which we know to be at the rate of 188,000 miles per second, or in about eight minutes from the sun to the earth. But it is stated in "Electricity in the Service of Man," page 82, that, "According to the theoretical calculations of Kirchhoff, as well as of Ayrton and Perry, the velocity of electricity in a wire without resistance would be equal to the velocity of light." Hence we perceive that the apparent difficulty has vanished in the light of observed fact, and that currents of electricity do pass and are constantly passing between the earth and the sun without the slightest loss of speed,--that is to say, without resistance. We shall find in the sequel that the above phenomena were caused most probably by a partial interruption of a constant direct current from the earth to the sun, instead of by an opposite return current from the sun to the earth. In further illustration of the above facts we quote the following, page 172, "Electricity in the Service of Man:" "Many attempts have been made to find a connection between the spots and prominences in the sun and the electrical phenomena on the earth. Professor Forster says that by numerous magnetic observations of the last thirty or forty years it has been proved that the formation of black spots on the surface of the sun, and the generation of pillars and clouds of glowing gases in the immediate neighborhood of the sun, stand in close connection with certain deviations in direction and intensity of the earth's magnetic forces." Professor Proctor, in his "Light Science for Leisure Hours," says, "From all this it appears, incontestably, that there is an intimate connection between the causes of auroras and those of terrestrial magnetism.... The magnetic needle not only swayed responsively to auroras observable in the immediate neighborhood, but to auroras in progress hundreds and thousands of miles away. Nay, as inquiry progressed, it was discovered that the needles in our northern observatories are swayed by influences associated even with the occurrence of auroras around the southern polar regions.... Could we only associate auroras with terrestrial magnetism, we should still have done much to enhance the interest which the beautiful phenomenon is calculated to excite. But when once this association has been established, others of even greater interest are brought into recognition; for terrestrial magnetism has been clearly shown to be influenced directly by the action of the sun.... We already begin to see, then, that auroras are associated in some mysterious way with the action of the solar rays. The phenomenon which had been looked on for so many ages as a mere spectacle, caused perhaps by some process in the upper regions of the air of a simple local character, has been brought into the range of planetary phenomena. As surely as the brilliant planets which deck the nocturnal skies are illuminated by the same orb which gives us our days and seasons, so are they