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11 Having carefully looked to this point, I undamped the spectroscope, 
and swept over the whole spectrum from the extreme red to the extreme 
violet ; but, independently of the bright line referred to before, I could not 
at this time see any traces whatever of bright lines. My instrument was 
then again clamped, and the bright line most carefully bisected by the 
micrometer wire. I then re-examined the spectrum for Fraunhofer’s lines, 
but without touching the micrometer or moving the telescope even, until 
the total eclipse was over and the Fraunhofer lines appeared in all their 
distinctness. The micrometer was then read, and the coronal line referred 
to two known lines near it by the micrometer. The wave length of this 
bright line agrees so closely with that given by Young, that I could not 
with my dispersion answer for so small a difference. I am perfectly certain 
about the numerous lines seen in the spectrum close to the sun’s edge at the 
commencement of the totality, but the strata giving this spectrum must lie 
very close to the photosphere, for they were almost immediately covered by 
the advancing limb of the moon. I am not prepared to say that the line 
spectrum of the corona did consist entirely of one bright line, for, as I have 
said, I did see three lines near the sun’s limb in the brighter part of the 
corona j but I am prepared to say that in the spectrum of the 
corona, at some distance from the sun, and away completely from the red 
prominences, there was no line in the spectrum of any degree of brightness 
except the one measured, and that there certainly was in addition to this an 
ordinary sun-light spectrum with Fraunhofer lines. I presume this spectrum 
must arise from the reflexion of the sun-light from the gas giving the line 
spectrum, and that we thus account for the polarisation of the light of the 
corona in the plane through the sun’s centre. The natives were much 
afraid, and went to their huts. They got up a tale that I had brought the 
eclipse with me, and was looking for a missing star. Independently of the 
eclipse, I have made magnetical observations at four stations in Namaqualand, 
one at the Orange Fiver.” 
BOTANY. 
Influence of Climate on Vegetation at San Francisco. — Dr. Cooper makes 
some remarks in a paper on this subject before the Academy of Sciences at 
California, U.S.A. The comparative scarcity of trees and small number of 
species around the bay, as compared with the districts immediately north 
and south, arrested Dr. Cooper’s attention. He concludes that the main 
cause of the deficiency is the prevalence of the sea-winds from the north- 
west, throughout the dry season ; these sweeping in through the Golden 
Gate and through the depression of the coast range between Petaluma and 
Tomales Bay. The character of the soil and elevation above the sea are of 
comparatively little consequence. a Since the general course of the mountain 
ranges is nearly north-west in this region, and the wind strikes obliquely, and 
the sun in its daily course shines most intensely and longest upon the same 
exposure, it follows that this slope is almost everywhere destitute of trees, 
although along the coast exposed to the greatest rainfall and the most fog. 
The opposite or north-east slopes, therefore, usually have the greatest tree- 
