324 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



meridian. Four positive copies are made regularly from each nega- 

 tive, one of which it is proposed to retain at Kew, and it is in contem- 

 plation to distribute the others. 



Resume of recent investigations respecting the Sun. Sir W. Arm- 

 strong, in his address as President of the British Association for 1863, 

 thus reviews some of the most interesting of recent discoveries and 

 speculations respecting the sun : 



" The spectrum researches of Bunsen and Kirchoff have enabled us 

 not only to test the materials of which the sun is made, and to prove 

 their identity, in part at least, with those of our planet, but they have 

 corroborated previous conjectures as to the luminous envelope of the 

 sun. J would here also advert to Mr. Nasmyth's remarkable discovery, 

 that the bright surface of the sun is composed of an aggregation of ap- 

 parently solid forms, shaped like willow-leaves or some well-known 

 forms of DiatomacejB, and interlacing one another in every direction. 

 The forms are so regular in size and shape, as to have led to a sugges- 

 tion from one of our profoundest philosophers of their being organisms, 

 possibly even partaking of the nature of life, but at all events closely 

 connected with the neating and vivifying influences of the sun. These 

 .mysterious objects, which, since Mr. Nasmyth discovered them, have 

 been seen by other observers as well, are computed to be each not less 

 than 1000 miles in length and about 100 miles in breadth. The enor- 

 mous chasms in the sun's photosphere, to which we apply the diminu- 

 tive term " spots," exhibit the extremities of these leaf-like bodies 

 pointing inwards, and fringing the sides of the cavern far down into the 

 abyss. Sometimes they form a sort of rope or bridge across the chasm, 

 and appear to adhere to one another by lateral attraction. I can im- 

 agine nothing more deserving of the scrutiny of observers than these 

 extraordinary forms. The sympathy, also, which appears to exist be- 

 tween forces operating in the sun and magnetic forces belonging to 

 the earth, merits a continuance of that close attention which it has al- 

 ready received from the British Association. I may here notice that 

 most remarkable phenomenon which was seen by independent observers 

 at two different places on the 1st of September, 1859. A sudden out- 

 burst of light, far exceeding the brightness of the sun's surface, was 

 seen to take place, and sweep like a drifting cloud over a portion of 

 the solar face. This was attended with magnetic disturbances of 

 unusual intensity and with exhibitions of aurora of extraordinary brill- 

 iancy. The identical instant at which the effusion of light was ob- 

 served was recorded by an abrupt and strongly-marked deflection in 

 the self-registering instruments at Kew. The phenomenon as seen 

 was probably only part of what actually took place, for the magnetic 

 storm in the midst of which it occurred commenced before and con- 

 tinued after the event. If conjecture be allowable* in such a case, we 

 may suppose that this remarkable event had some connection with the 

 means by which the sun's heat is renovated. It is a reasonable sup- 

 position that the sun was at that time in the act of receiving a more 

 than usual accession of new energy ; and the theory which assigns the 

 maintenance of its power to cosmical matter plunging into it with that 

 prodigious velocity which gravitation would impress upon it as it ap- 

 proached to actual contact with the solar orb, would afford an expla- 

 nation of this sudden exhibition of intensified light in harmony with the 



