decided is to be employed, this may be disregarded; so that the actual transit may be, in fact, in some of its most important features, studied at home, when all the excitement of the occasion has passed away. We have thus indicated the more prominent methods of observation, and some of the details of their employment in the study and solution of this great problem. We shall now summarise the distribution of the observing parties as sent out by the several nations. The English expeditions will consist first of three observing parties in the Sandwich Islands, for the observation of accelerated ingress-one situated at Honolulu, another at Owhyhee, and a third at Atooi. Here Captain Tupman, the moving spirit and master of the whole enterprise, will be placed with a competent staff; and photography will be specially relied on for determining the moment of ingress. Retarded ingress will be observed at Kerguelen Island, where the Rev. S. J. Perry will take the command. No attempt will now be made by this party to land at Heard Island, but there will be two observing stations on the Island of Kerguelen and another at Rodriguez. In these southern stations the whole transit is visible, and photographs of ingress and egress, as well as of the chord of transit, will be taken. At New Zealand a station will be occupied at Christ Church, for accelerated egress, when Major H. Palmer will be chief. At Cairo retarded egress will be specially observed, with Captain C. O. Brown, R.A., in command; who has given strong reasons for choosing this in preference to Alexandria: and intends also to plant an observing station near the site of ancient Thebes. The Indian station at Roorkee for photographic purposes in the observation of retarded egress will be well occupied and furnished with every requisite in the interests, it appears, of Delisle's method. Then the observatories at Madras, Melbourne, Sydney, and the Cape of Good Hope will be able to render most efficient service; and the Colonial Governments have provided grants for the purpose, so that no opportunity will be neglected. Beside all this, of course there are vast questions of detail to be worked out for the successful accomplishment of the objects in view, such, for instance, as the preparation of suitable huts for observing, and suitable housings to dwell in, and competent provision for a prolonged stay in some of the most desolate quarters on the whole surface of the globe. But all this has been carried out with an efficiency which reflects credit on all concerned. The outlay sanctioned by Parliament is £15,000. But in addition to this there is a private expedition equipped by Lord Lindsay, which will occupy the Mauritius. The observations will be chiefly compared with those made in Siberia, and all the most important methods will be employed. Photography is splendidly provided for; and the heliometer will be used by this party as by Russia-an instrument not provided in the English official expeditions. The Americans will occupy a noble place in this great enterprise. Their Government grant is £30,000. On account of the more favourable meteorological chances of the North, they will occupy three Northern StationsWladivostock, in Siberia; Tien-tsin, in China, and probably Nagasaki, in Japan. In the South from the position of America, the vessel taking her expeditions will endeavour to land a party at the Crozet Islands, one of the excellent Halleyan stations pointed out by Mr. Proctor; she will leave another at Kerguelen Island; from thence she will go with a third to Hobart Town, Tasmania; another party will also be put down at Bluff Harbour, in New Zealand; and one more in Chatham Island. The photographic apparatus employed by American astronomers differs very much in detail from that employed by the English, the Russians, and the Germans, and in this there is doubtless an advantage. Each American station will be provided with a photographic telescope, an observing telescope of five inches aperture, mounted equatorially; a transit instrument, and an astronomical clock. They will rely chiefly on photography, and their stations all admit of the use of the method devised by Halley. The Russians naturally occupy their own Siberian stations. It is possible that some little service may be rendered at Kazan, Nicolaif, Charkof, Odessa, and even Moscow. But apart from these there are to be twenty-six stations; but of these only the following will be supplied with a complete equipment of observers and instruments, viz.: Wladivostock, Port Possiet, Lake Hanka, Nertschinsk, Xhita, Kiachta, Tachkent, Port Peroffski, Fort Uralsk, Aschura-deh, and Erivan. These stations will be furnished with astronomers, who are prepared by work Russian, French, and Dutch Arrangements. 