PREFACE. 



"We do not know that any one of the bodies denominated elementary is 

 absolutely indecomposable." DALTON. 



"It is conceivable that the various kinds of matters, now recognised in different 

 elementary substances, may possess one and the same ultimate or atomic molecule 

 existing in different conditions of movement. The essential unity of matter 

 is an hypothesis in harmony with the equal action of gravity upon all bodies." 

 GRAHAM'S Researches, p. 299. 



IT is because the secrets of the Sun include the cipher in 

 which the light messages from external Nature in all its vast- 

 ness are written, that those interested in the "new learning," 

 as the Chemistry of Space may certainly be considered, are so 

 anxious to get at and possess them. 



I purpose to show in the following pages that even if 

 centuries must elapse before the ingenuity of rnan will succeed 

 in doing for Celestial hieroglyphics what it has already done 

 for Egyptian and Assyrian ones, in one direction at least an 

 alphabet is already being formulated. 



The attempts which are now being made to investigate 

 the nature of the Sun, may be divided into three perfectly 

 distinct branches. We have, first, that extremely important 

 inquiry which has as its result the complete determination 

 of the position of everything which happens on the sun. 



