264 Notices of Books. [April, 



Schwabe, Carrington, De la Rue, Balfour Stewart, Huggins, 

 Zollner, Respighi, Lockyer, Young, &c, — we must leave the 

 fairy land of a primitive world, peopled by primitive men, with 

 fresh Nature-worshipping intellects, and plunge into the more 

 practical details of spiral protuberances, faculae, chromospheres, 

 and coronas. 



We are to regard the sun, says Mr. Proctor in the introduction, 

 " as the recognised centre of the solar system, ruler over a scheme 

 of worlds, on which he pours forth abundant supplies of heat 

 and light." The first chapter treats of "the sun's distance and 

 diameter." 



The second chapter is entitled "The Sun as Ruler," and herein 

 is discussed the action and influence of the sun as the controlling 

 power of the motions of celestial bodies. At equal distances the 

 sun exerts 315,000 times the attractive power of the earth. " So 

 that if the earth's mass were as great as the sun's, her dimensions 

 remaining unchanged, a mass which now weighs one pound 

 would weigh more than 14^- tons. ... A body, if raised 

 but a single inch and let fall, would strike the ground with a 

 velocity three times as great as that of the swiftest express train." 

 The mean velocity of the earth around the sun is 18*2 miles per 

 second. At a point as close as possible to the surface of the 

 sun a body would possess a velocity of no less than 378*9 miles 

 per second, while at the distance of Neptune, 2,745,998,000 miles 

 (measured from the centre of the sun), he can control and also 

 generate a velocity of only 47 miles per second. We can but 

 be struck here with the wonderful richness of expression which 

 Mr. Proctor possesses, and which he exercises so admirably 

 and so judiciously. Astronomy, which has been ever admitted 

 to be the grandest and sublimest of the sciences, requires such 

 language to give full force to herwonderful results and deductions. 



At the close of this chapter we have an example of graphic 

 diction which reminds us somewhat of poor Hugh Miller's 

 description of the six periods of creation, save that the following 

 is more calm and indulges in less lofty flights ; it is also less 

 rhapsodical than the generality of Tyndallics. 



" Tracing back the history of that system, we seem to recognise 

 a time when the sun's supremacy was still incomplete, when the 

 planets struggled with him for the continually inrushing materials 

 from which his substance, as well as theirs, was to be recruited. 

 We can see him by the mighty energy of his attraction clearing 

 a wide space around him of all save such relatively tiny orbs as 

 Venus and the Earth, Mars, Mercury, and the asteroids. With 

 more distant planets the struggle was less unequal. The masses 

 which flowed in towards the centre of the scheme swept with 

 comparatively slow motion past its outer bounds, so that the 

 subordinate centres there forming were able to grasp a goodly 

 proportion of material to increase their own mass or to form 

 subordinate systems around them. And so the giant planets, 

 Jupiter and Saturn, Uranus, and distant Neptune, grew to their 



