258 
THE SOLAR ECLIPSE OF 1898 . 
darkening it. Therefore, we took advantage of the fact that we could not see 
the corona or the prominences in order to observe the sweep of the shadow. 
The plan described by Captain Hills is the one we adopted. At the moment 
when the totality was commencing we faced round, turned our backs to the sun, 
and then we saw the distant horizon suddenly become perfectly black, and this 
blackness appeared to be advancing towards us. There was one very remarkable 
thing which we noticed. The ship in which w r e had come to the fjord, the 
Norse King, -was lying on the path of the shadow. As it was night time the ship 
was lighted up, but, it being broad daylight, you could not see the lights on the 
ship. But, as the shadow swept over the ship, suddenly it sprang into brilliancy. 
All the lights stood out and it presented a magnificent spectacle. 
A. B. Kempe, Esq., F.R.S.—I must apologise, as a civilian stranger here, 
for making just one or two observations in reference to Captain Hills’ most 
interesting lecture. I have heard a good many scientific lectures, but I have 
rarely, if ever, heard one in which so much information was given in a short 
space of time. There is one special point to which I wish to refer; it is one 
which Major MacMahon has already mentioned, and that is the extraordinary 
inability of the human observer to see what really happens. With regard to the 
corona it is perfectly obvious, of course, that the photographs that we have seen 
differ most materially from what previous observers thought they saw. But now 
that observers have these photographs before them, and know exactly what it is. 
that the corona looks like, it would be interesting that they should observe the 
phenomenon again and let us know whether these extraordinary appearances which 
they have recorded as having been seen by them in the-past Avould be seen by 
them now. I dare say a great many of you have seen those very interesting photo¬ 
graphs of horses in motion, and know how different they are from the representa¬ 
tions of horses made in the olden days. Now that we have these instantaneous 
photographs taken which enable us to see distinctly what the nature of the move¬ 
ment is, for ray ow r n part I must say that in observing horses since I have always 
most distinctly seen the phenomenon as presented by the photographs, and not in 
accordance with my previous idea of the w r ay horses moved. The interesting 
point Avould be to see whether an observer in looking at the corona would now 
see those extraordinary wings extending so far from the image of the sun which 
appear so totally different from anything that the photographs show. The difficulty 
is to understand how any human being should have supposed there were these 
curious excrescences in a particular direction. I believe the photographic camera 
does not, as a matter of fact, take exactly the same picture as is seen by the 
human eye. There are some slight variations owing to the chemical effect of the 
rays upon the photographic plate. But still such differences as appear between 
the photographs and the drawings of the observers seem to me to be very sur¬ 
prising, and one would really like that an observer, having seen these photographs, 
should, forewarned, tell us what he sees. 
Captain C. Orde Browne — I do not think there is any occasion for me to 
say what I believe Major Abdy expected me to say, because my observations were 
connected with the transit of Venus. I may say however that we drilled in a most 
thorough manner with a model that w r as of the same apparent size. We 
had a hole cut in a plate and a reflection of the sun from a looking- 
glass through it, and a metal disc to represent Venus which passed across it at the 
proper rate, and w r e drilled with that. When the critical phenomenon occurred 
nervousness was greatly prevented, because we could hardly persuade ourselves 
we were not looking at the model. One thing however we were not up to, 
a bright whi'e line which ought not to have thrown us out if we had been properly 
instructed. There is a peculiar effect v. he:i you get the black body of Venus 
