indentation, the limb did not present the regular
quasi-circular curvature exhibited in the focus of our telescopes.
Also, between the inner ring and the planet, with a power of 500, I
discerned what appeared to be a dark purplish ring, semi-transparent,
so that through it the bright surface of Saturn might be discerned as
through a veil. Mercury shone brightly several degrees outside the
halo surrounding the Earth's black disc; and Venus was also visible;
but in neither case did my observations allow me to ascertain anything
that has not been already noted by astronomers. The dim form of Uranus
was better defined than I had previously seen it, but no marking of
any kind was perceptible.

Rising from my second, or, so to speak, midday rest, and having busied
myself for some little time with what I may call my household and
garden duties, I observed the discometer at 1h. (or 5 P.M.). It
indicated about two hundred terrestrial radii of elevation. I had, of
course, from the first been falling slightly behind the Earth in her
orbital motion, and was no longer exactly in opposition; that is to
say, a line drawn from the Astronaut to the Earth's centre was no
longer a prolongation of that joining the centres of the Earth and
Sun. The effect of this divergence was now perceptible. The earthly
corona was unequal in width, and to the westward was very distinctly
brightened, while on the other side it was narrow and comparatively
faint. While watching this phenomenon through the lower lens, I
thought that I could perceive behind or through the widest portion of
the halo a white light, which at first I mistook for one of those
scintillations that had of late become scarcely discernible. But after
a time it extended visibly beyond the boundary of the halo itself, and
I perceived that the edge of the Sun's disc had come at last into
view. It was but a minute and narrow crescent, but was well worth
watching. The brightening and broadening of the halo at this point I
perceived to be due, not to the Sun's effect upon the atmosphere that
produced it, but chiefly to the twilight now brightening on that limb
of the Earth's disc; or rather to the fact that a small portion of
that part of the Earth's surface, where, if the Sun were not visible,
he was but a very little below the horizon, had been turned towards
me. I saw through the telescope first a tiny solar crescent of intense
brightness, then the halo proper, now exceedingly narrow, a