104 
Ordinary Meeting, February 22nd, 1859. 
Thomas Hopkins, Esq., Vice-President, in the Chair. 
Mr. Baxendell directed the attention of the Meeting to the 
fact, that a fine group of spots is now visible on the surface of the 
sun. There are also many bright spots or faculcB, and the general 
mottling of the solar disc is unu'sually coarse. He stated that 
Mr. Carrington, who had carefully observed the solar spots 
since the beginning of 1854, had found that up to February, 
1856, when the minimum of spot-frequency occurred, the spots 
were grouped in an equatorial zone, within the limits of 20° 
north and south latitude; but immediately after the epoch of 
minimum a change in the distribution of the spots took place, 
and they have since been arranged in two zones, one in each 
hemisphere, between the parallels of 20° and 40°. Mr. 
Carrington had also found that spots near the equator gave a 
shorter period of rotation of the sun than those at a greater 
distance. Mr. Baxendell stated that he had lately observed 
one large group in which he had counted 25 separate dark 
spots, and at the same time there were six other groups visible, 
each containing from 8 to 15 spots. He also stated that both 
the dark and bright spots, and even the general mottling of 
the sun’s disc, could at the present time be easily observed with 
telescopes of very moderate power. 
The Chairman thought it very desirable that photographers 
should endeavour to obtain good images of the sun, and that 
regular observations should be made by this means of the sun’s 
surface. 
Mr. Atkinson inquired whether the comet, visible last year, 
had been observed in the southern hemisphere. Mr. Baxen- 
dell stated in reply that it had been seen and well observed 
at the Cape of Good Hope, by Mr. Maclear, who considered 
that neither the comet of 1811, nor that of last year, were 
equal in brilliancy to that of 1843. 
Proceedings — Lit. & Phil, Societt— No. 11 . — Session, 1858 - 9 . 
