IN 
 
 George Davidson 
 
 Professor of Geography 
 University of California 
 
American ^c?ijpse Expedition to Japan, 1887. 
 
 Preliminary Report (Unofficial) 
 
 ON 
 
 The Total Solar Eclipse of 1887, 
 
 BY 
 
 DAVID P.JTODXL.PH. D., 
 
 Director Amherst College Observatory, and Astronomer in Charge 
 of the Expedition. 
 
 AMHERST, MASS. 
 PUBLISHED BY THE OBSERVATORY. 
 
 1888. 
 
American Eclipse Expedition to Japan, 1887. 
 
 Preliminary Report (Unofficial) 
 
 ON 
 
 The Total Solar Eclipse of 1887, 
 
 BY 
 
 DAVID P. TODD, PH.D., 
 
 Director Amherst College Observatory, and Astronomer in Charge 
 of the Expedition. 
 
 AMHERST, MASS. 
 PUBLISHED BY THE OBSERVATORY. 
 
 1888. 
 
NOTE. 
 
 Early in the year 1887, the Trustees of the BACHE Fund of 
 the National Academy of Sciences, Washington, made a grant 
 to Professor SIMON NEWCOMB, U. S. Navy, Superintendent of 
 the Nautical Almanac, for observing the total solar eclipse of 
 the 19th August of that year. Professor NEWCOMB hn vino- 
 determined the general lines of research to be undertaken, 
 and decided upon locating the observing-statiou in Japan, ap- 
 pointed me to the charge of the Expedition. Already suffi- 
 ciently aware that the chances of a cloudless August afternoon 
 in that island country were by no means what an eclipse ob- 
 server would like, I was the more anxious to undertake collat- 
 eral work of such nature that, should the eclipse prove a fail- 
 ure, the labors of the Expedition might still accrue to the 
 benefit of science. To this end, I invited Dr W. J. HOLLAND 
 of Pittsburgh, to join the Expedition as naturalist : his prelimi- 
 nary report follows my own. Also, the season of the sojourn 
 of the Expedition in Japan being the favorable period for 
 ascending Fuji-san, the famous sacred mountain of that coun- 
 try, an arrangement was concluded with Professor EDWARD 
 C. PICKERING, Director of the Harvard College Observatory, 
 whereby I was enabled to conduct an astronomical reconnois- 
 ance from the summit of the mountain, 12,400 feet high, and 
 obtain data bearing upon its suitability as a site for astronom- 
 ical observation. Only passing mention of this separate Expe- 
 dition is made in the present paper, as the final report to 
 Professor PICKERING will shortly be concluded. 
 
 D. P. T. 
 
 < 
 
Preliminary Report of Prof. David P. Todd, 
 
 ASTRONOMER IN CHARGE OF THE EXPEDITION. 
 
 The collection and preparation of the instrumental equipment prior 
 to the departure of the Eclipse Expedition from the United States 
 occupied about three weeks at Washington and Cambridge. The 
 willing co-operation of a number of the offices of the Government is 
 gratefully acknowledged, thereby enabling the Expedition to carry 
 out extensive plans for eclipse-research which, without such aid, 
 would not have been possible, through lack of the necessary instru- 
 ments. Especially to be mentioned are the U. S. Naval Observato- 
 ry, Capt. R. L. PHYTHIAN, Superintendent ; the U. S. Geological 
 Survey, Major J. W. POWELL, Director ; and the U. S. Coast and 
 Geodetic Survey, Mr F. M. THORN, Superintendent. Much needed 
 information was abundantly supplied by His Excellency RIUICHI 
 KUKI, the Japanese Minister Plenipotentiary at Washington. 
 
 I left Boston the 9th June for Japan, going by way of Montreal 
 and the Canadian Pacific Railway to Vancouver, the coast terminus, 
 and thence embarking for Yokohama in the steamship ' Abyssinia,' 
 the first west-bound ship of the now regularly established trans-Pa- 
 cific line owned by the Canadian Company. I desire specially to 
 thank Mr Lucius TUTTLE, Passenger Traffic Manager of the Cana- 
 dian Pacific Railway, who afforded the Expedition such facilities of 
 transit as could only be furnished by the longest existing transporta- 
 tion line under a single management. 
 
