are governed. Those spots, which are apparently confined to the equatorial zone of the sun (stretching about 30 degs. 5 min. on both sides of its equator,) are of different forms, irregular fissures, rents, pores, with dark, irregular nucleii, or centres, which latter are believed to be nothing more than the dark body of the orb, appearing through those openings in the luminous envelope. They form and vanish with great rapidity, and it is observed that the fecula, or bright spots, caused by elevations in the photosphere, generally occur in those points where the dark have disappeared, like waves meeting and mounting over a hitherto shallow interval of the sea level. The most curious and valuable information we have respecting those changes in the solar atmosphere result from the observation of Hofrath Schwaler, of Dresden, and which were continued over a space of 30 years, for 300 days in each year. This astronomer has ascertained that the spots the smallest number of which is thirty, and the greatest three hundred, annually-occur in cycles of about ten years; that they enlarge from the minimum to the maximum proportion within five years, and require a similar period to arrive at their maximum, again. From observations, also, on the earth's temperature, made in all parts of the world, au exact relation has now been traced between the periodic inequality of the earth's magnetic force and the sun's spots-the alternations of increase and decrease in both corresponding within the same intervals. Still more curious is the relation found between their occurrence and the approximation of the Jargest planet of the system-Jupiter-to the sun. From its distance from the centre (five times greater than earth), the gravity of this orb, decreasing inversely with the square of the distance, would be inappreciable on the atmosphere were it the size of this sphere; bat, from its enormous magnitude, -1,800 times larger than the Earth, the influence of its gravity on the sun must, even at a distance so vast, be five times greater. The period which Jupiter occupies in its orbitual revolution is about eleven years; and it is at those times that, moving in an elipse, it arrives at parhelion, that the solar spots appear greatest, their increase and decrease, corresponding with the advance and retreat of the planet on either side of the sun, during periods of about five years. Thus, it is supposed that the effect of Jupiter's gravity on the solar photosphere is that of producing a disturb · ance in its atmospheres, attracting and drawing up its luminous element into vast mountains-an action similar to that of the moon in her syzyges on the ocean-leaving interspaces, through which the dark mass of the orb appears. It is singular to think that the state of the earth's magnetism, which has so powerful an effect on vegetation and life, is thus controlled by the action of a planet, 401 millions of miles distant from us, on the atmosphere of the sun, and that the changes in the latter re-act upon the earth through the ninety-five millions of miles of intervening space. Those spots are insignificant proportionally with the dimensions of the luminous solar ocean; yet some have been observed so vast as to represent an area of 300 millions of square miles, and those have been seen to form and vanish in forty hours-a proof in itself of the gazeous nature of the luminous envelope of the sun. Referring to the well-known fact that electricity is

confined to the surface of bodies, while magnetism permeates their mass, and to the interferences caused by the action of one upon the other, we can understand how the magnetic force of the earth becomes greater when affected by that emanating from the solid mass of the sun, when openings are formed in its external envelope of electric flame.

When the sun is viewed in annular eclipse, the curious phenomena of rose-coloured, irregular-shaped flames are seen surrounding the edge of the ring. Some conceived those flames, which are sometimes pyramidical, sometimes of the most eccentric forms, to be mountains on the surface of the orb; but, from observations made during the eclipse of July, 1860, it has been now well determined that they are merely pencils of radiation correspondent to the irregularities of the moon's opposite surface-to those stupendous peaks and valleys with which it is shadowed and intersected. From the lunar libration, one front only of the sphere is presented to earth; and thus we are indebted to the effects of solar radiation for any knowledge we can ever attain of the geography of the other.

