Preparations on a large scale are being made on the Continent and in America for observing the great solar eclipse of the 22d December, with a care and precision never known in the examination of a similar phenomenon. Never before, indeed, could a solar eclipse be observed and analysed in its every phase as this one will be. Aided by the spectroscope, polariscope, photometer, and photograph, with the most powerful telescopes, and meteorological and magnetic instruments of the utmost delicacy and exactness, it will be strange, indeed, if our knowledge of the chemistry and constitution of the great central orb is not very largely increased on this occasion. In our country the eclipse will be a partial one only. At the moment of maximum obscuration, supposing the sun to consist of twelve digits, about nine digits, or three-fourths of the disc, will be occulted. According to Edinburgh mean time the eclipse will begin at 10 h. 54 m. morning; maximum observation, 0 h. 8 m. afternoon; and of eclipse, 1 h. 22 m. afternoon. A glass of very moderate powers is sufficient for observing such partial eclipses. Partial though this eclipse is, however, no phenomenon of the kind of equal magnitude will be seen again in our country till August 1887, when the eclipse will be very nearly, though not quite, total. Never, perhaps, has the solar disc been so constantly and so largely crowded with maculæ, or "spots," as during the present year. Some of these spots have recently been very large. On the 9th of the present month, for instance, there was an immense circular spot as nearly as possible on the centre of the solar disc, like a bull's-eye in a bright target of living light, which a little before sunset was plainly visible to the naked eye. It was the evening of the Fort-William market day, and we drew the attention of several people returning from the fair to the unusual phenomenon. One jolly old fellow, who had probably been largely patronising the "tents" on the market stance throughout the day, would insist upon it that he saw, not one big spot on the sun, but two or more--and perhaps he did. A few days previously a perfect stream of maculæ of all sizes might easily be observed along the solar equator, looking for all the world as if a flock of ravens were at the moment passing, in struggling order within the telescope's field of view, between us and the sun. At the moment we write these lines, there is a very large spot half-way between the solar centre and its western limb, that towards sunset, if the sky is clear, might, we think, be discerned by the unaided eye. Auroral displays, too, still continue to render our nights, though at present moonless, and frequently cloudy withal, bright and cheerful by their broad and mysterious effulgence. The November meteors of the present year seem to have made little or no display anywhere. Here it was wet and cloudy, so that we could not have seen them even if the sky was ablaze with them. CHAPTER XVIII.