Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1882-05-11
sun STORMS.
Terrific Battle of Elemental Forces III
the Great LumInary.
New York Sun.


After time Of coparative quiet another
storm has burst upon the sun. Two or three
weeks ago the great disc of the luminary
shone in the telescope with hardly spot, OF
a variation anywhere in brilliancy except
the ordinary nothing, which sometimes ap-
pears strikingly suggestive of a mass of tre-
mendous flames, on the tops OF which the
spectator is looking down Then spot OF
small size appeared and moved slowly across
the disc. Presently a congeries of little
spots broke forth like an eruption, surroun-
ded by tacule in glowing waves and tortuous
banks. In day or two the outlines of a
large spot could be seen coming around the
eastern limb of the sun. 1t seemed to grow
as it advanced. In short time white fila
ment pushed its way across the very center
of the spot. looking like a snow bridge across
a dark chasm, and then the spot split in two
and slowly disappeared.
Now the eastern end of the disc began to
be crowded with on-coming spots. The
wrinkled lines of facula showed where the
surface was agitated, and where new spots
were likely to break forth at any moment
They came in groups, and one huge spot
with dark central chasm capacious enough
to swallow the earth seemed to be their lead
er. Cloudy days intervening interrupted
the sight. but with every return of sunshiny
weather the telescope revealed new spots and
new groups, until now the sun is spotted
like a leopard The sight with magnifying
power low enough to show the whole disc at
once is wonderful The spots are of all sizes
from great caverns in whose dark purple
depths the eye fancies it can detect strange
forms, mysterious creations of the sun, to
little specks but for their congregating in
! no C,bI I,1rl Of tho
hardly be noticed. 1t is a beautiful spectacle
and only systematic observations and meas
urements can convince the beholder that he
is witnessing such battle of elemental
forces as this earth has never 'beheld since it
hardened from rotund mass Of fiery gases
into firm and habitable globe.
4 little careful watching and calculation
soon show the real meaning Of what the tele-
scope reveals. 1t is the heaving and lashing
and swirling of q storm, not q storm in any
\ sense in which we understand the word from
our experience here ON earth, but storm
! born, probably in the interior Of the sun it
! self, and exercising its fearful energy upon a
! ball of glowing gases. But those gases are
in the most unheard-of and marvellous con-
dition. Among them are many whose names
are familiar to the students of chemistry
and which in our laboratories are airy things
that reveal themselves only by their effects
In the sun they are heated up to such a de-
q; ee that no earthly chemist wouldrecognize
| them: at least not by their conduct, for in
! that unparalleled furnace they are freed from
many of the laws which chemistry imposes
upon them here And more wonderful yet,
men Of science tell us, SO tremendous is the
pressure to which they are subjected in that
heart and center Of gravitation that. though
they are gases still, they must resemble in
their mechanical behaviour rather tar or
honey than the airy substances which we
know under their names These gases, con-
tinually ascending or moving away from the
CENTER become partially cooled at what ap-
pears to us as the surface of the sun, and fall
back in showers of hot, metallic rain. 1t is
amid such surroundings that the sun storms
rage and from such that they are born.