Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1877-01-10
interesting Lecture on the Sun.

Young commenced by stating that he
IA chosen the sun for his subject,
hecause il was one which he had been
sneriallv interested in himself, and he
l,a1 therefore, better chance of in
.arastinr the audience than if he
seIected different theme. He had
Acme so, he supposed, upon the princi-
nla that the cobbler should stick to his
last because he could talk about shoe
better than anything else. He said he
would try to give them the most recent
concIu.jons of science in relation to
fine subject. and the methods by which
they had been obtained, as far as pos
sible, without going into details which
micht be unintelligible. He would
distinguish principally between what
was certain, what was mere hypotheti-
cal and the probable. He need not
say th9t the sun was the most magnlii-
cent and incomparably the most I'M
portant of all the heavenly host, since
they were aware that nearly all the
activity. nearly all the work performed
an the earth was traceable to solar
heat If we traced it up, it would
he found that all the power of the
wind which moves our ships and wind
mills WAS Sun-poWer. All the power
derived from water i'll driving our
mills was also obtained from the sun
beams that lift that water into the
clouds, which, returning again to the
earth, flowed on to the ocean, and in
its course was made available to set
our mills in motion. A little more re-
mOtely the power of steam was sun
power also. The growth of plants and
all animal power were likewise derived
from the same source. We owed In
fact all the activity, life and motion
which existed upon the earth to the
suns heat for, although we derived
small proportion of heat from the stars
and from the impact of meteOrs, yet
what we received from these sources
perhaps the one-thousandth part of
what we receive from the SUM was SO
inconsiderable that if the sun was
withdrawn the earth would be plunged
into that state of desolation described
in Byron's dream, in a few short
hours.
The first thing to be attended to III
commencing to study the subject of
the sun was to obtain some intorma-
ton about its dimensions and its dis
lance from MS. They were aware that
the SINS distance has attracted a
great deal Of attention for the last
few years. as the transit of Venus was
extensively observed in all parts of
the earth in 1874 for this purpose.
This was one Of the best of five diff
ferent methods which can be applied
to ascertain the suns distance. The
first step toward solving the problem
was to find what was called the suns
parallaX. This was found to be eight
minutes eighty-siX seconds, and cal
Culating from this basis the sun S dis
lance was 90, $50, 900 miles. It's cir
conference was $500 times greater
than that of the earth. Light, which
travels with amazing velocity, re-
quired eight minutes to reach the
earth. Sound would require fourteen
years to travel from the sun to the
earth, 50 that if we saw an explosion
at its surface, it would be fourteen
years before we could hear it. But if
we could place a I'd of iron from the
earth to the sun, and that was struck
with a hammer on one end, the sound
would reach the opposite end III about
eleven months. But perhaps the most
singular illustration Of the suns dis
lance was drawn from the human
economy. Sensation took certain
tine to travel to the nerve centerS;
and If we could imagine human IN
FAINT with an arm long enough to reach
the sun, it would take $50 years for
the sensation to reach him after burn
ING his fingers; i'll other words, he
would be dead several years before the
sensation Of burning could reach him.
The sun 5 distance was SO incOnceiya-
bic that it was only 10y making such
comparisons we could form any idea
at all of it.
Having once got an idea of the suns
distance, there was no difficulty in as
certaining its size. Its diameter was
about $50, 900 miles, so that if the earth
were to be put into the center of the
sun there would be room enough for
the moon TO perform her motion round
1t, inside of the solar orb. Or, if the
earth should be represented by three
men globe, the sun would be a globe
OF tWenty-seven feet in diameter upon
The same scale, and would be at the
distance of 2,915 feet. Its volume OF
bulk is ESQ, 900 times as great as that
OF the earth. and its mass was $780,
200 times greater. The earth was
lallIug TO the sun all the time, but it
oid not get any nearer to it. If left to
Itself 1t would go on in a straight line,
but 1t does not do SO, but goes round
ana round, and if we take the trouble
To- calculate we find that it really de-
UretS toward the sun one-eighth of an
men per second. TIE force of gravity