THE CHEMISTEY OF THE SUN. 



CHAPTER I. 



INTRODUCTORY. KEPLER, NEWTON, WOLLASTON, 1600-1802. 



THE field of research which I propose to treat in this book is 

 one which has been opened up so recently that it may be said 

 that the spectroscope, the instrument employed in the work, 

 is to the men of science of to-day what the telescope was to 

 Galileo and Fabricius. 



This being so, although great strides have undoubtedly been 

 made during the last twenty years, it must not be expected that 

 we can do more yet than get an idea of the grandeur of the 

 problems that will present themselves for notice to those who 

 come after us. We are as yet only in the position of those who 

 pick up pebbles on the shore. 



How comes it, then, that in these later days we have been 

 able to add the study of the sun's chemistry to the study of its 

 form, size, distance and physical appearance ? We have done 

 this by adding the study of the molecular to the study of the 

 molar. Eelegating the sun -taken as a whole to the disciples of 

 the older school of astronomers, we deal with its minutest par- 

 ticles, and confine our attention to the unravelling of the tangled 

 skein of light which each one of those particles sends to us. 

 Hence we have two distinct fields of work one molar, and here 



