_ 142 Scientific Intelligence. 
bad 
certain elliptical longitude, another will do the same. In fine, all spots 
j ave in the same manner as they pass the same lon- 
itude. The author then remarked that, although this mode of investi- 
gation can only be considered as approximate, yet it furnishes us with an 
extremely delicate test of the fact of planetary action; for, if it be once 
clearly proved that sun-spots behave in this way, the only possible expla- 
nation is an influence from without. It was then shown that the influ- 
d 
short time of intense brightness. Such an alternative is presented to us 
by temporary stars. On the whole, therefore, this law seems to explain: 
all that is yet known on this subject, and may, perhaps, be of use as 4 
temporary hypothesis.—Reader, April 23, 1864. 
3. Observations on the Spots on the Sun from Nov. 9, 1853, to March 
24,1861, made at Redhill; by R. C. Carrtyeroy, F.R.S. With 166 
London: Williams & Norgate——tThe following is from a notice 
of this great work (signed J. N. L.) in the Reader of May 7:—[A copy 
of the work has not yet reached us.—Ens. ‘ 
All our text-books tell us that the Sun turns on its axis, the period 
of his axial rotation having been deduced from observations of his spots. 
ut, from the time of Galileo, who made the period of rotation about @ 
lunar month, down to our own, authorities have differed very considerably. 
Thus Grant, in his “ History of Physical Astronomy,” gives a period of 274 
8" (he quotes no authority). Laugier found 25-344, and later observers 
have made it still less. 
_ Mr. Carrington now comes to the rescue, and tells us that the spots travel 
at different rates, depending upon their distance from the equator either 
north or south, and that the different rates are bound together by a law, 80 
