MONDAY'S SOLAR ECLIPSE.

Evening Post, Volume LIX, Issue 127, 30 May 1900, Page 5

MONDAY'S SOLAR ECLIPSE.

OBSERVATIONS IN THE NORTH HEMISPHERE. [press association.] LONDON, 29th May. Splendid observations were made of yesterday's solar eclipse in the Mediterranean and in America. The corona was an exact duplicate of the corona of 1889, confirming the theory of an eleven years' period and variation with sun spots. Venus and Mercury were conspicuous during the eclipse. A total eclipse of the sun was to occur in the northern part of the globe (but only partial at Greenwich) on Monday afternoon. The line of central eclipse w.ould pass from California across the northern portion of the Gulf of Mexico, then across the Atlantic, striking Europe at the west coast of Portugal, passing across Spain to Alicante, thence over the Mediterranean Sea to Algiers, and across the north of Africa to near Assouan, on the Nile. It is well known that "there are spots ' on the sun." These spots are at times i more frequent than at others. Careful observation for many decades has shown that a cycle of eleven years or theieabouts may be recognised in connection with sun spots, during which their frequency increases to a maximum, and ther, decreases to a minimum, after which it begins to increase again. There is a slight irregularity in the length of the different cycles, and the length of time from one maximum to another may be less than ten, or nearly as much as thirteen years. The spots are due to disturbances in the solar atmosphere of the nature of gigantic storms, in which the heated gases of the sun have been known to attain a velocity of fifty miles a second. The vast extent is shown by the fact that spots have been observed 30,000 miles long, while sometimes a group of spots has a diameter of 100,000 miles. It is interesting to note that the diufnal variation in the declination of the magnetic needle is characterised by an eleven-year period — the same period is characteristic also of auroral and magnetic earth currents. In each of these cases the minima and maxima correspond closely with those of the sunspot period. It often happens that the formation of a fine sun spot is followed by a great auroral display, and by an "electric storm," the effect of which is well known to all telegraph operators. Some meteorologists believe also that there is a connection between sun spots and rainfall, though if there is, its exact character has not been yet made out. Cei-tain economists also trace a connection between the sun-spot period and commercial crises. The corona is a phenomenon visible only during the period of totality in a total eclipse. It is probably a shell of exceedingly attenuated vapours round the sun, and is sometimes delicately tinted from pearly-white to rose. Its form varies greatly as seen at different eclipses, and its constitution is still largely a mystery. The fact that at corresponding periods in two sun -spot cycles its form and appearance should be the same is apparently taken to prove, that these are dependent upon the same causes that bring about the cycle characteristic of the great solar storms.