e morning
of the transit the sun shone in a cloudless sky, as it had done for
several days previous. But, alas for all human hopes! Just before
Venus reached the sun, the clouds gathered, and a storm burst upon
the place. It lasted until the transit was over, and then cleared
away again as if with the express object of showing the unfortunate
astronomer how helpless he was in the hands of the elements.

The Royal Society of England procured a grant of L800 from King
George II. for expeditions to observe the transit of 1761. [1]
With this grant the Society sent the Rev. Nevil Maskelyne to the
island of St. Helena, and, receiving another grant, it was used to
dispatch Messrs. Mason and Dixon (those of our celebrated "line")
to Bencoolen. The admiralty also supplied a ship for conveying the
observers to their respective destinations. Maskelyne, however,
would not avail himself of this conveyance, but made his voyage
on a private vessel. Cloudy weather prevented his observations of
the transit, but this did not prevent his expedition from leaving
for posterity an interesting statement of the necessaries of an
astronomer of that time. His itemized account of personal expenses
was as follows:--

One year's board at St. Helena . . L109 10s. 0d.
Liquors at 5s. per day . . . . 91 5 0
Washing at 9d. per day . . . . 13 13 9
Other expenses . . . . . . 27 7 6
Liquors on board ship for six months 50 0 0
--- --- ---
L291 16s. 3d.

Seven hundred dollars was the total cost of liquors during the
eighteen months of his absence. Admiral Smyth concludes that
Maskelyne "was not quite what is now ycleped a teetotaler." He was
subsequently Astronomer Royal of England for nearly half a century,
but his published observations give no indication of the cost of
the drinks necessary to their production.

Mason and Dixon's expedition met with a mishap at the start.
They had only got fairly into the English Channel when their ship
fell in with a French frigate of superior force. An action ensued in
which the English crew lost eleven killed and thirty-eight wounded.
The Frenchman was driven off, but the victorious vessel had to return
to Plymouth for repairs. This kind of a scientific expedition was
more than the astronomers had bargained for, and they wrote from
Plymouth to the Royal Socie