38 



liriglit and white light broke out in the middle of the group. I 

 hastily ran to call some one to witness the exhibition With me, and 

 on returning, within 60 seconds, was mortified to find that it was 

 nlready much changed and enfeebled. In the interval of 

 five minutes the two spots traversed a space of 35,000 miles. 

 Mr. Hodgson, at the same moment, happened to be watcliing the 

 sun, and saw the dazzling brilliancy of this outburst of light on 

 the sun. The magnetic needles at Kew Observatorj", it was after- 

 wards ascertained, at that instant oscillated violently. " Bj- 

 degrees, " says Sir J. Herschel, " accounts began to pour in of 

 great Auroras seen on the nights of those days, not onlj'^ in these 

 localities, but at Rome, in the West Indies, and the Tropics, where 

 they hardly ever appear." At [Melbourne, on the night of Septembe'^ 

 the 2nd, the gi-eatest Aurora ever seen made its appearance. 

 These Auroras were accompanied with the electro magnetic dis- 

 turbances in every part of the world. In many places the tele- 

 graph A^ires struck work, had too many private messages of their 

 o\m to carry. At Washington, the telegraph men received severe 

 olectric shocks. At a station in Norway, the telegraph apparatus 

 was set fire to, and at Boston a tlame of fire followed the pen of 

 the instrument. 



In 1773, Yassemus, during a total solar echpse, saw red clouds 

 floating, as he supposed, in our atmosphere. It was, however, 

 during the gi-eat echpse of 1842, which Airy, Arago, Baily, Struvc, 

 and others watched with careful scrutiny, that all of them saw with 

 .sTirprise rose-coloured prominences round the disc of the eclipsed 

 .sun. They were described as protuberances resembling mountains , 

 bloodcoloured streaks of light, masses of rich carmine vividly 

 bright, .slender tongues of fire visible five minutes after the re- 

 nppearance of the sun. On the screen is the copy of the photo- 

 ijtraph taken of the eclipsed sun as seen on December 22nd, 1870- 

 ZS'ow, what are these masses of crimson fire, lising sometimes to a 

 height of 80,000 miles from the edge of the sun's disc, surging up 

 in countless numbers from the glowing matter which surrounds 

 liim 1 They are up-rushes of the luminous white-hot matter of the 



