184 
HAROLD’S DISCUSSIONS. 
look like dark streaks, white spots appear and lengthen 
out far across the disk. In 1877 an oval spot was 
discovered and has been visible since, although its 
color gradually changes from red to lighter tints. 
All these cloudlike belts move from east to west, 
but they do not revolve around the planet as satel¬ 
lites ; they are part of the planet, and yet they are 
not stationary, as continents and seas would be. 
How, what do you think the belts and patches 
are ? You have the same privilege to reason about 
them that the astronomer has. Are the white and 
gray belts clouds ? Are the reddish ones soil ? Is 
the reddish oval with changing tints a new-forming 
continent ? 
Whatever our answer to this question, it is evi¬ 
dent that there is great activity on this planet. If 
the light spots are clouds, evaporation must go on 
more rapidly than it does on this globe, and as the 
sun is only one-twenty-seventh as strong as on the 
earth, there must be great internal heat to produce 
such violent changes. Some think the reddish tints 
are the glow of the planet’s own heat. 
Is it probable that this immense orb is still in its 
pre-Archaean period when its crust is just beginning 
to form and its water (if it has any) is still flung ofl 
in clouds of steam ? What other explanation can be 
given of its appearance ? 
In thought let us become inhabitants of Jupiter. 
We rise with the sun. Two hours later we flnish 
breakfast, and before we can fairly get to the office 
for work the sun is in the meridian. Two hours and a 
