The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-11-29

II is the opinion of the best known
modern astronomers - such men,
among many others, as Prof. c. A.
Young of Princeton; Prof. S. P. Lang
lev. the well-known American author
ity on solar physics; or Prof. E. C.
Pickering, director of the Harvard AS
Economical Observatory-that human
affairs go on forever without much if
any reference to them. The group of
sun spots that has recently attracted
so much general attention is there
fore, so far as anything is definitely
known about it, a solar curiosity rath-
er than any visible prophet of APP
proaching evils. Even as mere solar
curiosities, however, the spots are in
teresting enough to warrant general
attention, especially in view of the
fact that most of our present knowl-
edge of the sun is product of the
last half century. In this knowledge
the sun spots, their character, the pc
riodcity of their appearance and their
relation to the earth are all matters
whose final solution depends upon flu
ture investigation. Meantime it has
been shown that there is certain de-
gree of regularity in their appearances
and disappearance, that there is an
apparent connection, whether real or
merely coincidental, between the sun
spots and our terrestrial magnetic dis
turbances, and that there is little or
no connection between their appear
ance on the sun and the weather, COM
mercial panics, wars, or other disturb
ances that affect the everyday exist
ence of average mortals.
In appearance the typical sun spots,
as seen through a powerful telescope
suggest great chasms in the sun, so
large indeed that our own earth could
be dropped into one of them easily and
might even get out of sight before
touching the bottom. Such a hole, Of
course, would be a mere incident on
the SUMS surface, as readily appears
when one remembers that if the sun
were considered as a hollow sphere
our own planet, together with the
moon, could be placed inside of it with
put disturbing the distance that ordi-
narily separates them. But, as a mat
ter of fact, the question is mooted
among astronomers whether the sun
spot is an enormous chasm, incon-
ceivably deep, or an enormous saucer
filled with gaseous matter that alb
serbs the light rays and SO presents to
the astronomer the black and empty
appearance of a tremendous chasm.
And the theory has also been advanced
sions are actually elevations of por-
ton Of the suns surface.
The cause of these spots has been
likewise the subject of many theories
no one of which has received sufficient
belief to be considered even approx
mntely final. Calico, for example,
thought the sun spots to be clouds
floating above the surface of the sun
and so cutting off portion of its
light Lalande imagined them to be
the peaks of solar mountains project
Ing through the fiery envelope that sur
rounds the body of the sun; Sir Will
liam Herschel believed them to be
holes in this fiery envelope-the photo
sphere-through which the dark body
Of the sun is thus temporarily visible;
Sir John Herschel suggested the idea OF
whirling atoms boring great holes in
this outer covering. They have been
looked upon also as clouds produced
by solar eruptions, and as the result
OF planets approaching closely enough
to the sun to affect a portion of its
surface. These theories, however. are
simply theories, and the modern as
tronomer looks to the further devel-
ment of such essentially modern meth
DDS of study as the camera and spec
troscope for some more generally con-
Vincing explanation.
From the modern point of view the
study of the sun spots goes back only
to the time of Calico. Earlier men
tons of similar phenomena are sim
ply matters of visual observation be-
fore the invention of the telescope had
brought the heavenly bodies near
enough for anything that begins to
suggest the possibility of even becom-
ing intimately acquainted with them.
The Chinese, for example, are said to
have recorded sun spots, thus visible
to the naked eye, as long as 321 years
before the Christian era. The Peru
VANS are said to have had a knowledge
of them when their country was con-
quered by the Spaniards. Historians
OF the time of Charlemagne report
spot seen on the sun for eight consec-
utiVe days in S07; the astronomer
hepler noticed such a spot in 1909 and
from 1910 to 1912 several astronomers
began independently to observe and
study them. These astronomers were
tabricius, Scheiner, Calico and Har-
lot, and their work marks the actual
beginning of this branch of the astro-
nomlcal investigation. In 1851 Schwabe,
and amateur astronomer of Desasur,
Germany, published the results of over
l'OOO observations covering a period of
twenty-five years and revealing that
there is a fairly regular increase and
decrease in the number of these solar
visitors, the interval from one maxi
mum to the next being about eleven
years, and this result was soon after
corroborated by an examination OF
all preceding sun spot records. These
maxima, however. vary greatly in the
number of sun spots that represent
the climax of different sun spot pc
RODS and the period itself is by no
means fixed and certain, although 1t
mas often been so considered by the
advocates of a direct relation between
the sun spots and various terrestrial
phenomena.
1t is only by the exercise of consld-
cradle ingenuity that the bulk of these
relations have been maintained even
IN theory. The foundation of sucn
lheories lies obviously enough in the
question as to whether the presence OF
spots on the sun detract from the heat
ana light ordinarily ennanating from
mat body and so Immediately infiu-
ehces the weather and crops of our
own planet. Such an influence could
OIIy be shown by a series of deadly
parallels, in very literal sense, be-
cween the presence of spots on the sun
ana the occurrence of bad harvests,
5amcs, shtpwrecks, suicides and other
disastrous what not on our own planet,
something over 90,000000 miles distant.
ana IN the first place. without going
ITO the scientific details there are
suree distinct opinions regarding the
st uh spots and the heat and light Of
sne sun; first that the spots show
Ieat activity in the sun and there
fs increased heat-emitting power;