Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1883-03-22
OUR NEIGHBOR, THE sun.

There is little island, only ten miles in
circumference, lying almost in the middle
of the South Pacific Ocean, which will be
in May next, the chief centre Of scientific
interest on the globe. This is because it is
the only available spot of land whence a
view of the total phase of the eclipse of
the sun which occurs on May 6, can be OBJ
tanned. Astronomers from America, France
and England will meet there and set up
act latitude and longitude of that insignifi-
cant little island will be calculated with
scrupulous care which has never been be-
slowed upon its larger sisters Of the Pacific.
A great deal of money will be spent upon
these expeditions, and the most skillful OBJ
servers will make the long journey into the
southern hemisphere, consuming months of
time, for the sake of watching for few
minutes the phenomena which make their
appearance when the blazing body of the
sun is hidden behind the opaque globe of
the moon. But astronomers count the eX-
pense and trouble incurred in the under
taking as nothing in comparison with the
results to be obtained. This eclipse is of
duration of the total phase. The sun will
remain totally eclipsed at Caroline Island
about five minutes and half. This is the
longest totality of any eclipse since that of
1868, which was observed in India. The
totality during the eclipse observed in
Egypt last year lasted only a little over
one minute.
In order to understand what the astrono-
mers hope to accomplish on this occasion,
it is best to recall what has been learned
within the past quarter OF century by
the observation Of eclipses Of the sun. The
astronomers have found by such observa-
H. IL x,o4 orJs, op1x tGns
as it really is. We think of the sun only as
dazzling white globe, much brighter and
incomparably larger than any electric light.
Observations during total eclipses, when
this brilliant globe is hidden from sight,
have shown this white sphere we see is
merely the core of the sun, and that around
it there are the most wonderful envelopes.
First, there is close around the shining
globe scarlet shell of flame, out of which
tremendous eruptions of fiery gases occur
Sometimes these geysers of flame reach a
height of hundreds Of thousands of miles in
an astonishingly short space of time, and
then the eruption of material spreads out
and falls back in clouds and streams of the
most fantastic shapes. All around the sun
these volcanic like Outbursts are taking
place. but they are particularly numerous
in certain regions. They indicate that the
sun instead Of being the quiet and peaceful
orb that it appears to the ordinary observer
on the summers day, is in state of enor-
NOUS activity-it is a huge globe of gases
in which iron and other metals, calcium
and other rock-making materials, reduced
to fiery vapor, are engaged in the most
frightful war of elements that the human
mind can conceive. Milton's picture Of the
battle of the angels is tameDess itself beside
the tremendous struggle in which these
elements composing the sun are engaged.
Held in the centre of the whole solar sys-
tenn by the resistless power of gravitation,
they are in a pit whence they can not
escape, yet, glowing with intensest heat,
they surge and swirl and burst forth in tre-
mendous 'eruptions, only to fall back in
metallic showers, and renew the ceaseless
struggle.