THE SOLAR ECLIPSE OF 1871. 143 



the length, und six and three quarters, piled upon each other, 

 to measure the height. A few hundred worlds as large as ours 

 would be required to fill up the whole cubic contents of this 

 flame-cloud. The spectroscope has shown that these promi- 

 nences are incandescent hydrogen. Most of my readers have 

 probably seen a soap-bubble or a bladder filled with the sepa- 

 rated elements of water, and then exploded, and have felt the 

 ringing in their ears that has followed the violent detonation. 



Let them struggle with the conception of such a bubble or 

 bladder magnified to the dimensions of only one such a world 

 as ours, and then exploded ; let them strain their power of 

 imagination even to the splitting point, and still they must fall 

 most pitifully to picture the magnitude of this solar explosion 

 observed on September 7th last, which flashed out to a magni- 

 tude of more than five hundred worlds, and then expanded to 

 the size of more than five thousand worlds, even while Profes- 

 sor Young was watching it. Professor Young concludes his 

 description by stating that " it seems far from impossible that 

 the mysterious coronal streamers, if they turn out to be truly 

 solar, as now seems likely, may find their origin and explana- 

 tion in such events.'' 



This, and a number of similar admissions, suggestions, and 

 conclusions from the leading astronomers, indicate that the 

 eruption theory of the corona will not be passed over in silence 

 by the observers of this eclipse, and it is to this that I have 

 referred in the above remarks respecting the interest attaching 

 to a series of photographs showing successive states of this out- 

 spreading enigma. 



Father Secchi's spectroscopic observations on the uneclipsed 

 sun led him to assert the existence of a stratum of glowing 

 metallic vapors immediately below the envelope connected with 

 the hydrogen of the eruptions. This is just what is required 

 by my eruption theory to supply the solid materials of the 

 ejections forming the corona. 



Professor Young's announcement of the reversal of the spec- 

 troscopic lines at the moment when the stratum was seen inde- 

 pendently of the general solar glare, startled Mr. Lockyer and 

 others who had disputed the accuracy of the observations of 

 the great Italian observer, as it confirmed them so completely. 

 Scepticism still prevailed, and Young's observation was ques- 

 tioned ; but now even our slender telegraphic communication 

 from Colonel Tonnant to Dr. Huggins indicates that the ques- 

 tion must be no longer contested. " Reversion of lines entirely 



