during eclipse, precisely as it is illuminated by the sun when there is no eclipse; but it will readily be understood that this portion of reflected light is very small in amount.) During the solar eclipse of August, 1869, Profs. Young and Harkness discovered that certainly one bright line exists in the spectrum of the corona, and two other lines were suspected. European astronomers expressed doubt as to the accuracy of this observation; but it was confirmed during the Mediterranean eclipse of December, 1870, when Young thus summed up his own and other observations: "There is surrounding the sun, beyond any further reasonable doubt, a mass of self-luminous gaseous matter, whose spectrum is characterized by the green line 1,474 Kirchhoff. The precise extent of this it is hardly possible to consider as determined, but it must be many times the thickness of the red hydrogen portion of the sierra, perhaps on an average 8' or 10', with occasional horns of twice that height. It is not at all unlikely that it may even turn out to have no upper limit, but to extend from the sun indefinitely into space." During the same eclipse, Brothers of Manchester and Willard of Philadelphia (the latter acting under the directions of Prof. Winlock of the Harvard observatory) photographed the corona successfully from two distant stations, Willard being near Jerez in Spain, Brothers near Syracuse in Sicily. The views thus obtained agreed so closely (save in circumstances depending on photographic conditions) as to leave no doubt that the corona is a solar phenomenon. Doubts were still expressed, and it was not until the solar eclipse of December, 1871, that these were finally removed. On that occasion the spectroscopic and photographic results were alike decisive. Janssen with the spectroscope not only recognized the bright lines before seen and others less bright, but also a faint solar spectrum, which, since our atmosphere during total eclipse is certainly not illuminated by sunlight, must have been reflected by matter in the solar corona, such as vaporous clouds, meteor flights, or the like. Mr. Davis, a photographer sent out at Lord Lindsay's expense, obtained five excellent photographs of the corona, all agreeing perfectly inter se, excepting in extent. This proved certainly that the features of the corona do not change as they would if the phenomenon depended on the passage of light rays athwart lunar inequalities, to fall upon scattered matter at a less distance than the moon. Again Col. Tennant obtained six photographs, similarly accordant inter se, and also agreeing perfectly with Mr. Davis's at Dodabetta, a station far removed from Davis's, Baicull. Since, also, Dodabetta is near the highest peak of the Neilgherries, about 9,000 ft. above the sea level, while Baicull is close to the seashore, it will be manifest that if the features of the corona depended on the illumination of our own atmosphere, the pictures of Tennant's series would have differed altogether from those of Davis's series. Thus, independently of the spectroscopic evidence, the photographs proved that the corona is a solar appendage, at least as far as those features shown in the two series extend. But they extend from the sun in places to a distance exceeding his own diameter, and amounting in fact to more than a million miles. There is reason to believe that the true solar corona extends much further, and that in reality the zodiacal light (see ZODIACAL LIGHT) forms the outer part of the solar corona; so that if the light of the sun could be for a time obliterated without rendering his appendages invisible, we should see the corona merging gradually into the faint glow of the zodiacal light. Mr. Arthur W. Wright of Yale college has succeeded in showing that this light is not emitted from incandescent gas, but reflected from particles or small bodies, and hence derived from the sun.-Another important discovery made during total solar eclipses relates to a solar atmosphere underlying even the sierra. Secchi had observed in 1869 that close to the sun's limb the solar spectrum becomes continuous; this he considered to be due to the existence of a relatively very shallow atmosphere, consisting of the vapors which cause the dark lines of the solar spectrum. For if the brightness of the lines of these vapors corresponds very closely to the brightness of the ordinary solar spectrum for the parts near to the sun's edge, the dark lines of the latter spectrum would be cancelled, and so a continuous spectrum would be produced. For another reason, the present writer had adopted the theory that the atmosphere producing the absorption lines of the solar spectrum must be shallow, compared at least with the dimensions of the sun's globe; for he showed that a shallow and not a deep atmosphere is to be inferred from the darkening of the solar disk near its edge. The opinion thus advanced on theoretical grounds was shown to be correct by the observations of Prof. Young during the total eclipse of December, 1870; for, "directing his analyzing spectroscope to the part of the sun's limb which was to disappear last, he found that at the instant when totality commenced the solar spectrum was suddenly replaced by a spectrum consisting of a thousand soft bright lines." In other words, the vapors which by their absorptive action produce the dark lines of the ordinary solar spectrum were for the moment shining with their own light, and thus produced a spectrum of bright lines. This spectrum continued visible for a few seconds only, showing that the complex atmosphere producing it cannot be more than two or three hundred miles in depth. The observation was successfully renewed during the eclipse of December, 1871, and again during the annular eclipse of June, 1872.