It is impossible to give an exact view of what our friends at Shelbyville saw, for no drawings made there appear to have been preserved, and photography at that time could only indicate feebly the portion of the corona near the sun where it is brightest. Fig. 31 is a fac-simile of one of the photographs taken on the occasion, which is interesting perhaps as one of the early attempts in this direction, for comparison with later ones; but as a picture it is very disappointing, for the whole structure of the outer corona we have alluded to is missed altogether, the plate having taken no impression of it. A drawing (Fig. 32) made by another observer, Mr. M’Leod, at Springfield, represents more of the outer structure; but the reader must remember that all drawings must, in the nature of the case (since there are but two or three minutes to sketch in), be incomplete, whatever the artist’s skill. [Illustration: FIG. 34.--WATSON’S NAKED-EYE DRAWING OF CORONA OF 1870. (U. S. COAST SURVEY REPORT.)] Up to this time it was still doubtful, not only what the corona was, but where it was; whether it was a something about the sun or moon, or whether, indeed, it might not be in our own atmosphere. The spectroscopic observations of Professors Young and Harkness at this same eclipse of a green line in its spectrum, due to some glowing gas, showed conclusively that it was largely, at any rate, a solar appendage, and partly, at least, self-luminous; and these and other results having awakened general discussion among astronomers in Europe as well as at home, the United States Government sent an expedition, under the direction of the late Professor Pierce, to observe an eclipse which in the next year, on Dec. 8, 1870, was total in the south of Spain. There were three parties; and of the most western of these, which was at Xeres under the charge of Professor Winlock, I was a member. [Illustration: FIG. 35.--PHOTOGRAPH SHOWING COMMENCEMENT OF OUTER CORONA. (ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY’S MEMOIRS.)] The duration of totality was known beforehand. It would last two minutes and ten seconds, and to secure what could be seen in this brief interval we crossed the ocean. Our station was in the midst of the sherry district, and a part of the instruments were in an orange-grove, where the ground was covered with the ripe fallen fruit, while the olive and vine about us in December reminded us of the distance we had come to gather the results of so brief an opportunity. To prepare for it, we had all arrived on the ground some weeks beforehand, and had been assiduously busy in installing the apparatus in the observing camp, which suggested that of a small army, the numerous instruments, some of them of considerable size,--equatorials, photographic apparatus, polariscopes, photometers, and spectroscopes,--being under tents, the fronts of which could be lifted when the time came for action.