THE SUN 247 



rain and ocean, of which were one link unknown it would 

 be infinitely more difficult to divine. In the solar heat- 

 generating cycle, the descending jets, or geysers, answer 

 to our rain, perpetually flooding the whole of the sun's 

 surface, and falling, with the regular continuity of the 

 Amazon, toward his interior, there to suffer "evapora- 

 tion" by his self-pressure instead of by his rays and 

 thence to rise again in fountains of life-giving warmth. 



It is plain to be seen that the shorter the distance 

 that a substance must sink before reaching its critical 

 level, the shorter the cycle of its action and consequently 

 the more frequent its periodical eruptions. On the other 

 hand, for that very reason these superficial eruptions 

 are proportionately mild. It is from the pinnacles of 

 these jets ever freshly new, incandescent, and unen- 

 crusted that we derive our extraordinary supply of light 

 and heat. In short, they pump us heat and light, as it 

 were; which accounts for two things; first, for the 

 puzzling intensity of the solar radiations, and, secondly, 

 for the keeping measurably cool, by their "exhaust", 

 the magma from which they issue. They are double- 

 carriers, as it were, conveying their cargoes of heat out 

 into the cold sky, exchanging there their cargoes of heat 

 for cargoes of "cold", and bearing these latter back for 

 the sun to expend his excess energy upon. 



The so-called "rice grains" of the sun are nothing 

 more or less than the geyser pinnacles above mentioned. 

 They are the ephemeral ebullitions in the magma, appear- 

 ing and disappearing in endless repetition and profusion. 

 Of these Professor H. H. Turner in his A Voyage in 

 Space (p. 214) says : 



By a tragic accident he [M. Hansky, a Russian astronomer] 

 was drowned, and no one else has paid the same attention to 

 photographing these rice grains on the sun; but he obtained a 

 sufficient series of pictures to show at what a great rate they 

 are moving about. Even in a few seconds the pattern becomes 

 quite differently arranged, as you can see by comparing one of 

 M. Hansky's pictures with another. They must be moving at 

 great speed, some of them perhaps at 100 miles a second * * * 

 The whole surface of the sun is in a state of constant turmoil. 



