FOR GENERAL READERS. 



Vol. I. — No. 23. {New Series.) 



FRIDAY, JUNE 8th, if 



r Weekly, Price Sd. 

 [ By Post. Sjd. 



Scientific Table Talk 



Spontaneous Movements of Certain 



Bodies on the Surfaces of Liquids 



(illus.) 



Notes on Essential Oils 



The Priestman Petroleum Engine 



iillus.) 



Exotic Vines 



General Notes 



Snow Plough (ilhis.) 



The Royal Observatory 

 Natural History : 



Sand Grouse of Tartary (illus.)... 



Milk and Butter Trees 



Miscellaneous Notes 



Dredging Expedition of the Liverpool 



Biological Society 



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535 

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539 



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541 



C ONTENTS . 



PAGE 

 Reviews ; 



Report of Observations of Injuri- 

 ous Insects and Common Farm 



Pests during 1887 542 



Forms of Animal Life ... ._ 543 

 A Manual of Practical Assaying... 544 

 Journal of the Royal Agricultural 

 Society — Annual Reports of the 

 Consulting Botanist and of the 

 Consulting Chemist 544 



Abstracts of Papers, Lectures, etc. : 



Royal Institution 545 



Royal Society of Edinburgh ... 545 



Geological Society ... ... 546 



Manchester Microscopical Society 547 



Natural History Society of Glas- 

 gow 



Junior Engineering Society 

 South London Entomological and 

 Natural History Society 



Correspondence : 



Re-Forestation of Britain — A 

 Circle Problem — The Nebular 

 Theory — Alkahest — Flora and 

 Fauna of Hard and Soft Water ... 



Recent Inventions 



Technical Education Notes ... 



Announcements 



Diary for Next Week ... 



Sales and Exchanges 



Selected Books 



Meteorological Returns 



548 

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548 



549 

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 551 

 551 

 552 

 552 

 552 



SCIENTIFIC TABLE TALK. 



By W. Mattieu Williams, F.R.A.S., F.C.S. 



In my last I described the great solar outbursts which 

 form the solar prominences, and hurl metallic and earthy 

 hail (such as iron and oxides of the earth-metals, whose 

 vapours are seen at the base of the prominences) far 

 away from the sun, some to return at once, some to 

 travel in closed orbits, and some probably to go beyond 

 the reclaiming power of the sun, and term comet, and 

 meteorite material for other stellar systems. 



I will now discuss the nature and origin of the stupen- 

 dous force that effects these explosive eruptions. The 

 theory I am about to advance demands one assumption, 

 and one only, and this has a pretty broad basis. The 

 spectroscope indicates vast abundance, predominating pro- 

 portions, in fact, of hydrogen in the vaporous envelope of 

 the sun, and in its flaming photosphere. Oxygen also is 

 indicated, but, as already stated, the spectroscope is a 

 weak witness, one whose evidence on this point is 

 ambiguous. My one assumption is that Draper and 

 others are right in their interpretation of the solar spec- 

 trum, viz., in concluding that the sun's atmosphere 

 includes oxygen. 



Now let us see what must happen if this be the case. 

 As we all know, hydrogen and oxygen remain together 

 as a mere mixture while their temperature throughout is 

 low, but if any portion of such mixture is raised to a red 

 heat, chemical combination takes place, and gaseous 

 water is formed, the combination occurring with ex- 

 plosive violence and flaming outburst. This violence 

 attains its maximum when the gases are mixed in the 

 proportion of two volumes of hydrogen to one of oxygen, 

 those required for the formation of water, without any 

 residuum of either remaining after the explosion. The 

 common lecture-table experiment of blowing soap bubbles 

 with such a mixture, and applying a light to them, 

 illustrates this. The explosion is so loud that whenever 

 I have shown this experiment a sense of deafness lasting 

 for a few minutes has followed. 



It is evident therefore that if the great atmosphere 



which we know surrounds the sun were an admixture 

 of these two gases, or such admixture diffused in ex- 

 plosive proportions in other gases, the whole of it would 

 be fired by the heat at its lower part, and our sun would 

 be one of those flashing stars that are occasionally seen 

 to blaze out in the heavens and then subside. 



But such is not the case, and therefore the gases 

 named, if there in abundance, must be already combined, 

 i.e., must exist as aqueous vapour. A number of obser- 

 vations that I must not step aside to describe show that 

 such is the case, that the solar atmosphere largely con- 

 sists of water kept in vapour condition by the solar 

 heat. 



We know that this solar heat increases in intensity as 

 we proceed downwards or inwards from the upper or 

 outer regions of his atmosphere towards the flaming orb 

 itself, and we have abundant reasons for concluding that 

 at greater depths below the visible surface of the sun, 

 the heat grows progressively more and more intense, 

 and that the sun itself is gaseous within to vast depths, 

 if not down to its very centre. It may have a solid 

 nucleus, but this must be relatively small, comparable 

 to the stone within a peach. 



The evidences of this non-solidity of the sun are 

 numerous. I will select one as an example. Carring- 

 ton, who worked with dogged industry from November 

 9th, 1S53, to March 24th, 186 1, in observing and counting, 

 measuring and mapping the sun spots every day when 

 the sun was visible at Redhill, and recorded his results 

 in a folio volume of 250 pages and 166 plates, discovered, 

 among others, one very important fact, viz., that the 

 sun's rotation on its axis is irregular. The equatorial 

 regions of the sun complete a rotation in shorter time 

 than the polar regions, which could not happen in a 

 solid body without tearing it to pieces, and cannot happen 

 in a liquid or gaseous body without a sort of tearing, i.e., 

 the formation of vortices or whirlpools due to the collision 

 of streams moving in different velocities. Observation 

 proves that the visible surface of the sun is riven into 

 furious tornadoes by hurricanes of inconceivable violence 

 forming whirlpools of such magnitude that into their 