 Yokohama was reached the 8th July, and steps were at once taken 
 toward locating the instruments in the most advantageous spot. In 
 this connection. I have much pleasure in recalling the highly valued 
 services rendered to the Expedition by His Excellency R. B. 
 HUBBARD, Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States to Japan, and 
 b\ 7 Dr W. N. WHITNEY, interpreter of the U. S. Legation at Tokio. 
 Every facility desired by the Expedition was promptly afforded 
 
 M287966 
 
through the intervention of Count INOUYE, the Minister of State 
 for Foreign Affairs, ami his courteous secretary, Mr T. SAMESHIMA. 
 
 Meteorological indications were 1 only of the most general character, 
 and far from precise. The stations of the Japanese Meteorological 
 Service being all on the coasts, there was little to enable one to form 
 even a fair guess as to what the chances in the interior might be. I 
 have to thank the officers of this service for much assistance, espec- 
 ially Dr E. KNIPPING, the meteorologist of the Imperial Central 
 Observatory at Tokio. On general grounds, he with others thought 
 that the chances of a clear August afternoon were rather better on 
 the west coast, near Niigata, say, than elsewhere. And thither I 
 should doubtless have gone without farther enquiry, but that the 
 means of sea-transportation were uncertain, while the journey by 
 pack-horse over the mountains of western central Japan seemed, 
 with the weighty boxes, in every way inexpedient. 
 
 As I had abundant time, I determined upon a hurried reconnois- 
 sance of eastern central Japan, along the line of the Japanese Rail- 
 way Company, then extending northward from Tokio through Utsuno- 
 miya (65 miles) to Shirakawa (113 miles), and now open as far as 
 Fukushima and Sendai. The President of the Company, the Hon. 
 L. NARABARA, I have great pleasure in thanking for his courteous 
 offices on this and subsequent occasions. And no less, Viscount M. 
 ENOUYE, the Chief Commissioner of the Imperial Railway Bureau. 
 The region between Utsunomiya and Shirakawa was, in my judg- 
 ment, very unsuited for an eclipse station, on account of its broken 
 and hilly character, and the proximity of the mountain ranges lying 
 west. I found Utsunomiya itself situate in a broad plain, and ap- 
 parently very favorable meteorologically, but too far from the line 
 of central eclipse ; while Shirakawa was as nearly as desirable in the 
 central line (some ten or twelve miles north of it), and twenty-five 
 or thirty miles from the mountains to the west far enough, it seem- 
 ed, to be without the range of their perturbing effect upon the clear- 
 ness of the sky. 
 
 At any rate, a careful balancing of the pros and cons for all likely 
 stations led to my decision that Shirakawa was the best place for the 
 location of at least the greater part of the instrumental equipment. 
 Professor PICKERING, who provided the Expedition with most of its 
 apparatus for specialized research upon the corona, desired me, if 
 practicable, to place all or a portion of it on the summit of one of the 
 mountain-peaks, of which there are several adjacent to the centre of 
 
the shadow-path, notably Nantai-san, 8,500 feet high. Dr HOLLAND 
 made the ascent of this mountain ; but his report of its difficulties, 
 together with the highly probable cloudy condition of the summit at 
 the time of the eclipse, led me to abandon the mountain project. The 
 other peaks were too far away from the central station to permit of 
 occupation, with the time and assistance at my disposal. The entire 
 apparatus, therefore, was brought to Shirakawa, and the work of 
 preparation actively begun four weeks before the day of the eclipse. 
 For determining the longitude of the station, all necessary telegraph- 
 ic facilities were courteously afforded by Admiral T. ENOMOTO, the 
 Minister of the Department of Communications, and Mr IGARASHI, 
 electrical engineer ; while the requisite exchange of signals was effect- 
 ed with the Naval Observatory at Tokio, through co-operation with 
 Rear- Admiral N. YANAGI, Hydrographer of the Navy. 
 
