KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 
July 29th, it was seen by Professor Langley, and by one of the writers, to extend 
more than 6° (about 9,000,000 miles) from the Sun's limb. 
Now what shall be said of this fact where as we have seen before, that the 
pressure of the superincumbent gases on the Sun, is only one-tenth of an inch of 
mercury ? 
The pressure of the terrestial atmosphere is thirty inches ; and should the air 
suddenly become hydrogen, then the pressure would still be two inches ! The 
force of gravity on the earth's surface is equal to i, and on the Sun's surface it 
is equal to 27.8365, whence a depth of hydrogen on the Sun, no greater than 
that of the air on the Earth would press with an intensity of fifty-five inches of 
quick-silver! How, then, account for the low pressure known to exist on the 
exterior of the Sun ? 
Is there an unknown force of repulsion whose laws are still a mystery? Or, 
is the heat developed by the chemism of the Sun, an ample repulsive energy ? 
Or, really is there no such thing as a mass of gas around the solar globe ? If 
the gas is nine million, or even one million miles deep, it seems incredible that 
the total repulsion exerted by the heat or any other mode of force on the Sun 
should be able to so nearly counteract the colossal power of gravity that a column 
of mercury — assumed cold — would subside to one-tenth of an inch or an inch. 
Astronomers are wrong concerning the co-efficient of pressure on the Sun, 
■else there is no corona ; or being right in both of these, then, there exists on the 
Sun an energy of repulsion, whose laws are wholly unknown to science. Or, 
perhaps repulsive force evolved from thermal or electrical modes of energy 
accounts for the slight pressure. 
Speaking of the Eclipse Expedition the Baltimore Sun relates : *' When the 
Moon covers the Sun an envelope of light is seen all around it; the envelope is 
not visible, when the Sun is shining, on account of the Sun's greater brightness • 
this light is called the corona. * * * xhe opinion has been that 
this light was due to an atmosphere extending for millions of miles from the Sun. 
According to Dr. Hasting' s view it must be light from the Sun which has under- 
gone refraction, i. e., has been bent from its regular course by the interposition 
of an opaque body like the Moon." 
The plan adopted was to place prisms in the tele-spectroscope tangent to 
the limbs of the Sun, in an arrangement so that both sides of the Sun could be 
seen at one view side by side. If the corona is a solar appendage the slight 
motion of the Moon, ought not to work many change in the lines of its spectra 
as seen from both sides of the Sun. But if the corona is a diffraction phenome- 
non caused in the Earth's atmosphere by light refracted by the Moon's edge, then 
as the Moon moves, the spectral lines should change. That is, the lines should 
make changes in relative length wheil caused by light reaching the spectroscope 
from the west on east sides of the solar orb. 
We quote from Prof. E. S. Holden's report made at Minneapolis, and pub. 
lished in Science, August issue. "With the spectroscope, the chief point of 
observation was as to the relative lengths of the fine 1474 east and west of the 
