Thirty-second Meeting of the British Association. 437 



Some Peculiar Features in the Structure of the Sun's Surface; by 

 James Nasmyth. — The author said the subject was in itself most interest- 

 ing, but had been rendered much more so by the researches of Bunsen and 

 others upon the solar spectrum. He himself had paid much attention to the 

 structure of the sun and moon, but lately more particularly to that of the 



July 20, 1860. It is still a mooted point as to what the 

 really are, but it is generally supposed that they are ( 



willow-shaped filaments, and it is from these that tlie wl 



and lastly the body of the sun itself, which is dark, dt 

 light-giving substance. The willow-shaped filaments mt 

 distributed in symmetrical order, but in a heterogenec 

 accounts for the mottled appearance of the sun, seen by tl 

 observer through a telescope. He would offer no hypot 

 the composition or the functions of this luminiferous env 

 but thought it had better remain till a great number of 

 collected. His sole object was to introduce to the notice 

 the facts he himself had collected. 



Mr. Nasmyth, in answer to some questions put to him 

 had used Sir John Herschel's eyeglass, of which he detail 



3 the ascendin<y one. The vapor is attracted by a magnet; it 

 ttracted by heat, but it is repelled by cold. It renders steel 



.e.-^ilts deduced from daily observations of the phosphorus in con 

 •ith the readiiK's of the barometer, the temperature and de 

 uraidity of the air, with directions of the wind, for a period of e 

 lonths, show that periods of luminosity of phosphorus and non-1 

 y occur under opposite condition <" ^^ ~ -' 

 eculiar to the equatorial, while th 

 y the catalytic action of phosphoi 