 I was most fortunate in having from Lieut. -General Count OYAMA, 
 the Minister of State for the Army, permission to establish my station 
 on the ruin of the celebrated old castle occupied by the ABE family 
 until the revolution of 1868. Count OYAMA also ordered the execu- 
 tion of a topographic map of the environs of the castle, and the sur- 
 vey was duly conducted by Lieut. YAJIMA. Throughout our sojourn 
 at the castle, the greatest assistance was generously rendered us by 
 the Hon. H. ORITA, the Governor of Fukushima-^en. Our main in- 
 strument was a horizontal photoheliograph of nearly forty feet focal 
 length the identical apparatus used by Professor NEWCOMB in 1882 
 at the Cape of Good Hope, in photographing the transit of Venus. 
 Two weeks' time was quite sufficient for the substantial completion of 
 this instrument, in so far as the parts required for photographing the 
 partial phases of the eclipse were concerned. Of these we had plan- 
 ned to secure 100 pictures ; but I had determined also to attempt coro- 
 nal photography with the same apparatus, hoping to obtain eight or 
 ten negatives of the corona of such size that subsequent enlargement 
 would be undesirable. At the focus of this telescope the sun's im- 
 age has a diameter of four and a half inches, and dry plates 17 x 20 
 inches had been provided for this work ; and an extra mirror, finely 
 silvered by BRASHEAR, was taken along for the heliostat, to replace 
 the unsilvered reflector ordinarily employed, shortly before totality. 
 Special modifications of the exposing-shutters and the plate-holders 
 had to be made, and a light-proof tube or camera the whole length of 
 the telescope had to be constructed, before the complete drill for the 
 eclipse could begin, and this required a week or ten days more. As 
 
was anticipated, too, we found on photographing artificial crescents 
 very slender ones that no image of the plumb-line appeared on the 
 plate : there was thus no initial line of reference for the measure- 
 ment of position-angles. Mr HITCHCOCK, whom I had appointed 
 photographer of the Expedition, undertook a variety of experiments 
 to overcome this difficulty, and with entire success. The form of 
 apparatus eventually adopted will be detailed in the final report of the 
 Expedition. 
 
 To assist in the operations of the photographic house, we were 
 fortunate in securing the services of Mr K. OGAWA of Tokio, a Jap- 
 anese photographer of wide experience, and Dr Y. MAY KING of 
 Amoy, also a highly skilled manipulator. For some minutes imme- 
 diately before the beginning and after the end of totality, the partial 
 phase exposures were to be made every 15 seconds ; while the large 
 plates for the corona, with exposures varying from 1 second to 15 
 seconds were to be handled as rapidly as possible. We found lhat 
 there was a loss of about 5 seconds between the plates or some- 
 thing like one-sixth the entire duration of totality. With so efficient 
 a photographic corps, and the drill which we all underwent, I had 
 the best of reason for anticipating complete success. As wet plates 
 seemed in many ways preferable to dry ones for the partial phases, 
 the photographers undertook a thorough series of experiments in 
 preserving sensitized films, at first with glycerine, and subsequently 
 more successfully with sugar. The results of this work make the 
 wet plate, with its fine-grained film, as available for rapid manipula- 
 tions in the photography of celestial phenomena, as the dry plate has 
 hitherto been found to be. It was shown that the plates might with 
 entire safety be removed from the sensitizing bath from two to four 
 hours before exposure and development, if treated with the sugar 
 preservative, and proper precaution was taken to keep the films from 
 drying. The details of this process will be embodied in the defini- 
 tive report of the Expedition. As an extreme test, we exposed, on 
 the day after the eclipse,- a box of plates which had been sensitized 
 and preserved some twenty-six hours previously, and found that they 
 gave sun-pictures photographically perfect. 
 
 Shortly before the Expedition left America, the Hon. W. C. 
 WHITNEY. Secretary of the Navy, detailed two officers from the As- 
 iatic Squadron, U. S. S. ' Monocacy,' to join me on my arrival in 
 Yokohama. Lieut. W. H. H. SOUTHKKLAND and P. A. Engineer J. PEM- 
 BERTON accordingly reported for eclipse-duty, and their services were 
 
