426 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
ecliptic he saw a long pointed ray on the east of the sun, extending to 
this distance, while on the west of the sun, and as if forming a pro- 
longation of the pointed ray, was a fan-shaped ray only about half as long. 
At right angles to these long rays were two others forming a similar system, 
the uppermost was pointed, and extended to a distance of about five diameters, . 
the lowest was fan-shaped, and extended to a distance of about one and a half 
diameters. Professor Abbe considers that these were meteor systems — “ not 
such meteors as some suppose to be falling into the sun daily, but the grand 
streams of meteors that cause the numerous shooting stars of August and 
November, and of the existence of which there is indubitable proof.” In this 
form his explanation is certainly untenable, for the position of the August 
and November meteor systems is known, and they could not possibly have 
presented the appearance observed by Abbe. Nor, indeed, is it possible that 
these systems could be visible during total eclipse, for they are too sparse and 
too far from the sun. Whether other meteor systems much denser, and 
more fully illuminated because nearer to the sun, can explain the appear- 
ances seen by Professor Abbe, is a question not to be quite so readily answered. 
But the probabilities seem enormously against the theory that separate 
meteor systems produced the observed phenomena. Probably the radial 
extension of the light is to be explained in the same way as the extension of 
comets’ tails in the direction from the sun. But as yet this phenomenon has 
not been explained satisfactorily. 
The theory that the outer regions of the corona, and especially the long 
rays, are either merely subjective phenomena, or phenomena of our own 
atmosphere, has been finally overthrown by the eclipse observations. 
The Corona during the late Eclipse . — It was generally agreed that the 
inner corona was much less extensive than during the eclipses of 1870, 1871, 
but that it was very bright to a height of 5'. In some accountsit has been stated 
that the spectrum of the corona did not show the green line 1474 Kirchhoff. 
But Professor Eastman traced it on all sides to a distance of two-fifths of 
the sun’s diameter from the moon’s edge. Mr. Thomas, and other observers, 
also saw this line. It seems clear, however, that the gaseous matter to which 
this line is due did not extend nearly so far from the sun as on former 
occasions. 
Photographing the Corona! s spectrum . — It has been asserted that the spec- 
trum of the corona was photographed on this occasion in such a way as to 
show that those (including Captain Noble, and Messrs. Proctor, Banyard, and 
Brothers) who predicted, in 1875, the failure of the methods proposed for 
photographing the corona, were altogether mistaken. This, however, is 
remote from the truth. In 1875 a method was proposed, which involved, 
among other objectionable features, the use of a prism in front of the object 
glass. And what was then aimed at (what, in fact, was promised by those 
who “planned the operations), was that separate views of the corona by the 
green light corresponding to 1474 Kirchhoff, and by the light corresponding 
to the hydrogen lines, would be obtained for comparison with photographs 
of the corona by the whole of its light. In other words, we were told that 
by this method it would be possible to show how far the hydrogen consti- 
tuent, and how far the constituent corresponding to the line 1474 Kirchhoff, 
extended into the corona as seen by the naked eye, or as photographed. It 
