EDITOR'S TABLE. 



EDITOR'S TABLE. 



THE SOLAR APPENDAGES. 



FROM Professor Langley's address 

 at the Saratoga Scientific Asso- 

 ciation, on the recent progress of solar 

 physics, which is herewith printed, we 

 get a vivid idea of the rapidity with 

 which knowledge upon this subject has 

 advanced within a very few years. We 

 have found out more about the most 

 conspicuous and familiar object in the 

 universe in the last twenty years than 

 all that was known before put together. 

 A late writer in the London " Times " 

 draws attention to the views now taken 

 in regard to the solar surroundings. He 

 considers that recent observations have 

 tended toward marked agreement in the 

 opinions entertained respecting coronal 

 phenomena, and their relation to the zo- 

 diacal light. In presenting the results of 

 observations on the eclipse of 1878 those 

 are first taken which give the luminous 

 effects displayed nearest the sun. Mr. 

 Lockyer's drawing represents the black 

 body of the moon as surrounded by a 

 narrow ring of light, the inner corona. 

 Outside this ring are three projections 

 nearly in the ecliptic, and therefore co- 

 inciding with the axis of the zodiacal 

 light. The longest of these projections 

 extended to about one and a quarter of 

 the sun's diameter, or not far from one 

 million miles. General Myer described 

 the corona as showing five radial lines 

 of a golden color, beyond which in the 

 direction of the ecHptic were prolonged 

 bright silver rays. General Myer had 

 observed effects so similar in the eclipse 

 of 1869 as to make probable the infer- 

 ence that the objects extending far away 

 from the sun are not subject to change 

 like the prominences. Mr. Alfred C. 

 Thomas also observed streamers of light 

 extending for abomt one and a half time 



the diameter of the moon, and also in 

 the plane of the ecliptic. Professor 

 Cleveland Abbe saw the streamers 

 which other observers had compared to 

 a wind-vane, but he traced them to a 

 much greater distance than they had 

 done. The point of the vane as he saw 

 it reached away from the sun to fully 

 six diameters, or more than five million 

 miles. The breadth of the vane, where 

 it crosses the sun, is almost exactly 

 equal to the solar diameter. On the 

 other side of the sun the double streamer 

 forming the tail of the vane did not ex- 

 tend more than three million miles. He 

 also saw other luminous streaks at right 

 angles with these, but of less breadth 

 and length. Professor Langley saw the 

 coronal light extending farther than the 

 long rays observed by Professor Abbe. 

 He traced it to a distance of twelve 

 diameters of the sun on one side and 

 three on the other. Its extension was 

 in the direction of the ecliptic and the 

 light resembled the zodiacal. At its 

 extreme distance from the sun it was a 

 faint and softly graduated luminosity, 

 and not the separate rays discerned at 

 about half the distance. Professor New- 

 comb saw a similar luminosity, and 

 traced it to the same distance from the 

 sun that had been assigned by Professor 

 Langley. The results are thus summed 

 up by the " Times " writer : 



From a comparison of all the observations 

 the following important conclusions seem es- 

 tablished beyond all possibility of doubt or 

 question : Outside the solar sierra, averaging 

 some 6,000 or 7,000 miles in height, comes 

 the prominence region, extending about 100,- 

 000 miles from the sun's surface. Outside 

 this comes the inner corona, shining in part 

 with its ovai light, sometimes coming chiefly 

 from multitudes of solid or liquid bodies in 

 a state of incandescence, sometimes chiefly 

 from glowing vaporous matter. This region 



