108 LIGHT SCIENCE FOR LEISURE HOURS. 



our own air, or is due (as the fanciful M. Faye once 

 thought of the colored prominences) to some sort of 

 lunar mirage, certain it is that just now it is a matter 

 of extreme interest that further observations should be 

 made. Undoubtedly, what we have lately learned re- 

 specting the sun gives an interest and importance to 

 this matter of the solar corona which it never before 

 possessed. Yet this is the problem respecting which 

 our Government is understood to have said to astron- 

 omers, " As far as we can, we will prevent you from 

 solving it." 



Truly it would be difficult to show that any ma- 

 terial profit can be gained by solving the problems 

 associated with the solar corona. The tree of science 

 has its blossoms as well as its fruits, and perhaps the 

 results of the observations we are advocating will be- 

 long to the former rather than the latter. But what 

 then ? Can we limit science to remunerative researches 

 alone? As well might we attempt to get fruit from 

 a tree whose leaves and blossoms we systematically 

 plucked off. Latent though the power of science now 

 is in great part, yet science is the greatest power our 

 country possesses. It has been treated for a long 

 while as a troublesome beggar a few hundreds doled 

 out here and a few thousands there. The country does 

 not yet know its own interest. Because little has been 

 asked, it has thought little could be returned. The 

 time is coming when not hundreds or thousands will 



