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92 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



of the moon. He noticed red protuberances while the sun was disappearing 

 behind the moon, and also just before it emerged. At this time lie saw a 

 vory large number of them, and above all a red cloud, entirely detached, 

 separated from the rest and from the lunar margin by a distinctly marked 

 white space. Its figure was elongated; it was twisted and sharp at the 

 extremities, and about thirty seconds in length by three in breadth. There 

 were many smaller ones. In regard to these phenomena, he uses the follow- 

 ing language: 



" My convictions upon the nature of that which I saw are that the phenom- 

 ena were real, and that I truly saw the flames in the solar atmosphere, and 

 clouds suspended in these flames; it would be impossible to imagine any- 

 thing else, as, for example, th;it it might be some phenomena of diffraction 

 or refraction. The clear graduation and distinct mingling of the peach- 

 blossom colored light with the white photosphere was of a character so 

 distinct that it can never be mistaken for any phenomena of interference, of 

 refraction, or any illusion whatever. I do not doubt that it really appertains 

 to the sun, and the structure of these suspended clouds tends to strengthen 



mv conviction." 



M. Petit, Director of the Observatory at Toulouse, graphically describes 

 the red protuberances as follows : 



" I have measured the incandescent emanations, whose dimensions on this 

 occasion were enormous, and whose form has proved to me, in the most 

 conclusive manner, that they are immense clouds floating in the vast atmos- 

 phere of the sun. Two of them were as much as sixty thousand miles in 

 thickness, and two hundred and forty thousand miles in length ! Of these two 

 a considerable part was separated from the solar disk by an extent of at least 

 eighteen thousand miles a circumstance which proves, beyond all doubt, 

 that they are not mountains in the sun, as has been surmised. Their dimen- 

 sions diminished from the side toward which the moon moved. I was able, 

 during the brief duration of the phenomenon, to follow and measure the 

 variation of these dimensions, and the result, as before, goes to prove that 

 these peaks belong to the sun. Especially was I able, filled with a profound 

 feeling of wonder and awe, to measure the height of the solar atmosphere, 

 which, in its least dense and most irregular portion, extends to forty-five 

 minutes of a degree, that is, at least one million five hundred thousand miles 

 above the photosphere of the sun." 



M. De La Rue, who was attached to the suite of Professor Airy, the 

 Astronomer Royal of England, thus describes the phenomena of the eclipse 

 as observed by his party : 



" Some minutes before the totality I distinctly saw the whole of the lunar 

 disk, and a luminous prominence on the east of the zenith. This was quite 

 visible, while the sun's image was reflected by a glass surface fixed at an 

 angle of 45, in the eye-piece, and the intensity of its light, consequently, 

 much diminished. The upper surface of the glass diagonal reflector I had, 

 however, silvered to the extent of one-half, and, as I brought into action the 

 silvered half just previous to totality, I. perceived a large sheet of promi- 

 nences on the east. A little to the east of the zenith a brilliant cloud, quite 

 detached from the sun, and at some distance from the moon, came into 

 view. 



"The brilliancy of these prominences was wonderfully great, and far 

 exceeded that of the corona. They w r cre not uniform in tint, and, to my 

 eye, they did not in general present a red or rose color; two, however, had a 



