54 FROM NEBULA TO NEBULA 



are demonstrably so high as to guarantee the presence 

 there of an immense accumulation of superheated gases 

 defying condensation by the superincumbent pressures, 

 great though these undoubtedly are. To complete my 

 conception, then, we have only to suppose that when a 

 given star attains excessive size, it generates so great 

 a quantity of gas within itself that the equilibrium be- 

 tween the forces of compression and expansion is de- 

 stroyed and the star disrupts into a "nova", with its 

 necessary accompaniment of a nebula. It is not neces- 

 sary, nor shall I attempt, to define dogmatically the 

 severity of such explosions, leaving the phenomena to 

 speak for themselves. This much, however, I take as 

 certain, that their dispersive effects commensurate with 

 Nature's needs for self-preservation against the con- 

 stricting menace of concentration. 



THE SUN 



My conception of the sun is that of an immense cen- 

 tral chamber of superheated gases supporting, and in 

 turn imprisoned by, a huge shell of molten matter. In 

 its general structure it may be likened to a cocoanut, or 

 better still to a cantaloupe, except that the solar shell is 

 relatively much thinner, being in fact only about one 

 twentieth of the radius. 



That the sun is very eruptive, not merely superfi- 

 cially, but profoundly, is sufficiently attested by the 

 phenomena called " prominences ", some of which have 

 been observed to rise with initial velocities of as much 

 as 100 miles a second and to reach heights upward of 

 200,000 miles. From this we may infer two things, (1) 

 the deep-seatedness of the explosions that give these 

 prominences birth, and (2) that in the course of time 

 the entire substance of the sun has been carried out above 

 his surface, perhaps repeatedly, and thence rained down 

 upon his photosphere. Let us therefore trace the course 

 of the various materials from the surface of the photos- 

 phere as the starting point. 



