ANCIENT TEMPLES OF ENGLAND 79 



went to India in 1868 to study these prominences of 

 the sun during the total eclipse of that year. His 

 purpose was to examine with a spectroscope the light 

 given out by the prominences. The day after the 

 eclipse Janssen found that he could still examine the 

 prominences and make out their shape and the chemical 

 elements present in them by looking at them through 

 the spectroscope, although the sun^s disc was now 

 uncovered, and it was impossible to see the prominences 

 with the unaided eye or with the telescope. 



A young English astronomer, hundreds of miles apart 

 from Janssen, on the same day, Aug. 18, 1868, made 

 the same discovery in the same way, independently. 

 The English astronomer was Norman Lockyer, and the 

 French Academy of Sciences caused a medal to be 

 struck in commemoration of this discovery. The medal 

 is before me as I write. It shows the heads of Janssen 

 and of Lockyer side by side, as they were forty years 



ago- 

 Each has carried on his researches and discoveries 

 with unabated vigour since that happy conjunction. 

 Sir Norman Lockyer has for many years added to his 

 constant study of the sun, fixed stars, and nebulae 

 by means of the spectroscope and photographic record 

 of spectra, an inquiry into the evidence afforded by 

 astronomical facts first as to the age of Greek and 

 Egyptian temples, and latterly as to that of the 

 mysterious avenues and circles of stones (such as 

 Stonehenge) scattered about the British Islands, of the 

 history and use of which we have only vague traditions 

 and no actual records. These stone circles and avenues 

 are very numerous in Great Britain. The chief are 

 Stonehenge, Avebury, and Stanton Drew in the middle 

 South of England ; the Hurlers, Boscawen-Un, 

 Tregaseal, the Merry Maidens, and the Nine Maidens in 

 Cornwall; Merrivale Avenue and Fernworthy Avenue 

 in Devon ; many circles in Aberdeen shire, in Cumberland, 