In order to conceive the aspect presented to an inhabitant of the sunsupposing it to have any-we should imagine the firmament of our planet surrounded by an entire sun, its light many thousand times magnified. The seasons of this mighty sphere must be eternal. On its surface there can be no registry of time, as with us; on its surface there can be no night; consequently, its beings must be constituted very differently from us. Analogically, we may infer that the nature of life throughout space must vary with and be adapted to its extremes of temperature. In Mercury, which is only thirty-seven millions of miles from the sun-and whose density is that of lead, compared with that of Earth; or with Jupiter, which is that of water; and Saturn, which is that of pumice the solar heat on its surface must be above that of boiling quicksilver; while in Mars, which is 145 millions of miles from the sun, quicksilver would freeze at its equator. From Uranus the sun must appear as a small star; from Neptune, which is distant 2,862 millions of miles from the centre of the system, around which it revolves in 2,004 of our months and seven days-still smaller. Thus, to ourselves we appear to be situated in a happy medium between fire and frost; but, while we may suppose that, in spheres nearer and more remote from the sun, life must be embodied in elements and forms different from ours, there is no reason to conclude, from the wisdom and goodness everywhere manifested in the works of Divinity, which fall under our cognition, that existence is less bright or happy beneath the stupendous firmament of flame in the sun, or amid the dense heat of Mercury, than on the earth; or greater on the earth than in those remote spheres which roll in comparative darkness, in an icy, perpetual starry night, on the limits of the system, and whose temperature, except sustained from within, would appear to be that of space, or fifty-seven degrees below that of Zero. In all, modifying conditions, doubtless, exist, of which we can form no conception; and, even were they such as we conceive, the adaption of life to external condition must be evidenced there as here. The Laplander prefers his icy waste and semi-annual night-the Saharian his burning

sands, his region of flame and thirst, to those temperate regions which we inhabit, and, contrasted with which, either extreme appears to us intolerable. Again, we may infer, from our cognate comprehension of the Creative Intellect manifested in the arrangement of the universe-of those geometric and numerical laws by which mass and particle are everywhere regulated that the intellect of all beings inhabiting space must, in its nature and operations, however different soever in degree, be everywhere the same. Sixteen must be the square of four, in Saturn as on earth, in the capital of some kingdom in Sirius as in London; and the three angles of a triangle equal to their right ones, amid the stars of the remotest nebulæ, as on our little sphere. Thus, whatever may be the forms of our fellowcreatures in the Infinite, or the conditions, inconceivable to us, under which they may exist, all possessing the basal principles of intellect must be allied to us by identity of intelligence-life itself everywhere, as here, must be governed by the same moral laws; and, however varied the civilizations of space, its communities revolve upon the poles of Justice and Love.

As the planets form parts of solar systems, so the latter are conceived to be portions of astral systems, of which the spotty regions of the milky-way and the constellations, are aggregates. The number of stars observed in the three orders of constellations-northern, southern, and zodiacal,— amount to 3,487; all of which are suns, whose planets are rendered invisible from their vast distance. Many of those stars, when examined by telescopes of great power, are found to resolve themselves into binary and tertiary systems, or those composed of two and three spheres, which revoive round their respective centres. Although, however, some six thousand binary, or double stars, have been noted, there are but seven or eight of them whose comparative nearness have enabled astronomers to speculate on their movements, which are apparently more eccentric than any we are acquainted with in this system-the least being double and the greatest quadruple that of the planetary orbits. Sidereal astronomy, indeed, contrasted with solar, is little advanced, and little likely to attain much development. To determine the distance of a star, the first step is to ascertain whether it exhibits any sensible parallax-in other words, the angle at which the diameter of the earth's orbit would appear seen from its point in space. So remote are even the most approximate spheres, that a semi-diameter of the earth's orbit would constitute a base utterly insufficient for that purpose. That those which appear to move swiftest are nearest us, is a rational supposition, hence Struve considers the star 61 in Cygni to be the least remote; and if, as he states, the diameter of the earth's orbit would be seen from that sun at an angle of half a second, a value which corresponds with a movement of twenty-four millions of millions of miles-then its distance (the diameter of the earth's orbit being 190 millions) must be 412 millions of times 190 millions of miles from the earth-a distance which light, travelling at the rate of 190 millions of miles a second, would require nearly six years to traverse, while its annual motion must be 120 millions of millions of miles. Although nothing is known of their magnitude, myriads of those fixed stars, from the

quantity of light they emit, must be hundreds and thousands of times larger than our sun. Even Sirius, one of the brightest, and possibly nearest, placed where our sun is, would appear upwards of three times as large, and radiate upwards of thirteen times as much light. Since the era of accurate observations, many stars have been found to vanish from the heavens, while others disappear periodically. Among the latter, is the star Omicron, in the constellation Cetus, which becomes visible and invisible twelve times in eleven years; and one still more remarkablenamely, Algol, in Perseus, which exhibits the appearance of a star of the second magnitude for two days and fourteen hours, then, during three and a half hours, is reduced to a fourth of its size, again to recover its brightness within a similar period. While the regulated variability of lustre in those and other stars may be hypothetically accounted for by the interference of their planets in the plane of vision, or of other bodies in space, such variations at such enormous distances indicate the astonishing velocity of matter in those remote regions of the firmament—an illustration of which is seen in the binary star 6 in Eridani, the revolution of whose satelite is 10° 67′′ per annum, and which is found to perfect its revolution in thirty years. In our system, Mercury is the swiftest planet; it moves at the rate of 107,000 miles an hour. The great comet of 1680, when at perhelion, swept through space at the speed of 880,000 miles an hour; but, if two suns in Eridanus are as remote from each other as the nearest fixed star from our sun, their velocity can only be about three times less than of light itself. Compared with the rapidity of motion manifested by their binary system, that of our earth, moving through space, at the rate of sixty-eight thousand miles an hour, is but that of a snail to a race-horse.

