miles in length by a hundred in breadth!tions in the magnetism of the sun. The Most probably, the peculiarities in question are due in a great measure to the same causes which lead to the production of the spots.

On all these points, however, much uncertainty must exist, for want of a clear knowledge of the sun's atmosphere. Sir William Herschel assumed the existence of two envelopes only; the lower consisting of gaseous matter in a non-luminous state; the upper composed of gaseous matter also, but in a flaming or resplendent condition. It is from this superior layer we derive our light and heat; the other was supposed to shield the surface of the sun from the scorching rays of the photosphere. But a third investing ocean at least must also be admitted. The corona which encompasses the body of the orb during total eclipses, like the glory round the head of old saints, shows that there is an exterior envelope mounted upon the photosphere. Mr. Norman Lockyer also concluded, from his spectroscopic researches, that the "red protuberances were due to the heaping up of hydrogen gas, which formed a continuous layer round the sun.

*

mode in which that body affects the magnetic condition of the earth, says Mr. G. Chambers, "is not analogous to the action of a magnet upon a mass of soft iron placed at a great distance from it," but the influences proceeding from the great luminary do so in a "form different from that of magnetic force, and are converted into the latter form of force probably by their action upon the matter of the earth or its atmosphere." And this conclusion is confirmed by Professor W. Thompson, who says that no effect of the sun's action as a magnet is sensible at the earth.*

Upon another point connected with the central orb, a very valuable result may be noted. Until recently, if we had asked any school girl what was the distance of the earth from the sun, she would have answered, with the confidence of an itinerant lecturer on the universe, and with the promptitude of a flash of lightning, “95,000,000 of miles." This, in her case, would have been one of the principal fruits of the charge of so many guineas per annum for the use of the globes. If the same question had been propounded to a philosopher, he would have returned the same reply, with a hint as to some odd fractional miles, but with a caution that the calculation was only provisional, and must be taken, like a mer

Amongst other interesting questions which have been propounded respecting the sun, it has been asked whether this body does not act as a huge magnet, and produce, in that capacity, all the various mag-chant's account, with a clause of "errors netic phenomena which are manifest upon our earth?

excepted." Putting the matter in professional language, he would have intimated that the sun's parallax (or the angle subtended by the earth's radius when seen from the sun) was set down as something more than eight seconds and a-half (857), but that there were grounds for supposing that it really amounted to nearly nine seconds (8"-95). The difference between these two estimates would bring our globe between three and four millions of miles nearer to the Giver of Light. Now, the peculiarity of the case is, that astronomers have arrived at this amended result by separate routes, and for the most part without any definite expectation of correcting the error in question. When experimenting, for instance,

That the king of day" plays the part of a great loadstone, and keeps all the planets in charmed subjection to his authority, is of course a very poetical version of things, and many a fanciful mind has conjured up a vision of an orrery moved, or at least maintained, entirely by magnetism. But without displacing the power or principle, whatever it may be, which we call attraction, does the sun, by his direct action, excite those magnetic currents which are perpetually streaming over our planet, or stir up those magnetic storms which sometimes break out suddenly and rage over whole continents, though insensible to our human organs except so far as they are dis-upon the velocity of light, Foucault found closed by the convulsive quiverings of the needle ?

This point has been carefully investigated, and the conclusion drawn that such terrestrial disturbances are not caused by varia

In a paper in the "Philosophical Transactions" for 1869 (Part 159), Mr. Lockyer has very handsomely disclaimed the honour of being the first to announce the continuous character of the envelope known as the chromosphere, and has assigned to Professor Grant, Professor Swan, M. Liais, and others, their share in the merit of this discovery.

that its accredited speed must be lowered, and this rendered it necessary to reduce the distance of the sun by the amount just mentioned. In studying the moon's motions, Hanssen showed that the disturbing influ

"Philosophical Transactions," vol. cliii. p. 503, Mr. G. Chambers on "The Nature of the Sun's Magnetic Action upon the Earth." The reader will doubtless perceive that the question here raised is not as to the influence which the orb exerts upon our magnetism by means of its heat or otherwise, but whether it operates as a great loadstone simply.

