101 



4. The way in which its appearance changes and flickers. 



When taken in connection with the blackness of the 

 moon's disc, which shows that the corona does not exist or 

 owe its existence to matter between the moon and the plate 

 on which the photograph is taken, these features show that 

 we see on the card the picture of something which actually 

 existed in the neighbourhood of the sun ; that the bright 

 rays which we see photographed were actually bright rays 

 of light-giving matter, standing out from the sun an 

 enormous distance. The rifts and general irregularity of 

 the picture show that these rays do not come out uniformly 

 all over the sun's surface, but that they are partial and local, 

 in some places thinly distributed and in others absent 

 altogether. The rays are not all of them straight or per- 

 pendicular to the sun's surface. 



Such bright rays as these cannot be the result of the 

 sun's light or heat acting on an atmosphere or matter circu- 

 lating in the form of meteorites. If they are due to the 

 action of the sun's light or heat at all it must be acting on 

 matter distributed in the rays we see, for the sun's light and 

 heat coming out uniformly all round would illuminate any 

 surrounding matter, if at all, so as to show its figure. 



The picture irresistibly calls up the idea of a radial 

 emission. If it is the picture of distributed matter, that 

 matter must exist in the form of streams leaving the sun ; 

 if it is the picture of some light-producing action, this also 

 must exist in the form of an emission from the sun. 



Such then are the extraordinar}^ features of the solar 

 corona, and as I stated, they resemble those of an electricai 

 corona. Any one who is familar with the various forms of 

 electrical disruptive discharge will recognise the general 



