THE SUN'S LONG STREAMERS. 66s 



eclipses, is due to the existence of meteor streams. It is also un- 

 doubtedly true that several of the meteor systems encountered by our 

 earth in her journey round the sun have the vast dimensions mentioned 

 by Professor Abbe. Indeed, he far underrates the dimensions of the 

 August and November meteor systems, each of which must be mea- 

 sured in length by hundreds of millions of miles, not by mere millions. 

 But it is absolutely impossible that any of the meteor systems traversed 

 by our earth, or any meteor systems of no greater degree of richness, 

 should present the appearance of streamers surrounding the sun, like 

 those in our figure above. So far as the two systems specially men- 

 tioned by Professor Abbe are concerned, inasmuch as we know the exact 

 shape and position of the orbits along which the meteors forming these 

 systems travel, we can determine the exact position which the meteoric 

 streams occupy in the heavens at any moment ; and most certainly 

 neither of them on July 29th last occupied the position of the two 

 beams shown across the sun in our figure. The August system was 

 the one which at the time passed nearest to the sun's place on the sky, 

 but it did not come within several degrees of the sun. The November 

 system did not even cross the part of the sky where the sun was. 

 These two systems, therefore, could not possibly be connected in any 

 way with the two streams, of whatever nature, which produced the 

 rays intersecting exactly at the sun. 



But there is a more general objection to the theory that such meteor 

 systems may explain coronal streamers seen during total eclipses of the 

 sun. If such streams could be seen when situated beyond the sun, they 

 would be seen far better when opposite the sun on the dark background 

 of the midnight sky. Take, for instance, the November meteors. We 

 know that the flight of meteors, some 2,000,000,000 of miles long, 

 which the earth traversed in November, 1866, 1867, 18C8, 1869, 1870, 

 and 1871, is now nearing the remotest part of the long orbit of the 

 November system, many millions of miles beyond the path of Uranus. 

 We know that at midnight in winter the richest part of that system 

 lies due south, at an elevation varying from 30° to 50° above the 

 horizon. There, illuminated fully by the sun, though at a great dis- 

 tance from him, it ought to be far better seen than a similar system 

 lying beyond the sun and visible only through the light of the brightest 

 part of the corona. But no one has ever, on the darkest and clearest 

 night and under the most favorable atmospheric conditions, even sus- 

 pected the existence of the faintest possible light where the heart of 

 the November system is really situated. Much less, then, could such a 

 system be seen during total eclipse (if so situated as to lie athwart the 

 sun). Systems less rich than the November system (the richest known 

 to us) would have still less chance of being discerned. 



If, then, we are to account for the radial streamers seen by Professor 

 Abbe, and also seen during many other total eclipses, though to a less 

 distance, by the meteoric theory, we must consider meteor systems 

 VOL. xiv. — i3 



