screen, and was so plain that he could see every movement of them in their
various and sudden changes. He says he could plainly discover that those
spots were immense bodies of smoke, apparently issuing from volcanoes; and
as they seem occasionally forced upward from the craters, now forming
dense clouds, and now dispersing, considers those phenomena as accounting
for the rapid changes of those spots. The escape of such a vast quantity
of gas from the interior of the body of the sun would, he observes, as it
surrounds that luminary, produce that bright and dazzling appearance which
is the atmosphere of the sun. This theory may not accord with the opinions
of others who have made observations on the subject; but the writer, at
any rate, entertains the strongest belief of its truth. With the same
instrument, which is but just finished, he has also examined the moon, and
states his conviction that that body is covered with perpetual snow and
ice, the dark spots discoverable on its surface being frozen seas, and the
lighter spaces land covered with snow. Those circular places, which have a
rising cone in the centre, he thinks are extinguished volcanoes, as no
clouds are perceptible over the moon's face; which being covered with snow
and ice, accounts, as he imagines, for its clear atmosphere, or for the
absence of an atmosphere. This vast accumulation of ice and snow upon the
moon's surface may be explained, the writer conjectures, by the nature of
the moon's revolutions. He offers to construct instruments of the above
description, by which these phenomena may be observed, at prices from 50
to 100 dollars; and at the same rate to furnish solar microscopes, on a
new principle, with a magnifying power at 12 feet distance, of
5,184,000.--_Boston Bulletin_.


_National Repository_.