there was any game around. He said, 'Plenty of jack-rabbits.' These
jack-rabbits are a very peculiar species. They have ears about six
inches long and very slender legs, about three times as long as those
of an ordinary rabbit, and travel at a great speed by a series of jumps,
each about thirty feet long, as near as I could judge. The local
people called them 'narrow-gauge mules.' Asking the operator the best
direction, he pointed west, and noticing a rabbit in a clear space in
the sage bushes, I said, 'There is one now.' I advanced cautiously to
within one hundred feet and shot. The rabbit paid no attention. I
then advanced to within ten feet and shot again--the rabbit was still
immovable. On looking around, the whole crowd at the station were
watching--and then I knew the rabbit was stuffed! However, we did shoot
a number of live ones until Fox ran out of cartridges. On returning to
the station I passed away the time shooting at cans set on a pile of
tins. Finally the operator said to Fox: 'I have a fine Springfield
musket, suppose you try it!' So Fox took the musket and fired. It
knocked him nearly over. It seems that the musket had been run over by
a handcar, which slightly bent the long barrel, but not sufficiently for
an amateur like Fox to notice. After Fox had his shoulder treated with
arnica at the Government hospital tent, we returned to Rawlins."

The eclipse was, however, the prime consideration, and Edison followed
the example of his colleagues in making ready. The place which he
secured for setting up his tasimeter was an enclosure hardly suitable
for the purpose, and he describes the results as follows:

"I had my apparatus in a small yard enclosed by a board fence six feet
high, at one end there was a house for hens. I noticed that they all
went to roost just before totality. At the same time a slight wind
arose, and at the moment of totality the atmosphere was filled with
thistle-down and other light articles. I noticed one feather,
whose weight was at least one hundred and fifty milligrams, rise
perpendicularly to the top of the fence, where it floated away on the
wind. My apparatus was entirely too sensitive, and I got no results."
It was found that the heat from the corona of the sun was ten times
the index capacity of the instrument; but this result did not leave the
value of the device in doubt. The Scientific American remarked;

"Seeing that the tasimeter is affected by a wider range of etheric