THE ECLIPSE OF LAST DECEMBER. 
143 
Jaffna took six. None of the photographs show so great an 
extension of the corona as is seen in Mr. Brothers’s photograph 
taken at Syracuse in December 1871 : but, on the other hand, the 
coronal features are better defined ; and necessarily the great 
number of the photographs renders the value of the series 
singularly great. The agreement between the views, as well 
those taken at different times during totality as those taken at 
different stations, is greater even than the solar theory of the 
corona absolutely requires, for it is not incompatible with re- 
cognisable variations. However, not even such difficulties, or 
at least none worth noticing, present themselves. We have in 
all the views the same extensive corona, with persistent rifts, 
similarly situated. 
Let us now turn, however, to the results which must be re- 
garded as the great success of the eclipse observations, unless 
Eespighi’s observations be thought to have a rival claim. 
Janssen, who had been sent out to observe the eclipse at 
Java, preferred, after careful enquiry, to take up his station on 
the Neilgherry Mountains, at Sholoor, on the north-eastern flank 
of the range. To this elevated station (the highest we believe 
at which the corona has ever been observed telescopically) 
Janssen carried a fine telescope 14 inches in aperture and only 
4| feet in focal length, showing images twelve or sixteen times 
brighter than in an ordinary astronomical telescope. The 
spectroscope, also, was so constructed as to utilise all this light. 
It will be understood, therefore, that Janssen observed the 
corona under exceptionally favourable conditions, more parti- 
cularly as he was favoured with a sky of almost absolute purity. 
And first as to the direct observation of the corona. Janssen 
was able to recognise those peculiar forms which, as drawn by 
Liais, had so long been regarded with doubt, if not with 
ridicule. 44 Nothing could be more beautiful, more luminous,” 
he says, 44 with special forms excluding all possibility of a 
terrestrial atmospheric origin.” 44 Without entering upon a 
discussion which will form part of my report, I shall say at 
once that the magnificent corona observed at Sholoor showed 
itself under such an aspect as to render it impossible for me to 
accept in explanation either the phenomena of diffraction, or 
reflection on the lunar globe, or the mere illumination of the 
earth’s atmosphere.” 
It is, however, the spectroscopic work of Janssen which 
deserves our chief attention. 44 The reasons,” he says, 44 which 
militate in favour of an objective and circumsolar origin acquire 
an invincible force when we examine the luminous elements of 
the phenomenon. In fact, the spectrum of the corona has not 
shown itself (in my telescope) continuous, as it has hitherto 
been found, but remarkably complex. I have discovered in it 
