This, of course, leads us to think of the ether as a carrier of light, heat, etc., and of how it can carry heat to the earth without becoming heated itself, as there can be no doubt about its being a material substance. How it can bring what may be called considerable heat to the earth and still have little or no heat in itself; even should it turn out, which we do not believe possible, that the estimates of the heat of space of -150° and -142°, made about the beginning of this century by Sir John Herschel and Pouillet, turn out to be near the truth. We have seen, in "Nature" of July 15, 1886, a monograph by Captain Ericsson, in which he shows that the heat radiated by the sun to where his rays strike our atmosphere is somewhere about 83°F., and it is not easy to see how radiated heat can be transmitted through 90 million miles of space at a temperature of much lower than -225°, and reach the confines of our atmosphere with the heat of 83°F. There is one supposition that occurs to us under which this can happen, and that is, that the sun only radiates heat to bodies which can receive it, and does not radiate it into all space where there is nothing but the ether to hold it. This, of course, implies that the ether acts the same part—the part for which it was really invented—with respect to heat that a telegraph wire does with respect to electricity; in which case, we could imagine that it starts from the sun with the maximum heat radiated by him, and that this goes on decreasing in the ratio of the square of the distance it travels through, the same as is understood to be the case with all radiated heat; and that the part of space not occupied, for the time necessary, by these connexions might be supposed to form the return current which we believe must exist, just the same as the earth does for electricity. For that there is a return current is demonstrated by the fact that the earth radiates heat into space when the sun is not shining upon it. Again, even in this case, we have another difficulty thrown upon us, over and above that cited by Captain Ericsson, of the heat delivered at the bounds of our atmosphere being about 83°F., by our being informed in "Engineering" of December 4, 1885, that: "A hot box, contrived to observe the temperature which could be attained by the unconcentrated solar rays, was used on Mount Whitney, 12,000 feet above the sea"—well within the limits of our atmosphere—"and that the enclosed thermometer rose to 233·3°F. on September 9, 1 p.m., 1881, the shade thermometer then reading 59·8°F." How are we to comprehend these two facts? We have seen a way of getting over part of the first fact as far as to the boundary of our atmosphere, but from there we have to carry 83°F. to the top of Mount Whitney, through the atmosphere there and present it along with the other lot in the hot box at 233·3°F.
We may get the beginning of what may be an explanation of all the facts from another part of Captain Ericsson's monograph, where he says: "Engineers of great experience in the application of heat for the production of motive power and other purposes deny that the temperature of a body can be increased by the application of heat of a lower degree than that of the body whose temperature we desire to augment." The soundness of their reasoning is apparently incontrovertible, yet the temperature of the mercury in the instrument just described raised to 600°F. by means of the parabolic reflector, increases at once when solar heat is admitted through the circular apertures, although the sun's radiant intensity at the time may not reach one-tenth of the stated temperature. It should be mentioned that the trial of this new pyrheliometer has not been concluded, owing to very unfavourable atmospheric conditions since its completion. For our present purpose the great fact established by the illustrated instrument is sufficient, namely, that the previous temperature of a body exposed to the sun's radiant heat is immaterial. The augmentation of temperature resulting from exposure to the sun, the pyrheliometer shows, depends upon the intensity of the sun's rays.
