THE SUN 239 



jections to that assumption. It is a fact known and com- 

 mented on by every solar observer, that at least the 

 larger sun-spots preserve their identity, and even their 

 outline, for weeks and sometimes months on end, and it 

 is authentically recorded that the great spot of 1840-1841 

 lasted as much as eighteen months. How Doctor Abbot 

 and other Doubting Thomases, beholding these wounds 

 in the sun's side, can perversely persist in declaring him 

 not matter, but matter's ghost, is beyond my fathoming. 



Many scientists probably the majority of them 

 appear to believe in a fourth state of matter, as some 

 mathematicians do in a fourth dimension. The reason 

 for this hypothesis lies in their endeavor to specify an 

 effect for the enormous pressures brought to bear on the 

 central parts of such immense bodies as the earth, Jupi- 

 ter and the sun. Some have gone so far as to invent a 

 description of this supposititious state just as they 

 dogmatize about the nature of the ether and picture it 

 as of a "waxy" consistency. A little reflection ought to 

 convince these philosophers, not only of the unlikelihood 

 of such an anomalous state of matter existing, but also 

 of its undesirability from the standpoint of theory. The 

 mystery here demanding solution is the sun's lack of 

 density, and this mystery is only rendered altogether im- 

 penetrable by imagining his figure packed solidly to the 

 core. 



Mature deliberation on the problem of the solar 

 density can lead to but one satisfying conclusion, a con- 

 clusion, too, that leads us by a well-blazed path to the 

 clearing-house of practically all the present enigmas of 

 the sun and stars. 



To begin with, physicists have demonstrated by 

 practical experiments that there is what they call a 

 critical point in gases; signifying that, given a certain 

 temperature (varying, of course, with the substance), no 

 application of pressure, however great, that may be 

 brought to bear will avail to reduce the gas to the form of 

 a solid or liquid. Now, if this generalization is valid, 

 then it necessarily follows that the heart of the sun is 

 gaseous, since there the temperatures prevailing are 



