96 SCIENCE IN SHORT CHAPTERS. 



or a bladder filled with the separated elements of water, 

 and then exploded, and have felt the ringing in their ears 

 that has followed the violent detonation. 



Let them struggle with the conception of such a bubble 

 or bladder magnified to the dimensions of only one such a 

 world as ours, and then exploded; let them strain their 

 power of imagination even to the splitting point, and still 

 they must fail most pitifully to picture the magnitude of 

 this solar explosion observed on September 7th last, which 

 flashed out to a magnitude of more than five hundred 

 worlds, and then expanded to the size of more than five 

 thousand worlds, even while Professor Young was watching 

 it. Professor Young concludes his description by stating 

 that "it seerns far from impossible that the mysterious 

 coronal streamers, if they turn out to be truly solar, as now 

 seems likely, may find their origin and explanation in such 

 events." 



This, and a number of similar admissions, suggestions, 

 and conclusions from the leading astronomers, indicate that 

 the eruption theory of the corona will not be passed over in 

 silence by the observers of this eclipse, and it is to this that 

 I have referred in the above remarks respecting the interest 

 attaching to a series of photographs showing successive 

 states of this outspreading enigma. 



Father Secchi's spectroscopic observations on the un- 

 eclipsed sun led him to assert the existence of a stratum of 

 glowing metallic vapors immediately below the envelope 

 connected with the hydrogen of the eruptions. This is 

 just what is required by my eruption theory to supply the 

 solid materials of the ejections forming the corona. 



Professor Young's announcement of the reversal of the 

 spectroscopic lines at the moment when the stratum was 

 seen independently of the general solar glare, startled Mr. 

 Lockyer and others who had disputed the accuracy of the 

 observations of the great Italian observer, as it confirmed 

 them so completely. Scepticism still prevailed, and Young's 

 observation was questioned; but now even our slender tele- 

 graphic communication from Colonel Tenant to Dr. Hug- 

 gins indicates that the question must be no longer contested. 

 "Reversion of lines entirely confirmed "is a message so im- 



