Year: 1877

4 Great Danger 10 which We ore Exposed


Pointed Outby Mr.. Proctor HIiaIa


Aun la the swan Constellation


hasbecn DOinG- WiILGur


Run niaxe Up nud


Des roy the


Earth:


The statement by professor Schmidt,
of Athens university, concerning a con-
tiagration in the constellation OF cygnus
(the swami, and subsequent statement by
professor Proctor in regard TO the gradual
consumption of the sun, led to a conyer-
sation with professor Newcomb, Of the
national observatory at Washington,
wherein there was disclosed an astrono-
mical prospect interesting and dire.


Is it true, professor" asked his
guest, "that cygnus has lost star by
fire ?'


.ill that is known is that last Novem-
Der new star, of the third magnitude
suddenly appeared in the constellation Of
swan, and in week Or two afterwards
suddenly disappeared from the naked
eye"


LOCATING THE CoNFLAGRATIoN.


Whereabouts in the constellation did
this occur?'


Near Rho Cygni, right ascension,
twenty.one hours, thirty seven minutes
declination plus forty.two degrees, twelve
minutes"


Professor Proctor has lately called
attention, in a rather startling manner,
TO the unsafe conditions of the sun"


Well" said the young professor,
smiling grimly, "the sun has gone on a
good many thousand years without do
ing the earth any particular damage, and
is likely to 60 on so for several thousand
years longer"


WHAT THE sPECTROSCCPE PROVES.


What best medium have we for OBJ
serving solar physics?'


The most important medium OF this
research is, of necessity, the Spectroscope
The immense distance at which the sun
is situated render every feature invisible
with the telescope, unless it extends
hundreds of miles both in breadth and
height"


Are spectroseope observations con-
sidered intallible ?'


"lt can hardly be denied that the
seemingly marvellous performances of
the spectroscope, especially its power OF
detecting chemical elements present in
the heavenly bodies, have given rise to
very exaggerated ideas of what it is real
ly capable of efecting. The enthusiasm
with which it is sometimes regarded can
give us no definite information respect
ing the composition or nature of any
solid or liquid body under any cir
cumstances whatever. Its revelations
are entirely confined to bodies in the
gaseous state. When we say that iron
and magnesium are found in the sun
we mean only that the vapors of those
bodies are found around the sun. Even
here the problem is not always a simple
one it was once supposed to be. The
spectra Of the same gas or yapor at var
i0us temperatures and pressures differ so
widely that hardly any resemblance be-
tween them can be recognized"


THE COMPOSITION OF THE sun.


$50 that astronomers are not now so
certain of the composition of the sun as
it was supposed they were"


We are still far from being able to
say what the sun is and what is the ma,
ture of the operations we see going on at
its surface on so astonishing a scale"


But what are the results of the most
intelligent observations"


All telescope observers, from Calico
down, have seen that the visible surface
of the sun is a shining sphere, into the
interior of which it is impossible for
sight to penetrate. And modern research
has been able to tell astonishingly little
more about the constitution OF this sur
face than that it is a shining sphere. At
first the speCtroscOpe was supposed to
show that it was certainly not gaseous,
because it gave a continued spectrum,
but this inference was greatly weakened
by the discovery of Frankland that gases
might give continuous spectrum when
subjected to pressure. For aught the
telescope or spectroscope can tell us it
may be a nearly continuous solid crust
surrounding the seething interior which
Is constantly bursting through it; it may
be of the nature of an immense sheet of
broken ice floating ina hot liquid; it may
be a mass of clouds floating in hot at
mosphere; it may be gas rendered lu-
minous under the immense pressure of
higher portions, or it may be something
which we have not vet surmised IL is
not improbably a combination of all
these things. Whatever it may be, it is
in state of constant change. Were il
an unbroken and unchanging crust il
would soon reduce all its heat and leave
us in utter darkness.


PHoTosPHERE AND CHRoMoLPHERE


as nothing definite known of what
may be outside the solar photosphere?'
"Until 1868 nothing definite wa:
known. Then the application of the
: ,pectroscope by Lockyer and Janssor
opened new era in solar physics. Il
, was found that the sun was completed,
} surrounded by a glowing atmosphere
of which hydrogen was the principal in
gredient, and which generally rose to
! height Of two, three or four thousant
t miles above the photosphere. This wa
: the red envelope, traces of which haC
I been near the beginnings and end of Ia
S tai eClipses, and which, at Lockyer's sug
. gestion, has been called the chomOs
: phere, 1t was now found to preseu
phenomena 80 amazing that few hay