160 LIGHT SCIENCE FOR LEISURE HOURS. 



perfect evidence already existing to show that the 

 corona belongs to the sun, many students of astronomy 

 seemed to regard it as a part of scientific caution to 

 close their eyes to the evidence, and regard as at least 

 tenable the hypothesis that the corona may be a lunar 

 or a terrestrial, or even a merely optical phenomenon. 

 But within the last ten or twelve years the corona has 

 been recognised by all for what (as I pointed out in 

 1869) it might have been known to be, centuries ago, 

 a distinctly solar appendage. So understood, however, 

 the corona's nature yet remained to be interpreted. 

 To some it appeared as a sort of solar atmosphere, to 

 others as a magnified aurora, while yet others regarded 

 it as due to the constant emission of matter from the 

 sun under the action of repulsive forces akin to those 

 by which the tails of comets are supposed to be pro- 

 duced. 



I pointed out long since, and with each year since 

 the evidence for that view has become clearer and more 

 decisive, that whatever other theory of the corona we 

 may accept we cannot reject the belief that a part at least 

 of the coronal light is due to meteoric matter travelling 

 around the sun in streams and systems like those 

 which produce the August and November star showers, 

 but much more closely aggregated. When we take 

 into account the much greater wealth of meteoric 

 matter near the sun, that such matter is very much 

 more brilliantly illuminated than meteoric matter at 

 our earth's distance, while a portion of it is in all 

 probability rendered self-luminous, if not actually 



