ON THE STRUCTURE OF ATOMS. 87 



vapors of iron, magnesium, &c., showing that they come from 

 beneath these low-lying vapors. Schellen says (Spectrum Anal- 

 ysis, p. 306) : " It appears that eruptions of hydrogen take place 

 from the interior of the sun ; their form and the extreme rapid- 

 ity of their motion necessitates the hypothesis of a repulsive 

 power, at work either at the surface or in the mass of the sun, 

 which Respighi attributes to electricity." Now how could this 

 hydrogen gas get down underneath the vapor of iron, which is 

 fifty-six times heavier than it is, unless it was formed and molded 

 there ? 



We are to suppose that electricity has everything to do with 

 these tremendous outbursts ; for whenever they occur there is 

 instantly sent out from them such an electric disturbance that 

 the minute portion which the earth picks up creates auroral 

 displays, electric storms, and terrific cyclones. Now the little 

 manifestation of electrical action which we have in our thunder 

 storms, brings about the union of nitrogen with oxygen, forming 

 the nitrous acid compounds in the air, and of nitrogen with hy- 

 drogen, forming ammonia which is almost always perceived in 

 the air after a near stroke of lightning; and it also changes oxy- 

 gen into the alotropic state of ozone. Now if our comparatively 

 feeble electric actions are able to accomplish so much in the 

 way of chemical combinations and changes, what must the 

 inconceivably more powerful action in the sun be enabled to per- 

 form in the way possibly of atom formation ? I do not think it 

 unreasonable to suppose that it might originate the vortical whirl 

 of ethereal particles, which some of our most distinguished 

 scientists think constitutes the elemental atoms. They conclude 

 from certain physical principles and analogies that all atoms are 

 only vortices of infinitesimal quantities of the ethereal matter 

 that pervades all space, similar to smoke rings, only in far more 

 complicated patterns. It might be supposed that in such a 

 tremendous electrical laboratory as the sun, immense numbers of 

 these vortices of various patterns were evolved, but that only a 

 few forms and combinations would be able to withstand the pow 

 erf nl repellent force of heat, or in other words that it was a case of 

 the survival of tjie fittest ; and as hydrogen is the simplest and 



