Part 7

Fig. 26, on nearly the same scale as the last, shows a spot which was seen on Oct. 13, 1876. It looked at first, in the telescope, like two spots without any connection; then, as vision improved and higher powers were employed, the two were seen to have a subtle bond of union, and each to be filled with the most curious foliage-forms, which I could only indicate in the few moments that the good definition lasted. The reader may be sure, I think, that there is no exaggeration of the curious shapes of the original; for I have been so anxious to avoid the overstatement of curvature that the error is more likely to be in the opposite direction.

We must conclude that the question as to the cyclonic hypothesis cannot yet be decided, though the probabilities from telescopic evidence at present seem to me on the whole in favor of M. Faye’s remarkable theory, which has the great additional attraction to the student that it unites and explains numerous other quite disconnected facts.

Turning now to the other solar features, let us once more consider the sun as a whole. Fig. 27 is a photograph taken from a part of the sun near its edge. We notice on it, what we see on every careful delineation of the sun, that its general surface is not uniformly bright, but that it grows darker as we approach the edge, where it is marked by whiter mottlings called faculæ, “something in the sun brighter than the sun itself,” and looking in the enlarged view which we present of one of them (Fig. 28), as if the surface of partly cooled metal in a caldron had been broken into fissures showing the brighter glow beneath. These “faculæ,” however, are really above the solar surface, not below it, and what we wish to direct particular attention to is that darkening toward the edge which makes them visible.

This is very significant, but its full meaning may not at first be clear. It is owing to an atmosphere which surrounds the sun, as the air does the earth. When we look horizontally through our own air, as at sunrise and sunset, we gaze through greater thicknesses of it than when we turn our eyes to the zenith. So when we look at the edge of the sun, the line of sight passes through greater depths of this solar atmosphere, and it dims the light shining behind it more than at the centre, where it is thin.

This darkening toward the edge, then, means that the sun has an atmosphere which tempers its heat to us. Whatever the sun’s heat supply is within its globe, if this atmosphere grow thicker, the heat is more confined within, and our earth will grow colder; if the solar atmosphere grow thinner, the sun’s energy will be expended more rapidly, and our earth will grow hotter. This atmosphere, then, is in considerable part, at least, the subject of the action of the spots; this is what they are supposed to carry down or to spout up.

We shall return to the study of it again; but what I want to point out now is that the temperature of the earth, and even the existence of man upon it, depends very much upon this, at first sight, insignificant phenomenon. What, then, is the solar atmosphere? Is it a permanent thing? Not at all. It is more light and unsubstantial than our own air, and is being whirled about by solar winds as ours toss the dust of the streets. It is being sucked down within the body of the sun by some action we do not clearly understand, and returned to the surface by some counter effect which we comprehend no better; and upon this imperfectly understood exchange depends in some way our own safety.

There used to be recorded in medical books the case of a boy who, to represent Phœbus in a Roman mask, was gilded all over to produce the effect of the golden-rayed god, but who died in a few hours because, all the pores of the skin being closed by the gold-leaf, the natural circulation was arrested. We can count with the telescope millions of pores upon the sun’s surface, which are in some way connected with the interchange which has just been spoken of; and if this, his own natural circulation, were arrested or notably diminished, we should see his face grow cold, and know that our own health, with the life of all the human race, was waiting on his recovery.

II.

THE SUN’S SURROUNDINGS.

As I write this, the fields glitter with snow-crystals in the winter noon, and the eye is dazzled with a reflection of the splendor which the sun pours so fully into every nook that by it alone we appear to see everything.

Yet, as the day declines, and the glow of the sunset spreads up to the zenith, there comes out in it the white-shining evening star, which not the light, but the darkness, makes visible; and as the last ruddy twilight fades, not only this neighbor-world, whose light is fed from the sunken sun, but other stars appear, themselves self-shining suns, which were above us all through the day, unseen because of the very light.

As night draws on, we may see the occasional flash of a shooting-star, or perhaps the auroral streamers spreading over the heavens; and remembering that these will fade as the sun rises, and that the nearer they are to it the more completely they will be blotted out, we infer that if the sun were surrounded by a halo of only similar brightness, this would remain forever invisible,--unless, indeed, there were some way of cutting off the light from the sun without obscuring its surroundings. But if we try the experiment of holding up a screen which just conceals the sun, nothing new is seen in its vicinity, for we are also lighted by the neighboring sky, which is so dazzlingly bright with reflected light as effectually to hide anything which may be behind it, so that to get rid of this glare we should need to hang up a screen outside the earth’s atmosphere altogether.

