20 J. MORISON : ADDRESS 



they asserted the possibility of transmuting the baser metals 

 into gold ! These coi'puscles, as I have said, are all exactly 

 similar to each other in every respect, from whatever soxirce they 

 are emitted, showing us that the fundamental basis of all matter 

 is exactly the same. So we see that all the different substances 

 which we know, all the various elementary bodies and compounds 

 which exist, are really formed of one and the same kind of 

 matter, are built up of the same corpuscles, and owe their 

 differences simply to their atoms containing a greater or smaller 

 number of these corpuscles, and also possibly to the arrangement 

 of the corpuscles in the atoms being different. All the diverse 

 forms of matter have therefore probably been evolved from one 

 primaeval type. The elements with simpler and higher atoms 

 may have been produced first under conditions of intense heat ; 

 as things cooled down, elements with atoms of greater mass 

 were probably formed ; and, when temperate conditions obtained, 

 all the various compound bodies, inorganic first and then organic, 

 which are found upon the face of our Earth. 



8ir Norman Lockyer claims to have discovered by means of 

 the spectroscope that in the very hottest stars elements of the 

 lowest atomic weight, such as hydrogen and helium, and a 

 substance giving only some of the lines of hydrogen, and which 

 he considers to be an element of still lower atomic weight, are 

 predominant. As we go downwards in the scale of temperature, 

 carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, silicon, etc., appear ; wliile in the stars 

 of lowest temperature we get calcium, manganese, iron, and the 

 heavier metals. He also points out that many of the elements as 

 they exist in the Sun and stars are different from and simpler than 

 the analogous elements as they occur on our earth. For example, 

 in what is called the reversing layer of the Sun, the spectrum of 

 iron is represented by nearly 1,000 lines, while in the chromo- 

 sphere, a much hotter part, the iron spectrum is reduced to two 

 lines. And in sun-spots still another set of iron lines are found. 

 Magnesium, also in the Sun, gives a simplified spectrum, and 

 probably exists there in a dissociated form. In the spectrum of 

 calcium a certain line in the blue is very prominent, and two 

 other lines called the H and K lines are also seen. Now, in the 

 spectrum from some parts of the sun the H and K lines are seen, 

 and the blue line is absent or very thin. In other parts of the sun 

 the blue line is prominent, and the H and K lines are very faint 

 or invisible. This looks as if in the Sun the element calcium 

 was decomposed into at least two substances. Evidence of the 

 same kind is found in the stars. We have simplified spectra, 