121 with the artificial transit, and who are furnished with excellent equatorials with clockwork motion, a heliometer, or a photographic apparatus. The other stations are to be provided with good observing telescopes, and the remainder merely with small instruments. At eleven of the stations both ingress and egress will be seen, so that the Halleyan method may be employed; and at the remainder of the stations they will be chiefly concerned with retarded egress. M. Struve also has visited this country, as well as others, that comparisons might be made and greater accuracy secured. The stations chosen by the French are Campbell and St. Paul's Islands, Houmea, Pekin, Yokohama, and Saïgon. M. Janssen goes to the Yokohama station, and this station. in connection with St. Paul's will be almost perfect for the Halleyan method. But great care is to be taken in the finding of longitudes; so that if only ingress or egress can be observed the Delislean method may be employed. It is also an important matter that the French photographs will be taken by the Daguerreotype process, ensuring delicacy and avoiding the difficulties possible to the shrinkage of the film employed in other methods. The parties at St. Paul's and Campbell Islands-placed as they will be on islands of desolation-are furnished with fuel and provisions for six months. Originally the sum granted was 300,000 francs; but this is to be considerably augmented; and there may certainly be excellent results anticipated from this national effort. Finally, the Dutch are sending out an admirably equipped expedition to the island of Réunion. It is to be provided. with a very fine heliometer and a photo-heliograph by Dallmeyer, like those used by England; and two excellent refractors for observation. They will also be furnished with meteorological instruments and all apparatus necessary for finding longitude and time. On the whole, therefore, we cannot but be gratified at the careful and elaborate efforts and preparations made by all the great civilised countries of the globe to observe this comparatively insignificant celestial phenomenon. The preparations may certainly be pronounced competent to the present requirements of science, and are proofs of the firm and wide-spread influence which the truest civilisation has upon our race. The results of the observations it is impossible to foresee, chiefly arising from the contingency of weather. But it may be fairly anticipated that accuracy to within a fraction of a second of time may be expected; and, although probably we may have a year or two to wait for the results of the very elaborate calculations which will be based on the coming observations, the probability is very high that the sun's absolute distance will be known to within a comparatively few thousand miles. Further corrections will probably be made in the subsequent observation that will be instituted in the transit of 1882; and then, unless some new and unexpected method presents itself in the interval, the world must wait for still more accurate knowledge, until the transit of Venus in 2004. ART. V.—Hellas und Rom. [A Popular View of the Public and Private Life of the Greeks and Romans. Part I. Rome under the Antonines.] Von Dr. ALBERT It is not our purpose to review at length this elaborate work, partly because it is unfinished, and partly because it is so vast and indeed bewildering in its variety, that any such design would necessarily be futile. The work itself is not novel in its idea; it belongs to the class of archæological and antiquarian books which throw their matter into the form of personal narrative or personal description. Dr. Forbiger introduces us to a young Greek in the age of the Antonines who visits Rome, and records his researches and his observations. The Greek is exceedingly dull; but, as volume after volume proceeds, the author contrives through him to tell us almost everything that is known or is likely ever to be known about the condition of the earlier Roman commonwealth and the first empire. When completed the work will be an invaluable companion to all histories. We had been reading the last volume of Dr. Merivale when it was put into our hands, and found his closing chapter on Marcus Aurelius as a philosophic emperor and persecutor of the Christians doubly valuable when the light of Dr. Forbiger's chapters on the religion of Rome at that era was thrown upon it. We shall give much of the substance of these chapters, hoping that the entire work will reach its natural termination and be translated. The chapters to which we limit ourselves for the present connect the subject with Christianity, and introduce us at once to the philosophical emperor : "The festal sacrifice mentioned in the previous chapter in connection with the triumph, and the religious ceremonies observed, lead me to speak of the religious cultus of the Romans as a whole, and to incorporate some description of a public day of sacrifice. The State religion in the Roman empire is, of course, still the old Italian Polytheism, but enlarged essentially by contact with Greece, and more lately with Oriental elements, especially Egyptian. All the highly educated Romans, instructed by the writings and |