Eight large or major planets, with their satellites, and a flock of minor planets or planetoids, are revolving round him as their common centre and luminary at various distances, but all in the same direction.  The orbits, or paths, about the sun are ovals or ellipses, almost circular, of which the sun occupies one focus, and they are so nearly in one plane, or at one level, that if seen from the sun, they would appear to wander along a narrow belt of the heavens, called the zodiac, which extends a few degrees on each side of the Elliptic or apparent course of the sun against the stars.  The planets are all globes, more or less flat at the poles, like an orange, and each is turning and swaying on its axis, thus exposing every part to the light and warmth of the sun.  They are divided by the planetoids into an inner and an outer band.  The inner four are Mercury, Venus, the Earth, and Mars; the outer four are Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.  Moreover, a number of comets and swarms of meteoric stones or meteorites are circulating round the sun in eccentric paths, which cross those of the planets.  Such is the solar system—­a lonely archipelago in the ethereal ocean—­a little family of worlds.”

“Not without its jars, I’m afraid.”

“The sun is chief of the clan,” continued Gazen, “and keeps it together by the mysterious tie of gravitation.  While flying through space, he turns round his own axis like a rifle bullet in 25 or 26 days.  His diameter is 860,000 miles, and although he is not much denser than sea-water, his mass is over 700 times greater than the combined mass of all his retinue.  Gravity on his surface being 28 times stronger than on the earth, a piece of timber would be as heavy as gold there, and a stone let fall would drop 460 feet the first second instead of 16 feet as here.  He is built of the same kind of matter as the earth and other planets, but is hotter than the hottest electric arc or reverberatory furnace.  Apparently his glowing bulk is made up of several concentric shells like an onion.  First there is a kernel or liquid nucleus, probably as dense as pitch.  Above it is the photosphere, the part we usually see, a jacket of incandescent clouds, or vapours, which in the telescope is seen to resemble ‘willow leaves,’ or ’rice grains in a plate of soup,’ and in the spectroscope to reveal the rays of iron, manganese, or other heavy elements.  What we call ‘faculae’ (or little torches), are brighter streaks, not unlike some kinds of coral.  The ‘Sunspots’ are immense gaps or holes in the photosphere, some of them 150,000 miles in diameter, which afford us a peep at the glowing interior.  There are different theories as to their nature, hence they provide rival astronomers with an excellent opportunity of spotting each other’s reputations.  For instance, I look upon them as eruptions, and Professor Sylvanus Pettifer Possil (my pet aversion) regards them as cyclonic storms; consequently we never lose an opportunity of erupting and storming at each other.