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New Zealand Herald, Volume XIX, Issue 6572, 9 December 1882, Page 4

The age in which we live is truly one of progress. The human intellect appears to have got a fresh lease of life. Higher aspirations appear to have been infused into the mind of man, and his intellect appears to have been cleared and heightened for the new work to be accomplished. Nothing satisfies man now, and the noblest victory his perseverance wrests from Nature is only a more advantageous stepping stone to penetrate further into the unknown. Controlling all this wonderful impulse to thoroughly understand the minute operations of Nature, there is a remarkable tendency in modern discoveries to shape themselves to useful purposes. On the first discovery of a new fact in physical science, there often appears to be no particular use for it in the busy ail'airs of life. But the particular niche into which it should fall does not long remain undiscovered, and when found it generally happens that it tends to the happiness of man and the advancement of his interests. Dr. Benjamin Franklin's experiment with the kite and the string was a simple affair, aud little probably did he dream of what use his successors might make of his discovery. But the Hkuald of yesterday was an evidence of what wonderful results follow from comparatively small and apparently unimportant discoveries. The transit of Venus—a crowning event to the close of a wonderful century—occurred at an early hour on Thursday morning. New Zealand, though it lies geographically an isolated speck on tho vast Pacilic Ocean, now quickly feels the throb of the great pulse of the world. The readers of tho Herald of yesterday learned not only the general and particular results of the observations of the transit of Venus made by all the New Zealand observing parties, but the results obtained ut .Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, ILobarb, London, America, Cape Town (South Africa), l>urban (Natal), West of England, Paris, Madrid, itc. Thus, in less than twenty-four hours after the event occurred Auckland readers were made acquainted with the success or want of success which attended the observers over a large portion of the habitable globe. Tho matter is a simple thing in itself, but it, brings forcibly to tho popular mind the fact that, distant though we are here from the great hives of Old World industry, we are yet not far oil" from the great whispering gallery where the words and thoughts of tho world's great luon are almost instantly known. This event shows with what wonderful celerity news nowadays is spread. A few hours after the occuz - - rence of an event in which all civilised people feel an interest, the leading circumstances are common property even in distant New Zealand. We thus learn that at Paris and Madrid the weather was cloudy, and prevented the contact observations being made, and that Cork was tho only observing station in Ireland where the meteorological conditions were favourable for good observations. We also learn that in America, at Cape Town, and Durban, on the East Coast of Africa, the conditions were satisfactory for good observations. Several of the stations mentioned as having secured good observations are places of importance, as furnishing results which will be of great value when compared

with those obtained at Auckland, and at other places in New Zealand. • The Cape of Good Hope, for instance, is mentioned by Mr. Proctor in hi« book as a place -where the observation would be of great value, as it was a farourable place for " observing the ingress as accelerated by parallax." The eastern coast of America was also of importance for observing the ingress.