zealously and most effectively rendered. In addition to his work as 
 executive officer, I placed Lieut. SOUTHERLAND in charge of the 9-foot 
 coronagraph sent out by the PICKERINGS. The objective of this in- 
 strument was the ?i-inch CLARK glass of the equatoreal of Amherst 
 College Observatory ; while the dry plates, with the instructions for 
 their manipulation, were identical with those furnished by the PICK- 
 ERINGS to Professor YOUNG, who carried to his Russian station the 
 6|-iuch MKBZ glass, of the large transit instrument at Amherst. 
 Through clouds at both Professor YOUNG'S station and my own, the 
 first serious attempt to obtain reliable evidence of rapid changes in 
 the corona has come to naught : it will be many years before another 
 eclipse occurs with two stations geographically so well placed for this 
 special research as were Russia and Japan. Lieut. SOUTHERLAND al- 
 so looked after the mounting of Professor PICKERING'S double coron- 
 agraph two five-inch lenses of about three feet focus, the operation 
 of which was entrusted to Dr AMES, U.S. Navy ; while Dr D. B. 
 McCARTEE attended to the exposures with the 4-inch short-focus 
 camera; and Mr C. R. GREATHOUSE, U. S. Consul General at 
 Kanagawa (Yokohama), to the exposures of plate-holders for de- 
 termining the actinic effect of the coronal light. I should have 
 mentioned previously the important service of Mr PEMBERTON in 
 rendering the photoheliograph less un wieldly for rapid work than 
 I had found it formerly. I had long had the idea that, by means 
 of a system of light rods, or of cords and pulleys, led from the 
 heliostat into the photographic house, the chief astronomer making 
 the exposures might have the reflecting mirror under his imme- 
 diate and constant control, and thus dispense with the customa- 
 ry assistant at the heliostat pier for adjusting the mirror in right 
 ascension and declination. All the devices for this rather com- 
 plex system were practically executed by Mr PEMBERTON, and suf- 
 ficed to give me perfect command of the mirror from the dark room. 
 A very simple device made it possible to see the bright reflected 
 image of the sun while at my post in the dark room, and adjust it 
 accurately on the plate, without opening the exposing-slide. 
 
 The importance of NEWCOMB'S and LANGLEY'S observations of the 
 outer corona in 1878, and attempted by LOCKYER in 1886, had not 
 escaped me, and I had an occulting-disk mounted on a rod attached 
 firmly to the gable of the photographic house, so that its shadow as 
 cast by the eclipsed sun would fall about fifty feet away, in the area 
 enclosed by the upper castle wall. Here I stationed Mrs. TODD, as- 
 
sisted by Professor KIKUCHI, of the Imperial University, and provid- 
 ed with all the paraphernalia for seeing and sketching in their cor- 
 rect relations the faint, outlying streamers of the corona. 
 
 Of two3J-inch BECK telescopes lent by Admiral YANAGI, one was re- 
 served for the optical observation of first and fourth contacts, and the 
 search for intra-Mercurial planets, while the other was committed to 
 Dr HOLLAND with instructions to sketch as far as possible all the 
 details of the corona adjacent to the solar poles. 
 
 Mr NAKAGAWA, Director of the Naval Observatory, with his as- 
 sistant Mr SHIRAI, made a thorough series of meteorological obser- 
 vations throughout the eclipse period, following the system elaborat- 
 ed by VON BEZOLD, and recommended by the German meteorological 
 conference for the observers in Russia. On the north-west corner of 
 the castle wall I stationed Mr K. A$INO, a student of astronomy in 
 the University, and interpreter to the Expedition by the kind direction 
 of President H. WATANABE, of the Imperial University : he was to 
 make detailed and^precise observations of the diffraction bands, and 
 to observe, if possible, the sweep of the lunar shadow across the ex- 
 tensive rice-fields below ; also, to observe the period of visibility of 
 the corona after totality. 
 
 The purely eclipse-results of the work at Shirakawa were disheart- 
 ening in the extreme. The forenoon gave us a perfect sky, with no 
 indication whatever of approaching cloud : all were confident of en- 
 tire success. But about an hour before the time of first contact, a 
 slender finger of cloud began to rise from the west, coming at first 
 directly above the summit of Nasu-take, a volcano about 25 miles 
 away, and which had sprung into unwonted activity during the past 
 night, belching forth for hours enormous volumes of smoke and 
 steam. The sun was entirely invisible during the first half-hour of 
 the eclipse, when a brief interval of partly clear sky gave time for 
 adjusting the heliostat and making ten or twelve exposures. The 
 sun being very faint, only five of these photographs are available for 
 measurement, and these were the only pictures that could be taken 
 with the photoheliograph. The dense clouds, leaving a large clear 
 area most of the time about the zenith, lay over the sun until the 
 eclipse was past, save only a moment shortly after totality, when 
 there was a partial clearing, but too brief and the sun too faint to 
 allow of the necessary adjustments of the silvered mirror,, which had 
 been put into position in the vain hope of getting the whole or a part 
 of the total phase. As totality drew near, it suddenly occurred to 
 
me that a good observation of second contact might be possible by 
 watching for the approach of the moon's shadow among the clouds ; 
 but my attempt to do this failed, the light appealing to me too much 
 diffused to permit of anything better than a rough approximation to 
 the time of contact. I found subsequently, however, in Mrs. TODD'S 
 notes on the eclipse, the statement that totality appeared to her to 
 come on, not evenly, but as if by jerks a phenomenon which may, 
 I think, have been due to the extinction of the sun's light from one 
 cloud after another as the lunar shadow advanced over the north- 
 western sky. 
 
