396 Royal Astronomical Society. 
of the moon’s diameter (or probably four minutes). The colour of 
this ring was nearly white, inclining (as I thought) to peach-colour, 
but its illuminating power was very small. It was brightest at the 
lower part and to the left; this brightness travelled a little to the 
right. (It will be remarked, that a point to the left of the lowest 
point was the part last covered by the moon.) The clouds, however, 
were so near to the moon on all sides, and a dense cloud was so 
nearly in contact with it at the top, that it seems exceedingly pro- 
bable that some of these appearances might depend upon them. 
I gazed earnestly at this remarkable ring, and I could not divest 
myself of the idea that it was produced by the sun’s light shining 
past the moon’s body through a portion of our own atmosphere. I 
wish it to be understood clearly that I do not offer this as an expia- 
nation of the ring (indeed, considering the number of miles by 
which the moon’s limb overpassed the line drawn from the place of 
observation to the sun’s limb, I cannot now consider such an expla- 
nation feasible); I wish merely to convey the impression which 
was given to me at the time of viewing the phenomenon. Indeed, 
I remarked at the time, that the appearance was almost exactly 
similar to that produced by a brilliant street-lamp, when its direct 
rays are just prevented from reaching the eye by a post, or by the 
corner of a building. I think it possible that there might be a very 
slight radial appearance in the light of the ring, but I do not recol- 
lect it with certainty, and I am perfectly certain that it was not 
sufficiently marked to interfere sensibly with the general appearance 
of annular structure. The moon appeared to be extremely near; 
her distance might have been estimated at a few hundred yards. 
The whole appearance of things was very unnatural and frighten- 
ing. No stars were seen from the Superga, the sky being covered 
with clouds: but I found, from the reports of MM. Plana and 
Forbes, as well as from the conversation of many persons whom I 
met in general society, that many stars were seen at Turin, and at 
other places in the neighbourhood. I may take this opportunity of 
stating that I heard of distinct instances in which horses exhibited 
signs of very great terror when the totality came on. 
I took off the dark glasses and carefully examined the moon with 
the telescope. Her disc was distinctly visible as having independent 
light, and I think that if it had been stronger, I might have seen 
the large tracts of different brightness on her disc. I could not, 
however, see the smallest inequality of light, of the nature either of 
broad dark tract, or dark spot, or bright spot. I looked carefully 
for a long time (in proportion to the whole duration of darkness), 
and am confident that there was nothing of this kind to be seen. 
While thus looking at the moon I saw, to my great surprise, 
some small red flames at the apparent bottom of the dise (the top 
as seen with the naked eye). The number of flames, as I have them 
impressed on my memory and as I find them drawn on a small pen- 
cil sketch made a few minutes after their appearance, was three* ; 
* A plate representing these and other phanomena of the Eclipse ac- 
companies Mr, Airy’s paper, as given in the Monthly Notices. 
