wide--brighter, and closer together where the pillars had formerly
stood, and rapidly ascending. When I looked, some of them had
already reached a height of nearly four minutes (100,000 miles); and
while I watched them they arose with a motion almost perceptible to
the eye, until, in ten minutes, the uppermost were more than 200,000
miles above the solar surface. This was ascertained by careful
measurements, the mean of three closely accordant determinations
giving 210,000 miles as the extreme altitude attained. I am
particular in the statement, because, so far as I know,
chromatospheric matter (red hydrogen in this case) has never before
been observed at any altitude exceeding five minutes, or 135,000
miles. The velocity of ascent, also--one hundred and sixty-seven
miles per second--is considerably greater than anything hitherto
recorded. * * * As the filaments arose, they gradually faded away
like a dissolving cloud, and at a quarter past one only a few filmy
wisps, with some brighter streamers low down near the
chromatosphere, remained to mark the place. But in the mean while
the little 'thunder-head' before alluded to had grown and developed
wonderfully into a mass of rolling and ever-changing flame, to speak
according to appearances. First, it was crowded down, as it were,
along the solar surface; later, it arose almost pyramidally 50,000
miles in height; then [Page 88] its summit was drawn down into long
filaments and threads, which were most curiously rolled backward and
forward, like the volutes of an Ionic capital, and finally faded
away, and by half-past two had vanished like the other. The whole
phenomenon suggested most forcibly the idea of an explosion under
the great prominence, acting mainly upward, but also in all
directions outward; and then, after an interval, followed by a
corresponding in-rush."