238 FROM NEBULA TO NEBULA 



formly with its neighbor on either side, but each would 

 travel a shade faster than the adjacent inner layer and a 

 little slower than the adjacent outer layer ; producing by 

 this process an enormous amount of friction. It is to 

 this friction that I attribute the ELECTRICAL cmd magnetic 

 qualities of the sun. 



While thus we have the solar interior exposed to 

 view, let me utilize the occasion by pointing out several 

 other peculiarities in the sun's structure. . One of these 

 concerns the distribution of Ms density. Granting that 

 the chemical constitution of the sun, qualitatively and 

 proportionally, is identically the same as the earth's (as 

 we have good grounds for assuming) and bearing in mind 

 that the advantage of self-compressional power lies over- 

 whelmingly in his favor, why is it that his density instead 

 of being decidedly greater than that of our earth is only 

 a quarter of hers? It is all well enough to say that the 

 difference is due to the patent fact that the sun is vastly 

 hotter than our planet, that the application of heat alters 

 the state of substances from solid to liquid and thence 

 from liquid to vapor, or gas, and that in each of these 

 several states the volume of the given substance is 

 greatly altered; but all this is only empirical, and not 

 enough. Though solids and liquids do indeed expand 

 and contract with heat, they do so only within very nar- 

 row limits ; but gases derived from them seem to possess 

 incredible expansive capabilities. Clearly, the distension 

 of the sun cannot be accounted for on the score of ex- 

 panded solids or liquids as such, but must seek its explan- 

 ation solely in the buoyancy of gases. But here we meet 

 with another difficulty ; the sun, though very much lighter, 

 bulk for bulk, than the kernel of the earth, is still 1.4 

 times heavier than water; how, then, could the gases ex- 

 ist as gases in a space less than their oivn liquids would 

 require? Besides, w T ho can guarantee that a ball of gas 

 the size of the sun, or for that matter a gaseous ball of 

 any size, unconfined, will preserve its identity and remain 

 intact and globular? 



Doctor Abbot assumes that the sun is entirely 

 gaseous, but refrains from discussing the manifest ob- 



