212 Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. [Sept. 



and evenly, and softly shaded off all round. But Captain Haig fancied 

 that he detected some slightly marked radiating lines in its structure. 

 The eclipse being now quite clear, we commenced observations with 

 our different instruments. At my first view of the moon through my 

 telescope, three red prominences met my gaze. The one marked a, 

 Plate IV., at my first hurried glance appeared to be sharply defined, 

 pointed, and of homogeneous composition. I immediately made a 

 sketch of it. The double flat broad protuberance marked 6, appeared 

 as depicted on the sketch to be composed of well defined hard streaks 

 or lines slightly radiating. The Professor afterwards aptly likened 

 them to the fingers of the hands slightly separated : each part of 

 this double protuberance being composed of perhaps 6 to 10 such fingers 

 or lines. I then sketched them and casting my eye round the moon's 

 limb again, to see that no others had escaped notice, returned to 

 examine the flame a more minutely. 



I found it to be composed of streaks of flame -coloured matter, not 

 lying parallel or nearly so, to each other as in spot b, but overlapping 

 and somewhat twisted one upon another, precisely as the large flame 

 of a burning mass of inflammable matter is composed of smaller tongues 

 of fire : the streaks being, however, rather finer in proportion than the 

 tongues of fire to which I have likened them. They were of a darker 

 colour than the groundwork of the protuberance, and were more of 

 a dark blood-red than I have shewn it in the sketch. The edge of 

 the protuberance was ragged, being composed oi the ends of the streaks 

 just described. I now made a larger and more detailed sketch of this 

 protuberance, and again returned to the telescope, when I found 

 that another small red spot had in the meantime appeared. I marked 

 it at c 2 , and Professor Kern Luximun at c x . After noting its posi- 

 tion, I observed the general appearance of the eclipse, when in a few 

 seconds the sun burst forth from behind the moon. The sudden 

 contrast between the deep twilight of the total phase and the sunshine 

 imparted even by so small a portion of the sun's disc as was at first 

 visible, made it appear to us all that the light of day was complete. 



At the first appearance of the limb of the sun, the red prominences 

 all disappeared from my view, but Kern Luximun noticed them two 

 minutes after that event. We now, aided by our rough original 

 sketches, and our memory, each made another diagram, showing the 

 position, shape, and structure of the protuberances. The manner in 



