xl Annual Report of the Council . 



pioneers in the new branch of science now known as Astro- 

 Physics. 



Born on February 7th, 1824, he received his early education 

 at the City of l^ondon School, and continued his training in 

 mathematics, classics, and modern languages with the help of 

 private masters. He also studied at home various branches of 

 science, purchasing or constructing for himself the apparatus 

 required for his experiments. 



Finally he decided to devote himself to astronomy, and in 

 1855 he erected the observatory attached to his residence at 

 Upper Tulse Hill, in London, where his life's work was carried 

 out. He began in the usual way l)y measuring positions of 

 stars and he also made drawings of the planets. Work of this 

 kind, however, did not satisfy him ; his mind was seeking for new 

 methods of research. He describes with what pleasure he heard 

 about this time of KirchhofTs discovery of the meaning of the 

 Fraunhofer lines in the solar spectrum. This discovery came to 

 him as an inspiration, opening up a new line of investigation, 

 which he determined to extend, if possible, to all parts of the 

 visible universe. 



The task of extending Kirchhoff's work to the spectra of the 

 stars appeared very formidable, owing to the faintness of their 

 light; but the stars have one great advantage over the sun, that 

 the brightness of a star image increases with the hght collecting 

 power of the telescope, and Huggins found it was possible, with 

 a spectroscope attached to the eyepiece end of his eight-irch 

 refractor, to make detailed comparisons of the dark lines in a 

 number of stellar spectra with the spectrum lines of chemical 

 elements. 



His standard of scientific work was very high, hinding the 

 existing charts of spectra inconvenient for his purpose, he 

 devoted the greater part of 1863 to mapping, with a train of six 

 prisms, the spark spectra of twenty-six elements, using as a 

 reference scale the spark spectrum lines of air. Being well 



