DR. SIEMENS'S THEORY, 3.F 



primarily the same, but, as will presently be seen, our machin- 

 ery for feeding the solar furnace is essentially different. 



Certain desiccated pedants have sneered at my title, " The 

 Fuel of the Sun," as " sensational," and have refused to read 

 the book on this account ; but Dr. Sterry Hunt has provided 

 me with ample revenge. lie has disentombed an interesting 

 paper by Sir Isaac Newton, dated 1675, in which the same 

 sensationalism is perpetrated with very small modification, Sip 

 Isaac Newton's title being " Solary Fuel." Besides this, his 

 speculations are curiously similar to my own, his fundamental 

 idea being evidently the same, but the chemistry of his time 

 was too vague and obscure to render its development possible. 

 This paper was neglected and set aside, was not printed in 

 the Transactions of the Royal Society, and remained generally 

 unknown till a few months ago, when the energetic American 

 philosopher brought it forth, and discussed its remarkable 

 anticipations. 



Dr. Siemens supposes that the rotation of the sun effects a 

 sort of "fan action," by throwing off heated atmospheric 

 matter from his equatorial regions, which atmospheric matter 

 is afterward reclaimed and passed over to the polar regions of 

 the sun. This interchange he describes as effected by the 

 differences of pressure on the fluid envelope of the sun ; the 

 portion over the polar regions being held down by the whole 

 force of solar gravitation, while the equatorial atmosphere is 

 subject to this pressure, or attraction, minus the centrifugal 

 impulse due to solar rotation. He maintains that this "centrif- 

 ugal action, howevqr small in amount as compared with the 

 enormous attraction of the sun, would destroy the balance, and 

 determine a motion toward the sun as regards the mass oppo- 

 site the polar surface, and into space as regards the equatorial 

 mass." He adds that " the equatorial current so produced, 

 owing to its mighty proportions, would flow outward into space, 

 to a practically unlimited distance." 



I will not here discuss the dynamics of this hypothesis ; 

 whether the reclaiming action of the superior polar attraction 

 would occur at the vast distances from the sun supposed by 

 Dr. Siemens, or much nearer home, and produce an effect like 

 the recurving of the flame of his own regenerative gas-burner ; 

 or, whether he is right in comparing the centrifugal force at 

 the solar equator with that of the earth, by simply measuring 

 the relative velocity of translation irrespective of angular ve- 

 locity. I will merely suggest that in discussing these, it is 



