﻿in Total Eclipses of the Sun. 231 



at Des Moines, Iowa, with the naked eye and a good opera- 

 glass, and were chiefly confined to the corona. When the 

 totality commenced, and the beautiful corona stood revealed, 

 like a new creation, against the dark background of the sky, 

 almost the first striking feature that caught my attention was 

 the great inequality in the extent of its outstreaming in different 

 directions, and its consequent irregularity of outline. This 

 outstreaming or luminous radiation was particularly conspicuous 

 from the eastern limb, nearly in the direction of the plane of the 

 ecliptic or the sun's equator. It could be distinctly traced in 

 that direction to a distance from the sun equal to his own 

 diameter. For an extent of some 15° on either side of the 

 ecliptic, individual hair-like streamers, seemingly nearly parallel 

 to the ecliptic, extended out a large fraction of this distance. 

 From the opposite limb, and in the opposite direction, the 

 coronal streamers were conspicuous, but of less extent than in 

 the direction of the ecliptic toward the east. From the polar 

 regions other pointed masses of light extended out to con- 

 siderable distances, but not so far as those just noticed. They 

 seemed to be composed, like the others, of rays or hair-like 

 luminous radiations, more or less distinct. The separate lumi- 

 nous lines appeared to Professor Eastman, from the United 

 States Naval Observatory (who observed the corona at the same 

 station through a small telescope), to converge more or less. 

 This convergence I failed to detect ; but I distinctly noticed 

 that the outstreaming mass from near the north pole of the sun 

 had approximately the form of a triangle with curved sides, 

 convex outward; but the triangular outline appeared as if 

 resulting from the intersections of individual radiations, rather 

 than as being the definite boundary of a stationary luminous 

 mass. 



The corona had a white silvery lustre, and appeared at times 

 suffused with a delicate rosy tinge; but this was probably a 

 subjective effect. No flickering or variation of the lustre of the 

 corona was observable during the totality. Nor was there any 

 noticeable change in its general form, or in the extent of its lu- 

 minous radiations, though I carefully watched for such changes. 

 Dr. B. A. Gould, who was stationed at Burlington, Iowa, and 

 other observers, thought that both the lustre and extent of the 

 radiating masses, or "star-points," underwent material varia- 

 tions. A similar difference of opinion is found in the reports 

 of observations on previous eclipses. If variations in the bright- 

 ness and extent of the coronal radiations do actually occur, it 

 is favourable rather than opposed to the auroral theory of the 

 corona; but it is probable that the apparent changes are due 

 to inequalities in the interceptive action of the earth's atmo- 



