A VOYAGE TO THE SUN. 53 



for me to attempt to describe all that we had witnessed 

 during this last stage of our voyage to the sun; wonders 

 had surpassed wonders, glories that had seemed in- 

 credible had become lost in yet more amazing glories, 

 each moment had seemed to bring the climax of splen- 

 dour, of fierce energy, of inconceivable uproar, and yet 

 at each moment we seemed as though we should forget 

 the wonders we had witnessed in those which were being 

 newly revealed to us. 



We were now within twenty thousand miles of the 

 sun's surface. All round us were waves of flaming 

 hydrogen into which uprose continually vast masses of 

 glowing vapour resplendent with all the colours of the 

 rainbow, if a rainbow can be conceived as of intensest 

 fire. Some thirty thousand miles from where we were, 

 a mighty prominence towered aloft to a height of at 

 least seventy thousand miles. We had arrived close by 

 the spot zone, and between us and the prominence the 

 surface of the intensely bright photosphere was tossed 

 into what appeared as the immense waves of a white- 

 hot sea. We could perceive that along the whole length 

 of the prominence, even to its very summit, which 

 seemed to be almost vertically above us, a rush of fiery 

 vapour was passing continually upwards with incredible 

 velocity. From time to time masses of matter which 

 resembled molten metal were expelled as if from a vent 

 far beneath the lowest visible part of the fiery column. 

 After each such outburst, the prominence seemed to 

 glow with increased brilliancy, its shape also changing, 

 as though the surrounding atmosphere were agitated by 



