658 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



it its height, the larger or smaller mass of water, the nature of 

 the bed and the form of the opening through which the water 

 escapes, the shape of the rocks over which it flows or against 

 which it rebounds. Each stream of water has its own life. Pa- 

 gans have personified rivers by surrounding their sources and 

 their shores with divinities. To us, also, the torrent and its cas- 

 cades are the soul of the valley. 



And yet there is another and a foreign force that plays havoc 

 with all our calculations the wind. " Then, in the air, there are 

 endless assaults between the coquettish sylph and the rogue who 

 pursues her. Sometimes he seizes her of a sudden and carries her 

 off with a puff to drop her as abruptly ; sometimes he entices her 

 and plays a thousand tricks upon her ; then he grows bolder, em- 

 braces her, and makes her dance upon herself with a giddy veloci- 

 ty ; and often he takes her so well on the wing that, like a flight 

 of little floating clouds, she whitens in the distance in space. But 

 soon tne brook is formed again ; it undulates and balances itself 

 like a waving scarf, while all around a thousand limpid threads 

 glide along the rock, and make a joyous court of falls in minia- 

 ture to the green cascade." Translated for The Popular Science 

 Monthly from the Revue Scientifique. 



-- 



CAN WE ALWAYS COUNT UPON THE SUN? 



By GAREETT P. SEEVISS. 



THE study of the origin and development of species may be 

 pursued with reference to the starry hosts, for there are dif- 

 ferent species of suns as well as of animals. The wide-ranging eye 

 of the astronomer perceives in the dazzling orb whose rising turns 

 night into day and whose beams vivify the face of the earth, only 

 a minor representative of a great order of radiating bodies peo- 

 pling the profundities of space. But, besides placing the sun in 

 the comparatively humble rank to which he belongs by virtue of 

 his inferiority in magnitude to many of his brilliant comrades, we 

 are able to distinguish his particular breed, so to speak. He is not 

 of the same kidney with such a sun as the dazzling Sirius, while 

 the diamond radiance of Rigel and the sparkling blue beams of 

 Vega proclaim that those stars are in some important respects dif- 

 ferent and more splendid organisms than our sun. 



While there can be no question that suns have a life-history, a 

 beginning and an end marking the termini of a regular process of 

 development, and that consequently the stars that we see differ in 

 age, still it is not yet possible to say with absolute certainty at just 

 what point in the scale of solar development our sun, or any other 



