A
hill may have been built up by a glacier, while a mountain may be the
product of volcanic forces or of the upheaval of the strata of the
planet.
The Banners of the Sun
As all the world knows, the sun, a blinding globe pouring forth an
inconceivable quantity of light and heat, whose daily passage through
the sky is caused by the earth's rotation on its axis, constitutes the
most important phenomenon of terrestial existence. Viewed with a dark
glass to take off the glare, or with a telescope, its rim is seen to
be a sharp and smooth circle, and nothing but dark sky is visible
around it. Except for the interference of the moon, we should probably
never have known that there is any more of the sun than our eyes
ordinarily see.
But when an eclipse of the sun occurs, caused by the interposition of
the opaque globe of the moon, we see its immediate surroundings, which
in some respects are more wonderful than the glowing central orb.
These surroundings, although not in the sense in which we apply the
term to the gaseous envelope of the earth, may be called the sun's
atmosphere. They consist of two very different parts -- first, the red
``prominences,'' which resemble tongues of flame ascending thousands
of miles above the sun's surface; and, second, the ``corona,'' which
extends to distances of millions of miles from the sun, and shines
with a soft, glowing light.
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