upon himself as the link between the spiritual and corporeal world; the spirits saw through his eyes, and he found them principally before and in his head. Without a form he could not conceive a God, for the eternal Father he substituted the Son. He divided heaven into two kingdoms-the kingdom of the inward spirit or of the true man, and the kingdom of knowledge. His style is entirely destitute of ornament, and his discourses with this or that spirit are extremely naive. He had numerous disciples in Sweden, England, and other countries. His large work, "The True Christian Religion," is worth reading, as an appendix to the errors of the human spirit.

Sylvester Abend. New Year's Eve.-The Freemason, more than any other man, ought to feel what an important division of time this evening is, and ought to celebrate it by holding a lodge and a fraternal festival. At this festival he ought earnestly to ask himself, if during the past year he has always been faithful to the rules of the Order, and active in promoting its principles; he ought solemnly to pledge himself to continue his exertions; to pray fervently for a blessing upon the government of the country in which he resides; and heart to heart the brethren ought to wish each other a happy new year, and solemnly pledge themselves to maintain the great principles of brotherly love and truth.

System Ritus-oder Ritual. System or Ritual -The last word imports how a lodge ought to be opened and closed, and how an initiation, passing, or raising ought to be conducted; this may also be called the liturgy of the lodge. Commonly by those words are also understood the system of the lodge, although with more justice it is only the object of Freemasonry which ought to be understood by the word system. It is from this error that we have the appellations Knights Templar system, Eclectical system, &c. True Freemasonry cannot have more parts, or be anything different from what it is in the ritual, and the word system ought to be entirely banished from Freemasonry. The ritual is not the same in all lodges, nay, there are nearly as many different rituals as there are Grand Lodges. Many of those rituals are of quite modern origin, especially that of the Grand Lodge Royal York, Berlin, and that of the Grand Lodge of Hamburg. The English ritual is the most ancient, it extended itself into every part of the earth, but was afterwards superseded in many places by the French, Swedish, and others. Those outward forms and ceremonies, although they differ, yet they do not divide the brethren amongst themselves, but each lodge and its members is tolerant with the members of other lodges; and all lodges are allowed to endeavour and strive to obtain their object by what way they think best. Neither is there any real difference whether some ceremonies are to be performed in this manner, or in that, according to the different rituals, or whether the officers are called this or that. Time and various circumstances have made those alterations in the rituals principally to produce a more lasting impression upon the mind of the candidate at his initiation, and to advance with the improved spirit of the times. Fragments from-some of the rituals have been published, especially from the old ones; but there must be more than a dozen rituals published before an un-initiated person could learn how an initiation was conducted, or how a lodge was held. The end to which the ritual leads us is the principal object, or the real secret of Freemasonry, and it would require an adept to discover this from any ritual. There only ought to be one ritual, as was the case in former ages; and the unlucky word system ought never to have been introduced into the Craft. We will here mention the prin

cipal systems which have been broken up, and also the systems which are now at work, and are to be found under their proper heads.

Systems which have ceased to work:—Strickte Observance oder Templeherren; Afrikanische Bauherren; Asiatische Brûder; Kreuz Bruder; Cleriker; Clermontisches; Rosaiches; Lermaches; Melissinosches; Martinisten; Rosenkreutrer; Illuminaten: Philaleten.

Systems which still work :-English; Swedish; French; Scottish; Dutch; Schweitzerisches; Danish, and its united lodges; Eclectical; Hamburg, or Schroeder's; Berlin, Grand Lodge, Three Globes; Berlin, Grand Lodge, Royal York, called also Fesslersetes; Berlin, National Lodge, called also the Zinnerdorfesches system.

Tafel, die Schwartze. The Black Tablet.-Every one who applies to a lodge for initiation must allow his name to be inscribed upon the black tablet for some weeks. Those who are not qualified for initiation by education and manners, cannot be inscribed.

Tafelloge. Table Lodge, or Banquet.-After the closing of every lodge for initiations or festival, a banquet is held, that is to say, the brethren assemble for recreation and refreshment at a supper. But if the brethren merely meet to eat and drink, then the appellation table lodge, or masonic banquet, would not be appropriate. Eating, or more properly speaking, drinking toasts, and earnest masonic discourses or appeals for charitable purposes to the brethren, are so blended together, as to produce one beautiful and harmonious whole evening's amusement; for this reason the officers of the lodge, at least the Worshipful Master, Wardens, and Master of the Ceremonies, or his substitute, must be present. The opening and closing of a masonic banquet, at which the brethren are clothed, is commonly regulated by a ritual for that purpose. Before it is opened it is duly tried whether it is properly guarded, and only serving brethren are allowed to wait upon the table; and every lodge must be careful that the price is not too high, so as to prevent brethren who are not rich from attending. Much drinking is not allowed, for which reason the Master of the Ceremonies must attend to the brethren; it is also his duty to see that the visiting brethren (who in many lodges pay nothing) have good seats. A banquet must be so conducted that every brother who is present must be impressed deeply with gratitude to the Great Architect of the Universe, from whom all blessings are given; and he must never, while enjoying the good things of this world, forget his poorer brethren, who may be destitute of common necessaries. Lectures, music, and songs must elevate him to the performance of charitable actions, as much or even more than in a working lodge.

