The influence of this eminent body [the sun], on the globe we inhabit, is so great, and so widely diffused, that it becomes almost a duty for us to study the operations which are carried on upon the solar surface.

Observations tending to investigate the Nature of the Sun, in order to, find the Causes or Symptoms of its variable Emission of Light and Heat, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 1801 (p. 265)