148 Professor T. E. Thorpe [June 9, 



Although large portions of the sky were covered with cumuli, the 

 sun was not clouded over at the period of totality ; the atmosphere, 

 of course, was nearly saturated with aqueous vapour, but no haze or 

 precipitation of moisture seems to have occurred, and in consequence 

 of the remarkable transparency of the air the photographs are cer- 

 tain to be of exceptional interest. 



The Americans, who were mainly stationed in Chili, were equally 

 fortunate. At Minas Aris, the Harvard College station, the atmo- 

 spheric conditions are said to have been all that could have been 

 wished for ; there was no passing cloud or haze to mar the observa- 

 tions. The corona is reported by Professor Pickering to resemble 

 that of 1857, as portrayed by Liais, and that of 1871, as observed by 

 Captain Tupman. There were four streamers, two of which had a 

 length exceeding the sun's radius, or stretching out more than 

 435,000 miles. Several dark rifts were visible, extending outwards 

 from the moon's limb to the utmost limit of the corona. No rapid 

 movement was observed within the streamers. The moon appeared 

 of almost inky blackness, while from behind it, streamed out on all 

 sides radiant filaments, beams, and sheets of pearly light. The inner 

 corona was of dazzling brightness, but still more dazzling were the 

 eruptive prominences which blazed through it, to use the words of 

 Professor Young, like carbuncles. Generally, the inner corona had 

 a uniform altitude, forming a ring of four minutes of arc in width, 

 but separated with more or less definiteness from the outer corona, 

 which projected to a far greater distance, and was much more irregu- 

 lar in shape. The outer corona seems to have been much larger 

 than in 1879 or 1889, as, indeed, might have been expected at a 

 period of maximum solar energy. The party seems to have been 

 successful in photographing for the first time the " reversing layer " 

 of the solar atmosphere. 



Professor Schaeberle, from the Lick Observatory, who observed at 

 Mina Bronces, in the Desert of Atacama, reports that the corona 

 was similar to that of 1883. He obtained in all fifty photographs, 

 eight of which are ten by twenty inches in size, and one of which 

 shows an image of the sun four inches in diameter, the corona cover- 

 ing a plate eighteen by twenty-two inches — a truly " record " result. 

 The photographs are said to afford strong presumptive evidence of 

 the truth of the mechanical theory of the corona which is associated 

 with Professor Schaeberle's name. 



I cannot close without some reference to the debt of gratitude we 

 are under to Captain Lang and his officers, for the readiness, zeal, 

 and intelligence with which they co-operated in our work. Indeed, 

 the whole crew of the gunboat did all in their power, often under 

 circumstances of no little personal hardship, to minister to our 

 success, and to contribute to our comfort. The best-laid schemes of 

 astronomers, as of other men, " gang aft a-gley." There is a spanner 



