124 Mr. Brayley Inferences and Suggestions in [Mar. 23, 



The sudden outburst of light over a solar spot witnessed on September 1, 

 1859, by Mr. Carrington and Mr. Hodgson, the author regards as a fact 

 confirmatory of these views, and as having been the consequence or accom- 

 paniment of the production, and the transfer with immense rapidity from 

 within to without some exterior region of the Sun, of a meteoritic mass, or 

 more probably of an immense congeries of such masses, enabled, by its 

 consisting of ponderable matter, to manifest the higher temperature and 

 consequent greater effulgence of the interior regions of the luminary, 

 whence it was originally derived. Certain phenomena before recorded by 

 astronomers but not yet understood are probably of the same nature. 



The structural characters of meteorites are those of bodies which have 

 been originally condensed from heterogeneous vapours the mingled 

 vapours of uncombined elementary substances variable in their nature and 

 requiring different temperatures for their maintenance in the gaseous form, 

 but all existing originally at a very high temperature ; and their adequate 

 investigation may afford, as an experimentum crucis, an independent confir- 

 mation of Kirchhoff's discovery, and of the truth of the spectrum-analysis 

 of the composition of bodies distant from us in space. They consist, mine- 

 ralogically, of two groups, meteoric iron and meteoric stones, forming, 

 however, by graduation into each other, as first pointed out by the author, 

 many years since, one series of bodies*. The intermediate examples, and 

 indeed most of the stones, are aggregates of earthy matter partly in the 

 crystalline and partly (as Mr. H. C. Sorby has shown f) in the vitreous 

 state, and distinct portions of metallic iron alloyed with other metals. 

 They are, in fact, always heterogeneous aggregates, in conformity with the 

 origin here assigned to them. "While as a class meteorites are perfectly 

 distinct from all terrestrial rocks the presence of metallic iron as a mine- 

 ral constituent imparting to them indeed a character which is perfectly 

 unique some of their constituent minerals, and all the elementary sub- 

 stances of which they are composed are such as are found, but differently 

 associated, in the Earth's crust, although there are many other terrestrial 

 elements which have not yet been discovered in them. 



" Ten, or perhaps more, of the elements of the solar atmosphere," 

 according to Kirchhoff and Angstrom, "are also those of meteorites iron, 

 nickel, cobalt, chromium, and magnesium being characteristically such. 

 But the non-metallic base silicon, which, in union with oxygen as silica, is 

 an abundant and equally characteristic element of meteorites, is absent in 

 the Sun, according to our present knowledge, in which also other elements 

 of meteorites, including oxygen itself, are not known to be present " J. It 

 cannot be doubted, however, that by the further prosecution of spectrum- 

 analysis other elements will be discovered in the Sun. It must be remem- 

 bered also that our knowledge of meteorites is confined to a few only of 

 * Annals of Philosophy (January 1824), second series, vol. vii. p. 73 ; Philosophical 

 Magazine (December 1841), third series, vol. xix. p. 501. 



t Proceedings, vol. xiii. p. 3?3. J Companion to the Almanac for 1865, p. 65. 



