2 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



corona consists of some sort of matter, whether separate 

 solid or liquid bodies, vaporous masses, or groups in which 

 solid or liquid bodies are intermixed with vaporous masses, 

 traveling round the sun. From this conclusion he sees no 

 escape, should the others be rejected ; to his mind there be- 

 ing no remaining proposition that can be presented on the 

 subject. He therefore waits with much interest the result 

 of the experiments which will be prosecuted with the direct 

 object of testing the question with a calm assurance, how- 

 ever, that his suggestion will be the one ultimately substan- 

 tiated. 5 A.October, 1870, 378. 



PROCTOR OX THE SOLAR COROXA. 



Mr. Richard A. Proctor has published in the April number 

 of the Quarterly Journal of Science a critical discussion of 

 the observations made during the eclipse of last December, 

 with special reference 'to the interpretation of the solar coro- 

 na. It may be remembered that just before the eclipse took 

 place he showed within what limits the problems to be solved 

 by the phenomena in question were restricted, and stated that 

 the principal object to be reached was the determination of 

 the questions connected with the corona. He now proceeds 

 to show to what extent the ground has been covered, how far 

 his own anticipations have been fulfilled, and what yet re- 

 mains for further inquiry. In this paper he introduces what 

 he considers a reform in the nomenclature of the sun, substi- 

 tuting the word " sierra" for the colored layer or envelope 

 of prominence-matter in the sun to which the name chromo- 

 sphere has usually been given. The paper is followed by a 

 summary of the fruits of the various eclipse expeditions ; 

 namely, in the first place, that the corona has at length been 

 photographed, so that its peculiarities may be studied at our 

 leisure, without fear of mistakes arising from inexact deline- 

 ation ; second, that the connection between the ring-formed 

 and the radiated corona has been demonstrated by the pho- 

 tographic* and other evidence, showing how the height of the 

 bright inner corona corresponds with that of the outer corona 

 (this is thought by him to be a most important discovery) ; 

 third, that the fact of one of the lines of the corona spectrum 

 being identical with Kirchhoff's 1474, a line seen in the spec- 

 trum of our own aurora, has been abundantly demonstrated; 



