RED PROMINENCES SEEN DURING TOTAL ECLIPSES OF THE SUN. 459 
2. The red prominences cannot be regarded as optical phenomena, produced 
either by unequally heated strata of air, or by the action of the moon’s limb on 
the sun’s light ; for these hypotheses are inconsistent, both with the permanency of 
their forms, and with the similarity of their appearance as seen from stations dif- 
ferently situated in the moon’s shadow. 
3. The discrepancies in the observations are as unfavourable to the supposi- 
tion that the prominences are optical phenomena, as to the hypothesis that they 
are material objects belonging to the sun. 
4. The observed differences in the numbers and appearance of the prominences 
as seen from stations differently situated in the moon’s shadow, are, upon the 
whole, accordant with the effects which parallax would produce, if they existed in 
the sun. 
5. The hypothesis that the prominences exist in the sun, seems to afford the 
only explanation of the facts, that the moon gradually occulted them on one side, 
and exposed them on the other, while their outlines remained unaltered. 
6. On these grounds it is inferred, that the red prominences are material 
objects, actually belonging to the sun. 

