536 
NATURE 
[March 24, 1870 
THE INDIAN TOTAL ECLIPSE 
7 ps 37th volume of the memoirs of the Royal Astro- 
nomical Society, containing Major Tennant’s report 
on the total eclipse of the sun of August 17th and 18th, 
1868, has just been issued, and we are enabled, by the 
courtesy of the Council of the Society, to lay an illustrated 
notice of it before our readers. 
was fully provided with the means of photographing the 
eclipse as well as of determining by means of the 
spectroscope the nature of the spectrum of the promi- 
nences and of the corona. In our notice we may pass 
over the preface and the narrative of operations which 
includes the astronomical determination of the position 
of the observatory, and come to the spectroscopic observa- 
tions. 
Z ZS M)\ 
LOOT Ni 
7 
q f] 4 = 
NHN 
Th ki. alii 
PAL oir li 
Minho 
PAULL 
LNT TA 
i 
eee ae 
FIG, I.—THE SILVER GLASS EQUATOREAL 
The Indian eclipse was a notable one in the history of 
astronomy, for as the eclipse of 1860 endorsed the notion 
that the prominences were solar, so that of 1868 set at 
rest the gaseous nature of the red flames or red pro- | 
tuberances—so that we have two successive eclipses 
“settling” two important problems. 
Thanks to the care of Mr. De la Rue, Major Tennant 
We first have the spectrum of the corona. 
Tennant writes :— 
Major 
Directly I saw the whole moon in the finder I set the cross- 
wires immediately outside its upper limb. By the time I got to 
the spectroscope, the cloudy range, seen in the photographs, had 
vanished from the slit, and I saw a very faint continuous spec- 
trum. Thinking that want of light prevented my seeing the 
