49 
of the Sun and fixed Stars. 
solar regions as led to the foundation of a very rational sys- 
tem. For, having the advantage of former observations, my 
latest reviews of the body of the sun were immediately directed 
to the most essential points ; and the work was by this means 
facilitated, and contracted into a pretty narrow compass. 
The following is a short extract of my observations on the 
sun, to which I have joined the consequences I now believe 
myself entitled to draw from them. When all the reasonings 
on the several phasnomena are put together, and a few addi- 
tional arguments, taken from analogy, which I shall also add, 
are properly considered, it will be found that a general conclu- 
sion may be made which seems to throw a considerable light 
upon our present subject. 
In the year 1779, there was a spot on the sun which was 
large enough to be seen with the naked eye. By a view of it 
with a 7-feet reflector, charged with a very high power, it ap- 
peared to be divided into two parts. The largest of the two, 
on the 19th of April, measured 8", 06 in diameter ; which is 
equal, in length, to more than 31 thousand miles. Both toge- 
ther must certainly have extended above 50 thousand. 
The idea of its being occasioned by a volcanic explosion, 
violently driving away a flery fluid, which on its return would 
gradually fill up the vacancy, and thus restore the sun, in that 
place, to its former splendour, ought to be rejected on many 
accounts. To mention only one, the great extent of the spot 
is very unfavourable to that supposition. Indeed a much less 
violent and less pernicious cause may be assigned, to account 
for all the appearances of the spot. When we see a dark belt 
near the equator of the planet Jupiter, we do not recur to 
earthquakes and volcanoes for its origin. An atmosphere, with 
MDCCXCV. H 
