Jan. 5. 18^3 ] 



KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



Recently, however, it occurred to the eminent spec- 

 troscopist just named to utilise certain information 

 obtained during the total solar eclipse of May 1 7 last. It 

 was shown on that occasion that though a large part of the 

 light of the corona gives a continuous spectrum (or, in other 

 words, shines with all the colours of the rainliow), there is 

 an excess of coronal light from near the violet end of the 

 spectrum. This does not help, so far as the spectroscopic 

 method is concerned, because a multitude of images of 

 the corona, of \arious tints of violet, would not, under 

 spectroscopic dispersion, give a single well-detined image 

 which could be seen and e.xamincd. The use of absorp- 

 tive media, cutting ofl' all, or nearly all, but the violet 

 light, was naturally suggested ; but this method failed, 

 chiefly perhaps for the reason noted by Mr. Huggins, that 

 the sensitiveness of the eye for very small dirt'erences of 

 illumination by \ iolet light is much less than for similar 

 differences in red, yellow, orange, or green light. But, as 

 photography deals most efTectivcly with violet rays, it 

 occurred to Mr. Huggins to try whether he could not 

 photograph the corona by means of its violet light. Ho 

 received the image of the sun, and of the region around the 

 sun, on the photographic plate, after the light had been 

 sifted out by a screen of violet (pot) glass, and in 

 later experiments, by a solution of potassic perman- 

 ganate The sifting thus etlected was more perfect 

 for photographic purposes than for ordinary vision, 

 because such red, orange, yellow, and green light from the 

 sunlit sky as found its way through, though hiding the 

 visual image of the corona, produced no efl'ect on the 

 photographic plates. This arrangement being made, and 

 the image of the sun with a due portion of the sky around 

 it being received on the plate, it was found that the 

 coronal image — or what looked very like the coronal 

 image — made its appearance on no less than twenty of 

 the plates. This appearance does not consist simply of 

 increased photographic action immediately around the 

 sun, but of distinct coronal forms and rays, admitting in 

 the best plates of measurement and drawing. As Mr. Hug- 

 gins well remarks, "This agreement in plates taken on 

 difi'erent days with ditl'erent absorptive media interposed, 

 and with the sun in different parts of the field " (that is, of 

 the photographic plate), " together with other necessary 

 precautions observed, makes it evident that we have not to 

 do with any instrumental eflect." Nevertheless we should 

 be glad to hear that the simple device had been employed 

 of cutting away the portion of the plate on which the sun's 

 image would fall, and thus allowing the rays from the sun 

 himself to pass through, and be received where they could 

 not in any way aflfect the photographic result. Still, the 

 tests applied are probably sufficient to show that Mr. 

 Huggins has really accomplished the great result he an- 

 nounces. Little reliance can be placed on the agreement 

 between the corona photographed in September last and 

 that seen on May 17, the sun and his surroundings Vjeing 

 viewed in such very different directions. But the simi- 

 larity of structural detail and general character is too 

 marked to lie explained by mere coincidence. 



If the new method is really the success it seems to be, 

 a most interesting series of discoveries may be expected to 

 follow from its employment. Now for the first time, the 

 corona can be studied from day to day and from year to 

 year. A multitude or interesting questions which hitherto 

 have been asked in vain may now be answered. In clearer 

 skies than ours, and at observatories high above the sea- 

 level, a much greater success than Mr. Huggins has yet 

 obtained may be expected Even more is to be hoped 

 from the steady progress which photography is making, 

 and the use of improved and more sensitive plates. 



HUMANITY AND NATURAL HISTORY. 



By Richard Jefferies. 



(Autlior '■/ "The Gamekeeper at Home.") 



NATURAL history is natural history no longer. Even 

 the very phrase is passing out of use, having ceased 

 to convey the meaning, which has grown too great for the 

 words. By it was understood a catalogue of plants, a list 

 of animals, a description of fossils. The animal kingdom 

 and the vegetable kingdom were terms in constant use ; 

 they seem as antiquated now as the language of Chaucer. 



I will go no farther back than my grandfather's book- 

 case. There were the little thick volumes of Buffon, some 

 Ijroad fragments of Cuvier in folio, the same of Linnteus in 

 smaller blocks, Bakewell's " Geology," Kirby and Spence, 

 a hundredweight and a hundred years of the " Philosophical 

 Transactions," and certain books of botany strictly in 

 Latin, whose authors are still honoured, but I shall not 

 name them, for I detested those particular books beyond 

 measure. This was a very respectable body of such 

 learning for those days, and could not greatly have been 

 improved upon. There is a solid mass of facts — a Silurian 

 system — buried in those books to this hour. Buffon, as 

 sure on all subjects as a gamecock, quick, witty, and 

 pointed, writing in lace rufiles, and bringing crooked 

 refractory nature into trim order and easy sentences, was 

 the father of popularisers. Cuvier's bones were gigantic, 

 and there are superstructures at the present day that rest 

 on them. Linnwus worshipped our golden gorse, and was 

 thenceforth as dear to our hearts as a fairy tale. 



Bakewell made a tesselated pavement with a geometrical 

 design of what was then sprawling geology ; right or 

 wrong, at least you could see the pieces. Kirljy and Spence 

 are at this hour capital story-books for children, so inte- 

 resting are their insects. I never smoked out a wasp's 

 nest with straw or gunpowder after I read that book. The 

 " Philosophical Transactions " are a queer jumble, but the 

 variety and eccentricity of the topics excite the mind to 

 look about for original ideas. The strictly Latin botanies 

 are sawdust. From these authors, however, who, let it be 

 observed, were for the most part prim;eval and original in 

 some manner, the book-making naturalists of the last forty 

 years have copied their works. 



My grandfather's books were genuine, and went to the 

 full length of the knowledge then existent. They formed 

 a kind of dictionary in which you could find particulars of 

 any creature or thing. Turning to the antelope, its food, 

 locality, and mode of life were accurately described, with 

 its genus and Latin label. Turning to the sparrow, its 

 habits, number and time of eggs were clearly recorded. 

 Insects, fishes, plants, mosses — there was nothing known to 

 be existent that was not described or classified. Few now 

 understand the immense labour Linnwus's system of 

 botany represents. Though another system is now in 

 use, the materials of it are practically Linna^an. What 

 Linnreus effected in botany was carried out by various 

 workers in other departments. Here, then, was a vast 

 storehouse of facts — the accumulations of the ancients 

 down from the days of Alexander the Great's preceptor. 

 Looking at them broadly, the whole might be summed up 

 as definition : The definition of an antelope, of an insect, 

 or a plant It was an encyclopiedia of living creatures — a 

 dictionary. This was natural history as originally in- 

 tended by the phrase. 



There was no idea in it If you read and read steadily 

 through the entomology, and the conchology, and the 

 ichthyology, all the tomes from end to end, most likely you 

 would recollect something of the camel or the rhinoceros — 



