ON THE SUN : S HEAT. 421 



For the theory of the sun it is indifferent which 

 of these varieties of configurations of matter may 

 have been the immediate antecedent of his 

 incandescence, but I can never think of these 

 material antecedents without remembering a 

 question put to me thirty years ago by the late 

 Bishop Ewing, Bishop of Argyll and the Isles : 

 " Do you imagine that piece of matter to have 

 been as it is from the beginning ; to have been 

 created as it is, or to have been as it is through 

 all time till it fell on the earth?" I had told 

 him that I believed the sun to be built up of 

 meteoric stones, but he would not be satisfied till 

 he knew or could imagine what kind of stones. 

 I could not but agree with him in feeling it im- 

 possible to imagine that any one of such 

 meteorites as those now before you has been 

 as it is through all time, or that the materials of 

 the sun were like this for all time before they came 

 together and became hot. Surely this stone has 

 an eventful history, but I shall not tax your 

 patience by trying just now to trace it conjec- 

 turally. I shall only say that we cannot but agree 