-How to account for the supply of the prodigious amount of heat constantly radiated from the solar surface has offered a boundless field of hypothesis. One conjecture has been that the sun is now giving off the | heat imparted to it at its creation, and that it is gradually cooling down; another ascribed it to combustion, and a third to currents of electricity. Newton and Buffon conjectured that comets might be the aliment of the sun, and of late years a somewhat similar theory (first broached by Mr. Waterston in 1853) has been in vogue, viz., that a stream of meteoric matter constantly pouring into the sun from the regions of space supplies its heat, by the conversion into it of the arrested motion. As the sun may indeed derive a small amount of heat from this cause, it deserves more attention than previous conjectures. But conjecture and hypothesis may be said to have given place to views which claim a higher title, as it is now becoming generally recognized, in accordance with modern physical theories of heat, that in the gravitation of the sun's mass toward its centre, and in its consequent condensation, sufficient heat must be evolved to supply the present radiation, enormous as this undoubtedly is. It appears to be susceptible of full demonstration that a contraction of the sun's volume | of a given definite amount, which is yet so slight as to be invisible to the most powerful telescope, is competent to furnish a heat supply equal to all that can have been emitted during historical periods. According to this theory then (which is due largely to the development by Helmholtz of Mayer's great generalization), the sun's mass remains unaltered, and its temperature nearly constant, while its size is slowly diminishing as it contracts; so slowly, however, that the supply may be reckoned on through periods almost infinite as measured by the known past of our race, and which are in any case to be counted by millions of years. It would appear from early measurements of Secchi that the different portions of the solar disk do not radiate heat in uniform degrees, and his tables show that the equatorial regions are slightly hotter than the polar. It has been explained that the rapid decrease of brightness toward the edge of the sun obliges us to admit the existence of a shallow atmosphere around it. Prof. Langley has recently published tables from more extended measurements, showing the rate of absorption both of heat and light, the latter being greater than the former. As he does not now find the difference between the equatorial and polar heat observed by Secchi in 1852, the latter concludes from a comparison of his own observations with Langley's, that great changes occur in the distribution of the heat on the sun's surface. Prof. Langley has further shown that this atmosphere absorbs one half of the sun's total radiation, and he considers that its function in the solar emission is of great importance to A slight alteration in the thickness of this obscuring envelope would induce changes on the earth greater than those known to have occurred in its climate in past geologic epochs, which may themselves not impossibly us. have been due to this hitherto unrecognized cause. M. Fizeau has found that the chemical rays are similarly reduced in amount toward the edge of the solar disk, a fact which is also abundantly shown by the darkening near the edge of photographic sun pictures, like those by Rutherfurd and De la Rue.-To sum up briefly the received hypotheses of the physical constitution of the sun: Of its internal structure we know nothing, but we can infer from the low density of the solar globe as a whole that no considerable portion is solid or liquid. The regions we examine appear to consist of cloud layers at several levels floating in a complex atmosphere, in which probably most of the elements are known to us, and certainly many of them exist in the form of vapor. Outside this complex atmosphere extend envelopes of simpler constitution, though into them occasionally arise the vapors which ordinarily lie lower down. The sierra, for instance, consists in the main of glowing hydrogen gas, and that gas, whatever it may be, which produces the line near the orange-yellow sodium lines. The prominence region may be regarded as simply the extension of the sierra. The inner corona is still simpler than the sierra so far as its gaseous constitution is concerned; but here meteoric and cometic matter appears, extending to the outer corona and to great distances beyond even the visible limits of the zodiacal. Returning to the photosphere, we find it subject to continual fluctuations, both from local causes of agitation and from the subjacent vapor acting by its elasticity to