ence of the sun upon our satellite must be | These objects, as we approach them, appear revised to an extent which would involve an to recede from each other as we retire, to alteration to nearly the same amount. The run together into a cluster. Upon the supplanet Mars has been called upon to furnish position of the sun's motion there must, further evidence, and Venus, on whose tes- therefore, be some quarter in the heavens timony philosophers long relied, has again where the stars will seem to be opening out been put into the witness-box, and agrees their ranks, and to this we must consewith the other deponents almost to the let- quently be speeding; whilst in the opposite ter. It was, in fact, upon her depositions, region the reverse effect will appear; for taken on the occurrence of the celebrated there the bright ones will seem to be closing transit of 1769, when commissioners were up their array. Such a region was found. sent to examine her in the southern hemis- Out of fifty-six stars examined by Sir W. Herphere, that the standard valuation of the schel, forty-four showed an apparent proper sun's distance was based; and when Mr. motion, which could only be explained on Stone went over the calculations, the recti- the assumption that the sun was journeying fied result indicated a parallax of 89, in- towards a given point (y) in the constellastead of the old one of 8·57. From this tion Hercules. Subsequent researches have striking coincidence, it may be safely as- placed the fact of a translatory movement sumed that the distance of the sun from the beyond dispute. This splendid galop is earth is little more than ninety-one millions conducted at the rate of nearly five miles of miles (91,300,000, in reality); and per second, or 18,000 per hour! when we consider how much astronomical science depends upon the accuracy of its data, it will be admitted that the elucidation of this point by methods so thoroughly independent is a curious as well as a creditable feature in the doings of the age.

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But to what end? This question involves another. Is the orb travelling in a straight line, or in a curve of prodigious sweep? Is his motion the result of some primitive impulse, or of the combined attraction of the celestial bodies, or of a resistless sumBut whilst the relative distance of the two mons from some distant master-masses; or globes is preserved, it must not be forgotten is the entire host of heaven in ceaseless cirthat the sun is ever in progressive motion cuit around some mysterious centre of through the heavens, as if he were bent gravity? For it is an obvious inference upon some errand of life or death. That that if our sun is thus in movement, the he lord, as he is, of the system - should other stars may be nomadic as well. Inbe subject to the same law of axial rotation deed, the spectroscopic determination of the as his satellites, may excite no surprise; flight of Sirius by Mr. Huggins affords posibut that he should be posting headlong tive demonstration on this point. But to through space, encircled by a troop of say whether the path of the sun is rectilineal worlds, some with their worldlings around or orbital surpasses the present powers of them, and all engaged in performing their the astronomer. Not that it is necessary to mazy evolutions, is a conception which the assume in the latter case the existence of mind cannot readily realize. Still more, if any central body of surpassing bulk and all the orbs which we have been accustomed dignity. The exact point round which milto regard as "fixed in their everlasting lions of stars may revolve may not only be seats," should partake of the same erratic destitute of all signs of imperial importance, habits, can we repress the thought that, but it may not even be indicated by a single wide as the celestial plains may be, and handful of matter. Nature does not always spacious as they may appear for purposes set up a memorial to indicate the spots of parade merely, yet sooner or later, fear- where the most momentous actions are perful collisions must ensue, if the whole starry formed: the earth's surface is not pierced host is perpetually on the wing? Now, by any visible object where the axle of rotatheoretically, a movement of translation in tion might be supposed to protrude; nor is space may be inferred from the fact that the there any external peculiarity to denote the sun possesses a movement of rotation. places where the magnetic poles are to be Practically, the question has been put upon found; and as little is there any furrow or a footing of reasonable certainty by Sir W. ridge in the ocean to represent the equaHerschel, Argelander, Struve, Mädler, and torial belt which divides the two hemiothers. Broadly stated, the principle upon spheres. which the inquiry was based by the first of these philosophers is familiar to every town pedestrian in the lamps in the streets, and to every country traveller in the trees of an avenue, or the telegraph posts on a railway. VOL. XVII. 752

LIVING AGE.

