Looking back on our description of the construction of the sun, how
rotary motion was established in it, and how that motion has produced
the different velocities of rotation, not only on the surface where
they have been observed and measured, but which must penetrate to the
very centre; we may now proceed at the expense of some repetition--in
which we have already somewhat indulged--to show how our mode of
construction and development enables us to understand a great many
things that have been observed in it, much better than we have been
able to do from any explanations that have hitherto been available. It
gives the most satisfactory reason possible for the sun-spots occupying
principally two zones at marked distances from the equator. There is
one belt round the equator of 16° to 20° wide on which we know, from
Table X., that the differences of velocity of its edges and of those
of the contiguous zones, one on either side, hardly exceed 1 mile per
minute. Towards the poles there are two segments measuring from 80° to
90° broad, at the borders of which the rotary velocity is slower by
26·37 miles per minute than it is at the equator, and 5·06 miles per
minute slower than at 5° less latitude, as also shown by the table.
And between the central belt and these segments there are two belts or
zones, each 30° to 35° wide, in which sun-spots are almost only to be
found. In these two zones the churning of the interior would be in all
its vigour, most probably more active at their centres than where they
meet the central belt and the polar segments; where our knowledge of
the diminished velocity ceases, but where we have no reason to suppose
that it actually stops.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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