"DEAR SIR,--I owe you an apology for not writing earlier, and communicating my observations on the eclipse; but since I parted from you at Detroit, I have been so constantly on the move, as to seem to have no opportunity. I will now state briefly a few phenomena that I noticed at the time of the eclipse, most of which I think were communicated to you verbally before. "After the clouds that partially obscured the sari on the morning of the 7th had passed away, I observed that though the atmosphere was hazy, and the sky by no means blue, there was an unusual stillness and freedom from agitation in the air, so that the outlines of the spots on the sun were clearly defined in the small Dolland telescope that I had under my charge, and this satisfactory condition of the air for telescopic observation continued until after the end of totality. The first contact was at 3h. 38m. 10s local time. It was probably about 3s. after this, before you were notified that the eclipse had begun, two or three seconds being lost in determining whether it was the limb of the moon, indenting the edge of the sun, or not. Your first photograph was therefore probably five or six seconds after the beginning. The passage of the edge of the moon over the larger spot on the sun, I noted as follows:-- H. M. S. Contact with the Penumbra................. 4 3 34 " " " Umbra.................... 4 3 56 Complete obscuration of Umbra............. 4 4 34