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crowded down, as it were, along the solar surface ; later it rose 
almost pyramidally 50,000 miles in height ; then its summit 
was drawn out into long filaments and threads, which were 
most curiously rolled backwards and downwards like the volutes 
of an Ionic capital ; and finally it faded away, and by 2 h. 30 m. 
had vanished like the other. Figs. 3 and 4 show it in its full 
Fig. 3. 
development; the former having been sketched at lh v 40m., 
and the latter at lh. 55 m.” * The whole phenomenon,” he 
adds, “ suggested most forcibly the idea of an explosion 
under the great prominence, acting mainly upwards, but also in 
all directions outwards, and then after an interval followed by 
a corresponding inrush; and it seems far from impossible (the 
Fig. 4. 
italics are mine) that the mysterious coronal streamers , if they 
turn out to be truly solar, as now seems likely, may find their 
origin and explanation in such events.” 
Now, it is to be noticed in the first place, that although the • 
explosion thus described is the only one of the kind that as- 
tronomers have yet witnessed, we cannot safely infer that it was 
an exceptional solar disturbance. It is to be remembered that 
the sun is not always under spectroscopic surveillance, even in 
* Prof. Young mentions that his “sketches” do not pretend to accuracy 
of detail, except the fourth, the three rolls in which are nearly exact. 
