1 62 LIGHT SCIENCE FOR LEISURE HOURS. 



corona which can only be explained as due to meteoric 

 streams, and which, considered in connection with what 

 we have already learned, seems at once to point to a 

 probable and, if demonstrated, a most interesting 

 explanation of the anomalous temperature changes. I 

 refer to the existence of certain rays or streamers, as 

 they have been called (rather from their appearance 

 than from anything which has been proved respecting 

 their nature), extending from the eclipsed body of the 

 sun as the brighter and farthest reaching portions of 

 the solar corona. 



During the total eclipse of July 1878 Professor 

 Cleveland Abbe, observing the eclipse from a station 

 on Pike's Peak (not at the summit, but high above the 

 sea level), was able to trace a long, seemingly radial 

 streamer to a distance of no less than six diameters of 

 the sun, or about five million miles from the sun's disc. 

 Four other rays were visible extending not quite so far, 

 but the stoutest of them reach fully two million miles 

 from the edge of the sun, assuming its length to lie at 

 right angles to the line of sight ; if, which is far more 

 probable, its length was inclined to that line at an 

 acute angle we must adopt a higher estimate. 



Now these rays had well defined edges, and their 

 brighter portions were not by any means radial exten- 

 sions from the sun. Again, while two grew narrower 

 with increased distance from the sun, the other two 

 (which were apparently the prolongations of the former, 

 on the opposite side of the sun) grew broader with 

 increase of distance. It seems quite impossible to 



