"3.56 P.M. Profound silence through nature, which seems to participate in the celestial phenomenon. Silence in all the groups.
"3.57 P.M. Light considerably diminished, becoming wan, strange, and sinister. Landscape leaden gray, sea looks black. This diminution of light is not that of every day after the sunset. There is, as it were, a tint of sadness spread over the whole of nature. One becomes accustomed to it, and yet while we know that the occultation of the Sun by the Moon is a natural phenomenon, we can not escape a certain sense of uneasiness. The approach of some extraordinary spectacle is imminent."
At this point we examined the effects of the solar light upon the seven colors of the spectrum. In order to determine as accurately as possible the tonality of the light of the eclipse, I had prepared seven great sheets, each painted boldly in the colors of the spectrum, violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, red; and a similar series in pieces of silk. These colors were laid at our feet upon the terrace where my wife, as well as Countess de la Baume, were watching with me. We then saw the first four disappear successively and entirely and turn black in a few seconds, in the following order: violet, indigo, blue, green. The three other colors were considerably attenuated by the darkness, but remained visible.
It should be noted that in the normal order of things—that is, every evening—the contrary appears; violet remains visible after the red.
This experiment shows that the last light emitted by the eclipsed Sun belongs to the least refrangible rays, to the greatest wave-lengths, to the slowest vibrations, to the yellow and red rays. Such therefore is the predominating color of the solar atmosphere.
This experiment completed, we turn back to the Sun. Magical and splendid spectacle! Totality has commenced, the Sun has disappeared, the black disk of the Moon covers it entirely, leaving all round it a magnificent corona of dazzling light. One would suppose it to be an annular eclipse, with the difference that this can be observed with the naked eye, without fatigue to the retina, and drawn quietly.
This luminous coronal atmosphere entirely surrounds the solar disk, at a pretty equal depth, equivalent to about the third of half the solar diameter. It may be regarded as the Sun's atmosphere.
Beyond this corona is an aureole, of vaster glory but less luminous, which sends out long plumes, principally in the direction of the equatorial zone of the Sun, and of the belt of activity of the spots and prominences.
At the summit of the disk it is conical in shape. Below it is double, and its right-hand portion ends in a point, not far from Mercury, which shines like a dazzling star of first magnitude, and seems placed there expressly to give us the extent and direction of the solar aureole.