burst through it; the faculæ, which are found to be above the general level of the photosphere, are taken to be heapings up of the luminous matter like the crested surges of the sea. All the strata are subject to great movements, which sometimes have the character of uniform progression analogous to our trade winds, and sometimes are violent and resemble in their effects our tornadoes and whirlwinds. Eruptive action appears to operate from time to time with exceeding violence, but whether the enormous velocities of outrush are due to true explosive action (which would compel us to believe that the sun is enclosed by a liquid shell, so as to resemble a gigantic bubble), or to the uprising of lighter vapors from enormous depths, as heated currents rise in our own atmosphere, is not as yet certainly known. SUN BIRD, the name commonly given to the promeropida, a family of tenuirostral birds, with a long, slender, and usually curved bill, the nostrils placed at the base and covered with a scale, wings of moderate size, and short tarsi covered with broad scales. They inhabit the tropical regions of both hemispheres; the subfamily promeropine, including by far the most species, is confined to the old world, and the cærebina to the new. The true sun birds belong to the former, and have a long, slender, curled, and sharp bill, sometimes finely serrated on the margins; the tail is long, the central feathers often exceeding the rest. They are found in the islands of the Pacific and Indian oceans, and on the continents of Africa and Asia; they are the humming birds of the old Fiery-tailed Sun Bird (Nectarinia ignicauda). world, having similar habits and the same brilliant colors, but are larger. The genus nectarinia (Illig.) contains more than 100 species, mostly African. The nest, of an elegant form, is usually suspended from the end of a twig, with an opening at the side; the eggs are two to four. The carebina or guitguits have a shorter, broader, and nearly straight bill, and long pointed wings; they are found in tropical South America and the West Indies; the plumage is very beautiful. The nest is protected by a long funnel or by two compartments against insects, birds, serpents, and lizards. SUNBURY, a borough and the capital of Northumberland co., Pennsylvania, on the E. bank of the Susquehanna river, 42 m. N. of Harrisburg, and 114 m. N. W. of Philadelphia; pop. in 1870, 3,131. It has a daily and three weekly newspapers, and several manufactories and machine shops. It is connected by rail with Philadelphia and the Shamokin mining region, and about 200,000 tons of coal are shipped annually. | from Flat point, in lat. 5° 59' S., to Hog point, is about 85 m.; and upon the opposite coast, from Java head, lat. 7° 5' S., to Bantam point, about 100 m. The breadth of the strait where it joins the Indian ocean is about 70 m., and at the end next the Java sea about 20 m. SUNDAY (Sax. Sunnan dag), the first day of the week, identical with the Roman dies Solis (day of the sun). The keeping of this as a sacred day, in memory of Christ's resurrection and of the descent of the Holy Ghost, dates from the beginning of Christianity. It is probable that the first Jewish Christians kept this day holy, while conforming also to their legal sabbath. It was called the Lord's day in all the churches; but it was also popularly designated as Sunday as soon as the gentile element began to prevail. According to De' Rossi, the first monumental inscription calling it the Lord's day is of the year 403. Its first official recognition is in an edict of Constantine in 321, ordering that all work should cease in the cities "on the venerable Sunday," but permitting necessary husbandry to be attended to. The Theodosian code prescribed that "on the Sunday, rightfully designated by our ancestors as the Lord's day, all lawsuits and public business shall cease." (See LORD'S DAY.) SUNDAY SCHOOLS. The earliest recorded Sunday schools were the schools of catechumens, organized, according to Tertullian, in A. D. 180, though less formal instruction of Christian children and novitiates prevailed earlier. The schools of the catechumens flourished till the 6th century. In 1527 Luther established Sunday schools in Wittenberg for the instruction of children who could not attend the day schools. In 1560 Knox inaugurated them in Scotland. In 1580 Archbishop Borromeo of Milan established a system of Sunday schools throughout his diocese, and about the same time there were similar schools in France and the Netherlands. In the 17th century the clergy statedly catechised the children in some parishes of England; and Joseph Alleine, author of the "Alarm," opened a Sunday school in 1668. There was a Sunday school in Roxbury, Mass., in 1674, and one in Plymouth, Mass., in 1680. About 1740 Ludwig Häcker established a school in Ephratah, Lancaster co., Pa., which continued until the building was taken for a hospital during the revolution. Modern Sunday schools, however, were originated by Robert Raikes, who in SUNDA ISLANDS, a former designation of 1781 gathered poor children from the streets those islands of the Indian archipelago which in Gloucester, England, and employed female surround the Java sea. They were divided teachers at a shilling