76 Capt. Haig's Spectroscopic Observations [Recess, 



by measuring several lengths of the common chord soon after first and 

 before last contact, with the aid of the scale in his 60-power eyepiece and 

 noting the times. Captain Tanner (an expert delineator) was, during 

 totality, to take command of Mr. Kero Laxuman' s telescope, measuring 

 the heights of the flames at times which would be recorded by Mr. Kero 

 Laxuman, whose whole attention during totality was to be given to record- 

 ing the times of occurrence of any phenomena that he, or either of us, 

 might observe. Captain Tanner was also to make rapid sketches of all 

 he saw, and I was to confine myself to spectrum-observations. 



Unfortunately, contact was not observed until about fifty seconds after the 

 commencement, when Captain Tanner at once made a sketch of the obscu- 

 ration, Mr. Kero Laxuman recording the time. The sketch made the 

 common chord equal to 3' at 7 h 51 m 17 s local time, giving 7 h 50 m 17 s as 

 the time of first contact. Captain Tanner afterwards tested that sketch 

 by noting the time before last contact, when the chord appeared of a similar 

 length, which gave an interval of 45 s ; so that, taking the mean between 

 the original estimate and its verification, we have 7 h 50 m 24 s * 5 as the time 

 of first contact. 



"While the obscuration was increasing, Captain Tanner, during the few 

 peeps we got at the eclipse, made drawings of the sun's spots, and sketched 

 the mountains on the moon's edge, of which there were two plainly visible 

 even with my small theodolite. The darkness increased very slowly till 

 just before totality, when the increase was very rapid and sudden, and a 

 general spontaneous exclamation "Oh!" from all of us gave Mr. Kero 

 Laxuman the time of beginning of totality, which he recorded as 9 h l m 49 s . 

 The eclipse was at that time completely shut out from our view by the 

 clouds — nimbi low down being carried past by the high wind ; we there- 

 fore felt at leisure to make our remarks on the degree of the darkness, which 

 we were surprised to find so far from total. "We could easily write, read 

 our writing, and read the seconds of our watches without the aid of artifi- 

 cial light. We were all lamenting our misfortune in not being able to 

 observe the eclipse, and had given up all hope of witnessing the phenomena 

 we had come so far to see, and Captain Tanner had just noticed the faint 

 reappearance of light in the west, when, contrary to all expectation, and to 

 our intense satisfaction, a sudden opening in the nimbi showed us the 

 eclipse through the cirrocumuli. We were each at our telescopes in an 

 instant. 1 immediately saw through the naked telescope of the small theo- 

 dolite that red flames were visible, and at once pointed the spectroscope, 

 using the theodolite-telescope as a rest. Very fortunately I directed the 

 spectroscope with its " refracting edge" tangent to the moon where two 

 red flames were protruding, separated from each other by a small interval ; 

 so that their spectra, which were identical, were extended over the dark 

 background of the moon's disk, and stood out in most marked and brilliant 

 contrast with the feeble but continuous spectrum of the corona ; and in 



