304 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. VIII., No. 191 



the time of the eclipse of May 6, 1883, and drawn by- 

 Mr. Wesley before any information reached this 

 country of the observations of the eclipse, presented 

 not only a general resemblance to those taken dm'ing 

 the eclipse, but showed the remarkably formed rift 

 on the east of the suj^'s north pole, which is the main 

 feature of the corona as photographed at Caroline 

 Island. It is true that since the summer of 1883 I 

 have not been able to obtain in England photographs 

 which show satisfactory indications of the corona ; 

 but the abnormally large amount of air-glare from 

 finely divided matter of some sort, which has been 

 present in the higher regions of the air since the 



regret greatly that a method which seemed to promise 

 so much new knowledge of the corona, which, under 

 ordinary circumstances of observation, shows itself 

 only during total eclipses, would seem to have failed. 

 At the same time I am not able to offer any suffi- 

 cient explanation of the early favorable results to 

 which I have referred briefly in the opening sen- 

 tences of this letter. 



Of course, the above statements leave untouched 

 the criticisms I felt called upon to make on the im- 

 perfect methods employed by Professor Pickering. 



William Huggins. 

 Upper Tulse Hill, Londoa S. W., Sept. 11. 



AN ASS WITH ABNORMALLY DEVELOPED HOOFS. 



autumn of 1883, might well be considered a suffi- 

 cient cause of the want of success. This well-known 

 state of the sky rendered the plates taken by Mr. 

 Ray Woods in Switzerland in the summer of 1884 in- 

 conclusive as to the success of the method. During 

 the past year, photographs of the sun have been taken 

 at the Cape of Good Hope, and are under discussion 

 by Dr. Pill. 



Such was the state of things before the eclipse of 

 Aug. 29. The partial phases of this eclipse fur- 

 nished conditions which would put the success of 

 the method beyond doubt if the plates showed 

 the corona cut off partially by the moon during its 

 approach to and passage over the sun . As the tele- 

 grams received from Grenada, and a telegram I have 

 received this day from Dr. Gill at the Cape of Good 

 Hope, state that this partial cutting-off of the corona 

 by the moon is not shown upon the plates, I wish to 

 be the first to make known this untoward result. I 



An ass with abnormally developed hoofs. 



A pair of very abnormal hoofs has been recently 

 received by the Smithsonian institution from J. C. 

 Baldwin, Esq , of Houston, Tex. They are the hind 

 hoofs of an ass reported to have been bred at San- 

 Antonio, Tex., and which was exhibited in Chicago 

 and other cities of the union. 



The right hoof is twenty-six inches in length, and 

 is spirally twisted, like the horn of an Indian goat. 

 The left hoof is in the form of a helix. 



The front hoofs were not received, but, from the 

 photograph which accompanied the hind pair, it ap- 

 pears that they were also abnormal. 



The animal, as it appears in the photograph, is 

 greatly emaciated. The neck and shoulders are clad 

 with rather long, curled hair, while on the posterior 

 half of the body the hair is short and smooth. 



F. W". True. 

 U. S. nat. mus., Sept. 27. 



