The Sun.
London, England, 1846-04-11 00:00:00

Arbroath and Forfar •••• • •• •• •

Bristol and Birmingham. • • • • • • • •

Chester and Birkenhead . • • • • • • •• ••
Dublin and Drogheda
Dublin and Kingstown • • • • • • • • • • ••

Dandee and Arbroath . •• •• •• •• ••

Durham and Sunderland .•• •• • • •• • • •
Edinburgh and Glasgow . •• • •• •• •• ••
Eastern Counties and North Eastern..
Glasgow, Kilmarnock, and Ayr •• •• ••
Glas;ow and Greenock.• •••• •• • • • ••
Grand Junction • . •• • . • ... •. • • •• ••

Gravesend and Rochester...... • • • • • •
Great North of England • • • • • • • • • • • •
Great Western ................ .

Hartlepool ......
London and Birmingham, &c. .• • - •
London and Blackwall ............ • •
London and Brighton ....... •• • • •• • •
Londoa and Croydon . •• •• • •

London and Greenwich. •• •• •• •• ••
London and South Western. •• •• •• ••
Manchester, Bolton, and Bury •• •• ••
Manchester and Birmingharn• • •• •• ••
Manchester, Leeds, and Hull Assoc•.
Midland Counties.— •• •• •• •• ••

Newcastle and Darlington •• •••• ••••
Newcastle and Carlisle... .....
Newcastle and North Shields....:...

North Union and Bolton and Preston
Paris, Corbel], and Orleans.-- ....
Paris and Rouen ...................

Preston and Wyre.• •...............
Sheffield and Manchester •...........
South Eastern ..... ....... .....

Taff Vale ..

Ulster. • • • . • • • •

Yarmouth and Norwich ....... .....
York and North Midland ...........

4,969

SOLAR SPOTS.

The group of seven large and five smaller spots,
which were observed approaching the sun's western
limb on the Ist instant, appeared yesterday to have in•
creased to about eighteen spots, five of them being still
large, and one of them nearly doubled in diameter
This group, occuping a large and nearly square area on
the upper or northern tropic of the sun's disc, took 18
seconds to pass the vertical hair of the telescope, while
the whole solar disc took 138 seconds to pass it. Now,
the sun's diameter being equal to 882,188 British miles,
the diameter on one side of the said group will be ascer-
tained by the proportion, 138 sec.: 18 sec. : : 882,188
miles : 115,068 miles, or more than fourteen and a half
diameters of the earth. Whence the whole area of the
said group upon the sun's disc appears to be equal to
13,240,644.524 square miles, or 2111 square diameters
of the earth. The interjacent portions of the sun's disc,
or luminous solar clouds, appear to be sensibly de-
pressed, and consequently much dissipated, or rarified.
Two very large spots, with an interjacvnt small one.
appear following this group, at the distance of about
one-fourth of the sun's northern tropic, if we may ap•
ply the names of small terrestrial circles to corrospond-
ing, small solar circles. These large solar spots are ob
viously produced by the local dissipation of the luminous
solar clouds, which constitute the sun's disc, and con-
stantly send light outwards to illuminate remote bodies
in the heavens, but intercept most of the light projected
inwards towards the great dark central body of the sun.
Therefore, when local dissipations of the solar clouds
occur, arising from the previous discharge of their ac-
cumulated moisture, in the shape of torrents of rain
poured down from them upon the dark central body of
the sun, the local dissipation of the solar clouds then
commences on the outside, and often proceeds down-
wards quite through the disc or stratum of the solar
clouds, and thereby affords to the inhabitants of the
earth a peep into the comparatively dark sky under the
disc, which surrounds the dark solid central bodh• of the
sun, and which, from their appearance, we call solar
spots, but which the inhabitants of the sun, if any,
would appropriately call clear sky, because) such clear
sky must afford to them an opportunity of examining
the remote planetary bodies, which, like the earth, shine
in the heavens chiefly by means of the sun's light re-
flected from them.

4th April.—Three of the spots in the group, on the
51111's western limb, are now, by the increased dissipation
of the adjacent solar clouds, extended far beyond their
previous extent, and in the remaining portions of
luminous cloud, within the extent of the group, so much
dissipated as to resemble fleeting portions of cloud in the
terrestrial sky. The great extent of this dissipation
may be conceived, when it is considered that the ordi-
nary thickne-s of the stratum of luminous clouds form-
ing the sun's disc is equal to a whole diameter of the
earth.