THE SOUECE OF HEAT IN THE SUN. 
149 
Irregular lines of liglit are sent back from tbe crests of the 
small waves_, and lines of shadow indicate the hollows. Within 
the last few years Mr. ISTasmyth has discovered a more re- 
markable condition than any that had previously been sus- 
pected. Examining the solar surface with a fine telescope 
of great penetrating power_, this astronomer has discovered 
objects which are peculiarly lens-shaped. He himself de- 
scribes them as more like willow leaves than anything 
else ; but some other observers^ since their discovery^ have 
likened them to rice grains ; and others^ again^ to some forms 
of DiatomaceaB. These leaved forms are different in size ; they 
are not arranged in any order ; they lie crossing each other 
in all directions ; and they have an irregular motion amongst 
themselves. They are_, says Mr. Nasmyth_, arranged without 
any approach to symmetrical order in the details_, but rather 
(if the term may be used) in a sort of regular random scattering ” 
They are seen approaching to and receding from each other^ 
and sometimes assuming” new angular positions, so that the 
appearance, resulting from the combination of simultaneous 
motions amongst those forms, has been compared to a dense 
shoal of fish, which, indeed, they resemble in shape. Plate 
VII., which we have given, conveys a good notion of this. The 
size of those objects gives a grand idea of the gigantic scale 
upon which physical operations are carried out in the sun. 
They cannot be less than a thousand miles in length, and 
from two to three hundred miles in breadth. The most 
probable conjecture which has been offered respecting those 
leaf or lens-like objects, is that the photosphere is an immense 
ocean of gaseous matter in a state of intense incandescence, 
and that they are perspective projections of the sheets of 
flame. Whatever they may be, it is evident they are the 
immediate sources of solar heat and light. Here we have a 
surrounding envelope of photogenic matter, which pendulates 
with mighty energies, and by communicating its motion to 
the ethereal medium, in stellar space, produces heat and light 
in far distant worlds. We have said that those forms have 
been compared to certain organisms ; and Herschel says. 
Though it would be too daring to speak of such organizations 
as partaking of the nature of life, yet we do hnow that vital 
action is competent to develope heat, light, and electricity 
Can it be that there is truth in this fine thought ? May the 
pulsings of vital matter in the central Sun of our system be 
the source of all that life which crowds the Earth, and without 
doubt overspreads the other planets, to which the Sun is the 
mighty minister ? 
Attention must now be directed to other indications of solar 
activity, which will at the same time make us acquainted with 
