ASTRONOMICAL PHENOMENA AND PROGRESS. 



41 



At Shelbyville, Ky., there were strong dele- 

 gations of scientific observers from different 

 parts of the country. Among those present 

 were Prof. Joseph Winlock, of Harvard Uni- 

 versity; AlvinG. Clark, of Cambridge; Assist- 

 ants George W. Dean and F. Blake, Jr., of the 

 Coast Survey ; J. A. Whipple, of Boston, as- 

 sisted by Messrs. George Clark and J. Pren- 

 dergast, having charge of the photographic 

 business ; Prof. S. M. Searle, of New York, who 

 was to look out for intra-Mercurial planets ; 

 and Prof. Seymour, of Louisville, who watched 

 the meteorological phenomena. Ten or twelve 

 mounted instruments were in use on the occa- 

 sion, the chief of these being the Shelbyville 

 College telescope, which once ranked third in 

 the United States, handled by Prof. Winlock. 

 A shower of meteors was observed between the 

 earth and the moon. Arcturus, Yega, Venus, 

 and Mercury, were visible to the naked eye 

 during the totality, but no intra-Mercurial 

 planets could be detected, nothing fainter than 

 Regulus being discerned near the sun. The 

 photographs of the eclipse were highly suc- 

 cessful, and accord with those of which fuller 

 accounts are given in the records of observa- 

 tions elsewhere. 



In a report of observations by Professor 

 Winlock, published in the American Journal 

 of Science, he remarks that the cromosphere 

 was carefully examined both before and after 

 the phenomenon ; and only three lines could 

 be seen, 0, one D and F. During totality only 

 the highest protuberance on the lower limb of 

 the sun was examined carefully, and nothing 

 was seen but a faint continuous spectrum ; but, 

 since the observing telescope (an equatorial, by 

 Merz, of Y^ inches aperture and 9^- feet focal 

 length) took in only a small part of the spec- 

 trum at once, nothing conclusive could be in- 

 ferred from the observation as to the non-exist- 

 ence of bright lines in the corona. 



During totality eleven bright lines were seen. Be- 

 sides the three described above, there was a short line 

 at or very near E, the three lines of b were bright and 

 very sharp, and there were four lines above F. Al- 

 though these lines were very bright on a dark ground, 

 all of them but the three seen before the eclipse 

 disappeared instantly on the first burst of sunlignt. 

 and the same point in the sun's disk was examined 

 with great care after totality without finding any of 

 the lines but those above described. The photo- 

 graph t of the corona taken at Shelbyville shows a 

 flattening at the extemities of the sun's axis, and an 

 elevation about the equatorial region. The appear- 

 ance can be explained by the hypothesis that it is a 

 photographic view of the sun's atmosphere, and the 

 form is that which it would assume from the sun's 

 rotation about its axis, with its upper surface dis- 

 turbed by the protuberances or flames below, and 

 by large waves which are to be expected in such an 

 atmosphere. 



Dr. B. A. Gould, in a letter to Professor 

 Morton, which appears in the Journal of the 

 Franklin Institute for October, says : 



An examination of the beautiful photographs made 

 at Burlington and Ottumwa, by the sections of your 

 party in charge of Professors Mayer and Himes, and 

 u comparison of them with my sketches of the coro- 



na, have led me to the conviction that the radiance 

 around the moon, in the pictures made during totality, 

 is not the corona at all, but is actually the image of 

 what Lockyer has called the chromosphere. 



This interesting fact is indicated by many different 

 considerations. The directions of maximum radi- 

 ance do not coincide with those of the great beams 

 of the corona; they remained constant while the 

 latter were variable ; there is a diameter, approxi- 

 mately corresponding to the solar axis, near the ex- 

 tremities of which the radiance upon the photographs 

 is a minimum, whereas the coronal beams in these 

 directions were especially marked during a great 

 part of the total obscuration. The corona beams 

 stood in no apparent relation to the protuberances, 

 whereas the aureole, seen upon the^ pnotographs, is 

 most marked in their immediate vicinity. Indeed, 

 the great protuberance, at 230 to 245, seems to have 

 formed a southern limit to the radiance on the west- 

 ern side, while a sharp northern limit is seen on all 

 the photographs at about 350, the intermediate arc 

 being thickly studded with protuberances, which the 

 moon displayed at the close of totality. The exqui- 

 site masses of flocculent light on the following limb 

 are upon the two sides of that curious prominence 

 at 93 , which at first resembled an ear of corn, as you 

 have said, but which in the later pictures, after it 

 had been more occulted, and its southern branch 

 thus rendered more conspicuous, was like a pair of 

 antelope-horns, to which some observers compared 

 it. Whatever of this aureole is shown upon the pho- 

 tographs, was occulted or displayed by the lunar 

 motion, precisely as the protuberances were. The va- 

 riations in the form of the corona, on the other hand, 

 did not seem to be dependent in any degree upon the 

 moon's motion. 



The singular and elegant structural indications, in 

 the special aggregations of light on the eastern side, 

 may be of high value in guiding to a further knowl- 

 edge of the cromosphere. They are manifest in all 

 the photographs by your parties which I have 

 seen, but are especially marked in those of shortest 

 exposure, such as the first one at Ottumwa. In 

 some of the later views they may be detected on the 

 other side of the sun, though less distinct. But the 

 very irregular and jagged outline of the chromo- 

 sphere, as described by Janssen and Lockyer, is 

 exhibited in perfection. 



A scientific party from the University of 

 Georgia made successful observations of the 

 eclipse at Bristol, Tenn., which was near the 

 central line of totality. A corps of observers 

 from the United States Coast Survey, under 

 General Cutts, and a large number of other 

 scientific gentlemen representing learned insti- 

 tutions, were on the ground. The weather was 

 favorable, and the result of the observations 

 highly gratifying. Prof. W. Leroy Brown, of 

 the University of Georgia, in a report to Chan- 

 cellor Lipscomb, describes the operations of 

 his party, and the successive stages of the 

 eclipse, as follows : 



Just at the calculated time (4* 43 m 36"), though 

 no evidence whatever of the position of the moon 

 could be previously seen, I observed a slight trem- 

 ulous motion on the western limb, 128 d 16 m from 

 the vexter, immediately at the point where it was 

 known by calculation the first point of contact would 

 occur. In a few moments it became visible to the 

 crowd assembled around. The dark spots of the sun 

 were carefully observed, and the time of first contact 

 and" total immersion of the most important of them 

 noted. No change whatever was observed either in 

 the penumbra or umbra of any of the spots during 

 the approach or recession of the moon. As the moon 

 graduallv covered the sun from view, its outline was 

 projected back on the disk of the sun not in a reg- 



