80 THE SUN. 



ledge of it. On that day great spots were exhibited ] 

 and two observers, far apart and unknown to each other, 

 were viewing them with powerful telescopes j when sud- 

 denly, at the same moment of time, both saw a strikingly 

 brilliant luminous appearance, like a cloud of light far 

 brighter than the general surface of the sun, break out 

 in the immediate neighbourhood of one of the spots, 

 and sweep across and beside it. It occupied about five 

 minutes in its passage, and in that time travelled over a 

 space on the sun's surface which could not be estimated 

 at less than 35,000 miles. 



(38.) A magnetic storm was in progress at the time. 

 From the 28th of August to the 4th of September many 

 indications showed the earth to have been in a perfect 

 convulsion of electro-magnetism. When one of the 

 observers I have mentioned had registered his observa- 

 tion; he bethought himself of sending to Kew, where 

 there are self-registering magnetic instruments always at 

 work, recording by photography at every instant of the 

 twenty-four hours the positions of three magnetic needles 

 differently arranged. On examining the record for that 

 day, it was found that at that very moment of time (as if 

 the influence had arrived with the light) all three had 

 made a strongly marked jerk from their former positions. 

 By degrees, accounts began to pour in of great Auroras 

 seen on the nights of those days ; not only in these lati- 

 tudes, but at Rome ; in the West Indies ; on the tropics 

 within 1 8 of the equator (where they hardly ever ap- 

 pear), nay, what is still more striking, in South America 

 and in Australia ; where, at Melbourne, on the night of 



