232 On the Sun and Fixed Stars. 
we would make them mere ufelefs brilliant points, may them- 
felves be lucid planets, perhaps unattended by fatellites. 
POSTSCREPT. 
The following obfervations, which were made with an im- 
proved apparatus, and under the moft favourable circum- 
ftances, fhould be added to thofe which have been given. 
They are decifive with regard to one of the conditions of the 
jucid matter of the fun. 
Nov. 26, 1794. Eight fpots in the fun, and feveral fub- 
divifions of them, are all equally depreffed, 
The fun is mottled every where. 
The mottled appearance of the fun is owing to an inequa- 
lity in the level of the furface. 
The fun is equally mottled at its poles and at its equator ; 
but the mottled appearances may be feen better about the 
middle of the dife than towards the circumference, on ac- 
count of the fun’s fpherical form. 
The unevennefs arifing from the elevation and deprefiion 
of the mottled appearance on the furface of the fun, feems in 
many places to amount to as much, or to nearly as much, as 
the depreffion of the penumbre of the fpots below the upper 
part of the. fhining fubftance, without including facule, 
which are protuberant. 
The lucid fubftance of the fun is neither a liquid nor an 
elaftic fluid; as is evident, from its not inftantly filling up the 
cavities of the fpots, and of the unevennefs of the mottled 
‘parts. It exifts, therefore, in the manner of lucid clouds 
fwimming in the tranfparent ‘atmofphere of the fun; or ra- 
ther, of luminous decompofitions taking place within that 
atmofphere. 
IV. ExiraS 