Contrasted with the aspects of southern latitudes, the panorama and brilliant phenomena of space are seen from those of the north, dimly and disadvantageously. Upon the shores of the eastern Mediterranean, Egypt, the mountains of the Cape, and the Andes, the stars of the firmament are not only many times brighter than here, but exhibit diversities of colour which range through every degree of the prismatic 'spectrum. There only is it that the cloud-belts of Jupiter, resulting from the vast velocity of its atmospheric currents,—the rings of Saturn, advancing to the great sphere with their crests of waters-and the splendid visitants of the cometary world,—are seen to perfection. Of those latter, some 1,400 are known to revolve within the earth's orbit, and as many as 3,529,470 within that of Uranus, though, from the effect of sunlight, dense atmospheres, and extreme southern declination, interfering with their recognition, it is concluded that their actual number may be double the last stated. The extreme eccentricity of the movements of those bodies, which move from west to east, north to south, and in all inclinations, to the plane of the ecliptic, has given rise to many theories as to their origin. Newton supposed them to be fragments of rarified matter, diffused through space, and not specially confined within the action of the attractive laws of this system; Lagrange, that they were portions of matter projected from volcanoes in the sun-an hypothesis originated

to account for their elongated orbits. It is unnecessary to allude to the phenomena they present, or to those predictions with respect to the return of several, which are among the greatest triumphs of science; adding merely, that in the case of those whose periods are ascertained, such interferences as occur to protract their return, may tend to throw a light on the condition of remote regions of space, and, perhaps, lead to the discovery of planets attached to our system still more remote than that of Neptune, by calculations similar to those which enabled La Vernier to conjecture the existence of that planet from the perturbation observed in Uranus, before its discovery. The apprehensions which once existed as to the effects which the earth might suffer from collision with a comet, have long vanished. Apart from the considerab'e distances which constitute their nearest approach, matter of such extreme tenuity as that of which they are composed, could effect little alteration in our atmosphere, even though they entered it, not to speak of altering the earth's axis. Newton, indeed, calculated that the entire substance of the tail of the great comet of 1680, which, after perhelion, extended 100 millions of miles, might be compressed into a cubic inch of substance, not denser than air, a calculation illustrating the astonishing expansive power of elementary matter, under the influence of intense heat, and the inconceivably rare nature of the medium of space, which, supposing the undulatory theory correct, must possess a density sufficient to convey to us those vibrations from the luminous envelope of the sun, whose result is light. As both the tails and nuclei of those comets whose periodic return has been determined, are found to diminish with each successive approach to the sun, it is computed that their bodies must ultimately be absorbed into his atmosphere; and this circumstance, as well as their vast number, lead to conjectures as to their object and use, which may possibly be that of collecting, by their attraction, through the immense spaces they traverse, the matter diffused by solar action through space, and carrying back to the centre of heat and light the elements exhausted in combustion. For, however matter may change, there is reason to believe that no particle, ponderable or imponderable, can become extinct-a fact respecting matter which supplies a scientific inference of the eternity of that far more precious element in creation, for which matter only exists-spirit. Considering the calculation of La Place, that the solar attraction has an effective action on a sphere 100 millions of times more remote than the earth from the sun, there is no difficulty in accounting for the vast areas and vast periods of multitudes of those splendid bodies.

Lately, a theory has been started with reference to the existence of a central sun, around which the solar and astral systems of our nebulæ are supposed to revolve. But though no data furnished by observation can determine the existence of such a sphere, and though, considering the conjectured form of the nebula,-that of an elongated concave,-the hypothesis of such a centre is not very probable, it is only enough to consider that the centre of gravity is not in our sun, but in that point of space where that of the sun and planets meet and balance; to infer that the gravitating force of all the systems spread along the ring of the nebulæ, may have an action