190 THE SUN — ITS CHEMICAL ANALYSIS. 



cal unity of our planetary system, and perhaps it will some day reveal, 

 when applied to the brighter stars, a physical relationship between 

 our own system and all those which fill the immeasurable depths of 

 space ; but if it opens to us in some degree the portals of the infi- 

 nitely vast, it reconducts ua by another route to the idea of unity in 

 nature. In studying the spectrum we at present recognize each sim- 

 ple body held in suspension in the flame whose rays are decomposed 

 by the glass-prism ; but what is a simple body which betrays its 

 presence, not by one bright stripe alone, but by two, three, some- 

 times by sixty stripes ? In proportion as the spectrum increases in 

 distinctness, the number of luminous stripes increases for each sub- 

 stance ; shall we ever see them all ? It may well be doubted. Here, 

 then, there is a multiplicity and indeterminateness which accord but 

 ill, it must be confessed, with the theoretic idea which we entertain 

 of a simjjle body, a substance not compounded, always identical with 

 itself, the substratum of all chemical combinations. Must we admit, 

 with some resolute spirits, that the bodies which we call simple, ap- 

 pear so to us only because thus far we have not succeeded in decom- 

 posing them ? Should we conclude that the different simple bodies, 

 if there are really such, are but formed of one and the same matter 

 in different states of condensation ? We thus find ourselves attracted 

 towards the idea of unity of substance. Gas, liquids, solids, vacuum 

 and plenum, bodies and celestial spaces, satellites, planets, suns, &c. , 

 would be but transitory forms of something eternal, the ephemeral 

 images of something which cannot change ; in the vortex of phenom- 

 ena, in the eternal movement of allsubstance, the cosmic history every- 

 where shows us the future in the present and the present in the 

 future.* 



*■ All the facts in regard to solar chemistry can be briefly stated as follows : 



1. Solid and liquid bodies when highly heated give a continuous spectrum without lines. 



2. Flame in which solid or liquid substances are volatilized give a spectrum crossed with 

 bright lines. 



3. Each substance in the flame gives a line or a series of lines peculiar to itself, so that 

 the presence of any substance in a flame may be known by inspecting the spectrum of the 

 flame. Hence the value cf the spectrum in chemical analysis. 



4. When a bright beam of light from a solid or liquid behind a flame that is producing 

 bright lines is sent through this flame, the bright lines disappear and darlc lines take their, 

 place. These dark lines are called the reverse or negative lines of the substance in the flame. 



5. The spectrum from the sun is crossed with a large number of dark lines, many of 

 which are found to exactly coincide in position and magnitude with the negative lines 

 produced by various metals found on the earth. 



6. The complex system of negative lines of iron, for example, is found in the spectrum 

 of the sun. and hence it is inferred from strict analogy that this and other metals exist iu 

 a volatile state in the atmosphere of the sun. 



7. The constitution of the sun to produce this result must be that of a solid or liquid 

 nucleus emitting light of great intensity, and surrounded by an atmosphere also emitting 

 light, but of less intensity. 



8. The dark lines of the spectrums of the planets are the same as those of the sim. 

 This is what might be expected, since they shine by reflected sun light; but the lines of 

 the fixed st us, of Sirius, for example, are diff'erent from those of the sun. 



9. Tlie inferences drawn from the facts above stated have not been fully accepted as yet 

 by scientists of celebrity. Since the lines in the spectrum of the sun are very numerous, 

 there is a possibility that those which are found to indicate iron, for example, may be 

 an accidental agreement. But Kirchoff has calculated the chances of an accidental agree- 

 ment, and finds it to be one divided by one million of millions of millions. 



SECRETARY, S. 1. 



