the
luminosity of the sun due to any other cause than combustion and flame,
no physical law of which Western science has any knowledge could account
for the existence of such intensely high temperature of the sun without
combustion; that such a temperature, besides burning with its light and
flame every visible thing in our universe, would show its luminosity of
a homogeneous and uniform intensity throughout, which it does not; that
undulations and disturbances in the photosphere, the growing of the
"protuberances," and a fierce raging of elements in combustion have been
observed in the sun, with their tongues of fire and spots exhibiting
every appearance of cyclonic motion, and "solar storms," &c. &c.; to
this the only answer that can be given is the following: the
appearances are all there, yet it is not combustion. Undoubtedly were
the "robes," the dazzling drapery which now envelopes the whole of the
sun's globe, withdrawn, or even "the shining atmosphere which permits us
to see the sun" (as Sir William Herschel thought) removed so as to allow
one trifling rent, our whole universe would be reduced to ashes.
Jupiter Fulminator revealing himself to his beloved would incinerate her
instantly. But it can never be. The protecting shell is of a thickness
and at a distance from the universal HEART that call hardly be ever
calculated by your mathematicians. And how can they hope to see the
sun's inner body once that the existence of that "chromosphere" is
ascertained, though its actual density may be still unknown, when one of
the greatest, if not the greatest, of their authorities--Sir W.
Herschel--says the following: "The sun, also, has its atmosphere, and
if some of the fluids which enter into its composition should be of a
shining brilliancy, while others are merely transparent, any temporary
cause which may remove the lucid fluid will permit us to see the body of
the sun through the transparent ones." The underlined words, written
nearly eighty years ago, embody the wrong hypothesis that the body of
the sun might be seen under such circumstances, whereas it is only the
far-away layers of "the lucid fluid" that would be perceived. And what
the great astronomer adds invalidates entirely the first portion of his
assumption: "If an observer were placed on the moon, he would see the
solid body of our earth only in those places where the transparent
fluids of the atmosphere would permit him. In others, the opaque