62 LIGHT SCIENCE FOR LEISURE HOURS. 



were somewhat cavalierly treated, and the acceptance 

 of their observations was postponed until such time as 

 European astronomers should have been able to confirm 

 those perplexing results. 



The chief interest of the eclipse of December 1870 

 undoubtedly attaches to this special question. Some 

 few may have felt doubtful whether the observations 

 to be then made might not serve to overthrow or 

 to establish the theory that the corona is a solar 

 appendage. But it is no secret that the minds of all 

 astronomers capable of weighing the evidence had been 

 made up on this point long before the expeditions 

 started. The question, however, whether the American 

 observations would be confirmed or not was one on 

 which grave doubts prevailed in many quarters. For 

 myself I must admit that these doubts had seemed 

 to me to involve an unjust disparagement of the skill 

 of American men of science, who have again and again 

 proved themselves the equals of the best European 

 observers in judgment and acumen, and often their 

 superiors in energy. A careful study of the accounts 

 given by the heads of the different observing parties, 

 and more especially of the voluminous records in 

 Commodore Sand's ' Reports of the Eclipse Observations 

 of August 7, 1869,' had convinced me that future 

 observations would confirm the statements made by 

 the spectroscopic observers of the American eclipse. 



This has, in effect, happened. The first fruits of 

 the eclipse expeditions of 1870 may be said to consist 

 in this important fact that the observations made in 



