A GREAT SOLAR OUTBURST. 199 



Saturn really are in a state of intense heat. If they 

 ever are to be the abode of life, they will probably 

 not be ready to subserve that purpose for hundreds of 

 millions of years. 



Popular Science Review. 



A GREAT SOLAR OUTBURST. 



ON Sept. 7, 1869, at noon, Professor Young had been 

 examining with the telespectroscope an enormous hydro- 

 gen cloud on the eastern limb of the sun. * It had re- 

 mained,' he says, 'with very little change since the pre- 

 ceding noon, a long, low, quiet-looking cloud, not very 

 dense or brilliant, nor in any way remarkable except for 

 its size. It was made up mostly of filaments nearly 

 horizontal, and floated above the chromatosphere with 

 its lower surface at a height of some 15,000 miles, but 

 was connected with it, as is usually the case, by three 

 or four vertical columns brighter and more active than 

 the rest. In length it measured 3' 45", and in eleva- 

 tion about 2" to its upper surface ' (that is, it was 

 100,000 miles long by 54,000 miles high). At half- 

 past twelve Professor Young was called away for a few 

 minutes. At that time, * there was no indication of 

 what was about to happen, except that one of the con- 

 necting stems at the southern extremity of the cloud 

 had grown considerably brighter, and was curiously 

 bent to one side ; and near the base of another at the 



