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The "great red spot" was first observed by Niesten, Pritchett, and Tempel, in 1878, as a rosy cloud attached to a whitish zone beneath the dark southern equatorial band, shaped like the new war balloons, 30,000 miles long and 7,000 miles across. The next year it was brick-red.
A strange puzzling statement was made that the canals could be traced straight across seas and continents in the line of the meridian. M. Terby confirmed many of these observations. Later the so-called "inundation of Lydia," observed by M. Perrotin, was doubted. Schiaparelli himself, Terby, Niesten at Brussels, and Holden at the Lick Observatory, failed to remark this change.
The only instruments in this country successfully employed for its detection are, we believe, Dr. Common's 5-foot reflector and Mr. Newall's 25-inch refractor. In the course of his observations on Jupiter at Brussels in 1878, M. Niesten was struck with a rosy cloud attached to a whitish zone beneath the dark southern equatorial band. Its size was enormous.
On the other hand, Niesten of Brussels found reason to revert to Vico's discarded elements for the planet's rotation; and Trouvelot, Stanley Williams, Villiger, and Leo Brenner, so far agreed with him as to adopt a period of approximately twenty-four hours.
And M. Niesten estimated that the whole of the 216 asteroids discovered up to August, 1880, amounted in volume to only 1/4000th of our globe, and we may safely add since they are tolerably certain to be lighter, bulk for bulk, than the earth that their proportionate mass is smaller still. A fairly concordant result was published in 1895 by Mr. B. M. Roszel.
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