NA TURE 



457 



THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 1878 



THE ECLIPSE 



THE telegram sent from Denver, signed by Professors 

 Young and Watson, Dr, Draper, and myself, will 

 have given an idea of the results -which we think have 

 been secured on the eclipse of this year. Since the tele- 

 gram was despatched I have been engaged in making as 

 many notes on the various points of detail as incessant 

 travel and a temperature of 91° in the shade would per- 

 mit. A long time must elapse before anything like a 

 general view of the total work done is possible, but I 

 think that the readers of Nature may rely upon the 

 correctness of what I have collected, though it is quite 

 possible, as I have not succeeded in finding all the 

 observers, that some errors may have crept in. And 

 again, it is quite possible that the many dry plates taken 

 and even yet not developed, may contain information of 

 which at present we hare no idea. To take an instance : 

 we do not yet know whether Prof. Harkness's attempt to 

 photograph the polariscopic phenomena presented by the 

 corona was successful or not, for I learn at the Naval 

 Observatory here that he is still at Fort Steele, handing 

 over his camp equipment to the military, who all along 

 the line have been placed in the most unreserved way at 

 the disposal of the different parties by the express orders 

 of Gen. Sherman himself, who takes the greatest interest 

 in such inquiries, and is anxious to foster scientific in- 

 quiries as far as in him lies. Strange as it may seem, 

 this is the expressed feeling of all the authorities here, 

 from the Chief of the State downwards. In interviews 

 with which I have been honoured, the President of the 

 United States himself, the Secretary for War, Gen. Sher- 

 man, and other members of the Cabinet, have one and 

 all insisted upon the importance of securing records of 

 all possible natural phenomena, and expressed their 

 gratification that such records have been secured in the 

 present instance by Government aid. 



I will begin the extracts from my notes by referring to 

 the appearance of the Corona itself. 



I give a rough sketch of what / saw of the corona with 

 the naked eye (Fig. i), slightly exaggerating the dimensions 

 of the streamers to show the wind-vane appearance, which, 

 to me, was almost perfect, being pointed at one end and 

 bounded by parallel edges at the other ; others, I may say, 

 however, saw a resemblance to a fish's tail. These streamers 

 vanished absolutely in the telescope (Fig. 2), as did the 

 radiating lines in 1871 ; not a shred of them was left. Prof. 

 Cleveland Abbe (lying on his back at a height of eleven 

 feet on Pike's Peak ; he had been sent down the day before 

 from the summit, as the rarefaction of the air was too much 

 for him) saw them, with the naked eye, extending to a 

 distance of six degrees on either side, and their appear- 

 ance suggested to him meteoric streams for their origin. 

 Prof. Newcomb also saw them with the naked eye when 

 he had hidden the corona behind a screen. To him they 

 suggested the zodiacal light, or rather its nucleus near the 

 sun, even if it extend beyond the orbit of the earth. 



These streamers seem to have been seen by everybody, 

 and were doubtless cosmical ; a system at right angles to 

 them (they lay along the ecliptic), and quite as bright, 

 Vol. xtiii. — No. 461 



was recorded by many, though many of the best observers 

 saw not a trace of them. 



Here is a lesson, and one which affords an explanation 

 of a great deal of eclipse work, connected with these out- 

 liers of the corona. 



I had a magnificent view of the corona with a pov/er 

 of 50 on my 3|-inch Cooke, and saw exquisite structure at 

 the north and south points. Curves of contrary flexure 

 started thence, and turned over, and blended with tl»ft 

 rest of the corona, which was entirely structureless ^t»<t 

 cloud-like ; the filamentous tracery which in India ■■ I 

 observed till three minutes after totality had ended had 

 all gone. Prof. Bass, however, tells me that by confining 

 his attention to the same point for nearly the v/hole of 

 totality, the structure came out, and seemed to pulsate 

 like an aurora. 



Prof. Hall is almost the only one who is under the im-, 

 pression that the corona of 1869 was less brilliant than' 

 this. 



Mr. Bumham, who is.,ai; observer of the highest qrdey, 

 thus gives his opinion, which agrees with that of Prof. 

 Young, who remarked its unusual faintness and lacki.of 

 polar extension, and all the other American astro- 

 nomers ; — 



" The coronal display was far less than in the eclipse 

 of 1869, as seen at Des Moines, Iowa, by members of the 

 Times party, and it bore a more striking resemblance^ 

 probably, to the eclipse of 1 870, as seen at Gibraltar'aSd 

 in the Island of Sicily, The corona was, in fact, a mild, 

 affair, according to the observations of thig party, ^f. 

 compared with that seen in other eclipses. A few pro- 

 tuberances were seen, and several bright streamers. On 

 one side there was observed a bright pink ribbon or 

 crescent. The traditional bright lines (the rays) and 

 dark patches (the rifts) were not nearly as conspicuous as 

 usual," 



Mr. Bumham made another interesting observation 

 which may prove one of considerable value in determining 

 the nature of the corona. Anticipating that the star 

 f Cancri would be very near to the sun, he made special 

 efforts to see it, and was altogether successful, for it was 

 distinctly seen through the corona. 



General Myer, the distinguished head of the Army 

 Signal Service, who had given orders to utilise his station 

 on Pike's Peak for eclipse observations, observed the 

 corona himself from the summit, and therefore, under 

 conditions which have never been utilised before. He 

 describes the corona as built up of five radial lines of a 

 golden colour; beyond this in the direction of the ecliptic 

 were prolonged bright silver rays. This was seen with 

 the naked eye. In the telescope the appearance was 

 quite different ; a layer close to the sun, only of a light 

 pink colour, was seen, and the long bright silver rays had 

 disappeared. The greater elevation, thus, was more suited 

 to a study of the structure than the lower levels, and 

 at the same time the colour observed seems to have been 

 slightly changed. In the pure air of the Peak, also, he 

 saw the corona steadily for about five minutes after 

 totality, and watched the moon cover the outer striated 

 edge of the corona, which appeared, then, to be more 

 golden than ever. 



We next come to the Photographs. 



Photographs of the corcaia and of its spectrum were 



