SCIENTIFIC WRITINGS. 409 



then occur with formation of flame and enhanced tem- 

 perature at the whole solar surface, whilst a flinging 

 off, such as my brother assumes, can only be possible 

 in the equatorial zone in a very limited degree. A 

 general descent of the burnt mass cooled by radiation 

 must follow the general ascent of the uppermost layers 

 of the sun, in consequence of their combustion and 

 heating beyond the diabatic temperature corresponding 

 to their expansion. This takes place in innumerable 

 descending streams, which give to the solar surface 

 its scaly appearance, or in the mean solar latitudes 

 also assumes the form of colossal descending vortices, 

 which are darker than the rest of the solar surface, 

 since the descending products of combustion indeed 

 nearly recover, by their compression, the temperature, 

 which they possessed at the beginning of the ascent, 

 but are thereby also dissociated and correspondingly 

 cooled. For this reason and on account of the absence 

 of flame these descending vortices appear as dark sun- 

 spots. Certainly this combustion -theory is still op- 

 posed by the circumstance that the existence of 

 oxygen in the sun has hitherto been spectroscopically 

 proved only at the bottom of the sun-spot funnel - - but 

 the greatest argument for it is, that the sun possesses 

 a composition essentially the same as the earth, that 

 therefore oxygen cannot be wanting. 



I have tried to support this solar theory, which 

 admits the origin and preservation of an electrical solar 

 potential, by the proof that the latter would explain 

 many hitherto unexplained terrestrial phenomena. With 



