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Transit of Venus in 1874, in which the present
writer assisted, overthrew this delusion.
In 1877 Sir David Gill used Lord Craw-
ford’s heliometer at the Island of Ascension
to measure the parallax of Mars in opposi-
tion, and found the sun’s distance 93,080,000
miles. He considered that, while the superi-
ority of the heliometer had been proved, the
results would be still better with the points
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