28 THE CHEMISTRY OF THE SUN. [CHAP. 



was a source of white light ; there are, however, as Wollaston 

 first showed us, many artificial flames which are coloured, and 

 if their light is analysed in the same way as the light of the 

 candle, a perfectly new set of phenomena present themselves. 

 Wollaston found that the spectrum of the blue part at the base 

 of a candle-flame was not continuous, but was accumulated, 

 as it were, here and there, into patches of greater intensity 

 than elsewhere. Especially he observed a very bright patch 

 in the yellow. Fraunhofer as we have seen carried the work 

 further. 



FIG. 12. Improvised Buusen burner. 



In dealing with these results experimentally we need not 

 confine our inquiries to the exact grooves in which Wollaston's 

 and Fraunhofer's work ran, and it cannot be too generally 

 known that an expenditure of a few shillings is all that is 

 required to enable us to study the results for ourselves. This 

 money should be expended in buying two little brass or glass 

 tubes, one-tenth and half inch in diameter and five inches long, 

 a little glass tubing of very small bore, a few inches of platinum 

 wire, a small quantity of red and green fire and chloride of 

 lithium, and india-rubber tubing to convey gas from an ordinary 

 burner to a table. Of the two tubes a Bunsen burner can be 

 easily constructed. This is an apparatus for burning a mixture 



