THE SOLAR ECLIPSE OF 1871. 103 



rona is due to the terrestrial atmosphere is settled, and we 

 haye before us the prospect of the study of the extra-solar 

 regions, which will be very interesting and fertile." 



The spectroscope, the polariscope, and ordinary vision 

 all concur in supporting the explanation that the corona is 

 composed of solid particles and gaseous matter intermin- 

 gled. It fulfils exactly all the requirements of the hypothe- 

 sis which attributes it to the same materials as those which 

 in a gaseous state cause the reversion of the dark lines 

 above described, but which have been ejected with the great 

 eruptions forming the solar prominences, and have become 

 condensed into glowing metallic hailstones as their distance 

 from the central heat has increased. These must neces- 

 sarily be accompanied by the vapors of the more volatile 

 materials, and should give out some of the lighter gases, 

 such as hydrogen, which, under greater pressure, would be 

 occluded within them, just as the hydrogen gas occluded 

 within the substance of the Lenarto meteor (a mass of iron 

 which fell from the skv upon the earth) was extracted by 

 the late Master of the Mint by means of his mercurial air- 

 pump. 



The rifts or gaps between the radial streamers, which 

 have been so often described and figured, but were regarded 

 by some as optical illusions, are now established as unques- 

 tionable facts. Mr. Lockyer, the last to be convinced, is 

 now compelled to admit this, which overthrows the suppo- 

 sition that this solar appendage is a luminous solar atmos- 

 phere of any kind. If it were gaseous or true vapor, it 

 must obey the law of gaseous diffusion, and could not pre- 

 sent the phenomena of bright radial streamers, with dark 

 spaces between them, unless it were in the course of very 

 rapid radial motion either to or from the sun. 



The photographs have not yet been published. When 

 they have all arrived, and can be compared, we shall learn 

 something that I anticipate will be extremely interesting 

 respecting the changes of the corona, as they have been 

 taken at the different stations at different times. I alluded 

 to this subject before, when it was only a matter of possi- 

 bility that such a succession of pictures might have been 

 taken. We now have the assurance that such pictures 



