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I do not here either espouse or oppose the “cyclonic” theory, but it is hardly possible for any one who has been an eyewitness of such things to refuse to regard some such disturbance as a real and efficient cause in such instances as this.

Fig.26, on nearly the same scale as the last, shows a spot which was seen on Oct. 13, 1876. It looked at first, in the telescope, like two spots without any connection; then, as vision improved and higher powers were employed, the two were seen to have a subtle bond of union, and each to be filled with the most curious foliage-forms, which I could only indicate in the few moments that the good definition lasted. The reader may be sure, I think, that there is no exaggeration of the curious shapes of the original; for I have been so anxious to avoid the overstatement of curvature that the error is more likely to be in the opposite direction.

We must conclude that the question as to the cyclonic hypothesis cannot yet be decided, though the probabilities from telescopic evidence at present seem to me on the whole in favor of M. Faye’s remarkable theory, which has the great additional attraction to the student that it unites and explains numerous other quite disconnected facts.