a day for their instrucinto the greater and the lesser Sunda islands, tion. The children were taught from 10 A. M. the former including Sumatra, Borneo, Ce- to 12; then, after an hour's recess, read a leslebes, and Java, and the latter the chain of son and went to church. After church they islands which extends from the E. extremity repeated the catechism till after 5, and were of Java to Papua, exclusive of the Moluccas. then charged to go home at once and quietly. SUNDA STRAIT, an arm of the sea between Raikes published an account of his work in the islands of Sumatra and Java, which leads the "Gloucester Journal" in 1783, which was from the Indian ocean to the Java sea. The republished in the "Gentleman's Magazine," length of the channel upon the Sumatra side, and schools upon his plan were soon estab SUNBURY, a S. central county of New Brunswick, Canada, intersected by the St. John river; area, 1,203 sq. m.; pop. in 1871, 6,824, of whom 2,839 were of English, 2,655 of Irish, and 552 of Scotch origin or descent. The surface is nearly level; the soil is fertile and heavily wooded. The European and North American railway and Fredericton branch traverse the county. Capital, Oromocto. SOCIETIES. London Sunday school union.. Begun in Expended for missionary work in 1874. 1803 £4.059 1824 $90,079 1827 $15,781 These societies also publish hymn books, books Since lished in the principal towns of England. | Among the most important societies formed Scotland had similar schools as early as 1782, for the promotion of Sunday schools are the and they were established in Ireland in 1785. following: The London Sunday school society was organized in 1785, and in 16 years it spent £4,000. In 1786 it was thought that there were 250,000 children in Sunday schools in Great Britain. Bishop Asbury established one in Hanover co., Va., in 1786, and Bishop White one in Philadelphia in 1791. In 1790 the Methodist Episcopal conference at Charleston, S. C., resolved to establish schools for whites and blacks. Katy Ferguson, a poor negro woman, is said to have established one in New York in 1793. Samuel Slater opened a Sunday school for his operatives in Pawtucket, R. I., in 1797; and Mrs. Isabella Graham and her daughter, Mrs. Divie Bethune, who had seen the English schools, opened one in a private house in New York in 1801. The important change from paid to volunteer teachers is said to have been adopted by the Methodists at Bolton, England, about 1786. The "Gratis Sunday School Society" was established in Scotland in 1797, and voluntary teaching was general in England in 1800. In 1803 the London Sunday school union was formed, to foster voluntary teaching. Soon the churches began to assume charge of Sunday schools, in the United States about 1809; and the instruction then became more exclusively religious. Schools were opened in the Protestant churches of all denominations in Great Britain and the United States, later among the Roman Catholics, and more recently among the Quakers. Since 1848 special attention has been given to mission schools for the vagrant children of large cities. In 1875 there were 140 Protestant mission schools in New York. As now organized, a Sunday school has a superintendent with various assistants and a number of teachers, each of whom has a class of scholars. The classes are of different grades, but generally study the same Scripture lesson, their study being separate, but all the classes uniting in worship. The session generally continues an hour or an hour and a half. Schools upon this plan have been introduced by English and American missionaries in all lands; but the system has been adopted in the national churches of continental Europe only within the last 20 years. The following table gives the fullest statistics accessible for 1874: SUNDERBUNDS, a marshy tract of British India, in Bengal, stretching across the lower part of the delta of the Ganges, between the bay of Bengal and the inhabited parts of the delta, from the river Hoogly to the island of Rabnabad, 158 m., with a breadth of about 75 m.; area, over 7,000 sq. m.; pop. very small. The soil is alluvial, and the whole district is cut up into innumerable wooded islands by rivers and creeks, many of them navigable for vessels of considerable size. The woods swarm with tigers, the waters with crocodiles, and other tropical animals abound. Salt is manufactured from the sea water to a sufficient extent to supply the demand of the lower provinces of Bengal. The Sunderbunds are included within the district of the 24 Pergunnahs. SUNDERLAND, a town and parliamentary borough of Durham, England, at the mouth of the river Wear in the North sea, 12 m. N. E. of the city of Durham and 240 m. N. by W. of London; pop. of the town in 1871, 98,335. The Wear passes through the borough, and is crossed by an iron bridge, high enough for large sailing vessels to pass, which connects Monk Wearmouth with the S. side of the river, The harbor is formed by the mouth of the river, and is protected by piers. The docks on the S. side of the river have an independent entrance to the sea. Ship building amounts in seasons of ordinary prosperity to more than 70,000 tons. The entrances in 1873 were 8,091 British vessels, tonnage 1,705,925, and 