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ssss1To Mr. Herbert Spencer must be assigned the earliest suggestion of the necessity of such a circulation.

FIG. 25.—TYPICAL ILLUSTRATION OF FAYE’S THEORY.

Fig.21 shows a drawing by Father Secchi of a spot in 1854; and it is, if unexaggerated, quite the most remarkable case of distinct cyclonic action recorded. I say “if unexaggerated” because there is a strong tendency in most designers to select what is striking in a spot, and to emphasize that unduly, even when there is no conscious disposition to alter. Every one who sketches may see a similar unconscious tendency in himself or herself, shown in a disposition to draw all the mountains and hills too high,—a tendency on which Ruskin, I think, has remarked. In drawings of the sun there is a strong temptation to exaggerate these circular forms, and we must not forget this in making up the evidence. There is great need of caution, then, in receiving such representations; but there certainly are forms which seem to be clearly due to cyclonic action. They are usually scattered, however, through larger spots, and I have never, in all my study of the sun, seen one such complete type of the cyclone spot as that first given from Secchi. Instances where spots break up into numerous subdivisions by a process of “segmentation” under the apparent action of separate whirlwinds are much more common. I have noticed, as an apparent effect of this segmentation, what I may call the “honeycomb structure” from its appearance with low powers, but which with higher ones turns out to be made up of filamentary masses disposed in circular and ovoid curves, often apparently overlying one another, and frequently presenting a most curious resemblance to vegetable forms, though we appear to see the real agency of whirlwinds in making them. I add some transcripts of my original pencil memoranda themselves, made with the eye at the telescope, which, though not at all finished drawings, may be trusted the more as being quite literal transcripts at first hand.