TWO YEARS LATER. 29 



TWO YEARS LATER. 



Two years ago, astronomers were looking anxiously 

 forward to an event which they justly thought likely 

 to prove an epoch in the history of solar research. 

 The great eclipse of August 1868 was not only re- 

 markable on account of the great extent of the black 

 shadow cast upon the earth by the moon, but also as 

 the* first total eclipse during which the powers of the 

 most wonderful instrument of research ever invented 

 by man were to be applied to the phenomena visible 

 at such a time. The coloured prominences which had 

 so long perplexed astronomers could hardly fail, it was 

 considered, to reveal their secret under the searching 

 scrutiny of the spectroscope. What the light-gathering 

 powers of the telescope had failed to explain, the light- 

 sifting qualities of the spectroscope might be expected 

 to interpret and that almost at a glance precisely 

 as they had resolved r so many other questions of 

 interest. 



Every one knows how abundantly these expectations 

 were .fulfilled. Not at one station only in India were 

 the observers successful in mastering the secret of the 

 coloured prominences, but, by a wonderful piece of 

 good fortune, every single observer who had made 

 arrangements to direct the spectroscope to the solar 

 prominences succeeded in answering the question 

 which had so long perplexed astronomers. From 



