gradually thickening, and its diameter diminishing, at a rate determined by its loss of heat. It differs, however, from ordinary bubbles in the fact that its skin is continually penetrated by blasts and jets from within."1 Sir W. Herschel viewed the sun as a solid globe, around which lies an atmosphere of complex nature. He thought that the real body of the sun was neither illuminated nor heated very greatly. "Whatever fanciful poets may say in making the sun the abode of blessed spirits, or angry moralists devise in pointing it out as a fit place for the punishment of the wicked, it does not appear that they had any other foundations than mere opinion and vain surmise; but now I think myself authorised, upon astronomical principles, to propose the sun as an inhabitable world." Sir John Herschel, the son, took a wholly different view as to the coolness of the sun; and, incredible though it seem, regarded certain bright objects, shaped like willow leaves, lying athwart and across each other, as the immediate sources of the solar light and heat. He says, "We cannot refuse to regard them as organisms of some peculiar and amazing kind; and though it may appear too daring to speak of such organisations as partaking of the nature of life, yet we do know that vital action is competent to develope at once heat and life and electricity." The sun's surface has not only spots which have a central part, and a fringe less dark; but also contains certain bright streaks in the neighbourhood of the spots-these by some are called faculæ. "The sun-spots are really hollows or cavities in the solar atmosphere where the temperature of the glowing gases has been reduced.”2 The spots are said to be confined to two definite zones, extending about 35° on each side of the equator. The spot zone is a scene of solar tornadoes of whitehot hydrogen, which blow with such fierceness that, compared with these, our most destructive storms are mere summer breezes. The spots are certainly depressions of greater or less depth, and the light received from the umbra of a spot shines through absorbing vapours. "A great difficulty lies in Sun's Physical Constitution. 211 the fact that we have no clear evidence to show whether the sun-spots are formed by forces acting from without or from within, . . . whether the seat of that action which leads to the formation of a spot lies below or above the level of the photosphere. . . . As to the prominences, it seems to be demonstrated that some are mere clouds in the upper regions of the solar atmosphere, while others are due to some form of eruption, and only assume the cloud form after the eruption which gave them birth has ceased."1 There are bridges, arcs, stalks, leaves, and veils of clouds most intricate in structure. The wildest and most fantastic variations take place, renewals of fresh forces with scenes of tremendous tornadoes, swift rushes of glowing vapours and cyclonic motions. The least spot, perceived with the most powerful telescope, must have an area of fifty thousand miles; those visible to the unaided eye must be enormous. The largest spot recorded had a greater breadth than 143,500 miles. We are told the spots sometimes burst in pieces, like a piece of ice dashed on a frozen pool, and disappear in a moment. The eruptions, which occur at all times, are vast explosions, seeming to come from some twenty thousand miles below the edge of the sun's disc, and extending many thousands of miles in every direction. There are brilliant silver copper and ruby-coloured coruscations. Their velocity has been known to exceed two hundred and fifty miles a second. The eruptions are of glowing hydrogen, and other vaporous elements, through an atmosphere of hydrogen. Coloured prominences consist of glowing gas of various tints and forms their origin is still a mystery. The sierra, or rugged line of projections, are ranges of red and other coloured flames, now called the chromosphere. The whole disc of the sun is much marked with roughness like an orange, and some of the lower parts of the inequalities are blackish; the faculæ are ridges of elevation above the rough surface, and sometimes next to a spot will be a protuberant lump of shining matter. Many metals exist in the sun. Gold, silver, platinum, lead, mercury, so far as we know, have not been found. The presence of sodium, calcium, barium, magnesium, iron, chromium, "The Sun," pp. 438, 439: R. A. Proctor. nickel, copper, zinc, strontium, cadmium, cobalt, hydrogen, manganese, aluminium, and titanium, has been demonstrated. Very lately the presence of oxygen has been asserted. The vapours of the sun's globe are chiefly metallic, and they condense into clouds pouring down continually molten metals. Low down, approaching the intense heat from the sun's interior, where they are revapourised, the metallic rain descends in perfect sheets, forming a nearly continuous liquid envelope. The surface of the sun is exceedingly complex. Analysis of spots shows three envelopes within the photosphere: the penumbral fringe, the dark umbra, and the so-called black nucleus about 10,000 miles below the photosphere. The photosphere itself is a fourth solar level. The fifth is a shallow atmosphere discovered by Young, extending three or four hundred miles above the photosphere. Sixth, the sierra, about eight or ten thousand miles. Seventh, the prominence region, extending to a height of thirty or forty thousand miles, with occasional extension to more than a hundred thousand miles. Eighth, the inner brighter corona, from two to three hundred thousand miles, expanding in places to four or five hundred thousand miles. Ninth, the