UNI

MY OWN THEORY OF THE SUN.

NTIL 1822 the idea of an universal diffusion of highly attenuated atmospheric matter throughout space was commonly entertained by the highest scientific authorities, though not formally asserted. On January 17 of that year Dr. Wollaston read a paper at the Royal Society in refutation of this, by calculating the amount of atmospheric matter which the sun and the planets would, by gravitation, collect around themselves. He thus arrived at the conclusion that Jupiter's atmosphere would be so dense, and extend so far, that the fourth satellite would be visible "when behind the centre of the planet," and consequently would "appear on both (or all) sides at the same time."

This and similar reasoning applied to the sun supplied a reductio ad absurdum which was accepted at the time, and has been quoted in our text-books and universally received by the highest authorities for half a century since. My second chapter is a reprint of this paper, and a refutation of the monstrous mathematical blunder on which the whole argument is founded, and which has so curiously escaped the scrutiny of mathematicians.

Space will not permit any quotation of the positive arguments in favour of universal atmospheric extension, and therefore I must here assume it, and also that the sun and all the planets have their respective shares, the magnitudes of which I have calculated. That of the sun is, of course, enormous; and however or whenever he obtained it, the work of its compression must have produced an amount of heat and light fully equal to that which he now displays.

But what must be the effect of this transcendental temperature on the atmosphere and other matter of the sun? The researches of Deville, plus some theoretical ventures of my own, on the broad laws of dissociation (now fully confirmed), enabled me, in 1868, to show that these materials must be dissociated to their uttermost, and a mighty store of latent heat be thus reserved, to be given out gradually and steadily by their recombination at the solar surface. For a description of the machinery by which this recombination is limited and regulated I must refer to the book.

But even with this reserve of heat-force we should have the gradually dying sun and withering universe, still so popular among technical astronomers, who, in spite of their great attainments, have not yet fairly grasped the great fundamental principle of all philosophy that force is indestructible; the indestructibility of matter being merely a manifestation or result of this.

The radiations from the sun and all the stars and other orbs of space are therefore inextinguishable; for, however widely diffused, they must ever remain absolutely unchanged in quantity. All that is required to render all the blazing suns of all the universe absolutely eternal is some machinery by which their everlasting outpourings may be gathered in again.

This machinery, according to my theory, is the gravitating reaction of the attendant worlds combined with the solar motion of translation in space. "Action and reaction are equal and contrary." Gravitation is mutual. The sun cannot pull the planets without being equally pulled in return; but the pull which perpetually bends a planet's path towards the sun moves him towards it in a degree as much smaller as his mass is greater than that of the planet. Therefore, whether we regard the nucleus of the sun as reeling irregularly in the midst of his profound fluid envelope, or his atmosphere as dragged here by Jupiter, there by Venus, hither by the earth, thither by Saturn, and everywhere in the mean time by the vivacious Mercury, we cannot fail to perceive in this ever-varying resultant of planetary attraction an agent for perpetually stirring in, interchanging, and mingling together the various strata of the solar atmosphere, and producing a complication of clashing tides, of irregularities of velocity in the different parts of the solar atmospheric ocean, and the consequent formation of mighty maelströms, vortices and cyclones, hurricanes and tornadoes of fury inconceivable to the dwellers on our comparatively tranquil earth.

These are visibly displayed in the sun-spots, those great vorticepits in the solar envelope, so wide and deep that worlds like ours might be poured into them like marbles into a basin.

The vapours thus drawn down into the hotter regions of the sun must be there dissociated, and, as I have shown, must produce corresponding upheavals of dissociated gaseous matter above the general level of the photosphere, which will recombine with explosive violence, ejecting the denser vapours forth to condense as metallic hail, and thus form the corona and zodiacal light, and probably the metallic meteorites that occasionally reach our earth.

The matter thus ejected is, as we now know, actually flung out to hundreds of thousands of miles from the solar surface, and this occurs while the sun is moving through the interstellar medium (call it "ether" or whatever else you please) at the rate of nearly half a million of miles per day. This ejected matter is continually and enormously expanding while explosively recombining, and must thus be more or less left behind in the wake of the sun. As this occurs after it has done its work of primary radiation while belonging to the

sun, and has been further exhausted by its combustion and radiation as ejected prominence and coronal matter, it must, when fully expanded, be cooled below the mean temperature of the space-filling medium.

The cooled ejected material thus perpetually left behind to fill the space the sun is perpetually vacating, is replaced by fresh material drawn from the regions into which the sun is advancing, the which material has been through countless ages receiving and storing its share of the radiations of all the suns of the universe.

I have calculated the amount of fresh fuel the sun will thus encounter, supposing the interstellar atmospheric matter to have only one ten-thousandth part of the density of our atmosphere. The cylinder of such atmospheric matter which the sun will traverse daily has, in round numbers, a diameter of 900,000 miles, a length or depth of 450,000 miles, and a weight of 14,313,915,000,000,000,000 tons, or 165 millions of tons per second. Such a supply bombarding the sun and condensed upon it is ample for all the theoretical requirements of solary fuel.

