Mr. Stone and Professor Newcomb

Abstract

MR. NEWCOMB has reviewed Mr. Proctor's book on the Sun in your number of May 18, and Mr. Proctor has replied in the number for June 1. In each of these articles I find my work and name mentioned in a way that is scarcely satisfactory to me. Mr. Proctor's reply is, however, of course, only intended to defend his own work, not mine. In Mr. Newcomb's review I find the following very strong passage. Mr. Newcomb says:— “We find ligaments, black drops, and distortions sometimes seen in interior contacts of the limbs of Mercury or Venus with that of the sun described as if they wtre regular phenomena of a transit; without any mention of the facts and experiments which indicated that these phenomena are simple products of insufficient optical power and bad definition, which disappear in a fair atmosphere with a good telescope well adjusted to focus.” With respect to facts, I must be allowed to observe that I believe the facts are entirely the other way. This is a point which can only be tested by appealing to the facts themselves.