128 LIGHT SCIENCE FOR LEISURE HOURS. 



been urged against the existence of the outer solar 

 corona as an objective and circumsolar reality. 



But the recent eclipse has also supplied instructive 

 evidence respecting the nature of the outer radiated 

 corona ; for the spectroscope has been applied by one 

 of the most skilful astronomers of the day to the 

 analysis of the coronal light. 



Let us first see what Mr. Janssen, the astronomer 

 in question, has to say respecting the [appearance of 

 the corona. His remarks on this point are not wanting 

 in definiteness ; and they are particularly valuable 

 because he observed the corona from a station raised 

 far above those denser atmospheric strata which are 

 most effective in concealing the more delicate details 

 of the coronal structure. ' I have mounted the central 

 ridge of the Neilgherries,' he wrote, ' which has sum- 

 mits of nine thousand feet in height, and whence, 

 according as we turn to east or west of the ridge, we 

 see the Carnatic plains on the Coromandel Coast, or 

 the plateau of Mysore, as far as the Grhauts.' At this 

 fine station, Janssen was favoured with weather of 

 exceptional clearness; and altogether it is probable 

 that never since eclipse observations began, had the 

 corona been studied under such favourable circum- 

 stances. In the following sentences Janssen presents 

 the results of his general observations. ' Nothing 

 could be more beautiful or more luminous ; with 

 special forms excluding all possibility of a terrestrial 

 origin. The result of my observations at Sholoor,' he 

 says, * indicates without any doubt the solar origin of 



