284 FROM NEBULA TO NEBULA 



incumbent layers falling toward his center, the space 

 allowing for such fall being vacated by the said gases, 

 which rise to the surface upon the wings of their own 

 explosive force, there render up their heat, condense, and 

 regain their original energy of position as part of the 

 great solar press an unending cycle of mechanical com- 

 bustion and gravitational resynthesis. 



This cyclical process of converting gravity into heat 

 and heat into gravity again, finds a remarkable parallel 

 in the terrestrial transformation of water into vapor, 

 rain and ocean, of which were one link unknown it would 

 be infinitely more difficult to divine. In the solar heat- 

 generating cycle, the descending jets, or geysers, answer 

 to our rain, perpetually flooding the whole of the sun's 

 surface, and falling, with the regular continuity of the 

 Amazon, toward his interior, there to suffer "evapora- 

 tion" by his self -pressure instead of by his rays and 

 thence to rise again in fountains of life-giving warmth. 



It is plain to be seen that the shorter the distance 

 that a substance must sink before reaching its critical 

 level, the shorter the cycle of its action and consequently 

 the more frequent its periodical eruptions. On the other 

 hand, for that very reason these superficial eruptions 

 are proportionately mild. It is from the pinnacles of 

 these jets ever freshly new, incandescent, and unen- 

 crusted that we derive our extraordinary supply of light 

 and heat. In short, they pump us heat and light, as it 

 were; which accounts for two things; first, for the 

 puzzling intensity of the solar radiations, and, secondly, 

 for the keeping measurably cool, by their "exhaust", 

 the magma from which they issue. They are double- 

 carriers, as it were, conveying their cargoes of heat out 

 into the cold sky, exchanging there their cargoes of heat 

 for cargoes of "cold", and bearing these latter back for 

 the sun to expend his excess energy upon. 



The so-called "rice grains" of the sun are nothing 

 more or less than the geyser pinnacles above mentioned. 

 They are the ephemeral ebullitions in the magma, appear- 

 ing and disappearing in endless repetition and profusion. 



