Notes

Abstract

WE are glad to announce that the Government has expressed its intention to aid in the most ample manner the proposed Eclipse Expeditions. In making this announcement we feel that what has recently appeared in the daily Press renders certain explanations desirable, which otherwise might have been omitted. In our last number we stated that deputations had been appointed both by the Joint Committee and the Council of the British Association to wait upon Mr. Gladstone. To this we must now add that the letter of the Secretary of the Joint Committee, which was to ask Mr. Gladstone to appoint a time to receive a deputation, was not sent to Mr. Gladstone, and did not ask that a time should be named; in fact it was a letter sent to the Treasury, apparently only for their information, and was nothing more than a copy of the resolution passed at the meeting of the Joint Committee. After a week had elapsed without any answer being received by the Joint Committee to the letter which it was supposed had been sent to Mr. Gladstone, asking him to name a time for a deputation; a member of the Joint Committee, Mr. Lockyer, called at the Treasury to inquire the reason of the delay in the answer, and of course he was informed that no letter had been received requiring any answer. Upon it being represented that a delay in the announcement of the Government intentions until a proper letter could be received from the Secretary of the Royal Society would be fatal to the Expedition, Mr. Lockyer was requested to state the actual requirements of the Scientific Bodies to Mr. Lowe, and upon his having done so, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who, so far as we know, heard then of the expedition for the first time, at once expressed his opinion that such an expedition was one eminently worthy of Government aid, and that the Government would do all that was requisite to further the objects sought. This decision of the Government was announced to the Royal Astronomical Society by the Astronomer Royal on Friday last, and since then, the arrangements for the Expedition have moved apace. There will be a ship furnished by the Government to carry observers to Spain. There will be funds to convey observers overland to Naples, and a ship to carry them on to Messina. The various European governments have been requested to aid the various parties, and, generally, the influence of the Government is being brought to bear in every way. This taken in connection with what has appeared in these columns before, and a letter which the Astronomer Royal has addressed to the Daily News, shows that now all the facts are out, the whole blame of the long delay must fall on the officers of the Joint Committee, who, apparently unable to perform the duties entrusted to them, still did not call the Committee together to receive instructions. We should not write in so decided a tone on such a painful subject did we not feel that it is simply an act of justice to the Government to state, as plainly as our information enables us to do, exactly where the real blame rests.