40 THE BORDERLAND OF SCIENCE. 



discovered in the case of the earth's atmosphere, that a 

 real boundary exists to the gaseous envelope surround- 

 ing the sun. But we could perceive that a brightly 

 luminous envelope extended to about twice the height 

 of any prominence visible at the moment, and that the 

 solar atmosphere extends and remains luminous to a far 

 greater height than this more brilliant region. But 

 the most amazing circumstance of all was this, that 

 above even the faintest signs of an atmosphere, as well 

 as through and amidst both the inner bright envelope 

 and the fainter light surrounding it, there were the 

 most complex sprays and streams and filaments of 

 whitish light, here appearing as streamers, elsewhere as 

 a network of bright streaks, and yet elsewhere clustered 

 into aggregations, which I can compare to nothing so 

 fitly (though the comparison may seem commonplace) 

 as to hanks of glittering thread. All these streaks and 

 sprays of light appeared to be perfectly white, and they 

 only differed among themselves in this respect, that, 

 whereas some appeared like fine streaks of a uniform 

 silvery lustre, others seemed to shine with a curdled 

 light. The faint light outside the glowing atmosphere 

 surrounding the prominences was also whitish ; but 

 the glowing atmosphere itself shone with a light re- 

 sembling that of the sierra, only not so brilliant. 

 The pink and green lustre, continually shifting, as it 

 appeared to us, so that a region which had appeared 

 pink at one time would shine a short time after with a 

 greenish light, caused us to compare the appearance of 

 this bright region to that of mother-of-pearl. I suppose 



