THE SUN. 87 



itself is hidden ; and when it is remembered that the 

 head of the comet of 1843 was seen at noon-day within 

 two or three degrees of the sun by the naked eye. 



(44.) Then, again, as to the magnitude of these cloudy 

 masses, it must be enormous. Some of them have pro- 

 jected or stood out from the edge of the sun to a distance 

 calculated at no less than forty or fifty thousand miles. 

 They have now been observed in three great eclipses, 

 that of 1842, 1851, and 1859; on which last occasion 

 they were photographed in Spain by Mr De la Rue, 

 under such circumstances as left no possibility of doubt- 

 ing their belonging to the sun. I dwell upon this, be- 

 cause there is another luminous appearance seen about 

 the moon in total eclipses of the sun, which can only be 

 referred to vapours of excessive tenuity, existing at an 

 immense height in our own atmosphere ; and which sur- 

 rounds the disc of the moon like a glory, or corona, as it 

 is called. By the accounts of all who have witnessed 

 a total eclipse of the sun, it is one of the most awful 

 natural phaenomena. An earthquake has " rolled unheed- 

 edly away" during a battle, but an eclipse has on more 

 than one occasion either stopped the combat or so para- 

 lyzed one of the parties with terror, as to give the others 

 who were prepared for it an easy victory: and I may as 

 well add that two very remarkable battles in ancient 

 history, the one on the 28th May, B.C. 585, the other the 

 1 9th May, B.C. 557, which were in progress during total 

 eclipses, have had the years and days of their occurrence 

 thereby fixed by calculation with a certainty which be- 

 longs to no other epochs in ancient chronology. 



