426 FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE. 



The spots on the sun are so gigantic, so enormous, that the earth might 

 pass through one of them without ever producing a shadow. These spots, 

 continuing several weeks and sometimes montlis, serve as data for calculat- 

 ing the sun's rotation on itself. During forty years M. d'Anhalt-Dessau 

 has noted, day bj^day, the sun's spots : he found they varied, the maximum, 

 and minimum being, in a sense, periodical. Contemporaneously with these 

 observations, General Sabine observed the variations of the magnetic needle. 

 Ordinarily, the latter varies, more or less, towards the east or west. ISTow 

 these sudden variations, almost nervous-like in their deviations, have been 

 remarked to be greatest when the spots on the sun are most numerous. M. 

 Wolf, of Zurich, after twenty-five years' observations, corroborated this 

 parallelism. Also, photos of the sun have revealed the unexpected and in- 

 explicable fact that when Yenus and Mercury are between the sun and the 

 earth the solar spots diminish in size, but resume their primitive dimensions 

 when these planets recede into the distance. The same results have been 

 noted when Yenus and Jupiter or Yenus and Mercury are in the same 

 degree of latitude in the zodiac, that is to say, in conjunction. 



The magnetic needle, as just stated, undergoes variations, more or less 

 abrupt, following the greater or less presence of the solar spots ; similarly, 

 inequalities in the variations of the needle have been detected as the planets 

 are in conjunction. Is it not strange, nay, wonderful, to behold the mag- 

 netic needle reflecting the movement of stars so distant as Jupiter and so 

 small as Mercury? Is it not singular to observe that needle oscillate more 

 strongly as Jupiter and Yenus are in conjunction, or when Mercury ap- 

 proaches the sun? Thus sun and planet act upon a phenomenon — the varia- 

 tions of the needle — till lately believed to be terrestial. But there is more ; 

 it has been observed that the cyclones in the Indian ocean were greater in 

 proportion as the spots on the sun reached their maximum ; also, that there 

 is an apparent connection between the solar spots and the degree of tem- 

 perature, and the humidity of the atmosiDhere. M. Broun affirms there is 

 a relation, beyond doubt, between the revolutions of the sun and moon and 

 the variations of the needle and the fluctuations of the barometer. All 

 these phenomena seem to indicate that the}^ are not the cause, the one of 

 the other, but the effect of a dominating cause, up to the present unknown. 



The extraordinary curative proj^erties of salicylic acid and its combina- 

 tions has led to its application for the purposes of adulteration. The 

 poisonous fachsine has been used to color wine; now salicj'lic acid is em- 

 ployed to preserve it, but not in the charitable end to cure articulate rheu- 

 matism. This new agent of adulteration is dangerous, for we are not quite 

 certain about the real properties of the acid. As the latter "j)reserves" 

 Avine, there is no reason wh}- it ought not to be employed to "salt" milk and 

 butter, in fact, used everywhere as a preventive of fermentation and putri- 

 faction. Despite the measures taken in France to protect the public health 

 it is the exception to find articles of food pure. Tea is so adulterated with 



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