Ilmi and : I >k. David Ai ii.k. l>17 



My good friend Cowan in his pamphlet, which he gave forth in 1894 

 and which is now rare and hard to obtain, reflects severelj upon 

 Kirchhoff's failure to allude in any way to Dr. Alter's discoveries, 

 which clearly antedated his own by five years, and which Dr. Cow an is 

 inclined to think musl have been known to the distinguished German 

 physicist. Be thai as it may, it is established by testimony which 

 cannot be controverted, that five years before Kirchholt announced 

 the possibility of determining the existence of various substances in 

 the solar photosphere, .1 modesl and unassuming investigator, living 

 in the retirement of a small village 011 the banks of the Allegheny, 

 definitely described thi' possibility of determining various metals and 

 gases by their lines in the spectrum, and had pointed out that this 

 method of investigation might be employed in the case of heavenly 

 bodies, and had succeeded in daguerreotyping the lines in the solar 

 spectrum. 



Priestley, one of the fathers of modern chemistry, sleeps the long 

 sleep on the banks of one of the beautiful rivers of this commonwealth; 

 and Alter, the first discoverer of spectrum-analysis, also rests beneath 

 ill sods () f this state, on the banks of another of its fair streams, to 

 which the French long ago gave the name of "la belle riviere." 



BIBLIOGRAPHY. 



1. Silliman's American Journal of Science e^ Art, 2d Series. Volume XYIII, 



p. 55 1 November, 1854). 



2. Silliman's American Journal of Science & Art, 2d Series. Volume XIX, p. 213. 

 .}. Liebig & Kopp, Jahresbericht dcr Chemie for the year 1854, p. 118. 



4. Liebig & Kopp. Jahresbericht der Chemie for the year 1855, p. 107. 



5. L'Institut. Paris, 1856, p. 156. 



i>. Archives des Sciences Physiques el Nalurelles, Geneva, p. 151 (1856). 



7, Evening Telegraph of Pittsburgh, Oct. n, 1881, "A Dead Philosopher. Dr. 



Alter's Life and Labors," by Dr. Frank Cowan of Greensburg, Pa. Sub- 

 sequently reissued in pamphlet form by Dr. Cowan from his private press 

 at Greensburg under the title "David Alter, the Discoverer of Spectrum 

 Analysis — A Sketch of his Life and Labors," pp. 16 (1894). 



8. " Dr. David Alter: Scientist. Discoverer of Spectrum Analysis and Inventoi <>t 



the First Electric Telegraph and Electric Motor." By James B. Laux. 

 Published in the Freeporl Journal, June 2, IOII. 1 Upon the occasion of the 

 erection by his townsmen of a monument in memory of Dr. Alter.) 



