TWO YEARS LATER. 47 



hoped that the approaching eclipse observations will 

 make abundantly clear that which is at present some- 

 what confused. But the very diversity of results 

 corresponds with the diverse character of the light 

 which comes according to the above results from 

 the meteoric systems near the sun. Meteors simply 

 reflecting solar light would exhibit the rainbow-tinted 

 streak crossed by multitudinous dark lines, which forms 

 the solar spectrum ; meteors incandescent through 

 intensity of heat would exhibit a rainbow-tinted 

 spectrum without dark lines; and lastly, meteors 

 vaporised by heat would exhibit a spectrum of bright 

 lines. The combination of such spectra in varying 

 proportions would quite satisfactorily account for the 

 results hitherto observed by spectroscopists. It is, 

 however, worth noticing that electrical discharges 

 exerted by the sun's action, and taking place between 

 the meteors, would even more completely account for 

 observed results ; and perhaps it is only because elec- 

 tricity has come to be regarded as a sort of refuge for 

 the scientific destitute, that men of science have been 

 hitherto unwilling to resort to such an explanation of 

 what has been observed. 



But astronomers hope that during the eclipse of 

 next December the spectroscope will be applied much 

 more effectually than has yet been done to the scrutiny 

 of the solar corona. Photography, too, it is hoped, 

 will be so applied as to exhibit the corona, and not 

 merely, as hitherto, the pink prominences and the 

 more brilliant part of the glare around the sun. Then 



