SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY. 
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the corona faint, but was anxious to see whether the Fraunhofer lines wore 
present or not in the spectrum of the corona. I could not change the width 
of the slit without taking the spectroscope off the telescope, on account of 
the way in which I had been compelled to join them together. 
u During the partial eclipse I most carefully examined the spectrum near 
the moon’s edge, by comparing it with the spectrum away from the moon’s 
edge, to see whether any fresh lines were produced by any absorbing medium 
around the moon, but I could not find a trace of any difference in the spectra 
near the moon’s edge and away from it. My slit was so placed that it was 
parallel to a tangent at the point of last appearance of the sun-light ; and as 
the totality approached, my wife, by the aid of the finder, kept the sun’s 
limb about half way across the slit. At the instant of totality the whole 
field appeared full of bright lines ; but I had scarcely time to begin count- 
ing these lines before the greater number of them vanished, and the 
spectrum resolved itself into little more than that of hydrogen gas. Not 
wishing to spend the few precious moments available upon the spectrum of 
the prominences, I determined to see what the brightness of the corona 
really was before turning the telescope upon it. This was the only view of 
the eclipse I allowed myself apart from the spectroscope, and I probably 
spent half a minute lost in admiration of the scene presented to me. The 
rose-coloured prominences reached very nearly all round the moon’s limb. 
My wife says there was one, and only one, complete apparent break in the 
continuity. The height varied, of course, very considerably at different 
parts of the sun’s limb. The corona was much brighter than I expected to 
have found it; but its constitution appeared to me uniform throughout, 
except that its brightness was less as you proceeded further from the sun. 
I have a drawing of the corona by Miss Alice Hall, which in my opinion, 
and that of my wife, who observed the eclipse through a pretty good finder, 
very correctly represents the corona as seen from our station. I have also a 
drawing made about 500 miles away, which agrees in all the principal 
points with that by Miss Hall. I believe that there cannot be a doubt, from 
these drawings, that the great features of the corona were identical as seen 
from these two distant stations. One or two smaller drawings also agree in 
the principal features ; and these drawings are, I think, more to be trusted 
than usual, from my instructions to refer the prominent points to sectors of 
30° having been followed. I believe from the comparisons made, and what 
I myself saw, that the whole corona, as seen in South Africa, was a solar 
appendage. Returning now to my own work — On first moving the telescope 
away from the prominences I certainly saw two faint lines less refrangible 
than E, and one very bright line not far from E ; but on moving the 
telescope more away from the limb of the sun, I appeared to have lost those 
fainter lines, and I did not subsequently see them. The spectrum of the 
corona appeared to consist of one very bright line and an ordinary sun-light 
spectrum. I feel perfectly convinced, although from the faintness of 
this sun-light spectrum the lines could only be seen with some difficulty, 
that the Fraunhofer lines were present in the spectrum of the corona. I 
examined this point again and again, and I feel more than ever certain 
upon the point from my wife’s recollection of my strong expression of 
opinion upon it at the time I was making the examination. 