A little study shows us that the steam engineers are perfectly right in their doctrine. The heat of steam can only be called a variety of the temperature of water. At 300 lb. pressure per square inch the heat of steam is 417·5°F., while at 20 lb. pressure it is only 228·0°F., and therefore the steam engineer has good reason to say that steam at the lower pressure—or derived from heat that can only produce that pressure—can add no heat to the higher; on the contrary, the only possible means of applying the heat of the lower to that of the other would be by mixing them, and we know what the result of that would be. This brings before us the fact that the steam engineer's heat is very limited, and can only be communicated in certain ways, while the sun's heat is comparatively unlimited, and can only be communicated to anything through the medium of the ether. But it probably teaches more than that. Were the engineer's heat unlimited in quantity at low pressure it can easily be believed that it could be transmitted to another body at any temperature by radiation, the same as it is radiated from the sun to a hot box; but it is not, and we thus seem to find that radiation is a mode, possessed by the ether alone, of conveying heat from one body to another. It has nothing whatever to do with mixing, conduction, convection, or anything, except in so far as the ether is mixed in a more or less limited quantity with all matter. In support of this idea we can refer to Professor Tait's treatise on heat, where we find it stated that "heat does pass (though on an infinitesimal scale) from colder to hotter bodies"; and we can easily understand that the infinitesimal quantity so passed is due to the comparatively infinitesimal quantity of ether there is in either of the two bodies to perform the work of transference. Professor Tait has not told us how heat is carried from a cold to a hot body, but there can be no doubt about its being a function of the ether which can only be found out by a careful and analytical study of that agent. Such a study we propose to undertake presently without much expectation of being successful, but still with the hope of helping in some measure to find out how the ether operates. Meanwhile we shall return to what we had begun to say about the sun being a hollow sphere, and to our proposal to treat of the nebula contracted from 58 million miles to its present diameter, as if it were a model representing a résumé of all the effects produced on the nebula by that amount of condensation.
We know from all our work that the sun must be a gasiform body, which means that all the cosmic matter contained in it must be in the form of vapour, even although its consistence should outrival a London fog—notwithstanding that some physicists have supposed that it may be solid at the centre through extreme pressure—and it is not altogether correct to compare its construction to that of a solid body such as the earth; but as we have no other we shall begin to make a comparison with it, which, it will be found, can lead us into no appreciable error. Considering then the sun to be 867,000 miles in diameter, with mean density of 1·413 that of water, the hollow part being still completely empty, and applying to it the same proportion we have deduced for the earth, we find that the region of greatest density would be at 0·7937 of the radius of the sphere—a proportion really derived from the line of division into two equal parts of the volume of a sphere—from the centre, or 89,431 miles from the surface; and the inner surface of the shell at 0·548—a proportion derived from our calculations for the earth—of the radius of 433,500 miles, or 237,558 miles from the centre; which in turn makes the shell to be 195,942 miles thick, and the hollow centre to be 475,116 miles in diameter. On the other hand, still following the proportions derived from the earth, we find that the density at the surface might be one-third of the mean density or 0·471; that it might be one-fifth greater than the mean, or 1·7 at the region of greatest density and one-half, or 0·71 at the inner surface of the shell—all of these three densities being in terms of water.
Now, the hollow centre of 475,116 miles in diameter would have a volume of one-sixth of the whole volume of the sun, which, filled with gases, would diminish all these densities just in proportion to what may be considered the degree of compression and condensation the gases might be subjected to. That there should be gases in the interior hardly requires to be more than stated, as there can be no doubt that the degree of heat to which the shell had arrived by the time it came to have the dimensions above mentioned, would be amply sufficient to excite chemical action among the elements of which the sun is composed; and the gases or vapours produced by that action would flow as naturally towards the interior of the hollow centre as towards the space beyond the outer surface of the shell, until they were stopped by increase of pressure, which of course would mean increase of density in this case. We see then that if the hollow centre has a volume of one-sixth of the whole volume of the sun and we multiply this volume by 6, we have a mass equal to the whole mass of the sun, were its mean density only the same as that of water. Consequently, if we multiply the said volume by 6 and by 1·413, that is by 8·478, we get a mass equal to the whole mass of the sun at its known mean density. Again, were we to suppose the hollow centre to be filled with gases of the same specific gravity of air, condensed to a pressure of 6560 atmospheres—which would correspond in density to 8·478 times the density of water—we should have in the hollow centre alone a mass equal to another sun, in addition to the one made up by the dimensions and densities stated above. We see then that if we fill the hollow centre with gases at the pressure, and with the density just stated, we have a sun of twice the mass it should be. But if we leave the specified gases in the hollow with one-half of the above density, and deduct the equivalent mass of the other half density of the gases from the shell, as estimated for the hollow centre, we should have a sun of the mass required by astronomy. In this way we should have the three specified densities reduced from 0·471, 1·70 and 0·71 to 0·236, 0·85 and 0·355, for the outer surface, the region of greatest density, and the inner surface of the shell, respectively; and the pressure and density of the gases in the hollow centre reduced to 3280 atmospheres. Thus, from what has just been shown, which at first sight may be thought very irrelevant matter, we discover that it is not necessary that there should be any matter in the sun even so dense as water. And still we have to think of what an insignificant pressure three or four thousand atmospheres would be in the centre of the sun.
