122 Generating Economic Cycles 



one in proceeding upon the hypothesis that Venus is a 

 magnetic field, but it is well to add to them such direct 

 observations as I have been able to find. 



The first observation relates to the significance of a 

 disturbance in the solar corona produced by the prox- 

 imity of Venus. 



As long ago as 1885 Sir William Huggins in his 

 classical address before the Royal Society, "On the 

 Corona of the Sun," defended the view that the corona 

 is electrical in origin. A few years earlier, in 1881, 

 Goldstein advanced the idea of the Sun's emitting 

 cathode rays and even suggested that, perhaps, the 

 key to the Sun's influence upon the electrical and 

 magnetic phenomena of the Earth might be found in 

 these negatively charged solar rays. The two concep- 

 tions were combined in an account of the solar corona 

 by Deslandres. According to his theory the character- 

 istic features of the solar corona are explained by as- 

 suming that the cosmical dust particles of the corona 

 are each enveloped in a gaseous atmosphere rendered 

 luminous by the phosphoresence produced by the 

 cathode rays discharged from the Sun. 



If now there is evidence- that Venus produces a 

 perturbation of the electrified solar corona, then the 

 hypothesis which attributes to the planet a magnetic or 

 electrical field becomes more worthy of being enter- 

 tained. Sir William Huggins in the address to which 

 reference has been made refers to the coronal per- 

 turbation by Venus : 



''Hitherto in our discussion of the forces which 

 may be active in the corona we have taken account 



