340 MR WILLIAM SWAN ON THE 
taneous transition from the blaze of noon to midnight darkness would be a grand 
phenomenon; but I believe it would not be more appalling than the gradual, but 
at length fearfully rapid march of darkness, which precedes a total eclipse of the 
sun. : 
As the total phase was rapidly approaching, I took a last look of the land- 
scape, in order to note the appearance of the shadow sweeping over the ground, 
which has been described by former observers. I failed, however, to see this, 
probably from having expected it too soon; but just before proceeding to observe 
the commencement of the totality, I looked up for an instant, westward of the 
zenith, when I am satisfied I saw the progress of the moon’s shadow through the 
sky. The boundary between light and darkness was tolerably definite, and the 
slightly clouded state of the atmosphere no doubt helped to render this more 
visible than it would otherwise have been. 
A short time before the sun disappeared, the rounding of the cusps became 
very striking (see fig. 5), so that their points somewhat resembled the spurious 
discs with which bright stars are seen with a considerable magnifying power. 
This resemblance seems to have been that alluded to by Haury in describing the 
eclipse of 1715, where he remarks, that, “ about two minutes before the total im- 
mersion, the remaining part of the sun was reduced to an extremely fine horn, 
whose extremities seemed to lose their acuteness, and to become round like 
stars.” * 
The limb of the moon now became quickly joined to that of the sun by nu- 
merous thick lines} (fig. 5), which immediately began to run into each other with 
great rapidity, like contiguous drops of water, so that the eye could not follow 
their motion. They occupied nearly all the remaining crescent of the sun, and 
were so numerous, that I had not time to count them before their fluctuating 
movements rendered it impossible to do so. The spaces between the lines were 
at first rudely rectangular, but gradually became rounded so as to resemble a 
string of bright beads (fig. 6), and then finally disappeared. The disappearance 
of ‘“ Baily’s beads” took place at 3" 55" 52°6, Goteborg mean time, which was 
observed as the commencement of the total phase. 
I had gradually slid out the dark glass towards the approach of the total 
phase, so that when the sun disappeared, its light was but slightly obscured. 
No trace of the corona, however, was visible through the dark glass, and it was 
only when I looked at the sun with the naked eye, the moment the beads were 
gone, that I saw the corona already fully formed. It was a ghastly sight to be- 
* Phil. Trans., vol. xxix., p. 248. 
+ The nearly instantaneous appearance of these lines vividly recalled a well-known passage of 
Coleridge’s,— 
“that strange shape drove suddenly 
Betwixt us and the sun, 
And straight the sun was flecked with bars 2 


