at other places, the flames are agitated by a fierce tempest, and they are bent at right angles to their original direction. In other cases still, the gas does not take fire till it has attained a considerable height, and then the flame appears quite detached from the general surface. It will help us to conceive the scale of the conflagration if we keep in view that some of the single tongues of flame were, in the late eclipse, more than 300 times larger than the earth. The observations in connexion with the recent eclipse do not, however, confirm the supposition that the red prominences coincide with the spots of the sun. Leverrier has called in question the generally received theory of the spots of the sun. He reverts to the old hypothesis, that they are not perforations in the photosphere, but clouds floating in the atmosphere. This is, however, quite inconsistent with the facts of the case. The spectrum observations of Professors Bunsen and Kirchhoff rather countenance the idea that the photosphere is not a gaseous envelope, but the solid body of the sun itself,—the atmosphere in which the metals are found being supposed to be exterior to the photosphere. The phenomena of the spots are irreconcilable with this theory. The supposition that the faculæ are due to waves in the red stratum is more plausible.
Foucault was intrusted with the observations on the corona, or broad zone of light, extending far beyond the red stratum, and presenting very much the appearance of the glory around a saint's head.
