THE SUN 287 



sun". A comparison of the photographs he gives (The 

 Sun, pp. 132, 134) will show that at sun-spot maximum 

 the corona is very much more dense than at minimum, 

 confirming the justice of my assertion that it is the 

 emanations from the spots that renew the veil. Hereto- 

 fore the Newtonians have shrunk from admitting this 

 very natural conclusion, realizing as they did the impos- 

 sibility of reconciling a materially dense corona with the 

 non-retardation of the comets that have been seen to 

 traverse it. 



It has been observed, time and again, that solar erup- 

 tions on a grand scale are usually accompanied by mag- 

 netic disturbances on the earth, by tidal waves, by earth- 

 quakes, or by all of them together, and the causal connec- 

 tion has until now been one of complete mystery. It has, 

 indeed, been suggested that the sun at such crises is ex- 

 ceptionally charged with electricity and that this somhow 

 finds its way across the void ; but this idea is recognized 

 to be far-fetched even by its proponents. The true ex- 

 planation is this : 



Some sun-spots have been observed as much as five v 

 times as wide as the earth, and there have furthermore 

 been witnessed from time to time solar eruptions upward 

 of 200,000 miles in height, with initial velocities exceed- 

 ing 100 miles a second. Such convulsions as these nec- 

 essarily portend a substantial displacement of the center 

 of mass of the sun and ipso facto of the entire solar 

 system, and cause perturbations to every individual 

 planet, satellite and comet within the latter, including, 

 of course, our earth. This is bound to be the case, 

 whether we view the planetary system in the conven- 

 tional light of Newtonian astronomy or in the new aspect 

 of an equilibrating unit. To make use of a homely 

 simile, the sun at such times is like a great spider in the 

 act of shaking his gravitational web. Now, (to change 

 the figure) although we, the passengers, on this great 

 ship may not be able to sense these perturbations direct- 

 ly, yet the earth herself does, and so while the solar con- 

 vulsion lasts, she gently wavers in her orbit and sways 



