Solar Physics ¹

Abstract

MOST of our readers are aware that the sun, as constructed by Zöllner, was a white-hot, liquid body, that its spots were scoriaceous products of local cooling, and that its atmospheric circulation was closely modelled upon the terrestrial, with trades and anti-trades, an equatorial belt of calms, land- and sea-breezes, the last due to the contrast of temperature between the slag-islands constituting spot-nuclei, and the incandescent ocean in which they floated. On these lines M. Schulz has reared a solar edifice out of materials to a large extent new. Sixteen additional years of results in one of the most rapidly progressive branches of modern physical astronomy, give him an advantage over his predecessor, utilised to the utmost in modifying, extending, and generalising views of which he is the intrepid, though not blind, partisan. The upshot, we venture to assert, is to prove them wholly untenable. If M. Schulz's ingenious advocacy fail to recommend them, their inherent weakness must be great. Our readers shall judge for themselves of its success.