TRANSLATIONS AND SELECTED ARTICLES. 307 
had large portions out of the perpendicular, which consequently in 
virtue of the sun’s attraction ought to have overturned. 
Let us cast a rapid glance at a fourth hypothesis, according to 
which these protuberances resembled solar clouds swimming in a 
gaseous atmosphere. We shall not find any physical principle which 
will prevent our admitting the existence of cloudy masses of from 
25 to 30,000 leagues in length, with abrupt and irregular contorted 
outlines. Only, in following the hypothesis further, we shall claim the 
right to be astonished that no such solar cloud had ever been seen 
entirely separated from the limb of the moon, and it was to this point,, 
the crucial test, that the researches of astronomers had to be directed. 
A mountain not being able to sustain itself without a base, there 
was only wanting a chance observation of a protuberance visibly 
separated from the moon’s limb (and, by consequence, from the real 
border of the solar photosphere) to overthrow the hypothesis of solar 
mountains from top to bottom. But, let us here mark well, it is not 
in astronomical researches as in those of chemists and physicists. 
These latter have the power of varying at will the conditions under 
which they work, and of changing the nature of their results; but 
astronomers cal exercise no influence on the phenomena they are 
studying, and are obliged to wait sometimes for centuries in order 
that the stars may present themselves in positions favorable for the. 
solution of a difficulty. 
In the present case, the doubtful points raised by the observations: 
of 1842 have already been able to be submitted to a new experimental 
examination, during the last year. An eclipse of the sun was. 
announced for August 8, 1850, which would be total in the Sandwich 
Islands. The naval captain, Bonnard, in command of our station at. 
Otaheite, was struck by the happy idea’ of dispatching the engineer 
of bridges and roads, M. Kutscyki, from the island of Tahiti to 
Honolulu, the capital of the Sandwich archipelago. The account: 
which we have received from this able observer contains the following 
passage :—“ The part, detached and reddish-in color, which was near 
the northern protuberance, has appeared completely separated trom the 
limb of the moon.” Later, in the eclipse of July 28, 1851, MM. 
Mauvais and Goujon, at Dantzic, and the foreign astronomers of 
great celebrity who had gone to divers points of Norway, Sweden, 
and North Germany, saw, all of them, at every station, a spot, likee 
wise of reddish hue, which was separated from the moon’s limb. 
The observation of M. Kutscyki, and the concordant observations 
