Page:Gods Glory in the Heavens.djvu/126

108 a corona bursts out around the black circle, like the glory that surrounds the heads of saints in the pictures of the old masters. This corona has usually been observed to consist of two zones or concentric strata. The innermost is the brighter of the two, and the light is nearly uniform. The outer and fainter zone is diversified with radiating beams. In consequence of the light of the corona, the darkness is by no means so great as that of night. The degree of obscuration is best measured by the number of stars visible. In all the authentic accounts of total eclipses, none but the brighter stars have been seen.

The most remarkable and baffling phenomenon, is the rose-coloured prominences seen in the innermost and brighter zone. They affect curious shapes; one, seen in the eclipse of 1851, has been designated the boomerang, another, the balloon. Some have been compared to the teeth of circular saws, others to the flames issuing from the top of a burning house, and driven aside by the wind.

The most important inquiry that suggests itself is, "Does this corona belong to the sun, the moon, or the earth?" This point has been keenly disputed; but the general belief is that it is an appendage of the sun. Father Secchi, to whose discoveries in regard to the nature of the moon's surface allusion has been made above, is disposed still to refer the phenomenon to the moon, and to explain it by means of his discoveries. It is a much more pro-