136 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 
be supplied with meteoric or cometic material, until the vagrant store is all 
worked up. Another hypothesis is offered. 
Dr. C. W. Siemens holds that interstellar spaces are filled with a gaseous 
matter — hydrogen, hydro-carbons, oxygen, etc. — in extremely attenuated condi- 
tion. These gases, he holds, are attracted in enormous quantities to the polar 
surfaces of the Sun, and as they flow in, pass from this state of tenuity and ex- 
treme cold to that of compression and a rise in temperature. That finally on 
reaching the photosphere of the Sun they burst into flame, giving rise to a great 
development of heat. That the products of combustion — aqueous vapor, carbonic 
oxide and anhydride — yielding to the influence of centrifugal force, will flow 
toward the Sun's equator and thence be projected into space. He holds farther, 
that these projected gases in combustion are forced back by solar radiation to 
their original condition by a process of dissociation, and that in this direction, or 
in this office, that portion of the solar energy supposed by scientists heretofore 
to be lost by radiation into space can be accounted for. This hypothesis he bases 
upon experiments by which he has obtained unmistakable evidence of the disso- 
ciation of water vapor by the simple action of solar rays. 
Whether this is to be more than a mere hypothesis like that it proposes to sup. 
plant, must be left for farther investigation and discussion, but it has the great 
merit over the other of rescuing infinite creation from failure, and supplying for- 
ever the means for the maintenance of a system that offers every evidence of 
perfect wisdom in its existence thus far. It satisfies at least human conception 
of the power and resources of the infinite mind, so far as eternity of phenomena 
and law are involved. In this respect Dr. Siemens has rendered a very great 
service to reverential philosophy and to the reason of man. 
It may be of interest in this connection to give the result of Prof. Langley's 
observations to determine the color of the Sun, carried on for many years at 
Alleghany Observatory, near Pittsburg, and supplemented last summer by exper- 
iments on Mt. Whitney, at an elevation of 13,000 feet. Without detaining you 
with technical details, it will be only necessary to give the results in Prof. Lang- 
ley's own words, from a paper read by him before a recent meeting of the British 
Association at Southampton: "The conclusion then is, that while all radiations 
emanate from the solar surface, including red and infra-red, in greater degree 
than we receive them, that the blue end (in the spectroscope) is so enormously 
greater in proportion, that the proper color of the Sun, as seen at the photosphere 
is blue — not only 'bluish,' but positively and distinctly blue; a statement which I 
have not ventured to make from any conjecture, or any less cause than on the 
sole ground of long continued experiments, which, commenced some seven years 
since, have within the past two years irresistibly tended to the present conclu- 
sion." Comment on mere guessing theory and the facts from this eminent author- 
ity is only needed so far as to say that hypothesis is not infallible. 
Though perhaps not precisely scientific, as we use the term, and not strictly 
in place here, yet it may be permitted to refer to the fact that the higher science 
which we term philosophy, is keeping pace in its discussions and investigations 
