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 timetable, a man should start out with only provisions
sufficient to take him 89,000,000 miles and should then find that
3,000,000 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 ever 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 spot's is as black as a brunette cat,
and is called the umbra, so called because is 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.