Kepler, whose attention had been specially drawn to the subject of the light seen round the sun during total eclipse, by certain statements which Clavius had made respecting the eclipse of 1567, describes the eclipse of 1605 in the following terms:--'The whole body of the sun was completely covered for a short time, but around it there shone a brilliant light of a reddish hue and uniform breadth, which occupied a considerable portion of the heavens.' The corona thus seen may fairly be assumed to have resembled in extent that of 1871. A bright corona, reaching like that seen during the eclipse of July 1878 to a height of only about 70,000 miles from the sun's surface, would certainly not have been described by Kepler as occupying a considerable portion of the heavens, for a height of 70,000 miles would correspond only to about a twelfth of the sun's diameter; and a ring so narrow would be described very differently. It seems, then, that in 1605 a corona was seen which corresponded with that observed when the sun has had many spots on his surface. Now we have no record of the condition of the sun with regard to spots in 1605; but we know that the year 1615 was one of many spots, and the year 1610 one of few spots; whence we may conclude safely that the year 1605 was one of many spots. This case then is in favour of the theory we are examining. In passing we may ask whether the observation by Clavius which had perplexed Kepler, may not throw some light on our subject. Clavius says that the eclipse of 1567 which should have been total was annular. The usual explanation of this has been that the corona was intensely bright close to the sun. And though Kepler considered that his own observation of a broad reddish corona satisfactorily removed Clavius's difficulty, it seems tolerably clear that the corona seen by Clavius must have been very unlike the corona seen by Kepler. In fact the former must have been like the corona seen in July, 1878, much smaller than the average, but correspondingly increased in lustre. Now with regard to the sun-spot period we can go back to the year 1567, though not quite so securely as we could wish. Taking the average sun-spot period at eleven years, and calculating back from the minimum of spots in the year 1610, we get four years of minimum solar disturbance, 1599, 1588, 1577, and 1566. We should have obtained the same result if we had used the more exact period, eleven one-ninth years, and had taken 1610·8 for the epoch of least solar disturbance (1610·8 meaning about the middle of October, 1610). Thus the year 1567 was a year of few sun-spots, probably occupying almost exactly the same position in the sun spot period as the year 1878. Clavius's observation, then, is in favour of our theory.