The solar Eclipse of April 17, 1912 407 



station. I also noticed that the illuminated surface of the 

 dusty playground became more and more sombre, while the 

 shadows under the trees preserved the same tone, so that, 

 while the illumination of the exposed ground diminished 

 rapidly, that of the ground in the shade of the trees had 

 already nearly reached its minimum of illumination before 

 the eclipse was complete. 



After this my attention was confined entirely to what was 

 taking place in the sky. I was now using the binocular with 

 the reducing glass in front of the eye-pieces. With it the 

 rapid diminution of the luminous crescent could be easily 

 followed and the view furnished was very sharp. 



As the area of the luminous crescent diminished rapidly 

 before the advance of the dark lunar disc the colour of its 

 light suddenly changed to red. This suggested to me that a 

 brilliant display of protuberances might be expected. The 

 tone of the red reminded me, at the moment, of that of 

 nitrous fumes escaping into the air ; it was therefore a very 

 pure red. It became visible only after the overwhelming 

 intensity of the relatively white light of the middle of the 

 sun's disc had been screened off by the interposing moon ; 

 but it would have been impossible to perceive the red colour, 

 intense though it was, had it not been for the perfection of 

 my reducing glass, which, while it reduced the intensity, pre- 

 served the natural colour of the sun's light. 



Before the most striking phenomena of the central phase 

 began to crowd across my view, I noticed the beginning of 

 the phenomenon which most impressed me when witnessing 

 the eclipse of May, 1882, in Egypt. In the last moments 

 before totality the rate of extinction of light was very great, 

 and I compared it with that which would take place in a 

 well-illuminated room when a shutter is rapidly drawn down 

 over the window. In the case of the 1882 eclipse the shutter 

 was drawn quite down, and nocturnal darkness was produced 

 with the appearance, not only of all the principal stars, but 

 also of an unsuspected comet in the immediate vicinity of the 

 sun. In the case of the present eclipse the shutter was at 

 first being drawn down quite as rapidly, but it stopped short, 