No one will pretend to allege that no gases can be produced in the shell of the sun, or to say anything against those formed in the inner half of it finding their way to the hollow centre, and going on increasing there till they were able to force their way out through the shell; that is, until their pressure was equal to the resistance offered by the gaseous body of the sun, or against their temperature increasing until it came to correspond to their density and most probably rising to a much higher degree. Such, then, must even now be the construction of the sun, as reduced to its present diameter and density. That is, a hollow sphere consisting of cosmic matter combined with gases and having a hollow centre filled with chemically formed gases or vapours.
Here it may be argued that the sun ceases to be a hollow sphere, but that is not so. The most that can be said about it is that it is a hollow sphere with the empty part filled up. It would only be in much the same condition as a hollow globe of iron filled with melted antimony or bismuth. Its construction would be in no way changed by the empty hollow being filled up, so long as its condition remained gaseous—not changed to liquid or solid. The only difference in our sphere would be that its density would virtually be the same from what we have called the region of greatest density to the centre, which would not only involve a greater distance of that region from the surface of the sphere, but another reduction of the above mentioned densities of the sun; for we cannot in any way imagine that the pressure in its interior can be less than many thousands of atmospheres.
Whatever may be the relative densities of the shell and the gases in the hollow, they will have no necessary effect upon the temperature of the latter, because, let the densities be what they may, the gases might be cooled down to absolute zero of temperature, or raised to any imaginary degree without any change being made in their weight as long as their volume was maintained the same. This has been proved by laboratory experiments almost as far as possible. Gases at very high degrees of pressure and consequent densities have been cooled down to not far from the absolute zero of temperature, while others under very low pressures have been heated up to nearly as great heat as the enclosing vessel would bear, without their weight being altered in either case; but in the sun there is a larger laboratory in which we can place no limit to pressure or temperature. We know, however, that pressures are required sufficiently great to blow out jet prominences with velocities of 100,000 miles per second or more, to heights 200,000 and even 350,000 miles above the photosphere; and if we knew what these pressures are we might be able to learn something about the minimum temperatures of the gases. To obtain these pressures we have—in the construction we are advocating—a real containing receptacle with sides 195,942 miles thick, in the outer half of which we have the compressing force, due to the gravitation of the whole mass of the sun acting at the centre, and over and above, both in it and the inner half, we have the cohesive force of the matter of which it is composed. In fact we have a sun whose construction we can understand, in which we have gases shut up without their expansive forces being impaired in any way, ready to be exerted with full energy whenever they are relieved from compression by any commotions in any part of the whole body, and taking their part in keeping the whole of the matter composing it in constant motion. How these commotions are produced it is not difficult to explain to a very considerable extent at least, but this we must leave over until we have reconstructed the original nebula, and shown how the solar system could be elaborated from it, almost exactly in the way conceived by Laplace in his nebular hypothesis. We shall then also be able to extend our exposition of what is to be learnt from our mode of construction, and to still further reduce our estimate of the mean density of the sun.
Meanwhile we have to go into another long digression, with the view of trying to find out something about what the nature of the ether is or may be, which we think to be quite necessary before we go any farther.