1865.] Cosmical and Geological Philosophy. 123 



the Sun, torrents more or less permanent, consisting either of bubbles or of 

 an unbroken stream of aeriform matter, are also formed by the operation of 

 the controlling mechanical cause to which, acting in the second place, the 

 entire system of phenomena presented by the spots is here attributed. 

 These torrents are continuously maintained from near the surface of origin 

 on the glowing sphere within to that of the photosphere without, whether 

 in single or in groups of separate but probably often confluent streams, 

 elevating the photosphere into faculae by the force of expansion with which 

 they burst upon it, and, being transparent, permitting the interior envelopes 

 and the incandescent nucleus to be seen through them. 



The system of currents necessarily produced by the heat-action in the 

 inferior liquid mediums and photosphere, combined with those due to the 

 sun's rotation, carry along with them the torrents and their bursting sum- 

 mits in the drifting motion observed by Mr. Carrington to affect the spots. 

 The phenomena of the spots generally, especially as described by that astro- 

 nomer, are in entire conformity with this interpretation of them. Their 

 control by the Sun's rotation was first perceived and announced by Sir John 

 Herschel, in connexion, however, with his cyclonic theory of their nature. 

 The observed spherical form of the Sun is considered to be preserved by 

 the perpetual escape from its equatorial regions, by means of the ebullition 

 of the spots, of matter which in consequence of the Sun's rotation would 

 otherwise accumulate upon them and so cause a deviation from the sphe- 

 rical form. Being thus separated, it receives^from the Sun's rotary motion 

 at the equator the form of the Zodiacal Light, which it thus constitutes, 

 while the perpetual supply of fresh matter from the solar surface causes it 

 to be, not a ring, but a lenticular mass, geometrically though not physi- 

 cally continuous with the originating central body, which it thus enve- 

 lopes, no interval apparently being left between them. 

 ' The next objects of discussion are the " Origin of Meteorites, Series 

 of Physical Processes of which they are the result, and their Functions in 

 Nature" 



The vapours of metallic and other elementary matter evolved or dis- 

 charged in the ebullition of the photosphere above considered, partly remain 

 upon the Sun, constituting its atmospheres*, but are principally aggregated 

 into masses of immense magnitude (terrestrially speaking) of the nature of 

 bubbles, which, having undergone a certain amount of condensation, first 

 become visible as those particles the collective brightness of which reveals 

 to us the existence of the zodiacal light, being, in fact, the matter separated 

 from the Sun's equator as explained above. These particles, termed by the 

 author meteoritic masses, are projected from the- zodiacal light by the force 

 to which its variable extension is owing, and are further gradually con- 

 densed during their passage through the interplanetary spaces into the 

 liquid and solid state, constituting eventually the nuclei of Meteors, which 

 are finally precipitated upon the Earth (and doubtless upon the other 

 planets) in the form of METEORITES. 



* Companion to the Almanac for 1864, p. 46 ; for 1865, p. 53. 

 VOL. XIV. L 



