ing Elliot went for it. He brought back
the intelligence that the tents had been blown down, and the
instruments overturned. Among these was a large and valuable
equatorial from the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. It seemed hardly
possible that this instrument, with its wheels and verniers and
delicate adjustments, could have escaped uninjured from such a fall.
This, however, was the case; and during the day all the overturned
instruments were restored to their places, and found to be in
practical working order. This and the following day were devoted to
incessant schooling. I had come out as a general stargazer, and not
with the intention of devoting myself to the observation of any
particular phenomenon. I wished to see the whole--the first contact,
the advance of the moon, the successive swallowing up of the solar
spots, the breaking of the last line of crescent by the lunar
mountains into Bailey's beads, the advance of the shadow through the
air, the appearance of the corona and prominences at the moment of
totality, the radiant streamer; of the corona, the internal structure
of the flames, a glance through a polariscope, a sweep round the
landscape with the naked eye, the reappearance of the soar limb
through Bailey's beads, and, finally, the retreat of the lunar shadow
through the air.

I was provided with a telescope of admirable definition, mounted,
adjusted, packed, and most liberally placed at my disposal by Mr.
Warren De La Rue. The telescope grasped the whole of the sun, and a
considerable portion of the space surrounding it. But it would not
take in the extreme limits of the corona. For this I had lashed on to
the large telescope a light but powerful instrument, constructed by
Ross, and lent to me by Mr. Huggins. I was also furnished with an
excellent binocular by Mr. Dallmeyer. In fact, no man could have been
more efficiently supported.

It required a strict parcelling out of the interval of totality to
embrace in it the entire series of observations. These, while the sun
remained visible, were to be made with an unsilvered diagonal
eye-piece, which reflected but a small fraction of the sun's light,
this fraction, being still further toned down by a dark glass. At the
moment of totality the dark glass was to be removed, and a silver
reflector pushed in, so as to get the maximum of light from the corona
and prominences The time of totality was distributed as follows:

1. Observe approach of