A SUNSHINE RECORDER.

The apparatus is of simple construction.  It consists of a glass sphere silvered inside and placed before the lens of a camera, the axis of the instrument being placed parallel to the polar axis of the earth.  The whole arrangement will be readily understood by an inspection of Fig. 1.  The light from the sun is reflected from the globe, and some of it, passing through the lens, forms an image on a piece of prepared paper within the camera.  In consequence of the rotation of the earth, the image describes an arc of a circle on the paper, and when the sun is obscured, this arc is necessarily discontinuous.  The image is not a point, but a line, and in certain relative positions of the sphere, lens, and paper, the line is radial and very thin, so that the obscuration of the sun for only one minute is indicated by a weakening of the image.

[Illustration:  FIG. 1.]

In the actual apparatus the sphere is an ordinary round-bottomed flask about 95 mm. in diameter, and the lens a simple double convex lens of about 90 mm. focal length.  The sensitive paper employed is the ordinary ferro-prussiate now so much used by engineers for copying tracings.  This was selected in consequence of the ease with which the impression is fixed, for the paper merely requires to be washed in a stream of water for six minutes, no chemicals being necessary.  When the paper is dry, radial lines containing between them angles of 15 deg. are drawn from the center of the circular impression, and thus give the hour scale, the time of apparent noon being of course given by a line passing through the plan of the meridian.  Fig. 2 is a copy of the record of June 27, 1884; in the morning the sun shone brightly, toward noon clouds began to form, and in the afternoon the sky was hazy.  The field in which the instrument is placed is surrounded by trees, so the ends of the trace are cut off sharply by shadows.

[Illustration:  FIG. 2.]

With the alteration of declination of the sun, the light entering the camera is reflected from different portions of the sphere, and an alteration of the position of the focus results.  This may be corrected in three ways; by moving (1) the paper, (2) the lens, or (3) the sphere.  In the present apparatus the first method has been adopted, and now the camera is about twice as long as it was in June.  As a consequence, the circular image is enlarged, and the light therefore weakened, and that at a time of year when it can least be spared.  If the focus is altered by moving the lens, the winter circle is small and the summer circle is much larger.  This would perhaps be too much to the advantage of the winter sun.  If, however, the lens and paper are maintained at a constant distance, and the sphere alone moved, the circles are more nearly of the same diameter throughout the year, the winter one still remaining the smallest.  This seems, therefore, to be the most advantageous