plendid volume on eclipses,[537] with
which the systematic study of coronal structure may be said to have
begun, Mr. Ranyard first generalised the synclinal peculiarity by a
comparison of records; but the symmetry of the arrangement, though
frequently striking, is liable to be confused by secondary formations.
He further pointed out, with the help of careful drawings from the
photographs of 1871 made by Mr. Wesley, the curved and branching shapes
assumed by the component filaments of massive bundles of rays. Nothing
of all this, however, was visible in 1878. Instead, there was seen, as
the groundwork of the corona, a ring of pearly light, nebulous to the
eye, but shown by telescopes and in photographs to have a fibrous
texture, as if made up of tufts of fine hairs. North and south, a series
of short, vivid, electrical-looking flame-brushes diverged with
conspicuous regularity from each of the solar poles. Their direction was
not towards the centre of the sun, but towards each summit of his axis,
so that the farther rays on either side started almost tangentially to
the surface.

But the leading, and a truly amazing, characteristic of the phenomenon
was formed by two vast, faintly-luminous _wings_ of light, expanded on
either side of the sun in the direction of the ecliptic. These were
missed by very few careful onlookers; but the extent assigned to them
varied with skill in, and facilities for seeing. By far the most
striking observations were made by Newcomb at Separation (Wyoming), by
Cleveland Abbe from the shoulder of Pike's Peak, and by Langley at its
summit, an elevation of 14,100 feet above the sea. Never before had an
eclipse been viewed from anything approaching that altitude, or under so
translucent a sky. A proof of the great reduction in atmospheric glare
was afforded by the perceptibility of the corona four minutes after
totality was over. For the 165 seconds of its duration, the remarkable
streamers above alluded to continued "persistently visible," stretching
away right and left of the sun to a distance of at least ten million
miles! One branch was traced over an apparent extent of fully twelve
lunar diameters, without sign of a definite termination having been
reached; and there were no grounds for supposing the other more
restricted.

The resemblance to the zodiacal light was striking; and a community of
origin between that enigmatical member of our system and the corona was
irresistibly suggested. We