June 22, 1900.] 



SCIENCE. 



993 



and a pair of field glasses of two inches aperture, 

 with a direct-vision spectroscope attached to 

 one eye-piece. The three-inch telescope was to 

 be used in comparing the color of the promi- 

 nences. With this purpose in view, a low power 

 was employed, so that the entire rim of the hid- 

 den sun could be seen at once. Cross wires at 

 focus served for locating the prominences in 

 position angle. Tachini and a few others have 

 seen what appeared to be white prominences. 

 Whether this was a real phenomenon or a psy- 

 chological effect has been questioned, and among 

 the twelve observations proposed by the eclipse 

 committee of the Astronomical and Astrophys- 

 ical Society, one vipon prominence color was in- 

 cluded, in order that a general effort to note 

 color might lead to more definite conclusions. 

 Purkinje's investigations have shown that the 

 brightest prominences should look the reddest. 

 Therefore, slight variations in redness would 

 not necessarily indicate difference in constitu- 

 tion. Miss Furness is familiar with the appear- 

 ance of a prominence as seen in the hydrogen 

 line of the spectrum. She noted no marked 

 difference in color in the several prominences 

 seen around the sun's limb during eclipse. A 

 variation toward the pink was clearly observ- 

 able in one small prominence in the S. E. quad- 

 rant. A very large and beautiful prominence 

 in the form of the banyan tree was observed in 

 the S. W. quadrant. This was of the usual 

 red color. 



The direct vision spectroscope attached to 

 the field-glass was a McClean star spectroscope, 

 with the cylindrical lens removed. The object 

 in view was to examine the distribution of co- 

 ronium. It has been claimed that the green 

 line of coronium is as plainly discernible in the 

 rifts of the corona as in the streamers. With 

 the simple apparatus above described (first sug- 

 gested by Mr. Maunder) if it is properly ad- 

 justed, and if the continuous spectrum of the 

 inner corona is not too bright, the question of 

 distribution might be well tested. If the co- 

 ronium is confined to the regions determined 

 by the visible outline of the corona, the green 

 image in the one glass would correspond in form 

 to the composite image in the other. If, on the 

 contrary, the coronium is equally distributed in 

 streamers and rifts, the green image would in- 



dicate this by its uniformity of outline. Our 

 apparatus was tested by examining an opening 

 of the form of the corona, cut in cardboard, 

 and held before a Bunsen flame, emitting so- 

 dium and lithium light. The red and yellow 

 images were sharply defined. 



The observation during totality was, how- 

 ever, without decided result. The continuous 

 spectrum of the inner corona was so bright that 

 the green image could not be separated from it. 

 Clear separation being found impossible, atten- 

 tion was turned to the regions above and below 

 the continuous spectrum limits, to note, if pos- 

 sible, any green extensions. These could not 

 be seen, though the brightness of the field 

 might have rendered this doubtful in any case. 

 Probably the dispersion of the prisms was in- 

 sufiicient. The inner corona was much more 

 brilliant than I had expected. 



Mary W. Whitney. 



Vassae College. 



NOTES ON INORGANIC CEEMI8TBY. 



At the recent meeting of the Iron and Steel 

 Institute of Great Britain a number of very in- 

 teresting papers were read, which are abstracted 

 in Nature and from which we make note of the 

 following : 



A paper by Mr. B. Talbot on the open-hearth 

 continuous steel process as introduced in the 

 Pencoyd Steel Works in Pennsylvania. Here a 

 basic tilting furnace of seventy-five tons ca- 

 pacity is used, and is charged at once with fluid 

 metal, at a great saving of fuel and time. The 

 general advantages of the furnace were stated 

 to be increased output, increased yield, saving 

 in repair, and saving in labor. A long discus- 

 sion followed the paper and the opinion was 

 general that this process represented an impor- 

 tant advance in open-hearth steel practice. 



A description was given by Mr. A. Greiner 

 of the first blowing-engine worked by blast, 

 furnace gas. This is a 600 H. P. engine at the 

 Cockerill works, Belgium, and has been running 

 since last November with unpurified gases from 

 the Seraing blast furnace. 



Mr. C. von Schwarz discussed the manu- 

 facture of cement from blast-furnace slag. 

 Various attempts at the utilization of the slag 