VOL. VI.

M M

SOLAR SPOTS.

THOUGH those singular appearances, termed spots on the sun, are said to be very seldom so large as to be visible to the naked eye, I have had the opportunity of so observing several, since my notice of the remarkable one seen on the 25th of January last. Hence I am inclined to conclude, that they have been unusually large of late. Of the rarity of such occurrences, Dr. Dick, in particular, a living astronomical writer, author of "The Sidereal Heavens," "Practical Astronomy," &c. testifies in the following remarks (which I partially quoted in my last communication,) appended as a foot-note to "Barrit's Astronomy." "I have for many years examined the solar spots with considerable minuteness, and have several times seen spots which were not less than the onetwenty-fifth part of the sun's diameter, which would make them about 35,200 miles in diameter; yet they were visible neither to the naked eye nor through an opera glass magnifying about three times. And, therefore, if any spots have been visible to the naked eye, which we must believe, unless we refuse respectable testimony, they could not have been much less than 50,000 miles in diameter."

The writer of the above, having thus never been able to detect a spot, or group of spots, with the unaided eye, although a frequent and scientific observer, I must consider myself fortunate in having seen the following distinct spots, since the one which I ventured to describe in January last. On the 21st of March, I observed a spot a little before sun-set, a few degrees S. E. of the sun's centre. It was just perceptible, though of course of very considerable size, according to Dr. Dick's inference.

May 13.-I observed another, which had come on the sun's eastern limb about six days before, and with a power of about 200, was resolved into a vast cluster of spots of different dimensions, all connected together. The whole formed one round spot to the naked eye.

June 8.-A long cluster, somewhat like a shepherd's crook, appeared as one spot to the unassisted eye. It was then past the middle of its course, having a south declination.

June 24 and 25 — A very long, narrow, string of spots was discernible, presenting to the naked eye a slightly oblong appearance, the effect of its enormous extent. I counted 60 constituent spots of all sizes, mostly small. This chain measured upwards of a digit, or above one twelfth part of the solar diameter. Perhaps 76 thousand miles might be about its stretch. It resembled very much a flight of wild geese.

July 7 and 10, respectively.-Another elongated cluster was visible to the naked eye, and to which my attention was particularly directed, by a paragraph in a newspaper of the 7th, stating, that it had just appeared on the eastern margin of the sun, and on Tuesday morning, was proceeding, I presume, towards the centre of the disc. "The spots visible at present," says the writer, "form a long narrow cluster, in which are upwards of thirty spots, many of which seem to be running into each other, and are all surrounded by one common penumbra. It will probably appear much larger and denser as it comes more to the centre. The size at present is as follows:-Total length, 140,000 miles, or 5 times the circumference of the earth; breadth, about 20,000 miles, but the breadth varies considerably length of the thickest part, or that which appears to be one spot under a low power, 95,000 miles."

Having examined this spot attentively through the telescope, when it had more advanced to the sun's centre, than at the time the writer of the

above passage saw it, I certainly could not conceive it to be of the extreme extent he figures it. There was a great isolated spot preceding the group in question, at a considerable distance from it, which would seem as if belonging to it, when seen foreshortened, as the whole would be when first seen near the eastern verge; and I am inclined to suspect that the writer must have included this also in his computation, separated though it really was by a considerable space. If otherwise, it must have been the longest upon record, to have measured nearly a sixth part of the solar diameter. Several extensive clusters of large spots were apparent on the sun's disc at the same time, but this group was the only one that I could detect without any magnifying aid, employing as usual a stained glass. The next which I have to notice, is the only single spot I have ever observed with the naked eye. All the others were compound, consisting of two or more, which seems in general the case. The large one recorded by Sir W. Herschel in 1770, as seen with the naked eye, was of the compound character. "By a view of it," he says, "with a seven feet reflector, charged with a very high power, it appeared to be divided into parts. The largest of the two, on the 19th of April, measured 1' 8" 06 in diameter, which is equal in length to more than 31,000 miles. Both together must have extended above 50,000." The single spot I allude to, and which I noticed with the naked eye, on the 20th of July, was probably about as big as this double one. It was then somewhat past the middle of its course, the state of the atmosphere preventing it from being seen sooner without magnifying aid. It presented the appearance of a black, triangular, or wedged shaped nucleus, (lying nearly parallel with the sun's equator) surrounded with a broad border or penumbra, of an oblong form. A few minute spots appeared following in its vicinity, before it had far advanced, which vanished on its approach to the sun's centre. Vast and concentrated must have been the disturbing forces which revealed so large an undivided portion of the solar mass. Sir John Herschel, thus seeks to account for the causes of these mighty and mysterious movements. Assuming the sun to have an immense atmosphere, of an oblately spheroidal form, the escape of heat must be greater from its polar than from its equatorial regions, being thicker at the latter; hence circulatory movements would be generated to and from the sun's poles in the fluids covering its surface; and these, modified by its rotation on its axis, may occasion the solar spots, which appear to be confined to two zones, about 35 degrees on each side of the equator.

