vapours would reflect the light of the sun without permitting his view
to penetrate to the surface of our globe." Thus, if the atmosphere of
our earth, which in its relation to the "atmosphere" (?) of the sun is
like the tenderest skin of a fruit compared with the thickest husk of a
cocoa-nut, would prevent the eye of an observer standing on the moon
from penetrating everywhere "to the surface of our globe," how can an
astronomer ever expect his sight to penetrate to the sun's surface, from
our earth and at a distance of from 85 to 95 million miles,* whereas,
the moon, we are told, is only about 238,000 miles!

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* Verily, "absolute accuracy in the solution of this problem (of
distances between the heavenly bodies and the earth) is simply out of
the question."
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The proportionately larger size of the sun does not bring it any the
more within the scope of our physical vision. Truly remarks Sir W.
Herschel that the sun "has been called a globe of fire, perhaps
metaphorically!" It has been supposed that the dark spots were solid
bodies revolving near the sun's surface. "They have been conjectured to
be the smoke of volcanoes the scum floating upon an ocean of fluid
matter.... They have been taken for clouds .... explained to be opaque
masses swimming in the fluid matter of the sun...." When all his
anthropomorphic conceptions are put aside, Sir John Herschel, whose
intuition was still greater than his great learning, alone of all
astronomers comes near the truth--far nearer than any of those modern
astronomers who, while admiring his gigantic learning, smile at his
"imaginative and fanciful theories." His only mistake, now shared by
most astronomers, was that he regarded the "opaque body" occasionally
observed through the curtain of the "luminous envelope" as the sun
itself. When saying in the course of his speculations upon the Nasmyth
willow-leaf theory--"the definite shape of these objects, their exact
similarity one to another.... all these characters seem quite repugnant
to the notion of their being of a vaporous, a cloudy, or a fluid
nature"--his spiritual intuition served him better than his remarkable
knowledge of physical science. When he adds: "Nothing remains but to
consider them as separate and independent sheets, flakes.... having some
sort of solidity.... Be they what they may, they are evidently the
immediate sources of the solar light and heat"--he utters a grander
physical trut