SUN. 
others to be excavations in the luminous 
matter covering the sun’s surface. These 
spots are frequently observed to appear 
and disappear, and they are in the mean 
time liable to great variations, though they 
are generally found about the same points 
of the sun’s surface. M. Lalande supposes 
them to be parts of the solid body of the sun, 
which by soqje agitations of the luminous 
ocean, with which he conceives the sun to 
be surrounded, are left nearly or entirely 
bare. Dr. Wilson and Dr. Herschel are 
disposed to consider this ocean as consisting 
rather of a flame than of a liquid substance; 
and Dr. Herschel, in an ingenious paper, 
attributes the spots to the emission of an 
aeriform fluid, not yet in combustion, which 
displaces the general luminous atmosphere, 
and which is afterwards to serve as fuel for 
supporting the process ; hence he supposes 
the appearance of copious spots to be indi- 
cative of the approach of warm seasons on 
the surface of the earth, a theory which he 
has attempted to maintain by historical 
evidence. The exterior luminous atmos- 
phere has an appearance somewhat mottled, 
some parts of it, appearing brighter than 
others, have been called faculae, but Dr. 
Herschel distinguishes them by the names 
of ridges and nodules. The spots are usually 
surrounded by margins less dark than them- 
selves, which are called shallows, and which 
are considered as parts of an inferior stra- 
tum, consisting of opaque clouds, capable 
of protecting the immediate surface of the 
sun from the excessive heat produced by 
combustion in the superior stratum, and 
perhaps rendering it habitable to animated 
beings. 
To which Dr. Young replies, if we 
inquire into the intensity of the heat which 
must necessarily exist wherever this com- 
bustion is performed, we shall soon be con- 
vinced that no clouds, however dense, could 
impede its rapid transmission to the parts 
below. Besides the diameter of the sun is 
111 times as great as that of the earth ; and 
at its surface, a heavy body would fall 
through no less than 450 feet in a single se- 
cond ; so that if every other circumstance 
permitted human beings to reside on it, 
their own weight would present an in- 
superable difficulty, since it would become 
thirty times as great as upon the surface of 
the earth, and a man of moderate size 
would weigh above two tons. 
Dr; Herschel, in another paper, supposes, 
that the spots in the sun are mountains on 
its surface, which, considering the great at- 
traction exerted by the sun upon bodies 
placed at its surface, and the slow revolu- 
tion it has about its axis, he thinks may be 
more than 300 miles high, and yet stand 
very firmly. He says, that in August, 1792, 
he examined the son with several powers 
from 90 to 500. And it evidently appeared, 
that the black spots are the opaque ground 
or body of the sun ; and that the luminous 
part is an atmosphere, which being inter- 
cepted or broken, gives ns a glimpse of the 
sun itself. Hence he concludes, that the 
sun has a very extensive atmosphere, which 
consists of elastic fluids that are more or less 
lucid and transparent; and of which the 
lucid ones furnish us with light. This at- 
mosphere, he thinks, is not less than 1843, 
nor more than 2765 miles in height ; and he 
supposes that the density of the luminous 
solar clouds need not be exceedingly more 
than that of our aurora borealis, in order to 
produce the effects with which we are ac- 
quainted. 
The sun, then, appears to be a very emi- 
nent, large, and lucid planet, evidently the 
first and only primary one belonging to our 
system. Its similarity to the other globes 
of the solar system, with regard to its soli- 
dity ; its atmosphere ; its surface diversified 
with mountains and vallies ; its rotation on 
its axis ; and the fall of heavy bodies on its 
surface ; leads us to suppose that it is most 
probably inhabited, like the rest of the pla- 
nets, by beings whose organs are adapted to 
the peculiar circumstances of that vast 
globe. If it be objected, that from the 
efiectsproducedatthedistance of 95, 000,000 
miles, we may infer, that every thing must 
be scorched up at its surface. We reply, 
that there are many facts in natural phi- 
losophy which show that heat is pro- 
duced by the sun’s rays only when they 
act on a calorific medium: they are the 
cause of the production of heat by uniting 
with the matter of fire which is contained in 
the substances that are heated ; as the colli- 
sion of the flint and steel will inflame a maga- 
zine of gunpowder, by putting all the latent 
fire which it contains into action. On the 
tops of mountains of sufficient height, at the 
altitude where clouds can seldom reach to 
shelter them from the direct rays of the 
sun, we always find regions of ice and snow. 
Now, if the solar rays themselves conveyed 
all the heat we find on this globe, it ought 
to be hottest where their course is the least 
interrupted. Again, our aeronauts all con- 
firm the coldness of the upper regions of the 
atmosphere ; and since, therefore, even on 
