33 



Mr. W. C. Wallis showed some polished boulders from the 

 boulder clay on the Durham coast, upon which appeared scratches 

 caused by glacial action ; and also a number of small bones 

 (unsorted) found in the glacial drift in the neighbourhood of 

 Sunderland. 



Other minor specimens were exhibited by diflFerent Members. 



January 12th. 1877. 



OEDINARY MEETING.— ME. PANKHURST ON SOLAR 

 PHYSICS, WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY MEANS OF 

 THE LIME LIGHT. 



" Are not," said Newton in his eleventh Query, " the sun and 

 fixed stars great earths vehemently hot, whose heat is conserved 

 by the greatness of the bodies, and the mutual action and reaction 

 between them and the light which they emit ; and whose parts 

 are kept from fuming away, not only by their fixity, but also by 

 the vast weight and density of the atmospheres incumbent upon 

 them, and very strongly compressing them and condensing the 

 vapours and exhalations which arise from them?" What answer 

 or answers does science enable us to give to this query at this 

 time — nearly 200 years after Newton wrote it, and what are the 

 principal facts and observations on which our knowledge of the 

 sun is based 1 The task Avhich I have imposed on myself to-night 

 is to give you a short resumd ot the means by which we have at- 

 tained to an acquaintance with the nature of the sun's constitution 

 which Newton's imagination, great as it was, can scarcely have pre- 

 figured. I need, perhaps, scarcely remark that the great ruler of 

 our planetary system, the fountain head of its life and light, is a 

 huge globe, nearly ninety-two millions of miles from us, eight 

 hundred and fifty thousand miles in diameter, and that its 

 volume is one million two-hundred thousand times that of our 

 globe. It outweighs, too, 750 times the planets which circle 

 round it, and its volume with regard to them is represented to 

 3'ou by the diagram on the screen. 



