122 
CAPTAIN W. DE W. ABNEY ON THE TOTAL ECLIPSE 
and strongly resembled that of 1882. Mr. Woods states that the coronal light was 
more natural than in Egypt, and Mr. Lawrance describes it as not so violet as in 
Egypt. 
Results .—Although photographs were taken successfully in nearly every instrument, 
it is to be regretted that the majority have so far proved to be of but little use. At 
present I have not been able to utilise for measurement more than the photograph of 
the spectrum of the corona taken with the two-prism slit spectroscope, and the corona 
pliotographs taken in the camera with the lens of 5ft. Gin. focus. These last had 
exposures given of 1 sec., 2 secs., 3 secs., 10 secs., 20 secs., and 120 secs. 
The photographs taken with the slitless spectroscopes are good, but they possess no 
great features of interest. The prominences were of small height and few in 
number, and I have been unable to mark’ any distinction iu the light they emitted. The 
riugs of light due to 1474, Dg, and other substances which were noticed in the 
eclipse of 1882 are absent, probably because of the greater angular diameter of the 
moon. I have, therefore, not given either drawings or measurements of these 
photographs. 
The negatives of the corona were placed at my request in the hands of Mr. Wesley, 
Assistant Secretary of the Royal Astronomical Society, and he has made two drawings 
from them, in one of which the coronal detail near the limb is shown, being taken 
from the photographs which had but short exposure, and in the other the coronal detail 
further from the sun, being sketched from the photographs to which long exposure 
had been given. The general features of the corona are those which might be 
expected from the sun-spot period in which the eclipse took place, a matter which 
was discussed in the Report of the Egyptian Eclipse, and which scarcely need be 
restated here. The corona spectrum has been carefully measured by Mr. Lawrance 
and myself The method we adopted was as follows :—First, I took some measure¬ 
ments of the most prominent lines and recorded them, taking out the wave-lengths 
by the same method employed in measuring the photograph in the Egyptian eclipse, 
the reference spectra taken after the eclipse on the same plate being utilised for the 
purpose. Mr. Lawrance then carefully and independently measured the photograph 
three separate times. All lines were rejected which he did not measure in all these 
sets of measurements. I then measured it myself in the same way, and rejected all 
lines which did not appear in each of my measures. Finally, the lines taken as 
absolutely present were those which appeared in my expurgated measures and in 
Mr. Lawrance’s. By this means it is believed that every line of which there can be 
no doubt has been recorded, whilst there are many others whose existence is doubtful 
but which are probably present. Lists of each sets of measures are given, which may 
be useful in comparing the lines obtained in this photograph with the Egyptian nega¬ 
tives, and those which may be obtained in future eclipses. That a large number are 
coronal lines is a fact, and the coincidences between those found in the photograph now 
under discussion and the Egyptian one, in which all the lines given were undoubtedly 
