41 



of ours, affect the fabric of human society, and its last waves ebb 

 away, as it were, in human hopes and fears. It tells us how planets 

 react on the sun, round which they circle, and thus must in no 

 shght degree cause their influence to be felt on every member of 

 the system to wliich they belong. We learn from it (greatest 

 wonder of all) that the beam of Mght issuing from worlds, whose 

 distance is unimaginable, contains within itself marvellous records 

 of its source ; indications of a history in the past too grand almost 

 for us to comprehend, and intimations of a future which seem to 

 us like a prophecy. 



The PRESIDENT (Mr. G. D. Sawyer) proposed a vote of 

 thanks to Mr. Pankhurst. 



Dr. Corfe, was pleased to find that Brighton possessed a 

 gentleman who made the question of solar chemistry his study. 

 Of course, their friend had only touched lightly upon spectrum 

 analysis. There was no question but that solar, lunar, and 

 planetary light were the same, but stellar light was independent, 

 and the same spectrum was not found in it as in solar. These 

 were important facts bearing upon the physiology of human nature, 

 though many disbelieved it. Speaking with regard to lunar 

 blindness, he said when a man slej^t in the tropics in the moon- 

 beams he frequently became moon-blind. There was also a 

 singular fact about the yellow colour of the sun. They were aware 

 that the yellow colour predominated in the tropics of the sun, and 

 as a curious coincidence we had the predominance of yellow flowers 

 in our own tropics ; and it was a remarkable fact also in chemistry 

 that the yellow fixed the resin in trees, and they had the gum resin 

 of the tropics as a proof, whilst the acacias, or minor gums came 

 from the sub-tropics. The gums in the tropics were an excessive 

 concentration of hydro-carbon. These were all interestings facts 

 connected with the physiology of their system. 



Mr. J. Haslewood said Mr. Pankhust had spoken of the 

 stability of the solar system, but his little reading in the matter 

 led him somewhat to the contrary opinion. There might be 



