Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 14.djvu/682

664 length was one diameter, and it was certainly brighter at the end farthest from the sun. It remained perfectly steady," adds Professor Abbe, "after I once noticed it, and gradually I became aware of a faint light partially connecting it with No. 3, so that the final impression left on me was that these two constituted one fan-shaped projection similar to No. 2, but fading out in the central portions. The axis of No. 1 and of Nos. 3 and 4 passed nearly, if not exactly, through the sun's center.

No. 5 extended fully five diameters from the sun's limb, "and was in all respects similar to No. 1. Its base was broader than that of No. 1, which I attributed," says Abbe, "to the glare of the increasing corona" and of a mound of the ruddy prominence matter (low-lying, so as to form only an extension of the sierra). The light of No. 5 was fainter, Professor Abbe thought, than that of No. 1. "Its edges were straight, except in so far as the coronal glare appeared to unduly broaden the base. Its axis passed very nearly through the sun's center, and was in the prolongation of the axis of No. 2."

Professor Abbe's explanation of these rays or streamers occurred to him an hour or so after seeing them. He advances it as one which "will probably result in the overthrow of all previously entertained theories respecting the character and cause of these streams of light." But in reality it is not nearly so novel as he seems to imagine. It is, indeed, partly new, and in our opinion it is in great part true; but what is true in it is not new, and we question greatly whether what is new in it can possibly be true. Let astronomers judge.

"Meteor streams," says Professor Abbe, "is the key to the solution—not such meteors as some suppose to be falling into the sun daily, but the grand streams of meteors that cause the numerous shooting stars of August and November, and of the existence of which there is indubitable proof. These streams consist of fine particles or pieces, each a long way from its neighbor, but all rushing along in parallel orbits about the sun, like the falling drops of rain in a thunder-shower. The August stream is calculated to be several hundred thousand miles broad and thick, and many million miles long. Such a stream, when far beyond the sun, but still lighted up by it, would reflect to us a faint uniform light precisely like that of these rays. If one end of the stream were farther from us than the other, the effect of the perspective would be to produce a tapering or wedge-shaped appearance. In some other part of our orbit, or with the meteor stream in some other part of its orbit, the perspective might vanish and the two ends appear of the same width. In this way we shall undoubtedly be able to explain the very numerous historical and memorable occasions on which flaming coronas, swords, comets, etc., seen in the sky during a total eclipse have been regarded by the superstitious as divine omens."

We have very little doubt that the great extension of the corona in certain directions during many total eclipses, and the probably far greater extension of a fainter, not readily discerned lustre during all