110 THE PRESIDENTS ADDRESS. 
fragility, like some frail moth irresistibly attracted towards the solar 
lamp; and fluttering ever nearer and nearer around the light until it 
is consumed. Yet it is not less true of that grand theatre of action 
where suns and planets move in stately order, than of this little world 
of ours: 
“That not a worm is cloven in vain; 
That not a moth with vain desire 
Is shrivell’d in a fruitless fire.” 
Already it has been suggested by Professor William Thompson, of . 
Glasgow, that such may be the means by which the solar fires are 
replenished, and the central luminary of our system is maintained in 
undiminished brightness, while raying forth light and heat to all its 
planetary train. Such a phenomenon is believed to have been recently 
independently observed by two distinguished English astronomers, 
Mr. Carrington and Mr. Hodgson, who chanced by a happy coinci- 
dence to be simultaneously engaged at their different observatories m 
watching a group of solar spots. Two intensely luminous bodies 
were seen suddenly to burst into view, and to move within a period 
of a few minutes through a space on the solar disc of about 35,000 
miles, during which they attaied their maximum brightness and then 
faded away, without affecting the forms of the group of solar spots 
which lay directly in their path. Lord Wrottesly, while drawing the 
attention of the British Association, at its recent Oxford meeting, to 
this interesting contribution of his own favorite science, failed not to 
note the remarkable coincidence that the simultaneous observations 
at Kew show on the same day, at the very hour and minute of this 
unexpected and curious phenomenon, the occurrence of a marked 
magnetic disturbance. Nor will it, I feel assured, fail to interest you 
when I state that on applying to my colleague Professor Kingston, 
he informs me that the register of the Provincial Magnetic Observa- 
tory records a corresponding magnetic disturbance at Toronto within 
a few seconds of the same time. 
Thus are we stimulated anew to watch with intelligent sympathy 
and interest the patient and little-heeded labors of our own Canadian 
magnetic observers, as day by day they silently note the minutest 
variations in the phenomena connected with this mysterious force, 
and strive to wrest from nature the hidden secrets of this uncompre- 
hended power. Yet that is not an altogether uncomprehended power, 
in the operations of which we already recognize a law of the Universe, 
