and ripening, the universality of its
influence, all seemed the fit expressions of the yet greater powers
which belonged to the Invisible. What happened in a total solar eclipse?
For a short time that which seemed so perfect a divine symbol was
completely hidden. The light and heat, the two great forms of solar
energy, were withdrawn, but something took their place. A mysterious
light of mysterious form, unlike any other light, unlike any other
single form, was seen in its place. Could they fail to see in this a
closer, a more intimate revelation, a more exalted symbolism of the
Divine Nature and Presence? Just as in the various Greek 'mysteries' the
student was gradually advanced from one set of symbols to another even
more abstruse and esoteric, so here, on the broad face of heaven itself,
vouchsafed for a brief space of time and at long intervals apart, the
Deity revealed Himself to the initiated by a higher and more difficult
symbol than ordinarily. The symbol would vary in shape. We may take it
for granted that the old Chaldeans, as modern astronomers to-day, had at
one time or another presented to them every type of Coronal structure.
But there would, no doubt, be a difficulty in grasping or remembering
the irregular details of the Corona as seen in most eclipses. It
occasionally happens, however, that the Corona shows itself under a form
of grand and striking simplicity. It is now widely recognised that the
typical Corona of the minimum of the Sun-spot cycle consists chiefly of
two great equatorial streamers."

Maunder then goes on to cite certain American pictures by Trouvelot and
others of the eclipse of July 29, 1878, in which the great extension of
the Corona to the East and the West is specially shown. One drawing in
particular, by Miss K. E. Wolcott, exhibits the Sun with a perfect
bright ring round it from which the Coronal streamers emanate in the
directions mentioned. Maunder then remarks that he has a strong
conviction that it was a Corona of this type which was the origin of the
"Ring with Wings," the symbol which on Assyrian monuments is always
shown as floating over the head of the ring which is designed to
indicate the presence and protection of the Deity. In the article cited
he gives illustrations of two forms under which the "Ring with Wings"
appears on Assyrian and Egyptian monuments respectively, remarking that
"Egyptians too were Astronomers and Sun-worshippers and were experts in
the language