IOO LIGHT SCIENCE FOR LEISURE HOURS. 



shows beyond all question that, like the prominences, 

 this region consists of glowing hydrogen, mixed up 

 with a few, and at times with several other gases, but 

 certainly not capable of accounting for the thousands 

 of dark lines in the solar spectrum. It seems quite 

 clear, also, that the sierra is not of the nature of an 

 envelope at all. 



Over the narrow layer which Secchi supposed to 

 exist between the sun's surface and the coloured sierra, 

 began, and presently waxed warm, the controversy 

 above referred to. Fr. Secchi was positive that he 

 could see the narrow continuous spectrum on which he 

 founded his view; Mr. Lockyer was equally positive 

 that the worthy father could see nothing of the kind. 

 Fr. Secchi urged that his telescope was better than 

 Mr. Lockyer's, and that he worked in a better atmo- 

 sphere ; Mr. Lockyer retorted that his spectroscope 

 was better than Fr. Secchi's, and that the imagined 

 superiority of the Roman atmosphere was a myth. 

 Something was said, too, by the London observer about 

 a large speculum, which was to decide the question, 

 though this mirror does not seem to have been actually 

 brought into action. Both the disputants expressed 

 full confidence that time would prove the justice of 

 their several views. 



Soon after, an observation was made by Mr. Lockyer, 

 which seemed to prove the justice of Fr. Secchi's 

 opinion ; for, on a very favourable day for observations, 

 Mr. Lockyer was able to detect, not the narrow rain- 

 bow-tinted spectrum seen by Secchi, but a narrow strip 



