The sun's gracious beams supply the magic power that enables the corn to grow and ripen. It is the heat of the sun which raises water from the ocean in the form of vapour, and then sends down that vapour as rain to refresh the earth and to fill the rivers which bear our ships down to the ocean. It is the heat of the sun beating on the large continents which gives rise to the breezes and winds that waft our vessels across the deep; and when on a winter's evening we draw around the fire and feel its invigorating rays, we are only enjoying sunbeams which shone on the earth countless ages ago. The heat in those ancient sunbeams developed the mighty vegetation of the coal period, and in the form of coal that heat has slumbered for millions of years, till we now call it again into activity. It is the power of the sun stored up in coal that urges on our steam-engines. It is the light of the sun stored up in coal that beams from every gaslight in our cities.
For the power to live and move, for the plenty with which we are surrounded, for the beauty with which nature is adorned, we are immediately indebted to one body in the countless hosts of space, and that body is the sun.
Fig. 22.—The Zodiacal Light in 1874.