CHAP. II. 



Of the Heavenly Bodies, in particular. 



1. Of the Sun. 8. -Saturn. 



2. Mercury. 9. Comets. 



3. Venus. 30. The fixed Stars. 



4. The Earth. 11. Reflections. 



5. The Moon 12. Doubts concerning- the mo- 



6. Of Mars. dern Astronomy. 



7. Jupiter. 



T, 



HE very same effects which we observe daily in 

 fire, \ve observe also in- the sun. It shines, it warms, it 

 burns. Viewed with a telescope it appears like an ocean 

 of fire or melted metal. Hence many suppose, that the 

 spots appearing thereon and changing continually, are as 

 it were the dross and scum of that metal, which it 

 throws out from time to time. But it is more probable, 

 some of those spots are clouds, formed out of the solar 

 exhalations. And if exhalations rise out ofJiis body, 

 and are suspended at. a certain height from it, then the 

 sun must be encompassed with a fluid, analogous to our 

 atmosphere. Some. of these .spots dissolve and dis- 

 appear, in tl^e very middle of the sun's disk : that is, the 

 exhalations sometimes rise, sometimes fall back to the 

 sun. 



But there is another kind of spots which regularly re- 

 volve once in seven and twenty days. Or, to speak 

 more properly, the sun himself revolves nearly in 

 that time,, round his ovvu axis, together with his at- 

 mosphere. 



