156 
POPULAE SCIENCE EEVIEW. 
meteoric rain. To this it is replied that assuming the specific 
gravity of the meteorites to be the same as that of the Sun, it 
would require from 36,000 to 60,000 years to enlarge the sun^s 
apparent diameter to the extent of one second. 
Professor Thomson adopted the theory of Mr. Waterston, 
and he has much extended it. In evidence of there being 
observed motions capable of producing those great effects, 
he says, referring to the observations of Mr. Carrington and 
Mr. Hodgson : — 
It appears indeed from recorded observations quite certain that two bodies 
elongated in the direction of their motion, moved rapidly along above the 
actual surface of the Sun, suddenly bursting into wew by means of their 
emitted light, and then dying gradually out after having described an arc 
nearly parallel with the ecliptic, and at the rate of about 7,000 miles in a 
minute. Now here we have a velocity such as nothing we know of short of 
orbitual motion in the neighbourhood of the Sun can give. But as in the 
immediate neighbourhood of the Sun, or close to his surface, where we may 
presume the observed bodies to have been, the true orbitual velocity is about 
16,000 miles in a minute, we have a destruction from some mechanical re- 
sistance of 9,000 miles of motion in a minute ; which, multiplied with the 
mass of the bodies so retarded, would at once indicate the heat they ought to 
have given out, — something so great, doubtless, as to be necessarily accom- 
panied by the intense light which was testified to by the above observers. 
This, at present the accepted theory, regards all the 
physical forces as modes of motion. The heat, which flows 
from the Sun, and the associated powers, light, electricity, and 
actinism, are, according to this view, only manifestations of 
power, resulting from interrupted, or changed, motion. These 
energies, as pulsations, flow through the ninety millions of 
miles of space between us and the Sun, and are expended when 
they reach this Earth in changing the form of matter. Hot 
only are vital organisms the result, but every inorganic mass 
is disturbed by these influences, and the geometric arrange- 
ments of matter into crystalline forms are, beyond all doubt, 
as much influenced by the solar pulsations as is the formation 
of a leaf or the creation of an animal cell. Many would refer 
the phenomena of life to the combined action of these solar 
energies. 
But regarding Life — vital force — as a power far more exalted 
than either light, heat, or electricity, and, indeed, capable of 
exerting a controlling power over them all, we are certainly 
disposed to view with satisfaction that speculation which 
supposes the photosphere to be the primary seat of vital power, 
and to regard with a poetic pleasure that hypothesis which 
refers the solar energies to life ! ' 
