1865.] BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 327 



is a message from the very birthplace of light, and tells us what 

 are the elementary substances which have influenced the refraction 

 of the ray. Spectral analysis, that new and powerful instrument 

 of chemical research for which we are indebted to Kirchhoff, has 

 been taught by our countrymen to scrutinise not only planets and 

 stars, but even to reveal the constitution of the nebulae, those mys- 

 terious masses out of which it has been thought new suns and 

 planets might be evolved — nursing mothers of the stars. For a 

 time, indeed, the resolution of some nebulae, by the giant mirror 

 of Lord Kosse, afforded ground for opposing speculation of Her- 

 schel and the reasoning of Laplace, which required for their very 

 starting-point the admission of the existence of thin gaseous expan- 

 sions, with or without points or centres of incipient condensation, 

 with or without marks of internal movement. The latest results, 

 however, of spectral analysis of stars and nebulae by Mr. Higgins 

 and Professor W. A. Miller, have fairly restored the balance. The 

 nebulae are indeed found to have in some instances stellar points, 

 but they are not stars ; the whole resembles an enormous mass of 

 luminous gas, with an interrupted spectrum of three lines, pro- 

 bably agreeing with nitrogen, hydrogen, and a substance at present 

 unknown (p). Stars, tested by the same accurate hands, are found 

 to have a constitution like that of our own sun, and, like it, to show 

 the presence of several terrestrial elements, as sodium, magnesium, 

 iron, and very often hydrogen. While in the moon and Venus no 

 lines whatever are found due to an atmosphere, in Jupiter and 

 Saturn, beside the lines which are identical with some produced in 

 our own atmosphere, there is one in the red, which may be caused 

 by the presence of some unknown gas or vapor. Mars is still 

 more peculiar, and enough is ascertained to discountenance the 

 notion of his redness being due to a peculiarity of the soil (<?). 



To aid researches into the condition of celestial bodies, the 

 new powers of light, discovered by Niepce, Daguerre, and Talbot, 

 have been employed by Bond, Draper, De la Rue, and other astro- 

 nomers. To our countryman, in particular, belongs the honor of 

 successful experiments on the rose-colored flames which extend 

 from certain points of the sun's border during an eclipse ; as well 

 as of valuable contributions through the same agency to that en- 

 larged survey of the physical aspect of the moon, which, since 1852, 



(p) Proc. Roy. Soc. and Phil. Trans. 1864. 

 (q) Phil. Trans. 1864. 



