These projections or red clouds, mysterious and unexpected as they were to men who directed their attention for the first time to the purely physical phenomena concerned, were in fact, after all, nothing altogether new. The descriptions given by astronomers of earlier eclipses of the sun had been forgotten or overlooked. Stannyan, for instance, in his relation of that of the 20th May, 1706, says, “The egress of the sun from the moon's disk was preceded on its left rim, during an interval of six or seven seconds, by the appearance of a bloodred streak;” and Nassenius, during a total eclipse of the sun observed on the 13th of May, 1733, mentions having seen “several red spots, three or four in number, without the periphery of the moon's disk, one of them being larger than the others, and consisting, as it were, of three parallel parts inclining toward the moon's disk.” It is clear, therefore, that earlier observers had witnessed the same phenomenon, although they were unable to offer any explanation of it. It seems, however, no unreasonable conclusion to come to, that these projections or red clouds, as well as the halo with its pencils of light before spoken of, are something without the proper solar photosphere, but not forming, as this does, one connected mass of light. What further can be known concerning this something must be left to future ages to discover.
The Household Jewels. (From Dickens's Household Words.)
A traveler, from journeying
In countries far away,
Repassed his threshold at the close
Of one calm Sabbath day;
A voice of love, a comely face,
A kiss of chaste delight,
Were the first things to welcome him