Solar Acne

Like any hotblooded individual, the sun is subject to periodic eruptions of the countenance. Last week, growing steadily, almost visible to the naked eye, a vast blemish appeared on the eastern solar cheek, a disfiguration 50,000 or 60,000 mi. across, caused by some disarrangement of the internal molten solar humors. Dr. David Todd of Amherst College, in reporting the spot to laity, reminded them to look next for displays of the aurora borealis. Just what influence the sun exerts--whether cathode rays, Hertzian waves or negatively charged particles--to cause "the dance of the dead men," the "merry dancers," the Polar or Northern Lights, is undetermined by scientists. But two centuries of observation have indicated that sunspot years are aurora borealis years, the phenomenon, ordinarily confined to polar regions, being sometimes visible as far south as Yucatan in the Western Hemisphere and Gibraltar in the Eastern.