Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1883-03-31
storms in the Sun.

What a problem it is that lies before
..onomers when we consider what sun
ssots really mean? The great atmos-
So 10 If the sun, whose breath is fame.
piv ,at 50 cool compared with his intensely
= ,ow;no surface that it absorbs a large
Proportion Of his light as well as
* his heat. 1t absorbs 50 much that it
octually changes his color. There can
NJ no manner Of doubt, from what Prof.
langley has shown about the absorptive
,maIities of that atmosphere, that were it
suddenly stripped off the sun would shine
not only with greatly increased bright
,ess. but with q blush violet color. In
. yery short time indeed that color would
.eem white again to u eyes, grown &C.
cnstomed to the change; after which the
sudden restoration Of the atmosphere
would change the sun to an orange-red
orb. which only after awhile would
zen aem to our eye a white globe as before.
sut while the general absorptive action
nf thes sun is wonderful, the story is still
more wonderful which the spectroscope
ms to tell about the specific absorptive
effects due to its constitution. We find
that. whereas in our air the vapor of
water is present Ito condense into water
drops and form clouds at certain levels,
and to change to ice-crystals and form
cirrus at higher %levels), in the u the
atmosphere is laden with the vapors of
iron, copper, zinc, sodium, magnesium
and like elements, to form clouds of me-
tallic drops, great gatherings of metallic
CRYSTALS, while the rains that pour down
toward the concealed globe of the sun are
MIGHTY showers of molten metal. When
q hurricane occurs in the sun the clouds
which form the SUMS surface are swept
along, or whirled around, not at the rate
at which we measure our storms, but
with a velocity compared with which
their swiftest motion is as rest. The
solar tornadoes rage, not I'VE a few hun
dred square miles, but over regions as
large as the whole surface of the earth,
over hundreds, even thousands of millions
of square miles; and they travel over
these enormous regions at a rate not of
50 many miles per hour or per minute,
but of many miles, sometimes more than
a hundred miles, in every second of time,
Such storms are in progress now where
we see the spots upon the sun. Such storms
tell us of the activity of that great cen
trail engine whose throbs are the life beats
of the solar system. We measure the
suns work, perforce, by u own forms
of work. We speak Of his emission of
light and heat as corresponding to what
would result from the burning of eleven
thousand millions of millions of tons of
the finest coal in every second of time.
But what mind can conceive the real
vitality of that mighty orb which seems
so silent and so still in our skies? The
throbbing Of the great engine which
beats out light and life to the whole
family of planets can only be seen by the
minds eye, and as yet that eye is no
more capable of seeing the SUMS work as
it really is than is the bodily eye of see
ing the distant millions of suns which
the great guaging telescopes of the Her
schels bring within our ken. Nor can
the mental ear hearken to the uproal
and tumult with which the work Of the
great central engine is accomplished, OF
imagine what would be heard if one
could visit that spot which looks like a
tiny speck on the suns surface, and,
passing below the limits of the solar air
SO that sound waves could reach him,
could find Gas assuredly he would if he
could live at a temperature which turns
the hardest metal into vapor) all forms
of noise known to us-the roar of the
typhoon. the crash of thunder, even the
hideous grooming of the earth-throe-
surpassed a million-fold by what takes
place within every square mile of that
undisturbed region.-Londom Times.