886 Transactions. — Astronomy. 



streamers, and particularly round about the highest part of the 

 upper limb. The least was in the lower western and upper 

 eastern limbs — in the former of which the breadth was not more 

 than £th of the moon's diameter, and in the latter, certainly as 

 small as ^th, if not smaller. Although, for the most part, the 

 streamers seemed to radiate as from a common centre — that is, 

 the centre of the sun or moon — yet this was not universally the 

 case ; for some (particularly the ray marked z) seemed to 

 proceed as from another centre, and interlaced with the more 

 normal gleams. If these observations of mine — which have 

 been compared and checked with similar notes and sketches 

 made by other members of my family, whom I instructed before- 

 hand, as well as I could, what to look for, and how to record — 

 do not tally exactly with any bona fide photographic pictures of 

 the eclipse which have been obtained in Nelson, two things 

 must be remembered : One is, that the photograph is apt to give 

 only the inner corona — the sierra, or leucosphere, as it is called 

 — which is comparatively well-marked, and of stronger light ; 

 while the outer corona, or chromatosphere — perhaps on account 

 of its more delicate light, or because there is inadequate 

 exposure, or for some other reason — is very likely to be not at 

 all represented. The other point to be remembered is, that the 

 corona, or at all events the outer corona, varied in appearance 

 at different periods of time during totality, for the rays 

 visibly increased in length and altered in shape during obser- 

 vation. I read in Proctor's ' Sun ' (page 314) that ' the 

 sharpness of outline in photographs of the corona is due to 

 peculiarities in the process of development, special care 

 being needed to prevent over-development of the negative.' 

 The corona in our eclipse was certainly not very sharply defined, 

 for it was very difficult to say where the faint coronal tints ended 

 and the abnormal hues of the sky began. If, as well as meteoric 

 bodies and the sun's atmosphere, electric action plays a part in 

 the formation of the golden glory which we are discussing, it 

 might perhaps be expected that the appearance of that wonderful 

 light would vary from moment to moment, even as in the case of 

 the Aurora. Upon the whole, the picture which I present seems 

 to agree pretty well with what others, with whom I have com- 

 pared notes, observed. I noticed no rotatory motion of the 

 beams, such as, I believe, has been sometimes previously ob- 

 served, nor any flickering or quivering, except as before stated, 

 just before and after totality. Proctor says of the eclipse of 

 1724, observed in France, that at the beginning of totality 

 Maraldi perceived ' that the corona was wider on the side 

 towards which the moon was advancing than on the opposite 

 side, but that at tbe close of totality the case was reversed.' 

 This exactly describes what I saw. The most vivid and brightest 

 parts of the corona and the greatest prominences were decidedly 



