THE FUEL OF THE SUN. 11 



is exerted varies directly with the square of the distance, 

 the total atmosphere above every imaginable starting-dis- 

 tance would thus be ever the same. That this assumption, 

 so utterly at variance with the known laws of atmos- 

 pheric distribution, should have remained unchallenged for 

 half a century, and that the conclusions based upon it 

 should be accepted by the whole scientific world, and re- 

 peated in standard treatises, such as those of the " Encyclo- 

 pedia Britannica," etc., etc., is, I think, one of the most 

 remarkable curiosities presented by the history of science. 

 If it were merely a little cobweb in some obscure corner of 

 philosophy, there would be nothing surprising in its escape 

 from the besom of scientific criticism; but this is so far 

 from being the case, that it has hung, since 1822, like a 

 dark veil obscuring another, a wider, and more interesting 

 view of the universe which the idea of an universal atmos- 

 phere opens out. But I must now proceed to the next 

 stage of the argument. 



Starting from the conclusion reached in the previous 

 chapters, that the atmosphere of our earth is but a portion 

 of an universal elastic medium which it> has attached to 

 itself by its gravitation, and that all the other orbs of space 

 must, in like manner, have obtained their proportion, I 

 take the earth's mass, and its known quantity of atmos- 

 pheric envelope as units, and calculating by the simple 

 rule I have laid down in opposition to Wollaston's, I find 

 that the total weight of the sun's atmosphere should be at 

 least 117,681,623 times that of the earth's, and the pres- 

 sure at its base equal, at least, to 15,233 atmospheres. 

 What must be the results of such an atmospheric accumu- 

 lation? 



The experiment of compressing air in the condensing 

 syringe, and thereby lighting a piece of German tinder, is 

 familiar to all who have studied even the rudiments of phys- 

 ical science. Taking the formulae of Leslie and Dalton, 

 and applying them to the solar pressure of 15,233 ;itmos- 

 phercs, we arrive according to Leslie, at the inconceivable 

 temperature of 380,832 C., or 685,529 F., as that due to 

 this amount of compression, or, according to Dalton, at 

 761,665 F. What will be the effects of such a degree of 



