A VOYAGE TO THE SUN. 39 



differed very little in their colour and degree of light 

 from the sierra. They also presented shapes re- 

 minding us rather of clouds moving in a perturbed 

 atmosphere, than of those tremendous processes of dis- 

 turbance which astronomers have lately shown to be in 

 progress in the sun. But opposite the spot zones, 

 which were already unmistakably recognizable, the 

 prominences presented a totally different appearance. 

 They resembled jets of molten matter, intensely bright, 

 and seemingly moving with immense velocity. One 

 or two formed and vanished with amazing rapidity, as 

 when in terrestrial conflagrations a flame leaps suddenly 

 to a great height and presently disappears. Indeed, 

 the whole extent of the two spot zones, so far as we 

 could judge from our view of the region outside the 

 bright solar disc, seemed to be in a state of intense 

 electrical disturbance, since the illumination of the 

 solar atmosphere above and around these zones appeared 

 not only brighter than elsewhere, but was here subject 

 also to continual changes of brightness. These changes, 

 viewed from our great distance, did not, indeed, seem 

 very rapid, yet, remembering the real vastness of the 

 atmospheric regions, it was impossible not to recog- 

 nize the fact that they implied the most intense 

 activity in the solar regions beneath. 



It was clear, even at the great distance at which we 

 still were, that the solar atmosphere extends far above 

 the loftiest of the coloured prominences. We could not 

 yet distinguish the actual boundary of the atmosphere, 

 though we entertained little question, after what we had 



