Il6 LIGHT SCIENCE FOR LEISURE HOURS. 



an image of the corona, any more than the sky we see 

 in the daytime forms images of the sun though shining 

 with solar light. If the observer examining the corona 

 with a suitable spectroscope not provided with a slit 

 saw a green image of the corona, it could only be 

 because the green light came from those parts of the 

 sky where the corona was actually seen, and from no 

 other parts. 



Now this experiment was precisely what Kespighi, 

 the eminent Italian astronomer, determined to attempt. 

 He had an instrument (made for him in 1868) which 

 seemed to him admirably adapted for the purpose ; and 

 accordingly he took this instrument with him to India, 

 and, stationed at Poodocottah, he successfully applied 

 it to the solution of the problem which had so long 

 perplexed astronomers. His observations involved 

 results of interest, relating to the coloured prominences, 

 since these as well as the inner corona were presented 

 in spectrally shifted images. 



* At the very instant of totality,' he says, ' the field 

 of the telescope exhibited a most astonishing spectacle. 

 The chromatosphere at the edge which was the last to 

 be eclipsed, surmounted by two groups of prominences, 

 one on the right, the other on the left of the point of 

 contact, was reproduced in four spectral colours, with 

 extraordinary intensity of light, and the most surprising 

 contrast of the brightest colours, so that the four 

 spectral images could be directly compared and their 

 minutest differences easily made out. All these images 

 were well defined, and projected in certain coloured 



