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colour. Except in that quarter, where some very distant mountain 

 tops were visible out of the range of the moon's shadow, the land 

 and sea were of a dark olive-green hue ; and the awful aspect of the 

 whole was felt to be quite capable of producing those effects on 

 ignorant men which history records ; while the Norse peasants about 

 confirmed such a conclusion by their sudden and terrified flight. 



3. On the Nature of the Red Prominences observed during 

 a Total Solar Eclipse. By Professor C. Piazzi Smyth. 



The author remarked, that the various observers who had seen 

 the eclipse of 1842, gave such generally similar testimony of the 

 place and the size of the red prominences as satisfactorily established 

 them to bo some celestial phenomenon. Then as to the question, 

 whether they belong to the sun or the moon, the observers them- 

 selves were unanimous in the former view, and the red points then 

 became flaming masses of fire some 40,000 miles in height. 



The author, however, was by no means satisfied with the exact- 

 ness of the proofs alleged ; he had tried experiments, suggested by 

 Mr Nasmyth, for making the red points appear, if real, but without 

 success ; and he further alluded to the different shapes given by the 

 various observers to the same prominence, as rather militating against 

 the idea of its being a large body at the distance of the sun. 



On the other hand, if the red points be merely the light of the 

 sun diffracted somehow at the moon's edge, the difference amongst 

 observers at small distances on the earth's surface would be much 

 more easily explained ; and he found that by introducing a small 

 ball into the telescope when directed to the sun, and making it act 

 similarly to the moon during the total eclipse, that very similar- 

 looking points and tongues of pink flame could be produced. 



He had not, however, yet been able to make the eclipsing-ball 

 occult the artificial pink prominences, and, therefore, would only 

 attempt to establish that the solar existence of the points is only pro- 

 bable ; and that those who hold it to be proved, should contrive 

 some means by which they may shew the said things in real being, 

 without getting some moon, natural as in the eclipse, or artificial, 

 as in the experiment, to stand in front of the sun, and act on its light 

 by diffraction or otherwise. 



