The Last Solar News

Nothing is more curious than to note be teudency of physical science to dissiate the popular notion of solidity as a measure of strength. In í'act, modern )hysic8 seem to bring us back to the most ittenuated forma of matter aa the real r,esrvoirs of - forma ao attenuated a8 o bear a cloae analogy to that moat tenuous of all forms of Ufe, mind itself, in which ao many new diapoaition8 and econmiea of forcea origínate. The new num)er of the Cornhill Magaziwe haa a very ineresting paper, probably from the pen of a distinguished English astronomer of almoat boundleas literary activity, on the new Bolar theory of an American astronomer, to which he adds a confirmatory auggestion of bis own aa to the source of the olar spots. The theory itaelf is dne to 'rof. Toung, of Dartuiouth College, Hanover, United States, and acoounts for cerain phenomena visible in the solar atmosphere on the hypothesis that the sun s really a bubble, whose interior consista of gases - hydrogen and others chiefly mealíio - at temperatures so high as to be íardly conceivable by us, which gases are condeneed into metallic clouds and molen rain in the regions farthest from the central heat, while the explosions which end forth what are known as the " red )rominencea" are in that case due to the ushing of the compressed gases of the center through these metallic rains and anks of metallic cloud. The curious obervation which most powerfully suggested this theory of Dr. Young's is thus rocorded by the writer in the new Cornhill. " He was observing the edge of the aun n October, 1871, having his telescope armed with a powerful spectroscope) diected upon a long, low-lying band of soar olouds. We aay low-lying, but in oint of fact, the upper side of the cloudayer was fully 50,000 miles above the 8un's eurface, the lower side being not less han 20,000 miles above that surface. Che cloud-layer was about 400,000 miles n length. Prof. Young waa called away rom bis teleacope work for half an hour at a somewhat interesting epoch, for he ïad noticed that a bright rounded cloud was rapidly forming beneath the large and quieter cloud-layer. In less than half an hour he returned, however, and ;hen to his amazement he found that the ;reat cloud had been literally acattered nto fragmenta by an explosión from beneath. The 8mall rounded cloud had changed in shape, as if the explosión had ;aken place through it, and all that remained of the large cloud was a stream of ascending fragments, averaging about 3,000 miles in length and about 300 in breadth. Prof. Young watched the ascent of these fragments (eaoh of which, oe it noted, had a surface largely exceedmg that of the British Isles) and he found that before vanishing (as by oooling) they reached a height of about 210,000 miles. Moreover, he timed their ascent, and from bis time-measurement8 the present writer was able to demónstrate the surprising fact that the outrushing matter by which the great cloud had been rent to shreda must have crossed the sun's surface at a rate of at least 500 miles per second !"