NA TURE 



225 



THURSDAY, JULY 4, 1901. 



SCIENTIFIC WORTHIES. 

 XXXIII.— Sir Wili.ia.m Hucgins, K.C.B. 

 TIJ'AR from the noisy centre of London, in Upper 

 Tulse Hill, there is a quiet house. The welcome 

 accorded to one who has the good fortune to enter at 

 its hospitable doors reminds one of Philemon and Baucis, 

 and the visitor amidst the artistic decorations of the 

 house feels transplanted into another world. In the garden 

 extending far behind the house one sees the astronomical 

 observatory with its dome, and recognises that this is 

 the house of a man of science, not an artist. 



We are in the dwelling of Sir William Huggins, on 

 whom the English scientific world has lately conferred 

 the highest honour by electing him President of the 

 Royal Society. 



Sir William has been in the happy position of being 

 able to follow his scientific inclinations without being 

 limited by official duties. . After some hesitation he de- 

 cided on Astronomy and built his observatory, the de- 

 scription of which is contained in his first scientific 

 publication. 



At that time, 1S56, astronomy was chiefly confined to 

 measurements of the positions of celestial bodies, but a 

 few years later quite a new field was opened out by the 

 great work of Kirchhofif and Bunsen, and it was Sir 

 William Huggins who first introduced the new knowledge 

 into astronomy and fertilised it. 



The new science, Astrophysics, is in great part his 

 work, and indeed I hardly know of another e.\ample 

 where the history of the development of a science so 

 nearly coincides with the story of one man. 



.Sir William had the good fortune to come on virgin 

 ground everywhere, so that every observation meant a 

 great and fertile discovery ; but it is his merit that he was 

 the first to recognise the importanceof the newdiscoveryi 

 that- he invented the best methods and instruments, and 

 that he united in himself the necessary knowledge of 

 Astronomy, Physics and Chemistry. 



The so-called " good fortune " really plays a small part 

 in great discoveries. 



" Wie sich Verstand und Gliick verketten. 

 Das sehn die Thoren niemals ein ; 

 Wenn sie den Stein der Weisen hatten, 

 Der Weise m.ingette dem Stein," 



as Goethe says. 



As soon as the news of Kirchhofif and Bunsen's dis- 

 covery reached Huggins, he saw clearly that the applica- 

 tion of spectrum analysis to the heavenly bodies was his 

 field of research, and in this field he has laboured during 

 the succeeding forty years with indefatigable ardour and 

 never wanting success. His first researches were made 

 NO. 1653, VOL. 64J 



in conjunction with W. A. Miller, Professor of Chemistry 

 at King's College, who had been a worker in spectrum 

 analysis for fifteen years. 



As their first result they were able to send to the Royal 

 Society in 1863 a Report on the Spectra of Stars. It is 

 true Fraunhofer (1814), and Lamont and Donati (1S60) 

 had seen star spectra, but the method of observation em- 

 ployed by Huggins was quite different, being difficult 

 and more fruitful. It was not at all sufficient now to see 

 lines in the spectra of stars, but their chemical origin had 

 to be determined ; and therefore the light-gathering 

 objective prism could no longer be used, but after the 

 method of Kirchhofif and Bunsen a slit and comparison 

 prism were employed. As thereby the spectrum is 

 enormously weakened and has scarcely any breadth, 

 Huggins introduced the cylindrical lens. 



Very soon the insufficient knowledge of the spectra of 

 the elements became obvious, and Huggins undertook 

 with great success the task of determining the position of 

 the lines of as many elements as possible in the visible 

 part of the spectrum. The results were invaluable at 

 that time, and even now, after the introduction of instru- 

 ments so much more accurate, they are of value. 



The year 1864 brought a great triumph for Huggins in 

 the discovery that many of the nebulas gave spectra con- 

 sisting of bright lines. This fact was of enormous 

 importance theoretically in consideration of the Kant- 

 Laplace hypothesis of the genesis of the universe. 

 Also of great importance were the observations on the 

 new star in Corona, published by Huggins in 1866. 

 Here he saw for the first time bright and dark lines 

 combined in the same spectrum, and as the explana- 

 tion he suggested an enormous convulsion of the star,, 

 excited, perhaps, by the approach or collision of a dark 

 star. 



In this and the following years he found opportunity 

 to observe spectra of comets. Although they were too 

 weak to enable him to pronounce any definite opinion 

 on these mysterious phenomena, they sufficed to show 

 that the light was partly reflected and partly emitted 

 by the comets themselves. This result was confirmed 

 when in 1868 the bright comet of Brorsen appeared, 

 and Huggins found that its spectrum contained bright 

 bands, which he recognised as belonging to carbon. 



In the short period of five years Sir William had been 

 the pioneer over a vast territory. Fixed stars, nebuL-e, 

 comets and even a new star were forced to disclose 

 their mysteries. It would seem that the possibility of 

 absolutely new discoveries were now excluded, that 

 only the more detailed study of the same phenomena 

 was left to science. But the genius of Huggins found 

 new work for the spectroscope. Doppler's principle 

 that the wave-length of light is altered when the ob- 

 server and source of light alter their distance apart, 

 was certainly recognised as true, but nobody had 



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