" A SUN IN FLAMES."
(TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.")
SIR,—I have just read with much interest your account of the latest appearance of a Sun-star hitherto unseen, and whilst con- gratulating M. Corun on the important results of his spectrum observations, I fully concur in your strictures upon his abstaining from the " unscientific " process of reasoning on the facts so established. Indeed my thoughts at once took the course he deprecates, and suggested the hypothesis that the phenomena exhibited by M. Corun's experiments supplied a solution of a vexed question in geology, viz., how to account for the former- existence of a more genial and equable climate in the present ice-bound and adjacent temperate regions of our globe, as. evidenced by the subtropical character of their fossil fauna and flora.
It appears that " the glowing fires of the new star have become very considerably hotter than its glowing but solid body, and hence the vast increase of its flaming heat." It also appears that the elements to whose intense heat it owes its increased brightness are precisely those whose lines (on the spectrum) " form the most characteristic features of the matter surrounding our own Sun; "' and that in its case, " those same elements glow with a heat more intense than that of the Sun's own surface, though, fortunately for us, the increase of heat is only local and very limited in range." And the question is then naturally raised whether " these solar outbursts, if produced by the same causes which have inflamed the whole orb of the blazing star in Cygnus, may not one day operate much more extensively and effectively on our own Sun than they have yet done," &c. I have taken the liberty to compress and adapt the above extracts from your article, in order to point out the one small particular on which I venture• to dissent, and to raise a question on the last five words of your suggestion.
If a "day " (meaning an era) of such excessive heat may in the far future be reasonably anticipated, surely we may as -rationally assume that the like has occurred in the distant past. And, if so, I submit that this presents a more probable solution of the problem created by the former existence of subtropical life in the circum- polar regions, than either astronomy or geology has hitherto supplied.
To state the points requiring discussion, and give them the requisite consideration, would exceed the limits of a letter suited to your pages. 1 content myself therefore with simply suggesting
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