30 SCIENCE IN SSOET CHAPTERS. 



but have scrupulously followed the opposite principle. I 

 have invented nothing, but have started from the experi- 

 mental facts of the laboratory, the demonstrated laws of 

 physical action, and have followed up step by step what I 

 understand to be the necessary consequences of these. 

 Many years ago I convinced myself that our atmosphere is 

 but a portion of universal atmospheric matter ; that Dr. 

 Wollaston was wrong, and that the compression of this 

 universal atmospheric matter is possibly the source of solar 

 light and heat ; but as this was long before M. Deville had 

 investigated the subject of dissociation by heat,* I was 

 unable to work out the problem at all satisfactorily. When 

 I subsequently resumed the subject, I knew nothing about 

 the corona, and had only read of the " red prominences" as 

 possible lunar appendages, or solar clouds, or optical illu- 

 sions. I had worked out the necessity of the gaseous erup- 

 tions, and their action in effecting an interchange of solar 

 and general atmospheric matter, as the means of maintain- 

 ing the solar light and heat, with no idea of proceeding 

 further with the problem, when the announcement that the 

 prominences were not merely unquestionable solar appen- 

 dages, but were actually upheaved mountains of glowing 

 hydrogen, suddenlyand unexpectedly suggested their identity 

 with my required atmospheric upheavals. It is true that 

 their observed magnitude far exceeded my theoretical antici- 

 pations, and in this respect I have made some a posteriori 

 adaptations, especially with the aid of a clearer understand- 

 ing of the laws of dissociation which almost simultaneously 

 became attainable. 



In like manner, the necessity of the solid ejections pre- 

 sented themselves before I knew anything of the recently 

 discovered details of the coronal phenomena when I had 

 merely read of a luminous halo which had been seen around 

 the sun, and relying upon Mr. Lockyer, vaguely supposed it 

 to be an effect of atmospheric illumination. I inferred that 

 streams of solid particles must be pouring from the sun, and 

 showering back again, but had no idea that such streams 



*My first memorandum on this subject is dated April 23, 1840, in 

 a Register of Ideas, then commenced hi very early student days. 



