312 Scientific Intelligence. 
distinctly the four bright lines near C; but saw nothing else worth 
ording. 
The color of the corona appeared to me a light pinkish white, 
very brilliant. I saw no streamers, The rest of the sky and 
everything around had a bluish tinge, * * *.— Nature, Jan. 18, 
- The Solar Eclipse of Dec. 12. Observations made at 
docottah ; by L. Respieut.—The spectral observations of recent 
total eclipses of the sun had plainly demonstrated the existence 
conformation and extent. This question, therefore, constituted 
one of the principal problems remaining to be solved by observa 
tions of the eclipse of the 12th of December, 1871. 
The slit-spectroscope applied to large telescopes doubtless affords 
the best means of verif i i 
regions, of this gaseous stratum, which may be termed the superior 
chromosphere, and of determining the materials of which it 38 
tary rays differing considerably in refrangibility, it appeared to 
me that the form and dimensions of the higher chromosphere 
might be much more conveniently studied by means of a large 
prism fixed in front of the object-glass of the telescope, whereby 
the several chromatic images of the corona would be distinctly 
rved 
simultaneously in the same field, and their form and dimensions 
directly investigated. : 
Towa s the end of the year 1868, a small flint-glass prism was 
made for me by Signor Merz, of Monaco, to be fitted to the object 
ness of this prism and of the object-glass, was found to bese 
mirably adapted for observing the eclipse in the manner JUS 
described. 
The dispersion of the prism from the lines C to H of Frannhit? 
is about 32’; the free aperture of the object-glass is 45 #rene” 
inches; the field of the telescope is about 1°, with a magnifying 
power of 40, 