"The spots," he says, in his late splendid work, "in this view of the subject, would come to be assimilated to those regions on the earth's surface, in which for the moment, hurricanes and tornadoes prevail, the upper stratum being temporalily carried downwards, displacing by its impetus the two strata of luminous matter beneath; the upper, of course, to a greater extent than the lower: thus wholly or partially denuding the opaque surface of the sun below. Such processes cannot be unaccompanied with vorticose motions, which, left to themselves, die away by degrees and dissipate; with this peculiarity, that their lower portions come to rest more speedily than their upper, by reason of the greater resistance below, as well as remoteness from the point of action, which lies in a higher region, so that their centre (as seen in our waterspouts, which are nothing but small tornadoes) appears to retreat upwards. Now, this agrees perfectly with what is observed during the obliteration of the solar spots, which appear as if filled in by the collapse of their sides, the penumbra closing in upon the spot, and disappearing after it."

Such is Sir John's illustration, founded on his father's hypothesis ; and it certainly so far seems to meet the observed phenomena. Some future Rossean detector may, however, yet explode it, like the famous Nebular hypothesis.

Up to the present date, I have only one more spot to record, in addition to those already noted, making in all, six spots, or groups of spots, apparent to the unaided optics. This last was also a very extensive condensed cluster, one large black spot preceding the rest. It had arrived near the centre of the sun, (some degrees south) on the 29th of July, at 2h. 10 m., when I first was able to recognize it with the naked eye. I saw it again on the 31st. Further south of this cluster, was an extremely long succession of branching spots, part of which were visibly connected by umbre and shallows, but not dense enough to be descried without telescopic aid. The track of their course was enormous.

Such is a summary of a few facts that have come under my notice, as a casual observer; a more detailed description would have been tedious, and not easily apprehended without the adjunct of diagrams or drawings, The record may interest a few, or direct attention to those singular phenomena. In closing, I may remark, that notwithstanding the prevalent adoption of the Herschelian hypothesis, the theory of igneous agency, or volcanic action, still obtains, not unnaturally, some support; and it is on such, or similar grounds, I presume, that a distinguished investigator, Sir J. W. Lubbock, Bart. has recently thrown out a hint, that those curious bodies, called shooting stars, and even comets, may possibly owe their origin to the explosive forces in apparent operation on the sun's surface: and it certainly would be a remarkable circumstance, if, as the learned author suggests, by calculating the perturbations of some comet for the past, having a small perihelion, it were to be traced back to its origin, and the very year ascertained when it left the solar mass. Supposing such to be the source of these revolving meteors, or shooting stars, one would be apt, reasoning à priori, to conclude, that the more frequent and large the solar spots were, the more numerous ought the shooting stars to be. I know not if there be sufficient data to ascertain whether this is the case: but in 1836, M. Arago obtained 445 simultaneous observations of shooting stars, in France alone, during the night of the 12th and 13th of November; and in 1837 and 1838 many such meteors were seen in Britain and abroad. Now the years 1836 and 1837 were remarkable for the occurrence of groups of very large spots, thirteen of which, Sir John Herschel has delineated in his great work. One of these, seen on the 19th of March, 1837, occupied an area of nearly five minutes, equal to 3,780,000,000 square miles! The author of "Čelestial Scenery" also mentions a spot or group, which, on the 19th of October, 1836, measured 41,000 miles in length, by 16,300 in breadth, having within its area, room for ten globes as large as our earth. Thus far, a correspondence between the times of apparition seems to occur, though such coincidences alone, it must be confessed, are very vague proofs as to establishing a relation between the phenomena in question. I am not aware, whether the myriads of meteors, or showers, as they are called, of shooting stars, observed in America and elsewhere, in 1831, and the succeeding year, were preceded or accompanied by extraordinary solar disruptions. If they were, the hypothesis might gain a further proof. But the truth is, we are scarcely in a condition to frame any very just theories either of the origin of the solar spots, or of the shooting stars. Much has yet to be achieved ere we can get even a glimmering of the