A TORNADO OF WILD-FIRE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2666, 19 April 1905, Page 72

A TORNADO OF WILD-FIRE.

By a Banker.

The receir 1 great yarning chasm rent in the sun — commonly called a sunspot — so extensive that a considerable nnmber of globea the size of our earth could bp roiled into it — recalls to our mind the immensity and the piodigious proportions of our Luminary In order to form some comparison with Ihe earth, if a "pushball" six feet in diameter wer<* to represent cur globe a pyramid of such balls, its base occupying a space of four square mile 3, and piled up to the height of two miles, or nearly three times the height o£ Vesuvius, -would roughly approximate the volume of the sun. And what a spectacle of bewilderment and awe would be presented if the power of our telescopes could be increased so that they could magnify in the same proportion as the microscope, ana we could witness the stupendous tornados of fire which cleave these vast gulfs deep down into the blazing photosphere, of the sun; such as, for instance, the terribla sclar disturbance of 1539, when a gaping abysm, estimated at no less than 25,000 million square miles in extent, and of a deptlr positively unfathomable, was gouged out of the flaming orb by some potent force or agency the nature of which we can only conjecture. Out imperfect instruments, howe\er, reveal to us the fact that these ?unspots are the scene of the most terrific hurricanes of fisry gases; cyclonic whirlwinds of blazing metallic and other vapoiirs, which, with a force so altogether overwhelming that no comparison can be made with even the mightiest forces of terrestrial nature, sweep across the wild turmoil ever raging in that glowing furnace, and then, a wild, infuriate tempest, cleave a yawning chasm in the incandescent mass, laying bare for a time the inner recesses of the giant luminary. And there in that weird abyss of fire theso whirling tornados, lashed into wild fury, flame around the chasm, with doubtless a. convulsive roar beyond description terrible, or hurtle upwards into space, a vivid flame a hundred thousand miles or more in height. At times, too, these solar disturbances are accompanied (or perhaps caused) by an outburst of electricity so potent and so extensive that on one oclasion a most extraordinarily vivid flash, far exceeding the sun in brilliancy, and probably many thousand milea in extent, wa3 observed by a watcher at onei of the great observatories, the electrical storm, seriously impeding for a short time a.ll telegraphy throughout the greater part of the earth. Though these spots appear io be so black, yet they are so only relatively ; for Hcrscbel has shown that a powerful limelight projected before a spot appears like » dark point. And this mighty sun is only one .amongst many millions of starry orbs scattered throughout the expanse of the illimitable, many of them far greater and far more brillioiifc than our glowing luminary- And H» who created them all came in humility to this earth of owes, and on that grim and. bitter cross made expiation for our sins. And to those who come to Him for pardon and for life the gates of Paradise will be opened! wide. But to those who fatuously neglect I or refuse, the angel's flaming sword will bar the entiance.