forwarding of messages from northern stations on the eclipse line to southern stations. Some attention was being given at that time to the question of Intra-Mercurial planets, and it was thought that if by good fortune any such objects were unexpectedly found at the northern station, and observers at a southern station could be advised of the fact, there might be a better chance of procuring an accurate and precise record of the discovery. As it happened, nothing came of it on that occasion, but the idea of utilising the telegraph having once taken possession of men’s minds, it was soon seen what important possibilities were opened up. The want of telegraph organisation curiously made itself felt in the Egyptian eclipse of 1882. It is stated in another chapter of this work that during the total phase a comet was unexpectedly discovered. Now comets sometimes move very rapidly (especially when they are near the Sun), and had it been possible to have warned some observer to the E. of Egypt to look out for this comet, and had he seen it even only a couple of hours after it had been found in Egypt, some data respecting its position might have been obtained which would have permitted a rough estimate being formed of its movement through the heavens. Such an estimate might have enabled astronomers to have hunted up the comet at sunset or sunrise on the days immediately following the eclipse. As it happened, however, the comet was not seen again in 1882, and, so far as we know, may never be seen again. It was not till 1889 that a complete organisation of a telegraph service in connection with an eclipse was accomplished. The eclipse of January 1 of that year began in the Pacific and the line of totality touched land in California, passing across North America to Manitoba. The first Californian station was at Willows, and was occupied by a party from Harvard College Observatory, who were supplied with an unusually complete equipment of photographic apparatus, together with a large camera for charting all the stars in the neighbourhood of the Sun, so as to detect an Intra-Mercurial planet if one existed. The telegraph scheme which had to be worked out was somewhat complicated, and one of the chief actors in the scene has furnished a fairly full account of what was done. First of all, a complete list of the instruments and of the work proposed to be done by them had to be prepared. The weather probabilities being everywhere very unsatisfactory, there was a possibility of all degrees of success or failure, and one thing which had to be prearranged for each station was a cypher code which should be available for all the likely combinations of instruments, weather and results. It was found that about one hundred words would suffice for the necessary code, including words which would indicate in a sufficiently precise manner the position of any new planet which a photograph might disclose.