In the arms of Venus to the seats of the Academy

Abstract

The astronomers of Great Britain, Russia and Germany had received liberal grants for the purpose, he noted, and the transit “will afford our countrymen a peculiarly favorable opportunity to exercise their inventive ingenuity in the introduction of improved modes of observation. Their successful introduction of two of the most important appliances in practical astronomy – astronomical photography and the electro-chronograph, both of which are now widely adopted in Europe, – their successful competition with Europeans in producing some of the finest classes of astronomical instruments, and the rapid advances which practical astronomy has made in this country within the last few years, all warrant the belief that they can take a leading position in making the observations in question