C. A. Young on the Solar Corona. 317 



In December, so far as I have heard, every one saw them. I 

 have no hesitation in affirming that the corona as it appeared to 

 ine then was a very different phenomenon from what I saw 

 the year before, and far more complex.* 



The photographs also taken by Lord Lindsay's and the Ameri- 

 can parties in Spain, appear to differ essentially from each other, 

 and f]-om those taken by Mr. Brothers, in Sicily ; and that in 

 sncli a way as to saggest^at least, that this more extensive radi- 

 aiK'c is of a far less permanent character than the leucosphere, 

 ami |)ossibly of a different origin. 



Should it turn out to be visible only where the sky is hazy, it 

 might then be regarded as an effect of our own atmosphere pro- 

 (Inced, of course, not by the ordinary photospheric sunlight 

 (which, as has been abundantly shown, by many writers, cannot 

 during totality, illuminate the air near the moon's place), but 

 hv the light from the prominences and the lower regions of the 

 leucosphere. 



If, on the contrarjr, as seems to be the case, this radiance is 

 often seen under unexceptionable atmospheric conditions, we 

 appear to be shut up to one of two theories ; either on the one 

 hand that of Prof Norton and Mr. Proctor, whose views re- 

 garding these rays are nearly identical, and represent them to 

 be streams of matter, similar to cometary substance or auroralf 

 beams, driven off by some solar repulsion; or on the other 

 hand that of Oudemans, who considers them to be purely optical 

 eitects produced in cosmical dust between us and the moon, b^- 

 the sunlight streaming across the uneven and ragged edge of 

 our satellite. 



With reference to the former theory, it is probably sufficient 

 * ^tr. Lockyer, in " Nature" for Feb. 23d, quotes from a letter of miue written a 

 considerably modified* s"Ifce''?henf anTthS^fs tme^Tsomt extenMhougri thiJk 



that the whole phenomenon" (i. e., the Corona as Isaioit in 1S69) '■ is purely solar." 



called '■ Auroral Theory of the Corona," it is proper for me to state, that I make 



B J^^'' ^*^^^°o^ered%s I supposed), the identity of the bright line m the corona 

 E^.'^.^^'ithalineinthat of the aurora, and announced my behef in the sub- 

 to at- ^^'^^ °^ *^ ^^o plienomena, I considered myself as simply subscnbmg 

 a view already current, and bringmg a new argument to its i^upport. 



t^l^ ' 



Norton 



las held and published a \ 

 i of the European astronon 



air oristronomy which : 



