160 KANT'S UNIVERSAL NATURAL HISTORY. 



consequences. For, first, if the atmosphere of the sun 

 and its weight is considered in relation to the mass of 

 the sun : in what state of compression will not this air 

 be, and how capable will it not thereby become of 

 maintaining the most violent degrees of fire by its 

 elasticity? In all probability there rise up in this atmo- 

 sphere clouds of smok from the materials that are 

 consumed by the flame, and which, as cannot be doubted, 

 have in them a mixture of coarse and lighter particles; 

 and after they have ascended to an elevation which 

 contains what is relatively to them a cooler atmosphere, 

 they are then precipitated in heavy showers of pitch and 

 sulphur, and thus bring new nourishment to the flame. 

 Nor is this atmosphere, from the same causes as operate 

 on our earth, kept free from the motions of winds, which, 

 however, must in all probability far surpass in violence 

 all that our imagination can even conceive. When any 

 region on the surface of the sun, either by the suffocating 

 violence of the bursting vapours, or the scanty supply of 

 combustible material, is less active and lags behind, as 

 it were, at the outburst of the flame, then the atmosphere 

 that is above it becomes somewhat cooled, and contracting 

 it gives place to the air in its neighbourhood, which 

 then presses into the space it occupied with a force 

 proportional to the excess of its elasticity, and it will 

 thereby kindle up the extinguished flame. 



Nevertheless, all flame always consumes much air; and 

 there is no doubt that the elastic force of the fluid 

 atmosphere which surrounds the sun must thus undergo 

 no small diminution in time. If we apply here on the 

 great scale the result which Mr. Hales has verified by 

 careful investigations regarding the action of flame in our 



