1 4 6 D O C . 1 7 4 N O V E M B E R 1 9 1 9 I read. If you wish, I can send you the clippings. With regard to the 2nd sentence of your valued lines, it is amusing to read what a native of the country you are made out to be[5] and I too would find a little note about it desirable & useful. You are presented as Polish & as Swiss, etc., but especially as one who did not sign the ill- fated letter.[6] You surely still remember our conversation in Brussels in 1913[7] about the possibility of seeing a star close enough to the Sun and of measuring its relative position in order to test your gravitation postulate. We took up the matter here and invented our daytime stellar photography, and we last photographed stars up to magnitude 3–2 at 10h 40m on the morning of 26 Oct. 1916. You may have read our paper if not, you will find a reprint of it with this letter.[8] My instrument and the air quality were unsatisfactory for the critical measurements & exposures & I consequently sent a circular letter to 6–8 of the largest observatories in Amer- ica, India, Cape Town, Algiers, and France to take up the matter & try to photo- graph α Leonis on 21 August 1917, where the same was positioned c. 11 45″ from the Sun.[9] Prof. Evershed—Kodaikanal, S. India—was the only one immediately to assume the matter and he took a series of interesting photographs, but since α Leonis is unfortunately a helium star, taking its exposure in daylight is very diffi- cult & the matter did not succeed.[10] One year ago (28 Oct.) Evershed wrote me that Venus would pass by the Sun 6 minutes from the disk on Nov. 24th & that he was photographing it daily. In any event, he met with no success, for I heard noth- ing more. In our paper, we especially pointed out the solar eclipse, & directly after our publication the specific analysis of the problem was adopted by Sir F. W. Dy- son, Astronomer Royal at Greenwich, and carried out with state funding.[11] Prof. Eddington was very particularly occupied with your theory[12] and is a kindly man without the modern prejudice that sadly is very strongly developed in some others. In the last few days, I have been thinking more about this daylight photography again, as Prof. Fowler, currently president of the R.A.S., at the last meeting specif- ically drew attention to the need to take up the matter again.[13] Also, I have new ideas about the business to grapple with: The next meeting of the R.A.S. is on 14 Dec. and the same is being entirely devoted to your theory.[14] My son, now prof. of physics at Oxford, will likewise be speaking.[15] A certain Dr. Silberstein, sup- posedly lecturer of mathematics in Rome (but without an Ital. accent) is appearing as principal opponent & is maintaining, in particular, that your theory is not sup- ported by spectroscopic observations & that, on the contrary, St. John’s & Ever- shed’s observations show no displacement of the spectrum lines.[16] On the 20th, Sir J. Larmor gave a communication at the R.S., in which he suggests a reconstruc- tion of the essentials of your theory, which makes the latter only indirectly into a theory of relativity.[17] In that form, a line shift is not necessary, while the other con- ′