•'TlSO Professor C. Piazzi Smyth's Meteorological 



'■ their own sake alone. Of this class seems to be the corona 

 seen round the moon during the totality of the eclipse, as it 



-can be imitated easily by experiment in a room, and is of a 

 similar nature to the "glorification" of a tree standing on 

 •the edge of a steep cliff rising between us and a bright sun : 

 such are also the beads and strings of light seen just before 

 the contact of the limb of the moon with that of the sun ; as 

 well as some other smaller circumstances, which seem to in- 

 dicate rather the general nature of light, and the imperfec- 

 tions or physical qualities of the atmosphere through which 



' we are doomed to look. 



But the third or the physical observations are those which 



■ should command most attention, and chiefly those which 

 tend to throw any light on the construction of the sun. The 



^ moon, besides being so small and comparatively an insignifi- 

 cant body, we have always so close to us, and in a variety of 



-favourable positions for examination; and while she does 

 not appear to difi'er very notably from our globe, there 



^ seems to be nothing particular going on there at present, 

 nothing but what may be left very safely to have the details 



' made out at some future time, and no changes seem impend- 



' ing likely to be of any importance to ourselves. 



But the sun, on the contrary, so vast a bodyj so eminently 



^different from any of the planets or satellites, is in a state of 



-fierce activity, and excessive change ; and while all our hopes 

 for good and for evil are bound up in it, we have no idea 



-.whatever of the nature, or of the source of that vast heat 



•and light giving surface, or even the laws of phenomena 



-which it may be undergoing. 



Now, the total eclipse giving us, for the precious period of 



*• three minutes, a view of all those fainter developments of 



' light outside the visible disc, whose excessive brightness com- 

 pletely prevents their being seen at any other time, it behoves 

 the greater part of observers to attend to these alone ; and 

 the most important one which can be pointed out, — that which 

 at present looks most like a real physical fact, and not an 

 optical deception — is the appearance of rose-coloured protu- 

 berances, which, if belonging to the sun, must be mountains 



*or flames several thousand miles high. . But it remains to be 



