lxvi GENERAL SUMMARY OF SCIENTIFIC AND 



tram is the result of the ignition of a single line of molecules, 

 and that a band spectrum appears when the light comes 

 from a thick layer of the gas, is not only not disproved, but 

 is actually confirmed by the new experiments. 



Lockyer has read a paper before the Royal Society upon 

 his new map of the solar spectrum, the portion now present- 

 ed being that extending from wave-lengths 39 to 41. It is 

 constructed on four times the scale of Angstrom's " Spectre 

 Normale," the number of lines being increased over this, 

 which contains but 39 to 518, of which 416 have been act- 

 ually identified, and the largest number of these, 1G3, as- 

 signed to cerium. 



Wright has experimented to obtain the spectrum of the 

 gaseous matter evolved from meteorites when heated in a 

 vacuum. The meteorites employed were three in number 

 those from Texas, from Tazewell County, Tennessee, and 

 from Arva, Hungary. Borings from each of these were 

 placed in a hard glass tube connected with an efficient 

 Sprengel pump. By means of a T tube an ordinary Pliicker 

 vacuum tube was also connected with the tube to be heated. 

 At a red heat the Texas iron gave off 4.75 times, the Ten- 

 nessee iron 4.69 times, and the Hungary iron more than 44 

 times its volume of gases, which the spectroscope showed to 

 consist of hydrogen, carbonous and carbonic oxides. 



The same physicist has published a preliminary note on 

 the spectroscopic examination of gases from a stony meteor- 

 ite which fell in Iowa on February 12. The small grains of 

 iron which it contained yielded several times their volume 

 of gas, even on raising the temperature but slightly. Of this 

 gas the two oxides of carbon constituted forty-nine per cent, 

 (carbonic acid thirty-five, and carbonic oxide fourteen), the 

 remaining fifty-one per cent, being hydrogen. The spectrum 

 exhibited, the gas being under only a few millimeters' press- 

 ure, was that of carbon, especially the three brightest bands 

 in the green and blue. This fact is especially significant 

 when we remember that these are precisely the bands ob- 

 served in cometary spectra, the close connection of meteors 

 and comets beino; well established. 



In a later paper upon the gaseous constituents of this 

 meteorite, he formulates the following conclusions: 1. The 

 stony meteorites are distinguished from the iron ones by 



