that other
nations were going to send out parties; that we should undoubtedly
do the same, and that they must be equipped and organized in the
best way.

It appears that Judge Black was an absent-minded man, as any man
engaged in thought on very great subjects, whether of science,
jurisprudence, or politics, has the right to be. Garfield asked him
whether it was true that, on one occasion, when preparing an argument,
and walking up and down the room, his hat chanced to drop on the floor
at one end of the room, and was persistently used as a cuspidor until
the argument was completed. Mr. Black neither affirmed nor denied
the story, but told another which he said was true. While on his
circuit as judge he had, on one occasion, tried a case of theft in
which the principal evidence against the accused was the finding of
the stolen article in his possession. He charged the jury that this
fact was _prima facie_ evidence that the man was actually the thief.
When through his business and about to leave for home, he went
into a jeweler's shop to purchase some little trinket for his wife.
The jeweler showed him a number of little articles, but finding none
to suit him, he stepped into his carriage and drove off. In the
course of the day he called on a street urchin to water his horse.
Reaching into his pocket for a reward, the first thing he got hold of
was a diamond ring which must have been taken from the shop of the
jeweler when he left that morning. "I wondered," said the judge,
"how I should have come out had I been tried under my own law."

The outcome of the matter was that the appropriations were duly made;
first, in 1872, $50,000 for instruments, then, the year following,
$100,000 for the expeditions. In 1874, $25,000 more was appropriated
to complete the work and return the parties to their homes.

The date of the great event was December 8-9, 1874. To have the
parties thoroughly drilled in their work, they were brought together
at Washington in the preceding spring for practice and rehearsal.
In order that the observations to be made by the eye should not
be wholly new, an apparatus representing the transit was mounted
on the top of Winder's building, near the War Department, about
two thirds of a mile from the observatory. When this was observed
through the telescope from the roof of the observatory, an artificial
black Venus was seen impinging upon an artificial sun, and entering
upon its disk in the sam