greatest state of exhaustion. A few seconds' rest at the surface, and then the diver returns into the boat to recover, generally putting {139} on an under-garment or jacket, to assist the restoration of the animal heat he has lost, and to prevent the loss of more by the too rapid evaporation of the water from his body.--_Travels in Crete._ _The Sun's Spots._--Father Secchi writes from Rome, under date of Aug. 8, to the _Reader_ as follows: I thank you for the interest you take in the observations of the sun. The last large spot has been very interesting for science, and I hope to be able to publish all the drawings we have made of it by projection. Meanwhile I send you two of them, photographed on a large scale. You will see in the printed article which I send you, that I have been able to see the _prominences_ and _depressions_ produced by the spot at the edge of the sun; not only myself but also M. Tacchini. I regret that the shortness of time does not allow me to copy the drawings made on that occasion, but I send a copy of them to Mr. De la Rue, and you will see them. As to the _willow-leaves_ and _rice-grains_ question, I think, as you say, we are all right and all wrong. I will state clearly what I see. On first placing the eye to the telescope, and in very good moments of definition, the surface of the sun appears certainly to me made up of many oblong bodies, which I think are the willow-leaves of Mr. Nasmyth; their orientation is in every direction, but they take a converging direction in the neighborhood of the spots, where they form the tongues, currents, and such like. But this view is, as I said, rather difficult to obtain, and many times I have looked for it quite without success. Is this a defect of vision, or caused by the sun's _changements?_ If by willow-leaves other things than these are understood, I have not seen them. M. Airy seems to understand other things, and then I am quite at a loss. This, therefore, is a matter very problematic, and to be better studied. By projection on a large scale in some beautiful moments of definition, these oblong bodies on the general surface of the sun have been seen by my assistant also; but generally they are not visible, but the sun appears like clouds. As to the mobility of the solar surface, you can judge from the two photographs that I send you; they have been made only at an interval of twenty-four hours. I think we assisted at the outbreaking of the spot, and at its arrangement from a great confusion of movements into a regular transformation of an ordinary group of spots. The appearance which I have seen is quite like that which takes place when a great movement is excited in a stream of running water, which finally resolves itself into some vortices which take their course independently. The movement of these spots even alone is capable of demonstrating materially what Mr. Carrington has found with great labor--that there is in the sun a real drift of matter, since without