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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



the photograph of Dr. Draper's. I have careful- 

 ly gone over a large part of this region, line for 

 line, and in no case have I found any true bright 

 line in the sun whatever coincident with any line 

 of oxygen whatever. I do not profess to have 

 gone over the ground in the ultra-violet ; but it 

 will appear to me very surprising indeed if, when 

 we go further, and include the U and K lines, 

 Dr. Draper will find any coincidences with bright 

 lines of the sun even there; because, when per- 

 fect instrumental conditions are brought into 

 play, no bright line whatever exists in that part 

 of the solar spectrum, so far, at all events, as 

 my observations extend. The bright line record- 

 ed by Cornu exists outside K. 



There is an experiment which any one who 

 possesses a spectroscope with three or four 

 prisms can make for himself. Throw the sun- 

 light on to the slit so that the solar spectrum 

 may be visible. Observe the green part. Take 

 the spark in air in an apparatus of the kind to 

 which I have already referred, flood the air with 

 nitrogen, and in the field of view which includes 

 b, and therefore one of the most marked bright 

 lines in the solar spectrum itself, you will find in 

 the same region of the spectrum three or four 

 undoubted lines of oxygen. I have made that 

 experiment, which is quite a simple one, and I 

 find no coincidences in this part of the spectrum 

 between the oxygen-lines and the undoubted 

 bright line. 



I do not say that Dr. Draper's alleged discov- 

 ery is no discovery at all ; I say, and I think it 

 is my duty to say it, as I have been occupied in 

 very allied work for some considerable time, that 

 I do not hold it to be established. Dr. Draper 

 must produce a better photognaph, and must 



prove his point for the visible spectrum, before 

 his discovery can be accepted. 



I have no doubt that Dr. Draper, in spite of 

 the difficulties he will have to encounter, will 

 carefully attempt this ; and I am certain that he 

 will be the first to hail what I have here written 

 with the extremest satisfaction ; because his de- 

 sire, I am sure, is the desire of every true man of 

 science, that the truth should prevail. 



In any case Dr. Draper has begun work in a 

 branch of the chemical inquiry into solar matters 

 which, up to the present time, has been sadly 

 neglected. 



The true composition of the sun will never 

 be ascertained till the metalloids have been 

 brought to the test as the metals have been. 

 The reason I have considered Dr. Draper's view 

 at such length is, that this is the first serious and 

 prolonged attempt of the kind. There is little 

 doubt that the question I have thought it my 

 duty to raise will be soon settled ; and, whatever 

 the result, our knowledge of what the sun is 

 made of is certain to gain by the process. 



To sum up, then, in a few words. So far as 

 our uncontested knowledge goes the sun is chief- 

 ly made of metal, and on this account is strange- 

 ly different from the crust of our earth in which 

 the metals are in a large minority. 



Surely it is very wonderful that we should 

 have ever been able to acquire this little item of 

 knowledge, and I feel that the subsequent work 

 which sooner or later will be undertaken to ex- 

 plain this anomaly will land us in a very dream- 

 land of science. It will be found that we poor 

 nineteenth-century toilers and moilers were but 

 engaged upon the white chamber and not upon 

 the treasury at all ! — Nineteenth Century. 



POLITICAL ECONOMY AS A MORAL SCIENCE. 



By W. CUNNINGHAM. 



TO those who are interested in economic sci- 

 ence, few things are more noticeable than 

 the small hold which it has upon the thoughts of 

 our generation. Legislation has been directly 

 influenced by it in the past, and the results of 

 the application of its doctrines are manifest in 

 every department of our laws ; yet, in spite of 

 its triumph in this region, we find a wide-spread 

 tendency to look on its teaching with suspicion, 



while one of our greatest modern writers im- 

 pugns its fundamental principles, month after 

 month, with the applause of a large circle of 

 cultivated readers. Petitions from various trad- 

 ing interests — as recently from the watch-makers 

 — show that the mercantile public are not swayed 

 by it; working-class leaders notoriously disre- 

 gard it, and foreign statesmen do not pretend to 

 listen to its preachings. Those who regard the 



