346 SPECIAL RESULTS IN THE TJRANOLOGICA.L 



Near the part of the Sun's margin where the largest over- 

 hanging red gibbosity appeared, a group of solar spots was 

 visible, situated, however, a few minutes distant from the 

 margin. On the opposite side, not far from the faint eastern- 

 most marginal projection, there was also a solar spot near 

 the Sun's limb. The actual distances, however, implied by 

 the few minutes of space on the Sun's disk here spoken of, 

 would oppose our assuming that the funnel-shaped openings 

 or depressions indicated by the spots furnished the matter 

 for these red gaseous exhalations ; but since the entire sur- 

 face of the Sun, when viewed with strong magnifying powers, 

 shows visible punctures or pores, there is the greatest pro- 

 bability in favour of the opinion, that the same exhalations 

 of vapour or gas which, in ascending from the body of the 

 Sun, produce the funnel-shaped openings seen by us as solar 

 spots ( 549 ), issue forth either through these openings or 

 through the pores, and being illuminated by the photo- 

 sphere, present to our view variously -shaped roseate clouds 

 or columns of vapour in the third or outermost solar 

 envelope, 



Mercury, 



If we remember how much, from the earliest times, the 

 Egyptians ( 55 ) were occupied with the planet Mercury 

 (Set Horus), and the Indians with their Budha ( 551 ), 

 how, under the clear sky of Western Arabia, the star- 

 worship of the tribe of the Asedites ( 552 ) was directed exclu- 

 sively to Mercury, and that Ptolemy, in the 9th book of 

 the Almagest, was even able to avail himself of fourteen 

 observations of that planet, extending back to 261 years 

 before our era, and belonging in part to the Chaldeans 



