The instrument described in this paper was contrived in the summer of 1866, for the purpose of observing the spectra of meteors and their trains. The special suitability of this apparatus, as a hand-spectroscope , for the examination of the spectra of the lights which may be seen about the sun during the total solar eclipse of next year, induces me to offer a description of it to the Royal Society. The apparatus consists essentially of a direct-vision prism placed in front of a small achromatic telescope.