Читать книгу The New Astronomy онлайн

26 страница из 32

FIG. 26.—SPOT OF OCT. 13, 1876. (FROM ORIGINAL DRAWING BY S.P. LANGLEY.)

Figs. 22 and 24, for instance, are two sketches of a little spot, showing what, with low powers, gives the appearance I have called the honeycomb structure, but which we see here to be due to whirls which have disposed the filaments in these remarkable forms. The first was drawn at eleven in the forenoon of March 31, 1875, the second at three in the afternoon of the same day. The scale of the drawing is fifteen thousand miles to the inch, and the changes in this little spot in these few hours imply a cataclysm compared with which the disappearance of the American continent from the earth’s surface would be a trifle.

The very act of the solar whirlwind’s motion seemed to pass before my eyes in some of these sketches; for while drawing them as rapidly as possible, a new hole would be formed where there was none before, as if by a gigantic invisible auger boring downward.

FIG. 27.—PHOTOGRAPH OF EDGE OF SUN. (BY PERMISSION OF WARREN DE LA RUE, LONDON.)