202 W. A. Norton on Molecular Physics. 
repelled and completely dispersed by the repulsive force of the 
sun. e process of dispersion having once begun, from any 
cause, may extend indefinitely downward. 
There is a special mode of origination of spots, connected 
with the sun’s motion in space, that has not yet been noticed. 
It is, that the cosmical matter, as it flows away from the region 
of normal impact toward the equator, will become demagnetized, 
and thus initiate the process of dispersion of certain portions of 
the photospheric matter. This effect will be especially produced 
on the opposite side of the pole from the point of normal im- 
pact, as the changes of the induced magnetism will there be the 
greatest. A similar efiect may ensue from a flow toward the 
equator of the matter at the very surface of the potest 
spots, 
the autumnal equinox, detected by Prof. Wolf. It is the result 
of the effects previously noticed, augmented by that here consid- 
ered. An inferior maximum manifests itself in December, 
operation in the predominating irregular disturbances of the 
magnetic needle in the autumnal months (or from August to 
December, inclusive; see Prof. Bache’s Reports). The second- 
ary maximum of the annual inequality of spots, and magnetic 
disturbances, near the vernal equinox, is to be chiefly attributed 
to the demagnetization in the vicinity of the descending mag- 
netic node, already considered. 
T ts are more numerous in the northern than in the 
southern hemisphere of the sun, because the low-latitudes at 
which they chiefly originate lie, in the northern hemisphere, near-. 
est the region (long. 253°, N. lat. 57°), from which the electric 
and material currents radiate; and because in the northern hemi- 
sphere alone is the flow of the material currents in the direction 
