On the Solar Eclipse of 9th September, 1885. 385 



The tangential ray, measured from end to end through the 

 glare, is apparently equal to two diameters ; the longest of the 

 shorter ones to little more than a quarter of a diameter. They 

 are, I presume, rays of ordinary sunlight. If I might hazard a 

 guess as to the cause of those from the cusps, I would ask 

 whether they might not be owing to the irregularities of the 

 moon's limb at those points, similar rays elsewhere along the 

 limb being lost in the glare ? It will also be seen that there is 

 apparently a well marked halo round the emerging sun, which 

 shows very strongly in the unenlarged original views. Whether 

 this is merely the work of the camera, or is connected with the 

 ' sun-cloud ' now always surrounding the sun, or what else the 

 cause may be, I am quite unable to say. I certainly did not see 

 any such halo, but then I was closely watching the sun myself." 

 (For a very similar halo in a photograph of the full moon, see 

 " Nature," vol. xxi., p. 33.) 



Mr. Goodall says : " While I was sketching, a flame seemed 

 to burst out of the side of the moon in the opposite direction to 

 where the sun was last observed, remain unaltered for a few 

 seconds, then the corona gradually faded, and a flood of light 

 was shed all round, and the grandest sight I ever witnessed 

 came to an end. The scarlet setting, or the prominences, were 

 very plainly visible through the telescope." 



Dr. Hudson states : " Of prominences I saw two, marked a, 

 and I thought I saw a flat low one in the position marked v. I 

 did not see the prominence marked c, which, as it has been so 

 universally observed, must have been a distinct and real one. 

 The prominences appeared like burnished silver, with a slight 

 coppery tinge." 



IV. — The Corona. 



With regard to this phenomenon, Mr. Meeson writes : — 



" The general outline of the corona, towards the latter part 

 of the period of totality, was, as it appeared to me, pretty much 

 as represented in the accompanying chart, though there must 

 have been other leading features which I had not time to 

 observe. Generally its shape was irregular, and there was 

 little or no four-cornered appearance. If there was any 

 symmetry at all, it was as regards the place of the longest 

 streamers (x and y), which were exactly on opposite sides, and 

 at those parts of the sun's rim which were respectively the first 

 and last to disappear behind the moon. Some of these 

 streamers, particularly those from the upper western limb, and 

 at an angle of about 30° from the perpendicular, could not have 

 been less in length than l£ times the moon's or sun's apparent 

 diameter, i.e., not less than 1,275,000 miles. The greatest 

 effulgence of light was in the neighbourhood of the longest 

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