67 
of the Sun and fixed Stars. 
with a small aperture and faint darkening glasses, as with a 
large aperture and stronger ones ; this latter is the method I 
always use. 
One of the black spots on the preceding margin, which was 
greatly below the surface of the sun, had, next to it, a protu- 
berant lump of shining matter, a little brighter than the rest 
of the sun. 
About all the spots, the shining matter seems to have been 
disturbed ; and is uneven, lumpy, and zig-zagged in an irregu- 
lar manner. 
I call the spots black, not that they are entirely so, but merely 
to distinguish them ; for there is not one of them, to-day, 
which is not partly, or entirely, covered over with whitish and 
unequally bright nebulosity, or cloudiness. This, in many of 
them, comes near to an extinction of the spot ; and in others, 
seems to bring on a subdivision. 
Sept. 28, 1794. There is a dark spot in the sun on the fol- 
lowing side. It is certainly depressed below the shining at- 
mosphere, and has shelving sides of shining matter, which rise 
up higher than the general surface, and are brightest at the 
top. The preceding shelving side is rendered almost invisible, 
by the overhanging of the preceding elevations ; while the 
following is very well exposed : the spot being apparently 
such in figure as denotes a circular form, viewed in an oblique 
direction. 
Near the following margin are many bright elevations, close 
to visible depressions. The depressed parts are less bright 
than the common surface. 
The penumbra, as it is called, about this spot, is a consi- 
MDCCXCV. I 
