The Osceola times., 1877-01-27

was found that the sun was completely
surrounded by a glowing atmosphere,
OF which hydrogen was the principal in
gredient, and which generally rose to a
height of two, three or four thousand
miles above the photosphere. This was
the red envelope, traces of which had
been near the beginnings and end of to-
tai eclipses, and which, at Lockyer's sug-
gestion, has been called the chomos-
phere. 1t was new found to present
phenomena so aUiazing that few have
ventured to ofef anything which they
would claim to be complete and salts
factory explanation of them. An atmos-
phere alrroU lding an attracting globe
should, according to the accepted laws
ofgases, preserve its general level. Espe-
cialy it does so when subjected to gray
itatin4 force so immense as that which
reigr.s at the surface of the sun. But in
stead of this we find it thrown up into
m lsses and columns Of every conceivable
s'Aape, which sometimes rise to the height
'3f $4,000 or ever 100000 miles. These
. constitute the 'osy colored flames or
protuberances SEN during total eclips1s.
When we can tel TO what force their ele-
walton is due we shall have solvtd one
of the great problems presented
by the sun. All we .an saw at
. present is that th force wnich raises and
| 80 stains the prduberGnces is still un-
| known, and untilit IS known our knowl-
! edge of solar physlcs is in very unsatis-
factory state"
What of the atmosphere of the cor
ona2"
owe should expect the outline of an
atmosphere to be round and uniform,
whereas that of thecorona is extremely
irregular and more nearly square than
round. The most conclusive proof is,
however, afforded by the passage, during
modern times, Of two great comets di.
rectly through the corona without any
sensible effect being produced upon
them. The first of these was the comet
of 1850, the second ard most remarkable
that of 1913. The latter at the point
OF nearest approach to the sun was
less than 100, 900 miles above its surface,
and passed through 1T least 100000
miles of corona, with ayelocity amount
ing at its maximum to three hundred
and fifty miles second. To Judge the
effect of an atmosphere of the rarest
kind upon a body moving through it
with this velocity we have only to COM
pare the comet with an ordinary shoot
ing star passing through our own atmos-
phere. At the height of forty miles the
latter becomes so rare as no longer to re-
fleet the light of the sun; yet at the
height Of few miles its density is such
as to burn or destroy in a few moments
a meteor passing through it at the rate
of twenty miles a second. All the OBJ
servations in the case Of the comet pass
- i,sa~iiy rnfougn the sun . cOfUiia 10
not show the slightest retradation, nor
did its aspect give any indication of 30
destructive an influence as the passage
through the atmosphere would have
been. We are, therefore, forced to the
conclusion that the corona must be a
cloud Of minute particles OF matter par
TALLY vaporized by the intense heat to
which they are subjected"
MOTION OF MATTER IN THE sun.
"Still it is established by astronomers,
is it not, that appalling forces are at play
about the surface of the sun g'
although we cannot explain to our
satisfaction what is going on Immediately
around the sun, it is clear that certain
natural operations are going on there on
scale OF whloA we can form no cnn.
ception Nom .scientlno language wolId
fail to describe them, for the reason IN,
they transcend not only everything N
see on the globe, but everything which
the widest flights of poetic fancy ever\
imagined. Floods and phirlwinds of
tempestuous fire, Cakes OF fire and
birthstone are perhaps the i9oticsi
epithets most applicable 10 the phei: N.
ena in question. But nothing whit.
can properly be called fire exists
at the surface Of the sun, for the simple
reason that the temperature is 30 high
as TO render combustion impossible!
The chemical combinations implied by
this term can only take place at such
temperatures as we have in our fires and
furnaces at higher temperatures sub
stances combine and separate with equai
facility. The impossibility in question
is much like that OF boiling water in 3
region where the temperature is so hig1
that water exists only as vap 4
Neither food nor lake nor sea 3 4
any conception of a mass of
ten thousand times the whole sur
our earth and deeper than the -
| is broad. Neither 'whirlwind N
other term expressing moveme,reb,
give any adequate conception ~ d
ef incandescent gas which, sh6c cD",
! down upon us from the nortt of 81
twenty seconds after it cro' W.
Lawrence be in the Gulf of an,De
rying with it the whole s,,nI con
continent in mass not ss'i !, "a, N
but of glowing vapor, in w.fnnhbr br
arising from the dissocL .aHoi he
materials composing the citpiT on.
New York and Chicago wo'aI;. ixed
in single undistinguil, d mass
Great as are these mov,N they
are IGobably only faint ~ ms Of
what is going on inside n, the
masses of hydrogen belchi.@ rough
the photosphere being butt the ora du
combat from the war of atoms in he in
terror. According to the they now
best supported-the only theor,in fact.
which accounts for the supplSf solar
heat--the mass composing tbenterior Of
the sun is in a state of comhte 'disso-
ciation'-that is, owing TO . elevated
temperature each individusmolecule of
matter pursues its courselwiou forming
any permanent combinatn with any
I