen, on this continent, from the most
western extremity Of Alaska, but it will,
also, be visible to all places between ST.
BERN and the south pole and between the
middle of the Pacific ocean and the eastern
portion of Africa. 1t may be asked what
all this time and money is expended for
of what use is an observation of the transit
of Venus /? This we will endeavor to an
swcr, as briefly as possible, at the same
time claiming no originality in that which
we may say, and confessing that we shall lat
times, use the language of Kepler and
other distinguished astronomers, or the
substance thereof, without credit. 1t is,
of course, unnecessary at this late day to
speak of the advantages of scientific, es-
pecally astronomical, research or the ben
efts rcaped by mankind therefrom. We
shall make no such attempt, as VIC would
but insult the intelligence of the reader by
so doing.
We trust that we may not be considered
proliy, if before answering the question
suggested, we briefly refer to some of the
former transts and the first notice taken
of them. The first notice of it, that we
have been able to find, was made by KEEP
Ter, who ilourished not long " after the re-
viyal of true astronomy by Copernicus !"
who, in work originally published in
1904, stated that no such thing could hap
pen in that century, nor in the next until
year 1861. However accurate Kepler was
in most of his calculations, tables and sci
ertiic predictions, in this one he was led
into a mistake by a slight error either in
observations or IN calculating his tables.
This error was discovered by an English
astronomer, jeremiah Horrockes, then only
twenty years of age but described as /" OF
admirable genius" who, having corrected
Kepler's tables by some of his own obser
vations, predicted and soon after observed
this rare phenomenon on the Gath of Nc
vember, 1889 60. s., at Hoole small vii
age some twelve miles distant from Liver
pool. lie reports, that having waited sew
eral hours g with great impatence," III
had at last the satisfaction to see thu
planet, as black spot" entering on thu
sun, at a quarter past three o'clock in thu
afternoon. He made three observations il
the course of half an hour, when he " wa
deprived of further sight of it by the set
ting of the sun. He communicated hi
predictions to scientific friend, Crabtre
by name, who just obtained sight thereo
between the clouds, just PRIOR to sunset
Professor Winthrop says that s. these tw
were the only persons that ever saw Venu
in the sun, before" 1861.
But to their use. The scientific worl
had always attached something Of import
ance to the transits of all planets, but n
more to Venus than the others, until tn
time OF DIR. HALEY, who published a learn
rd and exhaustive paper on the subject i
the Philosophical Transactions for tn
year 1905. We do not propose to tire tn
patience of our leaders with long extract
from that paper but shall content oursel
with briefly summarizing his results, whic
were described in the publications Of til
day as "a new and singular use 10 be mad
of n transit of Venus, and To which II
other phenomenon in the heavens is s
use, the cause of the expenditure of s
much time and money, is to find the pa
allax of the sum-" which is so small that a
tronomers have never beeu able to dscovt
it with eXactness by any other methoC
This once ascertained, the distance of IL
san, Of all the planets and Of all come
would be known or easily ascertained
together with their magntudes whic
would be deducel from their apparent d
ameters. 1t may be answered that all th
is claimed to be known now. To this, W
reply that such assumed Or real knowledg
is based upon former observations, nece
sarly somewhat imperfect that the MOI
trlfling error in these observations woul
make an error of great magnitude in I'll
deductions therefrom and that only b
repeated and the most careful observation
can an approach to exact accuracy be o