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FIG. 21.—CYCLONE SPOT. (DRAWN BY FATHER SECCHI.)

On page 19 is a separate view of the plume (Fig.18), a fac-simile of the original sketch, which was made with the eye at the telescope. The pointed or flame-like tips are not a very common form, the terminals being more commonly clubbed, like those in Father Secchi’s “branch of cactus” type given on page 12. It must be borne in mind, too, if the drawing does not seem to contain all that the text implies, that there were but a few minutes in which to attempt to draw, where even a skilled draughtsman might have spent hours on the details momentarily visible, and that much must be left to memory. The writer’s note-book at the time contains an expression of despair at his utter inability to render most of what he saw.

Let us now look at another and even more wonderful example. Fig.19 shows part of a great spot which the writer drew in December, 1873, when the rare coincidence happened of a fine spot and fine terrestrial weather to observe it in. In this, as well as in the preceding drawing, the pores which cover the sun’s surface by millions may be noted. The luminous dots which divide them are what Nasmyth imperfectly saw, but we are hardly more able than he to say what they really are. Each of these countless “dots” is larger than England, Scotland, and Ireland together! The wonderful “crystalline” structure in the centre cannot be a real crystal, for it is ten times the area of Europe, and changed slowly while I drew it; but the reader may be sure that its resemblance to some crystallizations has not been in the least exaggerated. I have sought to study various actual crystals for comparison, but found none quite satisfactory. That of sal-ammoniac in some remote way resembles it, as Secchi says; but perhaps the frost crystals on a window-pane are better. Fig.20 shows one selected among several windows I had photographed in a preceding winter, which has some suggestions of the so-called crystalline spot-forms in it, but which lacks the filamentary thread-like components presently described. Of course the reader will understand that it is given as a suggestion of the appearance merely, and that no similarity of nature is meant to be indicated.