The other two "elements" of the sun's rotation were also ascertained by Carrington with hitherto unattained precision. He fixed the inclination of its axis to the ecliptic at 82° 45'; the longitude of the ascending node at 73° 40' (for the epoch 1850 A.D.). These data--which have scarcely yet been improved upon--suffice to determine the position in space of the sun's equator. Its north pole is directed towards a star in the coils of the Dragon, midway between Vega and the Pole-star; its plane intersects that of the earth's orbit in such a way that our planet finds itself in the same level on or about the 3rd of June and the 5th of December, when any spots visible on the disc cross it in apparently straight lines. At other times, the paths pursued by them seem curved--downward (to an observer in the northern hemisphere) between June and December, upward between December and June.
A singular peculiarity in the distribution of sun-spots emerged from Carrington's studies at the time of the minimum of 1856. Two broad belts of the solar surface, as we have seen, are frequented by them, of which the limits may be put at 6° and 35° of north and south latitude. Individual equatorial spots are not uncommon, but nearer to the poles than 35° they are a rare exception. Carrington observed--as an extreme instance--in July, 1858, one in south latitude 44°; and Peters, in June, 1846, watched, during several days, a spot in 50° 24' north latitude. But beyond this no true macula has ever been seen; for Lahire's reported observation of one in latitude 70° is now believed to have had its place on the solar globe erroneously assigned; and the "veiled spots" described by Trouvelot in 1875[423] as occurring within 10° of the pole can only be regarded as, at the most, the same kind of disturbance in an undeveloped form.
But the novelty of Carrington's observations consisted in the detection of certain changes in distribution concurrent with the progress of the eleven-year period. As the minimum approached, the spot-zones contracted towards the equator, and there finally vanished; then, as if by a fresh impulse, spots suddenly reappeared in high latitude, and spread downwards with the development of the new phase of activity. Scarcely had this remark been made public,[424] when Wolf[425] found a confirmation of its general truth in Böhm's observations during the years 1833-36; and a perfectly similar behaviour was noted both by Spörer and Secchi at the minimum epoch of 1867. The ensuing period gave corresponding indications; and it may now be looked upon as established that the spot-zones close in towards the equator with the advance of each cycle, their activity culminating, as a rule, in a mean latitude of about 16°, and expiring when it is reduced to 6°. Before this happens, however, a completely new disturbance will have manifested itself some 35° north and south of the equator, and will have begun to travel over the same course as its predecessor. Each series of sun-spots is thus, to some extent, overlapped by the succeeding one; so that while the average interval from one maximum to the next is eleven years, the period of each distinct wave of agitation is twelve or fourteen.[426] Curious evidence of the retarded character of the maximum of 1883-4 was to be found in the unusually low latitude of the spot-zones when it occurred. Their movement downward having gone on regularly while the crisis was postponed, its final symptoms were hence displaced locally as well as in time. The "law of zones" was duly obeyed at the minima of 1890[427] and 1901, and Spörer found evidence of conformity to it so far back as 1619.[428] His researches, however, also showed that it was in abeyance during some seventy years previously to 1716, during which period sun-spots remained persistently scarce, and auroral displays were feeble and infrequent even in high northern latitudes. An unaccountable suspension of solar activity is, in fact, indicated.[429]