 The weather-maps for the 19th August, which came to our station 
 from Tokio the day after the eclipse, gave us some idea of the odds 
 we had been laboring against : the sheet for 2 p. M. showed clouds 
 at all stations of the Meteorological Service except one, and that far 
 removed from the belt of totality. In general, the whole of the main 
 island was obscured on the eventful afternoon ; and a view of the 
 eclipse was permitted only to those so fortunate as to be located in 
 the line of the small apertures, here and there, through the general 
 cloud area. These were numerous enough to enable voluntary ob- 
 servers, scattered all over the central portion of the belt of totality, 
 and for whom I had prepared instructions, to obtain a goodly num- 
 ber of drawings of the corona. These instructions had been trans- 
 lated into Japanese, and printed and distributed through the co-op- 
 eration of the Department of Education, and the Bureau of Topo- 
 graphy of the Department of the Interior. Altogether there are 
 something like a hundred such drawings, but their value is uncertain. 
 Among the latter sketches of the corona was one made in west- 
 ern Japan by Mr S. ISAWA, of the Department of Education, and 
 which has already been reproduced in Nature, for the 17th No- 
 vember last. I prepared also instructions for observers of simple 
 duration of totality, hoping to obtain additional data for the position 
 and direction of motion of the moon's shadow. These were amply 
 distributed under like auspices to a large, number of observers just 
 inside the limits of the shadow-path. 
 
 Other expeditions in Japan fared ill also some of them worse 
 than my own. That sent out by the University in charge of Profes- 
 sor TERAO, and located a few miles south of Shirakawa, at Knroiso, 
 experienced not only heavy clouds but much rain during the eclipse, 
 and no observations- could be made. At Sanjo, on the central line 
 and south-east of Niigata, Professor ARAI, Director of the Imperial 
 
 2 
 
10 
 
 Meteorological Central Observatory, was able to make successful ex- 
 posures for the corona with a small telescope ; his negatives had not 
 yet reached Yokohama on my departure, and had not been develop- 
 ed.* It was reported clear during the whole of the eclipse at Choshi, 
 a point on the eastern coast near the southern limit of total obscura- 
 tion ; but there were no observers or instruments there for scientific 
 work. It was reported cloudy throughout the whole eclipse at Nii- 
 gata ; while a party of observers who had ambitiously climbed to the 
 top of Nantai-san, brought down a record of nothing but clouds and 
 fog. On the whole, Japan appears to have been an uncanny spot to 
 lead an eclipse-track across. This condition of things was apparent- 
 ly suspected by Mr MORIOKA, the President of the Nippon Yusen 
 Kaisha (Japan Steamship Company,) who organized a large excur- 
 sion party which sailed in the ; Nagoya-ruaru ' for a point in the belt 
 of totality off the east coast of Japan ; but they were debarred from a 
 view of all except the first part of the eclipse, and missed seeing to- 
 tality completely, although possessed of the unique advantage of an 
 observing-station variable in position at will. 
 
 Happily, however, there is much to retrieve the sorry fortune of 
 the Expedition on the 19th August. As appears in the pages follow- 
 ing, Dr HOLLAND was actively engaged in botanical and entomological 
 research in fruitful fields, and has a good harvest to report upon. He 
 has also valuable notes upon his ascent of Nantai-san, Asama-yama 
 and Nasu-take, which will be embodied in the report on the ascent of 
 Fuji-sail. Finally, the Expedition to the summit of this latter moun- 
 tain, which I had the pleasure to carry out under the auspices of the 
 BOYDEN Fund of the Harvard College Observatory, and on which I 
 had the valued co-operation of Dr KNIPPING, resulted among other 
 things in the determination of its rare fitness as a site for astronomical 
 observation. Preliminary to its occupation as such, however, it is 
 most desirable, in the interests of both meteorology and astronomy, 
 that a meteorological station should be maintained on the summit 
 throughout the entire year if practicable. There is good reason 
 for the hope that this may now be done, in connection with the recent 
 extension of the field of operations of the Imperial Central Observa- 
 tory, already well progressed. 
 
