VOL. XXVII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 623 



In this table, the faculae are noted with an asterisk ; and the duration of every 

 appearance of the same spots or faculae, or the time they disappeared, with a 

 line below the day : and where any thing remarkable occurred, that could be 

 briefly noted, I have taken notice of it in the table. But I shall besides select 

 and notice some others of the more remarkable circumstances. 



And first, as to the figure of the spots : they are well known to change fre- 

 quently ; and therefore I think it of little use to their figures every time I ob- 

 served them. But it is somewhat remarkable, that the spots generally appear 

 longish near the extreme parts of the disk : for if they are ever so round near 

 the middle of the disk, they become gradually longer towards the extremes, 

 till, at going off they seem to be almost a straight line, nearly parallel to the sun's 

 limb. Which is a manifest argument, that the sun is a globe, and that these 

 spots are on, or very near its surface. 



Another thing remarkable is, the mutability of the shape of the spots. I 

 have more than once manifestly perceived them to change in the very time I 

 have been looking on them. Thus, Nov. IQ, 1703, I saw three or more spots 

 not far from the middle disk ; and while I was looking on them, they seemed 

 to vary, both as to their shape and strength ; sometimes seeming longer, 

 sometimes shorter ; sometimes dense, sometimes languid. And this they 

 seemed to do, not only through my 1 6-foot tube, but also when I received the 

 sun's image through a 6- foot telescope, on a white paper, in a darkened room. 

 The weather hindered me from seeing these mutable spots again, till November 

 the 22nd following ; and then they were become only like a thin smoke, or 

 nebula. So again April 11, 1704, there were several spots, with umbra; about 

 them. These umbrae or nebulae, I could plainly perceive, while I was looking 

 on them, to be sometimes very faint and thin, and sometimes much darker and 

 thicker. These maculae and umbrae I observed suddenly break out in the sun: 

 for, on April 9, the disk was free. But this April 1 1 last mentioned, I per- 

 ceived them advanced near a quarter part on the disk : and consequently they 

 break out in the sun within 48 hours before. On April 13 the spots were 

 become umbrae in the morning ; and at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, there were 

 no remains of either maculae or umbrae. From this short continuance of these 

 spots on the sun, it is more than probable they were in a perpetual flux and 

 change ; and that those mutations perceived in them, whilst looking on them, 

 were not imaginary, but real. 



Also it may be further remarked, (which I have frequently observed, and 

 which as I remember Scheiner observed long ago) that those spots and umbrae 

 which suddenly rise, do as suddenly decay, and are soon extinct. And such 

 spots, I have further observed, do seldom turn to faculae, as they commonly do 



