ns.[185] This first distinct recognition of a very important
feature of our great luminary was probably founded on an observation
made by Berard at Toulon during the then recent eclipse, "of a very fine
red band, irregularly dentelated, or, as it were, crevassed here and
there,"[186] encircling a large arc of the moon's circumference. It can
hardly, however, be said to have attracted general notice until July 28,
1851. On that day a total eclipse took place, which was observed with
considerable success in various parts of Sweden and Norway by a number
of English astronomers. Mr. Hind saw, on the south limb of the moon, "a
long range of rose-coloured flames,"[187] described by Dawes as "a low
ridge of red prominences, resembling in outline the tops of a very
irregular range of hills."[188] Airy termed the portion of this "rugged
lines of projections" visible to him the _sierra_, and was struck with
its brilliant light and "nearly scarlet" colour.[189] Its true character
of a continuous solar envelope was inferred from these data by Grant,
Swan, and Littrow, and was by Father Secchi, after the great eclipse of
1860,[190] formally accepted as established.

Several prominences of remarkable forms, especially one variously
compared to a Turkish scimitar, a sickle, and a boomerang, were seen in
1851. In connection with them two highly significant circumstances were
pointed out. First, that of the approximate coincidence between their
positions and those of sun-spots previously observed.[191] Next, that
"the moon passed over them, leaving them behind, and revealing
successive portions as she advanced."[192] This latter perfectly
well-attested fact was justly considered by the Astronomer Royal and
others as affording absolute certainty of the solar dependence of these
singular objects. Nevertheless sceptics were still found. M. Faye, of
the French Academy, inclined to a lunar origin for them;[193] Feilitsch
of Greifswald published in 1852 a treatise for the express purpose of
proving all the luminous phenomena attendant on solar eclipses--corona,
prominences and "sierra"--to be purely optical appearances.[194]
Happily, however, the unanswerable arguments of the photographic camera
were soon to be made available against such hardy incredulity.

Thus, the virtual discovery of the solar appendages, both coronal and
chromospheric, may be said to have been begun in 1842, and completed in
1851. The current Herschelian theory of the s