Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/260

250[February 13, 1869] are then handed over to one of these gentlemen, who begins dancing, and his perspiration mingling with the butter, gradually converts the pelt into leather. Mahogany dust is now introduced, which completely clears away any superfluous grease. This done the skins are taken out, opened, and handed over to the flesher. Here he is." The person alluded to had just come tumbling in the most professional manner down the open throat of the cellar, to avoid the trouble of the staircase. He said, "Good morning," and at once took a seat where he got full benefit of the daylight. An upright post stood before him, into which was fixed perpendicularly a knife about a foot and a half long. The edge was turned from him. He took up a skin perfectly flat and soft, but which looked far too wide to have belonged to a coney. Having further stretched it by giving a sideway tug or two, he brought its pelt against the blade, and in a few minutes had pared off the whole of the outward integument, thus exposing a most delicate leather, equal to any dress kid. The skin was now ready for dying; a process usually managed off the premises. The dyer generally is some German living in the neighbourhood of Whitechapel or Bethnal Green. In a few days it finds its way back to the dresser so completely changed that not even a rabbit—much less any lady—would understand it to be a rabbit skin. Now it passes into the hands of the manufacturer of collars, cuffs, tippets, muffs, &c., and very soon appears behind a sheet of plate glass, ticketed "Mock Sable," "Mock Neutre," &c., or without the prefix "mock." People who fancy that they know the real article when they see it, might be taken in by a mock sable, no one could possibly be deceived by mock ermine. That is a complete mockery. It is attempting too much. It is like trying to palm copper off for gold. A child might see that mock ermine is only white rabbit skin, though everybody may not know that the little black tails which ornament its surface are not tails at all, but made of strippings from the legs of black rabbits.

number four hundred and eighty-four of our last volume, we gave some account of what might be expected from the then coming eclipse, looking at it from the French scientific point of view. As the event was followed by two very remarkable circumstances, we now relate briefly what occurred according to the same authorities, and notably that of M. Henri de Parville. There is no need to remind the reader of our neighbours' natural and honourable jealousy as to their priority in any discovery.

When the mission charged by the Minister of Public Instruction with observing the eclipse of the 18th August last, embarked at Marseilles, M. de Parville wrote: "Most of the European governments are sending missions to Hindostan and the coast of Siam. It is fortunate that French astronomy will be represented at this sort of competitive meeting to be held at the extremity of Asia, and of which the eclipse will be the principal object. It affords an excellent opportunity of proving that our astronomy has been calumniated, and that it is capable of occupying, now as formerly, the foremost rank in the world. Our anticipation has been fulfilled. France has brilliantly confirmed her preponderance. Henceforward, there is connected with the French mission to India an ineffaceable souvenir, a striking discovery, which will mark an epoch in our astronomical annals. The learned world owes it entirely to M. Janssen, the envoy of the Minister and the Académie des Sciences."

Let us now state what this discovery is. Until very lately, it cannot be denied, we had very incomplete notions respecting the physical constitution of the sun. Strange enough, from a distance of ninety millions of miles, more or less, we weighed it, calculated its superficial area, determined its enormous volume, fixed the time of its rotation on its axis, but what this dazzling sphere was, no man could tell—whether a solid or liquid globe, or merely a balloon of white-hot vapours. To increase our perplexity, on its brilliant disc towards the centre black spots were noticed here and there, whose configuration changed ceaselessly. They revolved with the sun, and sometimes appeared in considerable numbers. It was calculated that some of them occupied a space four times the total surface of the earth. Their diameter sometimes exceeded thirty thousand miles, that of the earth being eight thousand only. Consequently they presented abysses in which the earth itself would make about the same figure as a big stone thrown into a well.

It can hardly be wondered that the spots on the sun set astronomers' imaginations to work. Fontenelle's ideas respecting the plurality of worlds still retained their hold on many minds. Every star and planet must be habitable. The sun was peopled with inhabitants. It has already been told how the sun was enveloped with atmosphere over atmosphere, one screening its surface from insupportable glare, another radiating light and heat to the outer universe. The sun's spots were rents through these overlying atmospheres, allowing us a peep at the solid and shaded solar surface beneath. Great men, like Herschell and Arago, believed in or accepted this hypothesis, which we now feel too complex and ingenious to be true.

It has also been told how Bunsen and others, by spectral analysis, i.e. by examining the spectrum cast by a prism, enabled us to glance into infinite space and scrutinise the materials of which the stars are made. There does not, in fact, exist a substance which, when burning, does not send us its own distinct lumineus note. Our eye, unfortunately, is unable to appreciate their differences. That organ, inferior to our ear, fails to catch the shades of this glittering music; there are chromatic scales which it cannot seize. Nevertheless, by a clever artifice, the difficulty is got over to some extent. The eye is enabled to