Finally, governments have been appealed to, to aid in preparing the means and in bearing the expense; and they have responded. Every civilized nation is acting in the matter. Russia leads off with, as we are assured, twenty‐seven stations, mostly on her own territory, all duly provided with instruments and observers. France, England, and Germany will have ten or a dozen each. Austria will have her quota. Belgium, Holland, Denmark, and Italy will establish stations and send observers and instruments. Even distracted Spain is at least talking of it. From the Western World, the United States will send eight corps. Nor will Brazil, Peru, and Chili prove laggard. The whole civilized world seems to move in this undertaking with a singular unanimity, doing what only governments can do. Many of the stations must be in bleak and inhospitable lands beyond the confines of civilization. They will be furnished with all that is needful, and thousands of miles of telegraphic wires will be stretched to put them in connection with the observatories of Europe. Other stations will be on distant islands in mid‐ocean. Thither national vessels will bear the observers and their instruments. It were well for the world if governments would manifest such generous rivalry in doing good when other and more important interests than those of astronomy are in question. What, then, is that little black spot which they are so anxious to examine as it passes across the sun next December? How comes it to be of such importance that all these mighty efforts are made to have it fully and correctly observed? To what great results, scientific or other, will a correct knowledge of everything about it lead the world? That little black spot is the planet Venus, then passing directly between the earth and the sun, and producing an homœopathic solar eclipse, just as, under similar circumstances, the moon might produce an annular or a total solar eclipse. As ordinarily seen in her character of morning or evening star, Venus shines more brightly and joyously in the heavens than any other star. But on this occasion the whole of her illuminated half is turned towards the sun. Towards the earth she shows only her dark, unillumined half, which even looks darker by contrast with the bright face of the sun, on which it is projected. This passage across the sun is called the transit of Venus. If the observations are successfully made, they will give us the means of ascertaining with sufficient precision what as yet is not so known—the actual distance of the earth from the sun.