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

NAME OF RAILWAY.

.trbroath and Forfar ••• • •
Bristol and Birmingham . • • •• • • .. •
Chester and Birkenhead. • ...........
Dublin and Dr%heda• • • • • .......
Dublin and Kingstown ••• • .. .... • •
Dunriea and Arbroath •• • • •
Durham and Sunderland . • • • • • • • - ••
Edinburgh and Glasgow . • • •
Eastern Counties and North Ea.stern • •
Glasgow, Kilmarnock, and Ayr • • • • •
GlIC"ow and Greenock.. • • ••
Grand Junction ....... ..........
Gravesend and Itochester..... .....
Great North of England
Great Western .•• ...... •• • •
Hartlepool •• .• ..... .•••• • . • • •
London and Birmingham, &c.... - •
London and Blackwall... • • .
London and Brighton ...............
London and Croydon
London and Greenwich
London and South Western
Manchester, Bolton, and Bury
Manchester and Birmingham • •
Manchester, Leeds, and Hull Assoc..
Midland Counties.... ....... ........
Newcastle and Darlington .• ........
Newcastle and Carlisle • . • • • • • • •
Newcastle and North Shields• • •
•• ••
North Union and Bolton and• Preston
l'aris, Corbel!, and •• •
Paris and Rouen
Preston and Wyre.........• • • • . • ...
Sheffield and Manchester •••• • • .• ••
Ulster . •
Yarmouth and Norwich .....• • • ....
York and North Midland ......

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 : 115,062 miles, or more than fourteen and a half
diaineters 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 211} square diameters
of the earth. The interjacent portions of the i.un's disc,
or luminous solar clouds, appear to be sensibly de-
pressed, and consequently much dissipated. or rarified.
Two very large spots, with an interjacent 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 correspond-
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 ditc, and Dm-
stantly send light outwards to illuminate remote bodies
in the heavens, but intercept most oF the light projected
ir.wards towards the great dark ceutral body of the sun:
Therefore, when local dissipations of the solar clouds
occur, arising from the previous d'.scharge 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 tbe 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 comparative .ly dark sky under the
disc, which surrounds the dark se did central body of the
,sun, and which, from their appearance, we call solar
spots, but which the inhabitaxts of the sun, if any,
would appropriately call clear al :y, because such clear
sky must afford to them an o;oportunity of examining
the remote planetary- bodies, wh; ith, like the earth, shine
in the heavens chiefly by mear to of the sun's light re-
flected from them. •

4ch April.—Three of the Spy its In the group, on the
sun's western limb, are now, by the increased dissipation
of the adjacent solar clouds, a xtended fir beyond their
previous extent, and in the reraaining portions of
luminous cloud, within the exte at o f the group, so much
dissipated as to resemble fleeting portions of cloud in the
terrestrial sky. The great extew t of this dissipation
May be conceived, when it is eon sidered that the ordi-
nary thickness of the stratum of I ,uminous clouds form-
ing the sun's disc is equal to c 'whole diameter of the
earth.