62 Tlie Great Solar Eclipse [Jan., 



fell away apparently towards the other side ; they resembled masses 

 of lummous hair in complete disorder; and Lieut. Eay compared 

 them to horses' tails. 



Very few spectrum observations were made of the corona, but 

 it apparently gave either no spectrum at all or a very faint con- 

 tinuous spectrum; no bright lines were seen. What few observa- 

 tions appear of value will be found under the next section, as the 

 observations of the corona and the red prominences cannot easily 

 be separated. 



It is interesting to observe how the darkness appeared to vary 

 in different places during totaHty. Captain Haig, near Beejapoor, 

 says that they were surprised to find it so far from total : they could 

 easily write, read writing, and read the seconds of their watches, 

 without the aid of artificial light; in the town, on the contrary, 

 the darkness was so great that it was not possible to see one's own 

 hand; and at Moolwar a gentleman dropped part of an eye-piece of 

 a telescope, and it was not possible to find it, even by placing the 

 eye close to the ground, until after the end of totality. In Borneo, 

 under a cloudless sky, the darkness came on as if a thunderstorm 

 was just about to break : the birds, dragonflies, and butterflies 

 disappeared, and the crickets and cicada began to sound; and 

 immediately before the total obscuration the horizon could not be 

 seen; the sky was of a dark leaden blue, and the trees looked 

 almost black; the faces of the observers looked dark, but not 

 pallid or unnatural. The moment of maximum darkness seemed 

 to be immediately before the total obscuration, and for a few 

 seconds nothing could be seen except objects quite close to the ob- 

 servers. Major Tennant says that the darkness was very slight, 

 and the colour not half so gloomy as in the eclipse of 1857, which 

 was partial at Delhi, where he was then. 



Venus shone out very brilliantly, and Sirius and several other 

 of the brighter stars were seen, but no mention is made by anyone 

 of Mercury or the supposed intra-mercurial planet Vulcan. 



4. Spectkum Obsekvations on the Coeona and Ked 

 Prominences. 



Most fortunately, these observations, which were hkely to be of 

 the greatest importance, have been the most uniformly successful. 

 The least satisfactory observation is that of M. J. Kziha, one of 

 the North-German party at Aden ; but from the description of the 

 apparatus it was not well fitted for the examination of any special 

 part, and would only give a general spectrum of the whole light 

 received on it. He says that his object was to concentrate on the 

 spectrum the light emanating from the corona during the totality 

 The black hnes of the solar spectrum remained perfectly distinct 



