This luminous body is 92,000,000 miles from the earth, though there have
been mornings this winter when it seemed to me that it was further than
that. A railway train going at the rate of 40 miles per hour would be 263
years going there, to say nothing of stopping for fuel or water, or
stopping on side tracks to wait for freight trains to pass. Several years
ago it was discovered that a slight error had been made in the
calculations of the sun's distance from the earth, and, owing to a
misplaced logarithm, or something of that kind, a mistake of 3,000,000
miles was made in the result. People cannot be too careful in such
matters. Supposing that, on the strength of the information contained in
the old time-table, a man should start out with only provisions sufficient
to take him 89,000,000 miles and should then find that 3,0000,000 miles
still stretched out ahead of him. He would then have to buy fresh figs of
the train boy in order to sustain life. Think of buying nice fresh figs on
a train that had been _en route_ 250 years!
Imagine a train boy starting out at ten years of age, and perishing at the
age of 60 years with only one-fifth of his journey accomplished. Think of
five train boys, one after the other, dying of old age on the way, and the
train at last pulling slowly into the depot with not a living thing on
board except the worms in the “nice eating apples!”
The sun cannot be examined through an ordinary telescope with impunity.
Only one man every tried that, and he is now wearing a glass eye that cost
him $9.
If you examine the sun through an ordinary solar microscope, you discover
that it has a curdled or mottled appearance, as though suffering from
biliousness. It is also marked here and there by long streaks of light,
called faculae, which look like foam flecks below a cataract. The spots on
the sun vary from minute pores the size of an ordinary school district to
spots 100,000 miles in diameter, visible to the nude eye. The center of
these spots is as black as a brunette cat, and is called the umbra, so
called because it resembles an umbrella. The next circle is less dark, and
called the penumbra, because it so closely resembles the penumbra.
There are many theories regarding these spots, but, to be perfectly candid
with the gentle reader, neither Prof. Proctor nor myself can tell exactly
what they are. If we could get a little closer, we flatter ourselves that
we could speak more definitely. My own theory is they are either, first,
open air caucuses held by the colored people of the sun; or, second, they
may be the dark horses in the campaign; or, third, they may be the spots
knocked off the defeated candidate by the opposition.
Frankly, however, I do not believe either of these theories to be tenable.
Prof. Proctor sneers at these theories also on the ground that these spots
do not appear to revolve so fast as the sun. This, however, I am prepared
to explain upon the theory that this might be the result of delays in the
returns However, I am free to confess that speculative science is filled
with the intangible.
The sun revolves upon his or her axletree, as the case may be, once in 25
to 28 of our days, so that a man living there would have almost two years
to pay a 30-day note. We should so live that when we come to die we may go
at once to the sun.
Regarding the sun's temperature, Sir John Herschel says that it is
sufficient to melt a shell of ice covering its entire surface to a depth
of 40 feet. I do not know whether he made this experiment personally or
hired a man to do it for him.
The sun is like the star spangled banner--as it is “still there.” You get
up to-morrow morning just before sunrise and look away toward the east,
and keep on looking in that direction, and at last you will see a fine
sight, if what I have been told is true. If the sunrise is as grand as the
sunset, it indeed must be one of nature's most sublime phenomena.
The sun is the great source of light and heat for our earth. If the sun
were to go somewhere for a few weeks for relaxation and rest, it would be
a cold day for us. The moon, too, would be useless, for she is largely
dependent on the sun. Animal life would soon cease and real estate would
become depressed in price. We owe very much of our enjoyment to the sun,
and not many years ago there were a large number of people who worshiped
the sun. When a man showed signs of emotional insanity, they took him up
on the observatory of the temple and sacrificed him to the sun. They were
a very prosperous and happy people. If the conqueror had not come among
them with civilization and guns and grand juries they would have been very
happy, indeed.
[Illustration: A COLD DAY.]