Webb. — On Astronomy and Celestial Physics. Ivii 



spectroscopic observation, by wliicli it is possible to examine this curious 

 region of the sun in broad daylight, was made known, it has been the subject 

 of most ardent investigation in all parts of the world. The Directors of some 

 of the Italian Observatories have, however, taken a decided lead in this 

 interesting field of research. Signor Tacchini, to whom I have already 

 alluded, and Father Secchi, the Director of the Koman Observatory, have 

 been making simultaneous daily observations and drawings of the borders of 

 the sun. Their labours, coupled with those of Lockyer, Huggins, and others 

 in England, have already secured for us a knowledge of what is going on in 

 this particular region of the sun, which may almost be looked upon as 

 complete so far as the phenomena themselves are concerned, although we are 

 yet very far from having anything which we can fairly dignify with the name 

 of knowledge of the proximate causes of what we observe. Father Secchi has 

 contributed to the Proceedings of the French Academy of Sciences what I 

 may call a descriptive catalogue of the phenomena which are to be observed in 

 the chromosphere and protuberances. . . . [Mr. Webb proceeded to give 

 a description of the various appearances presented from time to time by the 

 chromosphere and the ''red prominences" which arise from it, which would 

 scarcely be intelligible without the drawings by which it was illustrated. 

 These drawings were coloured copies on a large scale of those which illustrate 

 Father Secchi's paper in the " Comptes Eendus," T. LXXIIL, pp. 826, 

 et seq., 2nd October, 1871. After an allusion to the forms of some of these 

 detached masses of flame which have the character of clouds, as " evidently 

 due to the action of fierce atmospheric currents," he proceeded as follows : — ] 

 Father Secchi considers that he has established, by a twelvemonth of patient 

 observation, the existence of such currents on the sun having a general set 

 from the equator to the poles, varied by local circumstances in the neighbour- 

 hood of important sun-spots. This result has been contested with some 

 spirit, especially by M. Faye, the President (last year) of the French Academy. 

 Those astronomers who are most familiar with the chromosphere appear, how- 

 ever, to accept Father Secchi's theory, satisfied that the observed phenomena 

 coincide with it, and not disposed to make too much of theoretical difficulties. 

 The latter are, indeed, found to be very great when we attempt to explain to 

 ourselves how a circulation can exist on the surface of the sun having any 

 analogy to the trade winds which prevail in certain regions of the earth— or 

 rather to those upper reverse currents which accompany these phenomena. We 

 can account for our own winds by the action of the sun upon our atmosphere, 

 but we are entirely at a loss when we come to inquire how an atmospheric 

 circulation similar to that which the earth enjoys should be engendered on the 

 sun itself. That such currents do exist appears to be established, and when we 

 find a satisfactory theory by which to account for the extraordinary peculiarities 



