QQ THE BIOCOSMOS PRELIMINARY. 



generally between the freezing and the boil- 

 ing points Chemism would seem to have a 

 tendency to the multiplication of its elements, 

 and to an easy combination of them into com- 

 pounds. But when we turn to the intense 

 heat of the sun and stars, there is the oppo- 

 site tendency, namely, to prevent compounds 

 and to reduce the number of chemical ele- 

 ments. Such a compound as water would 

 not be tolerated in the sun ; it would not sim- 

 ply be converted into vapor but decomposed 

 into its elements, oxygen and hydrogen. But 

 our sun is by no means the hottest star; this 

 trait, according to the spectroscopic investi- 

 gations of Lockyer, belongs to two stars in 

 the constellation Argo, which, however, have 

 no oxygen. But they do have hydrogen, and 

 what would seem the earliest form of it, called 

 proto-hydrogen, with some other fainter, pos- 

 sibly undeveloped chemical elements (such as 

 proto-calcium and proto-magnesium), and 

 also with at least two terrestrially unknown 

 elements. Now all this suggests the inor- 

 ganic evolution of the physical universe, espe- 

 cially on its chemical side. There is the indi- 

 cation (though not the proof) that the eighty 

 or more present elements known to chemistry 

 have been evolved from one primordial sub- 

 stance of which proto-hydrogen, marked by 

 the spectroscope, may be the first chemical 



