conductor, the electricity does not spread all over the plate, but remains where it is produced"), we shall inevitably conclude that there was some partial interruption in the current flowing from the earth to the sun at that moment; and if we recall that at that very instant "suddenly a bright light was seen by each observer to break out on the sun's surface and to travel across a part of the solar disk," we shall learn that the processes connected with the production of such a bright light will interrupt in part the terrestrial current. We can readily understand that if this bright light exceeded in electrical intensity that due to the earth's current, it might temporarily reverse the polarity of the afferent current or retard its flow, like the so-called "backwater" of a mill. It would be like attempting to discharge steam at sixty pounds' pressure into a vessel filled with other steam at sixty-one pounds. Whence, then, came this bright light? Perhaps from the conjoint action of some other planet, perhaps from sudden chemical disassociation beneath the surface, perhaps by the abnormal piling up of depths of transparent glowing hydrogen or other local disturbance. And this leads to the consideration of the uniformity of solar action. The planetary electrospheres will be constant in their operation if the constitution of surrounding space remains uniform; but we shall find reason to believe that there are currents in the ocean of space, as there are currents in our own seas, and electrical generation will necessarily vary when such currents are encountered. The sun itself in such case, however, will become an automatic regulator, for his density being but one-fourth that of the earth, and the spectroscope having shown his chemical composition to a large extent, we know that his mass must be either liquid or vaporous, and perhaps in part both. Such masses readily respond to variations of temperature, expanding as it rises and contracting as it falls. Hence, if a portion of space were reached where the action of the planetary electrospheres was increased by relative increase of temperature in some interstellar "Gulf Stream," the sun's volume would expand and compensation be at once established, while, conversely, with diminution of such planetary action, the solar volume would contract and an increased supply from his reserve store be given out thereby. In this way the condensation relied upon to give us heat for seven or seventeen million years becomes a compensating mechanism, self-operative through the most distant cycles of time. We shall also find in such electric currents an explanation of sun-spots. It is not meant that a full knowledge can be obtained of their minute constitution, nor is it necessary; but the equatorial belt of six degrees, nearly free from sun-spots, we can readily understand to be caused--since sun-spots are depressions in the photosphere down to the deeper and denser cloud strata beneath--by the equatorial piling