 *Prints from three of these negatives just received show abundant detail of the inner 
 corona. 1). P. T. 18th January, 1888. 
 
Preliminary Report of Dr W. J. Holland, 
 
 
 NATURALIST OF THE EXPEDITION. 
 
 PROF. DAVID P. TODD, 
 
 In charge American Eclipse Expedition to Japan, 
 DEAR SIR : 
 
 In pursuance of your request, I submit as early as possible a pre- 
 liminary report upon the results of my labors as the naturalist of the 
 Expedition. 
 
 It became evident to me shortly after our arrival in Japan that it 
 would be advisable to restrict my efforts in the direction of securing 
 specimens of natural history to the domains of botany and entomolo- 
 gy. I was led to this conclusion by the fact that the authorities re- 
 fused to allow me permission to use a gun outside of treaty limits, 
 thus practically prohibiting all attempts to collect the birds and ani- 
 mals of those localities in the interior which I subsequently visited ; 
 and also by the fact that the vertebrate fauna of Japan has been al- 
 ready quite thoroughly explored by those who have had more abund- 
 ant opportunity to collect specimens and study the habits of the living 
 creatures than I could hope to have in the brief stay which we con- 
 templated. 
 
 Acting upon this conviction, I secured, with the assistance of Mr 
 E. H. R. MANLEY, and Mr H. PRYER suitable native assistance, 
 and addressed myself with diligence to the task of collecting the 
 plants and insects of those regions which I visited. The work of the 
 botanist went on almost daily the work of the entomologist by day 
 and by night. The gross result is a collection of fully 4,000 botani- 
 cal specimens, representing nearly 800 species, and fully 6,000 ento- 
 mological specimens representing about 1,200 species, mainly Lepi- 
 doptera and Coleoptera. In addition to these collections made under 
 my own direct supervision, I obtained by purchase and exchange a 
 number of desirable specimens from resident collectors. My most 
 
12 
 
 notable acquisition in this way is the entire collection of the Pyralidae 
 of Japan made by Mr H. PUYER, representing the labors of nearly 
 seventeen years, and containing nearly 4,000 specimens of more than 
 375 species, the larger part of them as yet undetermined and possibly 
 new to science. I have been unable as yet to attempt even a rude 
 classification of the insects of other orders which I have brought 
 home with me, but have succeeded in roughly analyzing the collec- 
 tions of Lepidoptera. These are distributed among the following 
 groups : 
 
 (1) Rhopalocera (butterflies proper) 127 Species. 
 
 (2) Uraniidse 2 " 
 
 (3) Sphingidae 20 
 
 (4) ^Egeriadse 7 " 
 
 (5) Thyridae 1 " 
 
 (6) Zygaenidae 6 4k 
 
 (7) Bombycidae 121) " 
 
 (8) Noctuae . 145 
 
 (9) Geometridae 135 
 
 (10) Pyralidae 377 
 
 (11) Tortricidse 60 
 
 (12) Tineidae 17 
 
 Total of Species 1017 
 
 The Coleoptera represent fully 375 species. The Hemiptera, Or- 
 thoptera, Neuroptera and Hymenoptera amount to fully 75 species 
 in addition. The grand aggregate of species contained in these col- 
 lections is fully 1,450, and the total number of specimens over 10,- 
 000. There are abundant duplicates of many of the commoner spe- 
 cies, but there are fully 100 species which are represented by only 
 one specimen. 
 
 The collections I bring with me were made in the following locali- 
 ties : 
 
 (1) Yokohama and vicin it} 7 . 
 
 (2) Tokio and vicinity. 
 
 (3) Nikko and the slopes of Nantai-san. 
 
 (4) Usui-toge, Oiwake, and the slopes of Asama-yaimi. 
 
 (5) Slopes of Nasu-take. 
 
 (6) Shirakawa and vicinity. 
 
 (7) Hakone Mountains and the slopes of Fuji-san. 
 
 (8) Vicinity of Kobe', Osaka, Nam :iiul Kioto. 
 
 (9) Nagasaki and vicinity. 
 
