Year: 1870

The Greatest OF all Future POssfbiIf.


ties.


The sun Is beginning to be an object of
great anxiety to many scientific men
Spots on that orb are not at all uncommon
as may be ascertained by any one who
will take the trouble to look at it through
bit of smoked glass. But these phenon-
ena have of late assumed an appearance
which astonishes astronomers, and is cal
culated to alarm that class which fancies
it can detect portents of the future in the
heavens. There are great gulfs now to be
seen in the sun, each much larger than
this earth, which we think Of so much con-
sequence in the universe. They increase
at a prodigious rate, and sometimes seems
destined to work a convulsion similar to
that which has undoubtedly overtaken
other solar systems. Suns as vast as that
which lights and warns this world have
been shattered to pieces or disappeared,
and only the philosopher in his rowing
glance over the sky has detected the
change The inhabitants of other planets
would not notice the Disappearance of the
planet we inhabit any more than we can
see speck of sand carried off by the wind
on the sea shore.


1t IS not mere theory, but an ascer-
tanned fact, that the sun is always in a
highly fluid condihon-as one recent wri-
ter describes it, "a hurricane of flame, the
disturbances of which might perhaps be
best represented to our imaginations by
the occasional explosion of planet or two
of nitro-glycerine." 1t is, moreover. sub
ject to magnetic storms" produced, as
many suppose, by the movements of the
planets around it. The great disturbance
which IS now going on was predicted
months ago by scientific men That we
are much more concerned In the event
than many people suppose, is quite GER
tain.


In one case, q few years ago, it is upon
record that telegraphic machinery was set
on fire, and the ''pen of Rains telegraph
was followed by fame" at the very in
slant a sudden burst of light showed itself
in the sun. "In the telegraph stations at
Washington and Philadelphia, the signal
men received strong electric shocks" In
fact, the electric condition of the earth
was changed, though by what precise
agency none can fully explain. We are
at once lost in a region Of conjecture, and
cen only feel that the fate which was fore
told of old for the earth may at any mo-
ment overtake it. The forces are all in
existence by which, in the solemn Ian.
guage of holy writ, ''the heavens shall
pass away with great noise, and the ele-
ments shall melt away with fervent heat,
and the earth also, and the works that are
therein, shall be burned up"


Once in every eleven years the sun ex-
hibits the stupendous phenomena which
are at present engaging the attention of
philosophers. In 1850, "chasms and abys-
ses,' similar to those which are now re-
ported, were seen by many observers. In
l848 there. were magnetic storms, and we
had French revolution. Again in 1859
they occurred, and we saw wars and ru-
mOrs of wars in Europe


The electrical condition OF the atmos-
| phere is thought to exert a greater intiu-
ence upon the minds of men and nations
than many are willing to believe, or than
any one is capable TO explain The tele-
graphs denote the changed condition of
the earth.


In the language of the astronomer
whose description of the sun We have Just
| quoted, "the pens of all our telegraphic
wires may some day trace in flame hand
writing more ominous of human destiny
than was the handwriting which, during
Belshazzar's feast, traced a warning on
the wall of the Babylonian dynasty"