All the other suns of the universe, provided they are large enough and have attendant worlds, must have similarly collected their great atmospheric oceans, and must have similarly condensed it with similar evolution of heat and dissociation, and now must similarly instir the solary fuel of space by their reeling reaction to planetary gravitation, and similarly outflash portions of dissociated matter that must similarly combine, explode, and expand, and when thus exhausted fall more or less to the rear, and thus the solar and stellar "heat radiated into space is received by the general atmospheric medium; is gathered again by the breathing of wandering suns, who inspire as they advance the breath of universal heat and light of life; then by impact, compression, and radiation, they concentrate and redistribute its vitalising power; and after its work is done, expire it in the broad wake of their retreat, leaving a track of cool exhausted ether-the ashpits of the solar furnaces-to reabsorb the general radiations, and thus maintain the eternal round of life."

BEER

BEES AND CLOVER.

EE culture has been powerfully advocated for the honey sake, and would probably be more general if sugar were not so cheap. There is, however, another advantage, which Darwin's researches have proved, viz., the action of the bees in fertilization of flowers. Every farmer who grows red clover for the seed sake is too familiar with the uncertainty of this crop, the seeds of which ripen

with most vexatious inequality. Herr Haberlandt, who has followed up and confirmed the researches of Darwin in reference to these particular flowers, strongly recommends the rearing of bees on all clover farms, for the special purpose of fertilization, even though their honey be disregarded, for it appears that clover is entirely dependent on insects for its fertilization, and chiefly upon bees. The form of the flowers, and the manner in which the maturity of the lower florets precedes that of the upper florets, renders the success or failure of a clover seed crop simply a result of the employment or non-employment of these humble farm-labourers.

L.

THE CAUSES AND CURE OF OLD AGE.

LANGER has recently been engaged in the comparative

analysis of human fat at different ages. He finds that infant fat is harder than that of adults or old men, that there are oil globules in our fat but none in that of babies; the microscope shows one or two oil globules in every fat cell of the adult, while very few have fat crystals. The fat cells of the infant contain no oil globules, and nearly every cell contains fat crystals. "Infant fat forms a homogeneous, white, solid, tallow-like mass, and melts at 45° C.," while adult fat standing in a warm room separates into two layers; the lighter and larger is a transparent yellow liquid which solidifies below the freezing point of water, the lower layer is a granular crystalline mass melting at 36° C. Infant fat contains 67.75 per cent. of oleic acid, adult fat 89'80. Infant fat contains 28*97 per cent. of palmitic acid, against 816 in the adult, and 3:28 of stearic acid against 2:04. These latter, the palmitic and stearic acids, are the harder and less fusible, while the oleic acid is the softer and more fusible, constituent of fats.

No attempt is made to explain the reason of these differences, or to suggest any means by which we may reharden or repalmitise our fat, and thus regain our infantine chubbiness.

Old age is evidently due to changes of this kind, not only of the fat, but also of the other materials of the body. The first step towards the discovery of the elixir of life, the "aurum potabile" of the alchemist, is to determine the nature of these changes, the next to ascertain their causes, and then to remove them. If, as we are so often told, there can be no effect without a cause, there must be causes for the organic changes constituting decay and old age. move these, and we live for ever. The theory is beautifully simple.

W. MATTIEU WILLIAMS.

SOME

TABLE TALK.

THE CENTENARY OF THE ODÉON THEATRE.

OME curiously misleading information has been published in various French newspapers à propos of the so-called centenary performance at the Odéon Theatre, which took place in the month of April last. Here is, for instance, a paragraph translated literally from a Parisian journal devoted wholly to the drama:-"The 9th April, 1782, the new theatre of the Odéon, situated on the same site as today, opened its doors to inaugurate its salle by a spectacle which was one of the avant-couriers of the revolution, I mean 'La Folle Journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro.'" Notwithstanding that some colour of truth is lent to the statement by the fact that the "Mariage de Figaro of Beaumarchais, together with a slight occasional sketch entitled "L'Odéon et la Jeunesse,” was given at a centenary performance on the 9th of April of the present year, the paragraph I have quoted is wholly and absolutely inaccurate. It may savour of rashness to correct the French journals as to the history of French theatres. This, however, I intend to do. On the 9th of April, 1782, there was no Odéon Theatre. On that date again, at the theatre occupying the site on which the Odéon now stands, was given a drama by Barthélemi Imbert, a Nimois poet, entitled "L'Inauguration du Théâtre Français." "La Folle Journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro" was not played until two years subsequently. The exact day when all Paris flocked to the Théâtre Français to see this famous representation, when duchesses jostled in the balcony the frail beauties who were its ordinary occupants, and when grandes dames, to be sure of their places, took their dinner in the theatre in the dining-room of the actors, was Tuesday, March 27, 1784.

THE THÉÂTRE FRANÇAIS AND the Odéon.

O account in part for these errors, and to throw a little light upon a neglected portion of French theatrical history, I will give briefly the facts of the case. After the reunion in 1680 of the company of comedians of the Hôtel de Bourgogne with that of