13 
 
 The collection of the Pyralidse purchased from Mr FRYER covers 
 the entire group of the* Japanese Islands, including the Loo-Choo and 
 Bouiu Islands. It is arranged in accordance with the 4k Check-list of 
 the Japanese Lepidoptera " published a few years ago b\' Mr FRYER 
 in the " Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan," and contains 
 typical specimen!? of many of the forms described in recent years by 
 Mr A. Gk BUTLEK of the British Museum. 
 
 -In this connection, permit me to suggest the desirability of promptly 
 utilizing this precious material in the preparation and publication of 
 a work upon the Lepidoptera of Japan. I believe that I might count 
 with certainty upon the assistance of Mr FRYER in the preparation 
 of a monograph of the Pyralidse, if not of the other groups. Such a 
 work has never been attempted hitherto. The close - relationship 
 which manifestly subsists between the insect fauna of the East- 
 ern United States and of Japan would lend great scientific interest 
 to such a paper, and its completion under American auspices might 
 in a measure atone for the disappointment we have mutually felt on 
 account of the somewhat meagre results, which, through no fault of 
 yours, followed the astronomical labors of the Expedition during the 
 eclipse. 
 
 As to my botanical collections, I am not prepared to .speak defi- 
 nitely as yet ; but in view of the very thorough manner in which the 
 flora of Japan has been studied in recent years, I regard it as quite 
 unlikely that I have brought with me any species new to science and 
 hitherto undescribed. The wonderful affinity between the flora of 
 the United States and of Japan is strikingly brought forth in these 
 collections, which were mainly made upon the mountain slopes and 
 more elevated regions of the country. 
 
 My attention having been attracted to the manner in which fruit- 
 trees, and especially peach-trees, in Japan are subject to the depreda- 
 tions of insect pests, I took occasion just before leaving the country 
 to lay before the Hon. R. B. HUBBARD, our Minister Plenipoten- 
 tiary, a brief paper in which I pointed out the importance of having 
 the attention of the Japanese authorities called to the enormous loss 
 to which the agricultural community of the Empire must annually be 
 subjected from this source, as well as to the sanitary evils which fol- 
 low from the universal custom of gathering and marketing fruit in an 
 unripe and unwholesome condition. It is alleged that this custom is 
 due to the fact that fruit, if allowed to mature, is always destroyed 
 by insects. I took occasion to point out certain simple precautions 
 
14 
 
 against insect ravages, and to urge the passage of laws against the 
 destruction of insectivorous birds. I farther urged the expediency 
 of restricting, or of prohibiting, the importation of growing plants 
 from Japan, as there is reason to fear that various species of insects 
 hostile to our fruit-crops may thus be introduced into the United 
 States. The receipt of this paper was courteously acknowledged by 
 Mr HUBBARD, and the reception of a copy of it was later acknowl- 
 edged by the Japanese Prime Minister, Count ITO, who stated that it 
 had been transmitted to the Department of Agriculture for due con- 
 sideration. 
 
 While at Nikko I succeeded in making a few highly interesting ob- 
 servations upon the habits of a species of frog which deposits its 
 eggs at the ends of willow branches overhanging pools of stagnant 
 water, enclosing them in a viscid secretion, in which they are hatch- 
 ed, and in which the tadpoles undergo their primary transformations. 
 I am aware that the Chiromantis Guineensis of West Africa deposits 
 its eggs in albuminous masses among the leaves of trees overhanging 
 watercourses. During the dry season these masses are said to be- 
 come quite hard, but upon the advent of rains, it is reported that 
 they soften and fall into the water, where the tadpoles are then hatch- 
 ed forth and undergo their transformations. At Nikko the masses 
 of frothy, viscid matter, which I found suspended upon the branches, 
 were discovered upon opening to be filled, not with eggs, but with 
 exceedingly vigorous and lively tadpoles, from A to J of an inch in 
 length. My knowledge of the subject is not such as to justify the 
 statement that this is a phenomenon hitherto unobserved ; but in the 
 course of extensive reading upon the subject, I have never as yet fall- 
 en in with an account of arboreal tadpoles such as those I have 
 brought home with me. 
 
