208 Mr. William Hurjgins [Feb. 20, 



be little doubt remaining but that the corona had been photographed 

 without an eclipse, and therefore of justifying the hope that a suc- 

 cessful method for the continuous investigation of the corona had 

 been j)laced in the hands of astronomers, yet as the photographs were 

 taken under the specially unfavourable conditions of our climate, they 

 failed to show the details of the structure of the corona. 



The next step was obviously to have the method carried out at 

 some place of high elevation, where the large part of the glare which 

 is due to the lower and denser j)arts of our atmosphere would no 

 longer be present. I ventured to suggest to the Council of the Eoyal 

 Society that a grant from the fund placed annually by the Govern- 

 ment at the disposal of the Royal Society, should be put in the 

 hands of a small committee for this purpose. This suggestion was 

 well received, and a committee was appointed by the Council of the 

 Royal Society. The committee selected the Rififel near Zermatt in 

 Switzerland, a station which has an elevation of 8500 feet, and the 

 further advantages of easy access, and of hotel accommodation. The 

 committee was fortunate in securing the services, as photographer, of 

 Mr. Ray Woods, who as assistant to Professor Schuster had photo- 

 graphed the corona during the eclipse of 1882 in Egypt, and who in 

 1883, in conjunction with Mr. Lawrence, had photographed the eclipse 

 of that year at Caroline Island. 



Mr. Woods arrived at the Riffel in the beginning of July 1884, 

 with an apparatus, similar to one shown in the woodcut on a former 

 page, constructed by Mr. Grubb. 



Captain Abney who had made observations on the Rififel in former 

 years, had remarked on the splendid blue-black skies which were 

 seen there whenever the lower air was free from clouds or fog. 

 But unfortunately during the last year or so a veil of finely 

 divided matter of some sort has been put about the earth, of which 

 we have heard so much in the accounts from all parts of the earth of 

 gorgeous sunsets and afterglows. This fine matter was so per- 

 sistently present in the higher regions of the atmosphere during last 

 summer, that Mr. Woods did not get once a really clear sky. On the 

 contrary, whenever visible cloud was absent, then instead of a blue- 

 black sky there came into view a luminous haze, forming a great 

 aureole about the sun, of a faint red colour, which passed into bluish 

 white near the sun. Mr. Woods found the diameter of the aureole 

 to measure about 44^. This appearance about the sun has been seen 

 all over the world during last summer, but with greatest distinctness 

 at places of high elevation. 



The relative position of the colours, blue inside and red outside, 

 shows that the aureole is a diffraction phenomenon due to minute 

 particles of matter of some kind. Mr. Ellery, Caj^tain Abney, and 

 some others consider the matter to be water in the form probably of 

 minute ice spicules ; others consider it to consist of particles of 

 volcanic dust projected into the air during the eruption at Krakatoa ; 

 but whatever it is, and whencesoever it came, it is most certainly 



