1869. J Astronomy. 257 



Major Temiant's account of his work during the great echpse 

 of August last, had not led us to form very hopeful expectations 

 respecting the photographs taken by his party. Fortunately it 

 has turned out that these photographs were much better than 

 Major Tennant had supposed. Mr. De la Kue suggested that it 

 would be advantageous to take enlarged pictures of the photo- 

 graphs on glass, and to etch them according to the plan which he 

 had used for the eclipse of 1860. In reference to this suggestion. 

 Major Tennant wrote to Mr. De la Eue, that " the large pictures 

 were thin and poor, and there was no use in treating them by 

 etching ; for the real thing would be better shown by a distribution 

 of transparencies, so as to make them generally accessible." Accord- 

 ingly Major Tennant sent eight sets of transparent copies on glass 

 of his echpse pictures to the Astronomer-Eoyal for distribution. One 

 of these sets has reached Mr. De la Kue's hands. He says of them 

 — and no one is better able to judge — " they are extremely 

 interesting, and must be considered as eminently successful re- 

 sults." They contain much more detail than can be seen in the 

 paper copies. 



The two most important features exhibited in Major Tennant's 

 photographs are : first, the spiral conformation of the Great Horn, 

 marked A in the drawmgs (the only prominence which was visible 

 tlwoughout the totality) ; and secondly, the well-defined elevations 

 indicated by a soft light, altogether difierent from that of the red 

 prominences. " These entities," says Mr. De la Kue, in reference to 

 the fainter light, " bounded by outlines which blend almost imper- 

 ceptil.)ly into the general light of the corona, are deserving of 

 especial study, which will be best accomphshed by means of pho- 

 tography, as it truly records their faint contours, which are likely 

 to be overlooked in eye observations, because they are lost in the 

 softened light which surrounds the moon, and also because the eye 

 is naturally attracted most by the prominences which have a dis- 

 tinct outline." 



It appears that the alterations which have taken place in the 

 nebula round t] Argus are not nearly so important as Mr. Abbott's 

 papers had seemed to indicate. In a letter sent to Sir John 

 Herschel on this subject. Lieutenant Herschel (his son) remarks 

 that the nebula is not only a very difficult object to draw properly, 

 but that its appearance varies under every change of illuminating 

 and magnifying power or of atmospheric conditions. He has 

 carefully marked down the place of every conspicuous star in the 

 nebula, and Sir John Herschel finds no difficulty in identifying all 

 of these stars (except one small one) with those he had himself 

 mapped down when at the Cape. Again, it is clear from Lieutenant 

 Herschel's drawings that the closed lemniscate vacancy seen by Sir 

 John Herschel thirty years ago, has not been replaced by a vacancy 