Nature hangs such a screen in front of the earth when the moon passes between it and the sun; but as the moon is far too small to screen all the earth completely, and as so limited a portion of its surface is in complete shadow that the chances are much against any given individual’s being on the single spot covered by it, many centuries usually elapse before such a total eclipse occurs at any given point; while yet almost every year there may be a partial eclipse, when, over a great portion of the earth at once, people may be able to look round the moon’s edge and see the sunlight but partly cut off. Nearly every one, then, has seen a partial eclipse of the sun, but comparatively few a total one, which is quite another thing, and worth a journey round the world to behold; for such a nimbus, or glory, as we have suggested the possibility of, does actually exist about the sun, and becomes visible to the naked eye on the rare occasions when it is visible at all, accompanied by phenomena which are unique among celestial wonders.

The “corona,” as this solar crown is called, is seen during a total eclipse to consist of a bright inner light next the invisible sun, which melts into a fainter and immensely extended radiance (the writer has followed the latter to the distance of about ten million miles), and all this inner corona is filled with curious detail. All this is to be distinguished from another remarkable feature seen at the same time; for close to the black body of the moon are prominences of a vivid crimson and scarlet, rising up like mountains from the hidden solar disk, and these, which will be considered later, are quite distinct from the corona, though seen on the background of its pearly light.

To understand what the lunar screen is doing for us, we may imagine ourselves at some station outside the earth, whence we should behold the moon’s shadow somewhat as in Fig. 29, where we must remember that since the lunar orbit is not a circle, but nearly an ellipse, the moon is at some times farther from the earth than at others. Here the extremity of its shadow is represented as just touching the surface of the globe, while it is evident that if the moon were at its greatest distance, its shadow might come to a point before reaching the earth at all. We speak, of course, only of the central cone of shade; for there is an outer one, indicated by the faint dotted lines, within whose much more extended limits the eclipse is partial, but with the latter we have at present nothing to do. The figure however, for want of room, is made to represent the proportions incorrectly, the real ones of the shadow being actually something like those of a sewing-needle,--this very long attenuated shadow sometimes, as we have just said, not reaching the earth at all, and when it does reach it, covering at the most a very small region indeed. Where this point touches, and wherever it rests, we should, in looking down from our celestial station, see that part of the earth in complete shadow, appearing like a minute dark spot, whose lesser diameter is seldom over a hundred and fifty miles.

The eclipse is total only to those inhabitants of the earth within the track of this dark spot, though the spot itself travels across the earth with the speed of the moon in the sky; so that if it could leave a mark, it would in a few hours trace a dark line across the globe, looking like a narrow black tape curving across the side of the world next the sun. In Fig. 30, for instance, is the central track of the eclipse of July 29, 1878, as it would be visible to our celestial observer, beginning in Alaska in the forenoon, and ending in the Gulf of Mexico, which it reached in the afternoon. To those on the earth’s surface within this shadow it covered everything in view, and, for anything those involved in it could see, it was all-embracing and terrible, and worthily described in such lines as Milton’s,--

“As when the sun ... In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds On half the nations, and with fear of change Perplexes monarchs.”

We may enjoy the poet’s vision; but here, while we look down on the whole earth at once, we must admit that the actual area of the “twilight” is very small indeed. Within this area, however, the spectacle is one of which, though the man of science may prosaically state the facts, perhaps only the poet could render the impression.

We can faintly picture, perhaps, how it would seem, from a station near the lunar orbit, to see the moon--a moving world--rush by with a velocity greater than that of the cannon-ball in its swiftest flight; but with equal speed its shadow actually travels along the earth. And now, if we return from our imaginary station to a real one here below, we are better prepared to see why this flying shadow is such a unique spectacle; for, small as it may be when seen in relation to the whole globe, it is immense to the observer, whose entire horizon is filled with it, and who sees the actual velocity of one of the heavenly bodies, as it were, brought down to him.

The reader who has ever ascended to the Superga, at Turin, will recall the magnificent view, and be able to understand the good fortune of an observer (Forbes) who once had the opportunity to witness thence this phenomenon, and under a nearly cloudless sky. “I perceived,” he says, “in the southwest a black shadow like that of a storm about to break, which obscured the Alps. It was the lunar shadow coming toward us.” And he speaks of the “stupefaction”--it is his word--caused by the spectacle. “I confess,” he continues, “it was the most terrifying sight I ever saw. As always happens in the cases of sudden, silent, unexpected movements, the spectator confounds real and relative motion. I felt almost giddy for a moment, as though the massive building under me bowed on the side of the coming eclipse.” Another witness, who had been looking at some bright clouds just before, says: “The bright cloud I saw distinctly put out like a candle. The rapidity of the shadow, and the intensity, produced a feeling that something material was sweeping over the earth at a speed perfectly frightful. I involuntarily listened for the rushing noise of a mighty wind.”

