79 
SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY. 
ASTRONOMY. 
Total Eclipse of December 12, 1871. — We have most promising 
news from the eclipse expeditions to India and Ceylon. Mr. Pogson, 
the Government astronomer at Madras, stationed during the eclipse at Ave- 
nashy, telegraphs to the Astronomer Royal that the weather was fine, and 
the telescopic and camera photographs successful, that good sketches were 
taken and good polariscopic work achieved. His telegram adds that u many 
bright lines were seen in the spectrum,’ 7 but whether the spectrum of the 
prominences, sierra, or true solar atmosphere, the telegraphist sayeth not. 
If the corona is referred to, the news is of extreme importance, provided 
always that an analysing and not an integrating spectroscope were employed. 
Colonel Tennant had not quite such favourable weather, for he speaks of a 
thin mist (the same sort of weather as he had in the eclipse of 1868) ; yet 
six good photographs were taken. He was stationed on Hodabetta, near 
Ootacamund, the favourite sanitarium of the Madras Presidency. The peak 
of Dodabetta is 8,640 feet above the sea-level, and it is probable that the 
actual station of Colonel Tennant’s party was higher than any spot at which 
the phenomena of a total solar eclipse have hitherto been observed. The 
haze cannot have been very thick when good photographs could be taken 
at the rate of six within two minutes. As respects the comparison of the 
photographs taken by Pogson’s and Tennant’s parties, it is fortunate that a 
sufficient distance separates Avenashy and Hodabetta to prevent any sugges- 
tion that the same atmospheric peculiarities would be observable from the 
two stations. The stations are about forty miles apart. The circumstances 
of elevation also are so different as to preclude all possibility of deception 
from this cause ; and it appears from the telegrams that the condition of the 
atmosphere was unlike at the two stations. So that since several photo- 
graphs were taken at both places, it is reasonable to expect that the question 
of the corona will now at least be disposed of. If photographs have been 
taken in South Australia, another kind of evidence, bearing closely on the 
question of the corona’s constitution, will probably have been secured. 
From Mr. Lockyer’s party in the north of Ceylon we have the announce- 
ment that splendid weather prevailed, and that most satisfactory and inte- 
resting observations were made. But Mr. Lockyer does not vouchsafe any 
information as to their nature. We hear, however, from Mr. Davis, the 
photographer sent out with this party at Lord Lindsay’s expense, that five 