This focal point, however (if such it be), was considered by Struve to lie between the stars and in the group Hercules: Argelander fixed upon Perseus as the empire-constellation of our astral system,

cesses which have transpired, or are transpiring in one member of the family may not apply to the rest. The moon, so far as observation extends, is an untenanted orb. In all probability its inherited caloric has been mostly expended, or at least the superficial portion has been dissipated, and the residue lies hid in its interior. Consequently its day of life may have closed, and our beautiful satellite may be but a shining sepulchre and a worn-out world. Perhaps it was only an ephemeron amongst stars? Our turn, also, may come; and when life is waking up in the sun it may be dying out on the earth. Let us not, however, think dolefully of the universe, if we find proofs of change or even symptoms of "decay," for in nature nothing is lost, and life is ever born of death. True Science, like true Philosophy, always gives us more than she takes; and with the same breath that she tells us worlds may cease to palpitate, she tells us also that the forces which gave them all their vitality can never be crushed into nothingness except by the hand of Him from whom they emanated.

cope with darkness, or to conquer space without moving a muscle. There is something captivating in the thought that the great rector mundi was working for us when as yet there was no sign of man-indeed, no promise of his coming, and with quiet patient labour laying up from day to day those treasures of light and heat which are infinitely more valuable to us than all the gold and diamonds we possess. No one who has studied geological processes can repress a feeling of surprise, perhaps of impatience, at the slow deliberate step with which Nature ever marches up to her goal; but when we think of the sun toiling in lonely splendour to store our planet with fuel- -we had almost said with his own embodied beams - it seems to reconcile us in some degree to the august and awful chronology of the universe.

A passing analogy may not be unacceptable. If, in a modified sense, the light of ancient suns may be hoarded up for ages, so may the odour of ancient seas. Some years ago, a writer pointed out to the Academy of Sciences at Paris that the shells of the teredo found in the fossil-wood about Brussels gave out when scratched, or when newly extracted from the soil, a strong scent of the ocean. But of what ocean? Clearly of one on which no human sail had ever been spread, for it belonged to the distant cocene era. After countless centuries had elapsed, the subtle aroma of that prehistoric sea was released from its imprisonment, and played upon nostrils fashioned in this our nineteenth century, as if it were the perfume of a flower plucked yesterday. It brings the ages together to find that from a fossil comes forth fragrance which has been impounded for millions of years, and that from our coal measures we can draw matter which may be called the solidified sunshine of the world's youth.

There are several other points connected with this "soul of surrounding worlds" upon which it would have been pleasant to touch, but narrowing space warns us to conclude, particularly as we devoted some attention to solar phenomena in a recent article on the Language of Light. Before parting, however, from the great luminary, we cannot forbear to remind the reader that we are indebted to this generous orb for light by night as well as by day, for warmth within doors as well as without. We are accustomed to speak of the sun's light and heat as forces actually garnered up in the vegetation of ancient epochs. We look upon our coal strata as cellars in which sunbeams have been locked up for unnumbered ages, in order that they might ultimately be reissued for the benefit of the intelligent tenantry for whom the world was intended. In a certain qualified sense this is perfectly true: coal is unquestionably invested sunshine. The gentle warmth we draw from our domestic fires, the fiercer heat which cooks our food or melts our metals, are the product of the sun's energy exercised upon the earth during some of those silent centuries when the globe was in preparation for man. Strolling through a town lit up by innumerable lamps, or whirled along at the heels of a locomotive, it is a pleasant thought that the emanations of suns which rose and set millions of years ago which rose and set in seeming idle-lous motion. ness, and to all appearance in wasted splen- organs-the apple of the eye-though are now reproduced to enable us to pierced and buffeted each day by thousands

dour

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In conclusion, let us add that the greatest of physical paradoxes is the sunbeam. It is the most potent and versatile force we have, and yet it behaves itself like the gentlest and most accommodating. Nothing can fall more softly and more silently upon the earth than the rays of our great luminary-not even the feathery flakes of snow which thread their way through the atmosphere, as if they were too filmy to yield to the demands of gravity like grosser things. The most delicate slip of gold leaf, exposed as a target to the sun's shafts, is not stirred to the extent of a hair, though an infant's faintest sigh would set it into tremuThe tenderest of human

