1875.] The Spectroscope in Mint Assaying. 79 
on the “Address” was made by the Abbé Moigno, on 
learning that it had been drawn up among the Alps. A 
speech dealing with such important subjects, and so liable 
to be misunderstood, if not wilfully misinterpreted, should, 
the Abbé declares, have been composed not amidst the inci- 
dents and distraCtions of travel, but at home, in the quiet of 
a well-stocked library. Can Professor Tyndall suppose that 
this speech and its echoes will make the present Adminis- 
tration and its supporters at all more disposed to give 
national education a scientific basis, or to liberate the 
Universities from ecclesiastical control? We fear that, 
though not foolish himself, he will be the cause that folly is 
in others. Little as he may be hurt by the attacks of his 
censurers, we imagine that he cannot help feeling compunc- 
tion for having brought down upon the public the ‘‘ weak, 
washy, never-ending flood” of speeches, sermons, resolu- 
tions, and leading articles, from which we have suffered for 
the last two months. 
VI. THE.SPECTROSCOPE IN ITS APPLICATION 
Or SINT ASSAYING, 
By ALEXANDER E. OUTERBRIDGE, JUN. 
HE invention of the simple instrument called the 
spectroscope has led, within a brief period of years, 
to such astounding revelations, that it is not un- 
natural to imagine that untold possibilities may still lie 
concealed in its future. Those who are at all familiar with 
the subject of spectrum analysis, do not require to be told 
that the spe<troscope has increased tenfold the range of 
human knowledge within the domain to which it is appli- 
cable; and has also reduced much of what has heretofore 
been little better than matter of speculation, to a certainty 
as convincing, to a scientific mind, as a mathematical de- 
monstration. Applicable alike to the analysis of tangible 
substances and of the celestial fires, its mysteries have been 
wrested from it, as it were, from an invisible world, by its 
devoted students. 
All the classes of observations hitherto accomplished, fall 
under the head of qualitative analysis, in which perfection 
appears to have been already attained. Should a like per- 
fection be attainable quantitatively, little more would appear 
