Assume, then, that it is shaped like a globe, that it is the globular envelope (so to speak) of the sun, and we may conclude that its outer boundary would at most enclose a volume twenty-seven times as large as the sun's, or, in other words, _twenty-seven million times_ larger than our terrestrial world. It is in reference to this magnificent phenomenon that we hope to obtain some satisfactory information in December 1870. The results ascertained from the eclipse of 1868 proved to be almost directly contradictory to those obtained last year in the United States, and the problem now is, to discover _why_ these results were contradictory. In the meantime,--observes the writer already quoted,--some astronomers say that the observations already made suffice to show the real nature of the solar corona. "It has frequently happened that, with the means of solving a problem ready at their hands, astronomers have been content rather to wait till new observations removed their doubts, than to undertake the work of carefully analysing the facts already discovered. It is urged that the atmospheric explanation (Faye's and Lockyer's) is opposed by simple optical considerations; that the blackness of the moon's disc, in the very heart of the corona, affords the most unmistakable evidence that the moon lies nearer to us than the corona." The solar glare which, according to Faye's theory, illuminates our atmosphere, ought, according to this view--and ordinary reasoners will think this argument irrefragable--to cover the lunar disc as well as the surrounding heavens. It is also argued, very forcibly, that the active atmosphere above the horizon of the observer is partially obscured during total eclipse, while all that part lying in the direction in which the corona is seen is wholly shielded from the direct rays of the sun, and cannot, therefore, furnish the "atmospheric glare" on which M. Faye relies. M. Faye's theory is powerfully combated in a paper read by Mr Proctor before the Royal Astronomical Society, and a summary of which appeared in "Nature."[93] He remarked that if we in reality possess sufficient evidence to determine whether the corona is or is not a solar appendage, it would be unfortunate for, and in some sense a discredit to science, if the precious seconds available for observers in December next were wasted upon observations directed to such a point determinable beforehand. He proceeded to express his belief that the corona was no terrestrial phenomenon, arguing that the very blackness of the moon as compared with the corona (to which we have already referred), shows that the coronal splendour is _behind_ the moon. In fact, the moon is projected on the corona as on a background; whereas, if the light be due to atmospheric glare, the corona ought to be a foreground.