outer radiated corona, jagged in outline and extending fully a million of miles from the visible glowing surface of the sun. All these envelopes are themselves multiple; and when it is added that the outer corona is but the inner part of a solar envelope, or appendage, with outermost limits lying altogether out of ken, we see what a complex subject of research lies before our astronomers. The sun has almost a counterpart in the planet Saturn, whose splendid architecture displays the fashioning power of the great laws of the universe. The beauty of the system, the marvellous gigantic rings, the delicate varieties of colours in the rings and in the planet, the singular problems suggested by their magnificent size, fascinate the observer. If the vast belts are not cloud-masses formed by the sun, their real origin must be in some action of the planet's own mass. The heat of his surface may cause currents of vapour to rise continually; and, on attaining the upper regions of his atmosphere, they are condensed in the form of a cloud. "A similar peculiarity exists in the case of the sun. Indeed a somewhat Sun's Physical Constitution. 213 surprising resemblance exists between Saturn and the sun, as regards many important characteristics. The planet, like the sun, is of low specific gravity-very far lower than the earth's; as the sun has eight primary attendants, so Saturn has eight satellites; and as the sun has his attendant disc of minute bodies (seen in the Zodiacal light), so Saturn has his ring system, in all probability, of multitudes of minute satellites travelling in independent orbits around him. Is it not possible that the relation necessary to make the analogy complete may be actually fulfilled, and that Saturn is a source whence heat is supplied to the orbs which circle around him." 1 The analogy may be added to by a further fact—Jupiter, with his dark bands, seems now to be in the same state as was our earth. His cloudy shifting streaks; and the appearance, at times, as of mountains or openings; may be inaugurating new days and nights in that far-off mighty planet. It is not necessary, for those who believe that all things are of God, to adopt any scientific theory as final. Mayer and Thomson maintained that the sun's heat, compared with which the fiercest fire of a mass of white hot iron is cold as ice, is sustained by the continual infall of cosmical bodies. Helmholtz supposes that gradual contraction of the solar orb is the mainspring of solar energies. Secchi believes that the fund of force lies in the union of the sun's own elements in chemical combinations. Sir John Herschel said, that mayhap the vital energies of monstrous creatures are the source of the luminary's might. The facts themselves are so wonderful that even a sober explanation must appear wild, and discovered realities are more sublime than any fictions that were ever addressed to the imagination. We need force and firmness in our character to preserve us from bewilderment, for as the conceptions of natural science beggar those of Milton, so our views of God's wisdom and might fill us with unutterable awe. The natural philosopher says,—“To nature nothing can be added, from nature nothing can be taken away." The Christian replies,—“ Not so: waves change to ripples, and ripples to waves; magnitude may be substituted for number, and number for magnitude; asteroids 1 "Essays on Astronomy,” p. 99 : R. A. Proctor. may aggregate into suns, and suns transform their powers into plants of beauty and trees of renown; but the flux of power, eternally the same from God, is, in nature, of ever varying manifestation. He conserves the energy, makes it roll in celestial and terrestrial movement with music through the ages, here in mechanical force, there in chemical activity, elsewhere, in vital influence, and ever shifting them. So far from there being but one creation, by which the visible came forth from the invisible, and one end, by which our earth will pass away; in the realms and eternities of God are many creations and many dissolutions. Our Father worketh hitherto, and will work; and the new heavens and new earth, promised to us in connection with our Faith and the Redemption that is in Christ Jesus, may not only be joined to the physical destinies of other worlds; but possibly have a moral and spiritual influence in realms of which our mind hath not even thought. The Sun's Rule. He draws to himself all such cosmical matter and bodies as come under his exclusive influence, either by leaving the domain of some other star, or on account of his own motion through space. These do not all remain with him; but, after paying their respects, return to the sidereal depths to be attendants on other suns and stars; performing their own functions in many worlds. Around him are millions of millions of bodies of varying velocities in different directions; clouds of cosmical atoms shifting and changing, aggregating here, segregating there; but, as a clustering solar appendage, permanent, and forming an aureola of tremendous dimensions and startling magnificence. The meteors encountered by our earth. every year are upwards of 2,700,000 visible to the naked eye; including shooting stars, only seen by telescopic aid, the hypothetical sum is 146,000,000,000. The space between the earth's orbit and the sun cannot be less rich; in fact, there must be an increasing aggregation of meteoric matter with nearness to the solar globe. By the exercise of his mighty attractive influence, he controls the force which would drive them far out into space from the influence of his lighting, heating, and actinic influ |