to be the forerunner of evil; and not only is the mind powerfully impressed, as darkness gradually shuts out the face of the sun, but at the moment of totality, a magnificent corona, or glory of light, is visible, and prominences, or flames, as they are often termed, make their appearance at different points round the circle of the dark mass. This glory does not flash suddenly on the eye; but commencing at the first limb of the sun, passes quickly from one limb to the other. Our illustration shows "the corona" and the "rose-coloured prominences," whose nature we shall next endeavour to explain. Professor Airy describes the change from the last narrow crescent of light to the entire dark moon, surrounded by a ring of faint light, as most curious, striking, and magical in effect. The progress of the formation of the corona was seen distinctly. [Page 29] It commenced on the side of the moon opposite to that at which the sun disappeared, and in the general decay and disease which seemed to oppress all nature, the moon and the corona appeared almost like a local sore in that part of the sky, and in some places were seen double. Its texture appeared as if fibrous, or composed of entangled threads; in other places brushes, or feathers of light proceeded from it, and one estimate calculated the light at about one-seventh part of a full moon light. The question, whether the corona is concentric with the sun and moon, was specially mooted by M. Arago, and Professor Baden Powell has produced such excellent imitations of the "corona" by making opaque bodies occult, or conceal, very bright points, that it cannot be considered as material or real, although it ought to be remembered that the best theory of the zodiacal light represents it to be a nebulous mass, increasing in density towards the sun, and yet no portion of this nebulous mass was seen during the totality. But by far the most remarkable of all the appearances connected with a "total eclipse" are the rose-coloured prominences, mountains, or flames, projecting from the circumference of the moon to the inner ring of the corona; and, although they had been observed by Vaserius (a Swedish astronomer) in 1733, they took the modern astronomers entirely by surprise in 1842, and they were not prepared with instruments to ascertain the nature of these strange and almost portentous forms. In 1851, however, great preparations were made to throw further light on the subject. Professor Airy went to make his observations, and he says, "That the suddenness of the darkness in 1851 appeared much more striking than in 1842, and the forms of the rose-coloured mountains were most curious. One reminded him of a boomerang (that curious weapon thrown so skilfully by the aborigines of Australia); this same figure has been spoken of by others as resembling a Turkish scimitar, strongly coloured with rose-red at the borders, but paler in the centre. Another form was