of sunbeams, suffers no pain during the process, but rejoices in their sweetness, and blesses the useful light." Yet a few of those rays, insinuating themselves into a mass of iron like the Britannia Tubular Bridge, will compel the closely-knit particles to separate, and will move the whole enormous fabric with as much ease as a giant would stir a straw. The play of those beams upon our sheets of water lifts up layer after layer into the atmosphere, and hoists whole rivers from their beds, only to drop them again in snow upon the hills or in fattening showers upon the plains. Let but the air drink in a little more sunshine

at one place than another, and out of it springs the tempest or the hurricane, which desolates a whole region in its lunatic wrath. The marvel is, that a power which is capable of assuming such a diversity of forms, and of producing such stupendous results, should come to us in so gentle, so peaceful, and so unpretentious a guise. It is as great a wonder as if the cannon-balls which were to batter down a fortress danced through the air on their mission of death, like motes in the sunbeam, or as if Shrapnell shells were bred in the atmosphere like drops of dew, and demeaned themselves as meekly too, until they exploded.

THE HANDWRITING OF SOVEREIGNS. - However, after his succession to the English throne. characteristic is hand-writing may be satisfac- the penmanship of this king expanded into an torily proved by spending a few spare hours in easier and more gentleman-like style. In the the British Museum, scanning the autographs erasures and interlineations the indecision of his even of sovereigns. The mind guides the pen in character is shown, especially in that disgraceits mission of thought-fixing; therefore it is not ful letter to the Duke of Buckingham, dated at all to be wondered at should the depth or | 1623, more like an epistle of a lover to his misshallowness, nobility or commonality, of intel-tress than the production of a king. To this lect and the passions be by such means por- letter he prays the duke, for God's sake," trayed. Look at the signature of Queen Eliza- never to refer, begging him in no way to make beth stately, tall, and queen-like; command- it public. Now, alas! in the British Museum, ing and imperious, but defaced with ignoble and among the Lansdown MS., it may be perused trivial flourishes - -a combination of severity, by all. Charles I. wrote like a gentleman; and vanity, and power. As her actions, so her his son, Charles II., like a very easy gentleman, handwriting at different periods varied consid- such as he was. A perfect specimen of facility, erably at one time, clear, vigorous, and sensi- with considerable elegance, is the writing of the ble; at another, flaunting and puerile. That of latter; the manner in which he threatens to put Henry VII. is cold and formal; an attempt at forth his whole regal authority, with the direst stateliness, but with puerile adjuncts bespeaking hope of vengeance in another world (entirely great feebleness. Henry VIII. writes with in the style of a lady of the bedchamber) is a strength and self-will, with concentration, but curious portrait of the man. James II. is cold no display. His signature, Henry, "H. T." and gentleman-like, too good a hand for so big(Henry Tudor), shows him to have been explicit, oted a prince. But above all signatures that we not shrinking from the slight trouble of the rep- have scanned is that of Cromwell for grand cometition, and one who would have said, "There posure and firmness of purpose, no hesitation was no mistake, there is no mistake, there shall being visible, not even in the name affixed to be no mistake." Strenuous to a degree in mak- the death-warrant of the Stuart king. Motherly ing things sure, apparent not only in his treat-common-place is the writing of Queen Anne. ment of the Merry Wives of Windsor," but in all other affairs connected with his life. The handwriting of Richard III. is like a charge of cavalry, cutting right and left, with an occasional strong thrust of a lance through his lines. Reckless, vigorous, and dashing; fearless, headstrong, and unscrupulous. Anne Boleyn wrote a steady, composed hand, with some force and elegance, while pedantic and persistive, with much cold persevering energy, is the writing of her more fortunate successor, Catherine Parr. Clearness of type and unobtrusive firmness does Mary Queen of Scots display in her plain but elegant signature. That of Edward VI. was one of laborious pedantry, much resembling the early writing of James I. In later years, how

That of George I. is manly and firm, though somewhat coarse; in the other Georges it is similar in character, but with more refinement.

Club Magazine.

DURING the recent discussion on Easter Island at the Royal Geographical Society, it was stated that the layers of guano could be traced and the deposit of each twenty-four hours distinguished. It was calculated that it must have taken 4,000 years to form the 20 feet deposits on the Chinca Islands.