of the Sun and fixed Stars. 71 
many cases, stars are united in such close systems as not to 
leave much room for the orbits of planets, or comets ; and 
that consequently, upon this account also, many stars, unless 
we would make them mere useless brilliant points, may them- 
selves be lucid planets, perhaps unattended by satellites. 
POSTSCRIPT. 
The following observations, which were made with an im- 
proved apparatus, and under the most favourable circum- 
stances, should be added to those which have been given. 
They are decisive with regard to one of the conditions of the 
lucid matter of the sun. 
Nov. 2 6, 1794. Eight spots in the sun, and several subdi- 
visions of them, are all equally depressed. 
The sun is mottled every where. 
The mottled appearance of the sun is owing to an inequa- 
lity in the level of the surface. 
The sun is equally mottled at its poles and at its equator ; 
but the mottled appearances may be seen better about the 
middle of the disc than towards the circumference, on account 
of the sun's spherical form. 
The unevenness arising from the elevation and depression 
of the mottled appearance on the surface of the sun, seems, in 
many places, to amount to as much, or to nearly as much as 
the depression of the penumbrae of the spots below the upper 
part of the shining substance ; without including faculas, which 
are protuberant. 
The lucid substance of the sun is neither a liquid, nor an 
