xiv.] ANGSTROM'S VIEW. 191 



Angstrom, whose name must ever be mentioned with the 

 highest respect by any worker in spectrum analysis, was dis- 

 tinctly opposed to this view, and in the text which accompanies 

 his Spectre Normal, he states his opinion in a very distinct 

 manner. 1 



Angstrom did not object merely on theoretical grounds. He 

 saw, or thought he saw, room to ascribe all these fluted spectra 

 to impurities. 



He was strengthened in this view by observing how, in the 

 case of the spectra of known compounds, there were always 

 flutings in one part of the spectrum or another; a rapid in- 

 duction naturally, therefore, ascribed all flutings to compounds. 

 The continuity of the gaseous and liquid states of matter, let 

 alone the continuity of Nature's processes generally, never 

 entered into the question. For Angstrom, as for many modern 

 chemists, there was no such thing as evolution, no possibility of 

 a close physical relationship between elements, so-called, driven 

 to incandescence from the solid state, and binary compounds 

 of those elements. 



In a memoir, however, which appeared after Angstrom's 

 death, and which, though under a different title, was in all pro- 

 bability the one referred to, this opinion was to a large extent 

 recalled, and in favour of Pliicker's and Mitscherlich's view. 2 



1 " Dans un Memoire sur les spectres 'doubles ' des corps e'lementaires que nous 

 publierons prochainement, M. Thalen et moi, dans les Actes de la Societe des 

 Sciences d'Upsal, nous traiterons d'une manieve suffisamment complete les questions 

 importantes qu'on peut se proposer sur cet interessant sujet. Pour le present, je 

 me borne a dire que les resultats auxquels nous sommes arrives, ne confirment 

 aucunement 1'opinion emise par Pliicker, qu'un corps elementaire pourrait 

 donner, suivant sa temperature plus ou moins elevee, des spectres tout-a-fait 

 differents. C'est le contraire qui est exact. En effet en augmentant successive- 

 ment la temperature, on trouve que les raies varient en intensite d'une maniere 

 tres-compliquee, et que, par suite, de nouvelles raies peuvent meme se presenter, 

 si la temperature s'eleve suffisamment. Mais, independamment de toutes ces 

 mutations, le spectre d'un certain corps conservera toujours son caractere 

 individuel." Angstrom sur Le Spectre normal du Soleil, pages 38, 39. 



2 This latest outcome of Angstrom's is so important that I quote his words : 

 "... Nous ne nions certainement pas qu'un corps simple ne puisse dans certains 