 In addition to my botanical and zoological labors, I had the pleas- 
 ure of ascending four of the volcanoes of Japan, two of them, Nan- 
 tai-san and Fuji-san extinct, two of them, Asama-yama and Nasu- 
 take active. The latter volcano I believe I have the honor of briii" 1 . 
 with one possible exception, the first foreigner to have scaled. I 
 was assured by a number of the people residing at Yumoto,* from 
 which the ascent is made, that I was the first foreigner who had ever 
 visited the mountain ; but upon my return to Tokio, I was informed 
 by our mutual friend Dr KNIPPING that ik somebody else h:ul made 
 the ascent a couple of years ago." There is at least a tradition to this 
 
 *Not to be confounded with Yumoto near Chiu-sen-jk 
 
15 
 
 effect preserved at Tokio, and in deference to it, I waive the claim to 
 be the first explorer of this highly interesting peak. 
 
 As you will recall, my ascent of Nantai-san was made at your re- 
 quest, in order to ascertain its fitness as a location for the Eclipse 
 Expedition. I was accompanied by our friend, Dr W. N. WHITNEY, 
 the interpreter of the American Legation, whose services had been 
 kindly placed for the time being at the disposal of the Expedition 
 by the Hon. R. B. HUBBARD. We left Nikko the morning of the 18th 
 July; passed the night at Chiu-sen-ji, and accomplished the as- 
 cent of the mountain upon the morning following, starting at 2 A. M. 
 and reaching the summit at 7 A. M. It is not my intention here to 
 give a detailed account of my observations ; but it suffices to say that, 
 owing to the difficulty of reaching the summit, the great risks which 
 would in consequence have attended the transportation of delicate sci- 
 entific apparatus to the spot, and the total absence of all supplies of 
 water upon the mountain, my report to you was adverse to the loca- 
 tion of even a part of our Expedition there. Results proved the es- 
 sential wisdom of this decision, as the hopeful spirits who climbed 
 the mountain upon the day of the eclipse found themselves even less 
 favorably located than we were at Shirakawa, and were forced to 
 content themselves with a bath in a black bank of fog. 
 
 I made the ascent of Asama-yama upon the 1st of August, start- 
 ing from Oiwake at 7 A. M. and reaching the summit at 12 : 30 p. M. 
 I was accompanied by my native assistant, TORA-SAN, and Mr H. 
 SATOMI, an exceedingly intelligent young Japanese gentleman who is 
 pursuing his studies at Tokio, and who, speaking German fluently, 
 enabled me to acquire much information that otherwise would have 
 been lost to me. In addition we were accompanied by several of the 
 friends of Mr SATOMI, resident in Oiwake, and a number of coolies, 
 who acted as guides and porters. We were favored with a cloudless 
 sky during the afternoon, and remained upon the summit until 4 p. 
 M. The time was spent in an examination of the crater, and in 
 sketching its salient features. The drawing of the crater I have 
 brought with me is, I have reason to believe, one- of the first which 
 has been attempted by a foreigner, and I know of none from the 
 hands of any Japanese artist, though I made inquiry in the hope of 
 securing such a drawing did it exist. 
 
 The excursion from Shirakawa to the summit of Nasu-take and 
 return occupied four days, from the morning of the 12th of August 
 to the evening of the 15th. The ascent of the cone took place upon 
 
16 
 
 the 13th of August. The volcano is active, and from numerous vents 
 near the summit vast bodies of steam and sulphur smoke are being 
 discharged. An eruption of considerable magnitude occurred in 
 1880; and upon the north-western side are impressive evidences of 
 the havoc and devastation occasioned by the event. I spent fully 
 six hours about the cone, and brought away witli me a series of six 
 sketches conveying a general idea of the configuration of the crater 
 and the solfataras, of which there are several upon the mountain. 
 
 Of the ascent of Fuji-san, made in your company, it is not neces- 
 sary to say anything in this report. 
 
 In conclusion, I desire to express to you my sincere appreciation of 
 your kind invitation to accompany the Expedition as its naturalist. 
 I was thereby furnished with a forcible pretext for temporarily for- 
 saking professional cares and duties, and given an opportunity of 
 studying much with which I had become in a measure familiar 
 through reading, but which, after the manner of those who rely only 
 upon books, I did not thoroughly comprehend. While thanking you 
 for the kindness experienced at your hands, I cannot fail also to ex- 
 press my sense of deep obligation to the host of friends whom we 
 met in Japan, both natives and resident foreigners, who did every- 
 thing in their power to make our stay pleasant, profitable and ia-' 
 B tractive. 
 
 I have the honor to be, dear sir. 
 
 Yours, most respectfully, 
 
 W. J. HOLLAND. 
 
 Pittsburgh, Penn., 15th December, 1887. 
 
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