Lieutenant Patterson, one of the observers of the eclipse of 1851, says, that "It is very remarkable that the flames or prominences correspond exactly (at least as far as he could judge) with the spots on the sun's surface." Taking this statement with that of M. Faye, it may be assumed, as a new idea, and nothing more, that these prominences are, after all, mere aerial pictures of these openings in the sun's atmosphere, or what are called "sun spots." In the "Edinburgh Philosophical Journal," it is said, that although it has lately been shown in the Edinburgh Observatory that it is possible to produce, by certain optical experiments, red flames on the sun's limb of precisely the rose-coloured tint described, yet, on weighing the whole of the evidence, there does seem a great preponderance in favour of the eclipse flames being real appendages of the sun, and in that case they must be masses of such vast size as to play no unimportant part in the economy of that stupendous orb. During the last eclipse great disappointment was felt that the darkness was so insignificant, although, when we consider the enormous light-giving power of the sun, and know that it was not wholly obscured, we could hardly have expected any other result. There can be no doubt that a decided change in the amount of light is only to be observed during a total eclipse of the sun, one of which occurred on the 7th of September, 1858; but, unfortunately, it was only visible in South America; we must therefore content ourselves with the descriptions of those astronomers who can be fully relied on. From the graphic account given by Professor Piazzi Smyth, the astronomer-royal for Scotland, [Page 31] of a total eclipse as seen by him on the western coast of Norway, we may form some notion of the imposing appearance of the surrounding country when obscured during the occurrence of this rare astronomical phenomenon. The Professor remarks, "To understand the scene more fully, the reader must fancy himself on a small, rocky island on a mountainous coast, the weather calm, and the sky at the beginning of the eclipse seven-tenths covered with thin and bright cirro-strati clouds. As the eclipse approaches, the clouds gradually darken, the rays of the sun are no longer able to penetrate them through and through, and drench them with living light as before, but they become darker than the sky against which they are seen. The air becomes sensibly colder, the clouds still darker, and the whole atmosphere murkier.