1,257 foreign vessels, tonnage 268,511; clearances, 8,140 British vessels, tonnage 1,828,094, and 1,299 foreign vessels, tonnage 296,602. The value of exports was £1,615,190. The chief manufactures consist of earthenware and glass, and all kinds of articles required for fitting out vessels. Window glass and glass bottles are very largely manufactured. SUNDERLAND. I. Robert Spencer, second earl of, an English statesman, born in Paris about 1641, died at Althorp, Sept. 28, 1702. After serving as ambassador to Spain and France, he became in 1679 secretary of state. In 1681 he went out of office, but was recalled in 1682, and exercised a controlling influence during the remainder of the reign of Charles II. Under James II. he remained secretary, and was also made president of the council. In 1687 he became a Roman Catholic; but he carried on a secret intrigue with the prince of Orange, and in October, 1688, was dismissed by James. On the arrival of the prince of Orange, Sunderland went to Rotterdam, where he was thrown into prison, but was released by order of William. He then went to Amsterdam, turned Protestant again, and after residing about two years at Utrecht returned to England, although excepted in the act of indemnity. On April 19, 1697, William appointed him lord chamberlain and one of the lords justices; but on Dec. 25 he resigned. II. Charles Spencer, third earl of, an English minister, son of the preceding, born in 1674, died April 19, 1722. Professing republican principles, he entered the house of commons in 1695 as member for Tiverton, and continued in the next three parliaments. In 1705 he was sent to Vienna as envoy extraordinary and plenipotentiary, and in 1707 became secretary of state, but was dismissed in 1710. He was generally regarded as the head of the whig party, and on the accession of George I. he was made lord lieutenant of Ireland, in 1715 lord privy seal, and in April, 1717, secretary of state. The house of commons implicated him in the criminal transactions of the South sea scheme; but he was acquitted by a vote of 233 to 172, though with loss of his office. He spent his remaining days in intrigues to effect the downfall of Walpole. By his marriage with the second daughter of the great duke he became progenitor of the present house of Marlborough, their son succeeding as second duke. SUNDEW, the common name of plants of the genus drosera (Gr. dpoσɛpós, dewy), which gives its name to the droseracea, a small order of remarkable plants, one of which, the Venus's fly-trap, is described under DIONEA. There are about 100 species of drosera, distributed all over the world, except in some of the Pacific islands; they are perennials, and either stemless, with a rosette of leaves rising from the rhizome, or have stems with alternate VOL. XV.-31 | leaves; with a few rare exceptions, the leaves bear numerous bristles or hairs, each of which exudes a drop of clear glutinous fluid; this exudation of the hairs, which glistens like dew drops, is recognized in the common and botanical names. Six species are found within the limits of the United States; they are all stemless, with the leaves circinate in the bud (i. e., rolled up from the apex downward), all in a tuft at the base, from the centre of which rises a naked scape bearing the flowers at the top in a one-sided raceme, the undeveloped apex of which droops, leaving the open flower apparently the highest. The white or rosecolored flowers, which open only in sunshine, have in our species their parts mostly in fives, the calyx and corolla withering and remaining in fruit; the globular ovary has three or five styles, so deeply cleft as to appear like six or ten, and ripening into a one-celled, threevalved capsule containing numerous seeds, with a pitted surface. All are found in bogs or wet sands, some very rare and others widely distributed. The. most common is the round-leaved sundew (D. rotundifolia), which extends from Canada to Florida; its leaves, 1 to 2 in. long, and spreading upon the ground, have an orbicular blade narrowing abruptly into a petiole; the scapes, 6 in. or more high, bear white flowers with their parts sometimes in sixes. The longleaved (D.longifolia), less frequent, but with a similar range, often grows in the water, when its caudex is several inches long; the leaves, more or less erect, have an oblong blade which tapers gradually into the petiole, and are from 1 to 4 in. long; scape and flowers similar to the preceding. Both of these species are also natives of Europe, the first named extending from northern Spain to the arctic regions and throughout Russian Asia. The short-leaved (D. brevifolia) has wedge-shaped leaves only in. long, and white flowers on a scape 3 in. or more high; this and D. capillaris, formerly regarded as a long-leaved variety of it, are found only from Florida to North Carolina. The slender sundew (D. linearis) is our most local species, being found along Lake Superior and in a few other localities further west; its narrowly linear leaves are 4 to 6 in. long, the blade barely in. wide; the scape, at first shorter than the leaves, but at length longer, has white flowers. The thread-leaved sundew (D. filifolia) occurs Round-leaved Sundew (Drosera rotundifolia). |