144 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



THE SPOTS ON THE SUE". 



By THE EDITOE. 



SHALL the Eye of the Universe suffer from ophthalmia ? Shall the 

 orb of celestial fire in the incorruptible heavens type of purity 

 and perfection noblest symbol of God be stained and blackened 

 with impurities? Such were the questions indignantly asked when 

 it began to be whispered about that there are spots of darkness on the 

 face of the sun. 



Yet again what was thought impious and impossible proved true : 

 and again it was demonstrated that the cherished opinions of thousands 

 of years were not only erroneous, but were in flat contradiction to the 

 truth. Not only were spots, which it was thought profane even to 

 suspect, shown to be realities, but they have turned out to be the 

 principal means of letting us into a knowledge such knowledge as we 

 have of the solar constitution. 



It is now upward of 250 years since the invention of the spy-glass 

 led to the revelation of the solar spots, which has been variously at- 

 tributed to Fabricius, Galileo, and Scheiner, the Jesuit astronomer. 

 It is said of Scheiner, and it well illustrates the spirit of his age, that 

 he dared not publish his discovery, and at first confided it to only a 

 few of his most intimate pupils. After repeated observations that 

 removed all doubt as to their existence, he consulted the provincial 

 father of his order, who refused to believe in any thing of the kind ; 

 " For," said he, " has not Aristotle said that the sun is all over shin- 

 ing with light ? I have several times," he sagely observed, " read 

 my Aristotle all through from beginning to end, and I can assure 

 you that he mentions not a syllable about it. Go, my son, make your- 

 self easy, and take it for certain that what you suppose to be spots on 

 the sun, are nothing but specks in your eyes or flaws in your glasses." 

 Scheiner obeyed, admitting that his eyes must be in the wrong, and 

 Aristotle in the right, for he lived in an age of credulous faith and 

 blind authority. A doubting pupil of his, however, wrote to Galileo, 

 who replied : " Scheiner's eyes are as good as need be ; I have myself 

 watched those spots for some time past." 



Scheiner at first considered these dark specks to be minute planets 

 travelling round the sun close to his surface, but Galileo more shrewd- 

 ly concluded that they were part of the sun itself, perhaps floating 

 scum or scoria, and he saw their importance in astronomy. For not 

 only do they prove the revolution of the sun on its axis, but tbey 

 afford the only means of ascertaining the time of that revolution, the 

 position of the solar axis and its inclination to the earth's orbit. Gali- 

 leo therefore watched the spots with an interest and assiduity so 

 great that it finally cost him his eyesight. 



