igi6. No. I. ARE THE SOLAR CORPUSCLE RAYS NEGATIVE OR POSITIVE? 9 



menon which a long time ago was very much more developed. I think 

 that the disc of corpuscle rays round the sun formerly extended with con- 

 siderable density out to the orbit of Neptun or further. 



Today we can only see the ray-disc just outside the earth's orbit 

 as ascertained by observations of zodiacal light. 



I had the idea of examining whether such an immense disc of radiant 

 matter, positively and negatively charged ions permanently ejected from 

 the sun, in a similar way to that in which the electrons are assumed to be 

 emanated, could gather together and form different material rings of dis- 

 crete particles round the sun. In '> Aurora Polaris« pp. 677 to 721 this 

 problem is fully discussed ^ 



At present I will put a new important question under discussion con- 

 cerning this almost permanent ra^'-disc round the sun, whose variations 

 in intensity have now been registered photographically. 



Is it possible that the great climatic changes on the earth in the 

 tertiary period can be due to the work of the iieivly discovered corpuscular 

 sunbeams ? 



In the early tertiary period before the »Great Ice Age« figs, palms 

 and magnolias seem to have been characteristic of as high latitudes as 

 Greenland and Spitzbergen, which are now occupied by ice stretching 

 nearly to the coast all the year round -. 



The warm climate of the above regions becomes more remarkable in 

 view of the fact that the contemporaneous vegetation of Japan, Kamtchatka 

 and other places in North East Asia points to a considerably cooler tem- 

 perature than that which exists toda}-. 



»As Greenland and Japan lie on opposite sides of the pole the hypo- 

 thesis was put forward that the pole has shifted since that period. There 

 are many difficulties, however, in accepting such a hypothesis, and the 

 explanation must be sought for in another direction«. 



There are at once two questions to be dealt with when we start our 

 discussion: i) In which regions of the earth may the solar corpuscle rays 

 enter our atmosphere, and under what conditions will the rays penetrate 

 deeply enough to be absorbed? 2. How much energy can the ray- 

 precipitation be assumed to represent? 



On both these questions we can give satisfactory replies. 



' See also: „Sur l'origine des planètes et de leurs satellites". Compt. Rend. t. 155, 

 p. 89a, Paris 1912, and ,De l'origine des mondes", Archives des Sciences, Genève 

 June 1913. 



'- See AixswoRTH Davis, Science in Modem Life. Vol. II. London 1909 Geology by 

 O. T. Jones from which work I have taken the liberty of quoting a great deal. 



