Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 68.djvu/566

562 other coronas the writer had seen in 1900, and 1901, with their long fish-tail extensions along the sun's equator and short-curved steamers near the sun's poles. In the upper left-hand quadrant huge red flames sixty thousand miles high could be seen with the naked eye, which with a closer view with the telescope resolved themselves into a forest-like structure. These we know are great jets of burning hydrogen gas. Close to the sun the corona was very bright, in fact so bright that the eye was not readily able to take in all the details of the faint streamers. As a pictorial effect without the long equatorial extensions, this corona was much inferior to the two last ones seen. Still it was a magnificent sight, and we were more than thankful for having clear skies to make our observations.

When totality first started we were each and all of us much too busy to take much notice of our immediate surroundings or even the corona itself. We could not help becoming aware that our Spanish onlookers outside the ropes were appreciating the show in the skies provided for them without expense. From the noise made each one seemed to be telling his neighbor at the top of his voice just how it happened and what there was worth seeing, and this in spite of the fact that the mayor of Daroca had generously provided half a dozen members of the civil guard to preserve order and keep quiet. For the first half minute the din was so great that it was impossible to hear the seconds counted, or to know exactly when to begin and end the exposures of the photographs, for at present-day eclipses all important observations are made by photography. The impressions received by the eye are so fleeting, coming to the observer when he is not in his usual calm, calculating mood, but aroused by excitement and novelty, so that it would be no wonder if in the past mistakes have been made in interpreting the celestial phenomenon. At present-day eclipses, with the aid of the photographic plate, the astronomer devotes his attention to getting a good series of photographs, and after the few minutes of the eclipse are over the plates can be developed and permanent records obtained which can be studied at leisure through weeks, months and perhaps years. When the Spaniards had quieted down, after their first outburst, all that was heard in the eclipse camp was the steady count of the observer calling out the seconds as they passed, the quiet words of the observers giving commands to their assistants and the click, click of the apparatus as exposures were made and plate holders moved. Everything passed off without a hitch, and with the first reappearance of the sun our work was over and we could take a long breath.

We had been favored with clear skies, how many others were equally fortunate? It did not take us long to find out, for the Spanish government had installed right in our camp a telegraph office, and for fifteen days no less than three operators were at our service to send and