10 ANNUAL llECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



The first stages of the eruption are, according to this state- 

 ment of Father Secchi's latest opinion, occupied by the ejec- 

 tion of matter from the crater, wliich is what we call the 

 umbra of the spot, and it is with these stages that the rose- 

 colored flames or eruptions seen in the spectroscope are to 

 be associated. This term " crater," however, is not to be 

 understood as conveying the idea of a solid solar crust or 

 shell, from which the jets escape into the chromosphere. On 

 the contrary, he here entirely agrees with Professor Langley's 

 view that the visible surface of the sun is essentially vapor- 

 ous and cloudlike. This admitted, the analogy with the ter- 

 restrial volcano is elsewhere very close, for there is in both 

 a second or intermediate stage during which the paroxysmal 

 outbursts have ceased, though the ejected matters have not 

 entirely stopped flowing from the crater; and a third stage, 

 when, the eruption being fairly over, there is a gradual clos- 

 insT and extinction. Father Secchi claims that the observa- 

 tions of Professor Langley are quite consistent with this 

 view, and adds that they are, in fact, very gratifying to him, 

 as he is disposed to welcome them as bringing unexpected 

 testimony to the truth of statements he made himself at one 

 time, and which were then disputed. These American ob- 

 servations, then, may be called " beautiful," rather than fun- 

 damentally " new," in the opinion of Father Secchi, who be- 

 lieves himself to have more or less anticipated a large part 

 of them; and, though agreeing that the resolution of the fila- 

 mentary structure has been carried at Allegheny a step be- 

 yond that which he has reached at Rome, deems that this is 

 accounted for bv the fact that the American observer has 

 the use of a larger telescope than the Roman observatory 

 possesses. rMem. Soc. Spettrocopisti Italiani^ 1875, January 

 and February. 



ON AX ANCIENT ECLIPSE OF THE SUN, 



Dr. E. Bretschneider, of Pekin, communicates to JPeter- 

 maniibS Mittheilungen an account of the journeys performed 

 by four Chinese scholars in the first half of the thirteenth 

 century. Of these, the most interesting is that of Tschang- 

 tschung, in 1221 and 1224. This distinguished monk of the 

 Taoist order was at that time about seventy years old, and 

 at the height of his renown. In the course of his journey he 



