348 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



have tbe observations of many gardeners in tlie British Isles, who as- 

 sert that the tree " cannot resist severe frost, and consequently does 

 not last many years." " I have frequently seen," writes one, " young- 

 trees, ten, twenty, and even thirty feet high, in the Channel Islands, 

 growing vigorously during a period of three, four, or more years in 

 sheltered situations, but, on the appearance of severe frosts, killed to 

 the ground." On the other hand, various correspondents of the 

 Gardener''s Chronicle write that, during the severe cold of last win- 

 tei*, the Eucalyptus was uninjured in the island of Auglesea, and in 

 the west and south of Ireland. 



THE SUN'S WOEK. 



'"PlHAT the Sun causes a saving of fire and candle Avas known to all 

 -L antiquity from the day fire and candle were first invented ; and 

 that was nearly all they knew about him. Nothing more was known 

 for ages. It was only yesterday that he set ujj the business of sketch- 

 ing portraits and no matter what. He did it so cheaply and so cor- 

 rectly as to rob poor miniature-painters of their bread ; and then came 

 another halt, though only a short one, in our knowledge of what the 

 Sun can do. But now, the more we know about him, the more grounds 

 do we find for surmising that he is a marvelous servant perhaps mas- 

 ter of all work. 



Among the cartes de visite with which the sun presents us, are now 

 to be included his own, in various moods of temper and expression. 

 Thanks to photography and spectral analysis, the solar phenomena 

 are daily fixed on paper and submitted to the inspection of an in- 

 quiring public. They thus escape from the narrow and not very ac- 

 cessible domain of observatories, and enter the grand current of pub- 

 licity. Both in America and in England, numerous specimens of 

 astronomical photography are ofiered for sale. First as to merit 

 stand the admirable photographs of the moon published by Mr. Lewis 

 Rutherfurd; and those of the Sun's disk, which present the spots, the 

 facules, and the brilliant marblings of his surface with as much clear- 

 ness and as striking an eftect as the very best telescope ; and also 

 those of the solar spectrum, whose stripes have been self-registered 

 with a fidelity which leaves no room for cavil. The low price of the 

 " Annuaire of the Bureau des Longitudes " where M. Faye has pub- 

 lished the essay from which this paper has derived its facts does not 

 allow it to give actual photographs; it is obliged to be content with 

 carefully executed engravings from originals supplied by the Observa- 

 tory of Wilna. 



Cosmic meteorology, that is the meteorology of the universe con- 