Each one notes something different from another at such a time; and though the reader will find minute descriptions of the phenomena already in print, it will perhaps be more interesting if, instead of citations from books, I invite him to view them with me, since each can tell best what he has personally seen.

I have witnessed three total eclipses, but I do not find that repetition dulls the interest. The first was that of 1869, which passed across the United States and was nearly central over Louisville. My station was on the southern border of the eclipse track, not very far from the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, and I well remember that early experience. The special observations of precision in which I was engaged would not interest the reader; but while trying to give my undivided attention to these, a mental photograph of the whole spectacle seemed to be taking without my volition. First, the black body of the moon advanced slowly on the sun, as we have all seen it do in partial eclipses, without anything noticeable appearing; nor till the sun was very nearly covered did the light of day about us seem much diminished. But when the sun’s face was reduced to a very narrow crescent, the change was sudden and startling, for the light which fell on us not only dwindled rapidly, but became of a kind unknown before, so that a pallid appearance overspread the face of the earth with an ugly livid hue; and as this strange wanness increased, a cold seemed to come with it. The impression was of something unnatural; but there was only a moment to note it, for the sun went out as suddenly as a blown-out gas-jet, and I became as suddenly aware that all around, where it had been, there had been growing into vision a kind of ghostly radiance, composed of separate pearly beams, looking distinct each from each, as though the black circle where the sun once was, bristled with pale streamers, stretching far away from it in a sort of crown.

This was the mysterious corona, only seen during the brief moments while the shadow is flying overhead; but as I am undertaking to recall faithfully the impressions of the instant, I may admit that I was at the time equally struck with a circumstance that may appear trivial in description,--the extraordinary globular appearance of the moon herself. We all know well enough that the moon is a solid sphere, but it commonly looks like a bright, flat circle fastened to the concave of the starry vault; and now, owing to its unwonted illumination, the actual rotundity was seen for the first time, and the result was to show it as it really is,--a monstrous, solid globe, suspended by some invisible support above the earth, with nothing apparent to keep it from tumbling on us, looking at the moment very near, and more than anything else like a gigantic black cannon-ball, hung by some miracle in the air above the neighboring cornfield. But in a few seconds all was over; the sunlight flashed from one point of the moon’s edge and then another, almost simultaneously, like suddenly kindled electric lights, which as instantly flowed into one, and it was day again.

I have spoken of the “unnatural” appearance of the light just before totality. This is not due to excited fancy, for there is something so essentially different from the natural darkness of twilight, that the brute creation shares the feeling with us. Arago, for instance, mentions that in the eclipse of 1842, at Perpignan, where he was stationed, a dog which had been kept from food twenty-four hours was, to test this, thrown some bread just before “totality” began. The dog seized the loaf, began to devour it ravenously, and then, as the appearance already described came on, he dropped it. The darkness lasted some minutes, but not till the sun came forth again did the poor creature return to the food. It is no wonder, then, that men also, whether educated or ignorant, do not escape the impression. A party of the courtiers of Louis XV. is said to have gathered round Cassini to witness an eclipse from the terrace of the Paris observatory, and to have been laughing at the populace, whose cries were heard as the light began to fade; when, as the unnatural gloom came quickly on, a sudden silence fell on them too, the panic terror striking through their laughter. Something common to man and the brute speaks at such times, if never before or again; something which is not altogether physical apprehension, but more like the moral dismay when the shock of an earthquake is felt for the first time, and we first know that startling doubt, superior to reason, whether the solid frame of earth is real, and not “baseless as the fabric of a vision.”

But this is appealing for illustration to an experience which most readers have doubtless been spared, and I would rather cite the lighter one of our central party that day, a few miles north of me, at Shelbyville. In this part of Kentucky the colored population was large, and (in those days) ignorant of everything outside the life of the plantation, from which they had only lately been emancipated. On that eventful 8th of August they came in great numbers to view the enclosure and the tents of the observing party, and to inquire the price of the show. On learning that they might see it without charge from the outside, a most unfavorable opinion was created among them as to the probable merits of so cheap a spectacle, and they crowded the trees about the camp, shouting to each other sarcastic comments on the inferior interest of the entertainment. “Those trees there,” said one of the observers to me the next day, “were black with them, and they kept up their noise till near the last, when they suddenly stopped, and all at once, and as ‘totality’ came, we heard a wail and a noise of tumbling, as though the trees had been shaken of their fruit, and then the boldest did not feel safe till he was under his own bed in his own cabin.”

This was written before the “Charleston earthquake” occurred.

(SECCHI’S “LE SOLEIL.”)]

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.