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It was one of those abnormally springlike days that New York sometimes experiences at the latter end of March, days when negligee shirts and last summer's straw hats make a sporadic appearance, and bucolic weather prophets write letters to the afternoon papers abusing the sun-spots.
Cassini and Schröter both noticed that markings on Jupiter travelled quicker the nearer they were to his equator; and Cassini even hinted at their possible assimilation to sun-spots. Denning has pointed out, no single period will satisfy the observations either of different markings at the same epoch, or of the same markings at different epochs.
For instance, when the sun-spot period shortens, the auroral period shortens to precisely the same extent; as the short sun-spot periods usually bring the most intense outbreaks of solar activity, so the corresponding short auroral periods are attended by the most violent magnetic storms; a secular period of about two hundred and twenty-two years affecting sun-spots is said to have its auroral duplicate; a shorter period of fifty-five and a half years, which some observers believe that they have discovered appears also to be common to the two phenomena; and yet another ``superposed'' period of about thirty-five years, which some investigators aver exists, affects sun-spots and aurora alike.
Both of these illustrations show how the physicist and chemist, when adequately armed for astronomical attack, can take advantage in their studies of the stupendous processes visible in cosmic crucibles, heated to high temperatures and influenced, as in the case of sun-spots, by intense magnetic fields.
Their comparison and study placed it beyond reasonable doubt that the radiated corona belonging to periods of maximum sun-spots gives place, at periods of minimum, to the "winged" type of 1878. Professor Holden perceived further that the equatorial extensions characterising the latter tend to assume a "trumpet-shape."
His observations of sun-spots were of a geometrical character. They concerned positions and movements, leaving out of sight physical peculiarities. Indeed, the prudence with which he limited his task to what came strictly within the range of his powers to accomplish, was one of Carrington's most valuable qualities.
That the new system of divination is not solely solar, but partly planetary also, is seen when we remember that the sun-spots wax and wane in periods of time which are manifestly referable to the planetary motions.
When a curved line representing the varying number of sun-spots was compared with another curve showing the variations in the magnetic state of the earth the two were seen to be in almost exact accord, a rise in one curve corresponding to a rise in the other, and a fall to a fall.
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 be seen. So large is this spot that it is not necessary to look through a telescope to see it. By using a smoked glass, to dim the intense light of the sun, any one can look at the spot for himself.
Of the real cause of sun-spots we know virtually nothing, but recent studies by Professor Hale and others have revealed a strange state of things in the clouds of metallic vapors floating above them and their surroundings.
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