286 C. A. Young—The Solar Eclipse. 
sion, but in all cases and with all the lines found only one 
emphatic negative result. 
About ten minutes before totality the number of chromo- 
sphere bright lines, visible in this instrument began to increase. 
1474, the 4.s and others in that part of the spectrum began to 
be conspicuous, and I turned my attention to the single prism 
instrument with the fluorescent eyepiece. At this time I found 
I could see the dark lines quite to 0, and rather better than be- 
fore the eclipse began. I adjusted the slit tangent to the 
expected point of contact, and brought to the center of the field 
the portion of the spectrum between D and E, the field extend- 
ing from about C on one side to above F on the other. At the 
moment when totality began, the field was filled with bright 
lines, which came into brightness, not instantaneously, but 
brightening perhaps half a second, remained steady nearly a 
second and then faded out and disappeared, not all together but 
successively, most of them being lost within two seconds 0 
their first appearance, while some lasted three or even four 
seconds. After this there remained bright in the field C, D,, 
1474 and F. No lines could be seen between D, and 1474. I 
immediately began to work the tangent screw to bring down 
the ultra violet into the field, and while I was doing so, my 
son accidentally let the image of the corona get off from the 
slit, and as it moved off I noticed the persistency of 1474 still 
visible in the edge of the field to a distance of at least ten 
minutes from the limb. F disappeared at a distance not much 
more than five minutes. There was a little difficulty in re- 
pointing the instrument, as the sit could not be easily seen, 
though the image of the corona was fairly bright. While my 
son was bringing things to place I looked at the eclipse for 
perhaps ten seconds and saw the polar streamers of the corona, 
but did not notice the equatorial ones and was surprised at not 
seeing them. I also noticed a quivering of the air along the 
telescope tube. The corona seemed to me much less brilliant, 
but not less extensive than in 1869 and 1870. Applying my 
eye again to the eyepiece I worked up as rapidly as possible 
totality. 
The observations were greatly facilitated by the count of 
seconds which was kept up with perfect steadiness and accuracy 
