The heavens are affording us an interesting study just now.
Our kind old friend, the sun, it is who is giving us this benefit.
One of the largest sun-spots which has ever been observed is now to beseen.
So large is this spot that it is not necessary to look through atelescope to see it. By using a smoked glass, to dim the intense lightof the sun, any one can look at the spot for himself.
Nowadays, when all persons connected with the daily papers are on thelookout for some startling fact that shall sell their newspapers, suchan occurrence as the enormous increase in the size of a sun-spot is toogood to be let slip by them.
Extra editions about the sun-spot were issued by some of the mostenterprising journals, which contained sensational pictures, andstatements that the sun-spot was in fact a new world which was about toburst forth from the body of the sun. According to these accounts, thenew world was to be sent whirling through space, hurled, as it were, at our earth, which was to beshattered to pieces by it.
Except that such stories serve to call the attention of unscientificpeople to scientific facts, and teach them to observe the wonders of theuniverse, it really seems a shame that such marvels should be used asbogies to scare the ignorant and superstitious.
As a matter of fact, very little is known about these sun-spots. Theyoccur in greatest numbers in periods of about eleven years apart, andastronomers and geologists agree that periods of rainy and dry seasonsseem to correspond with the sun-spot periods.
When the greatest number of spots are visible on the sun, scientistsagree that the climatic conditions on the earth are normal and even.When there are fewest spots on the sun we have extreme temperature andsudden changes. When we say that astronomers and geologists agree onthis point, we must also admit that some astronomers are not quitesatisfied that the fact has been proved.
The only fact that has been actually proved to everybody's satisfactionis that, during the time when the most spots are visible on the sun,there are always more magnetic storms and displays of the auroraborealis.
A magnetic storm is a disturbance of the magnetic field which surroundsthe earth; its presence is shown by a disturbance of the needle of thecompass, and it often interferes with the electrical currents, making itdifficult and sometimes impossible to use the telegraph-wires.
The aurora borealis is a wonderful light seen in the sky in highlatitudes, and less frequently in other parts of the world—exceptduring the activity of the sun-spots.
It appears as irregular patches and dancing columns of light which flameacross the sky. Red, white, pale green—these shafts are now dim, nowbright, seeming to throb and pulse as they glow and pale. As you watchthem they change their form, and, from being pillars of fire, change tomasses of glowing color.
A flash-light dancing across the sky gives you some, though a very poornotion, of an aurora. The aurora has thousands of such flashes of light,changing form and color as you watch them—filmy shafts of light, comingyou know not whence.
The spots on the sun are described as being da