Royal Society. 229 



is made the primary object of expensive expeditions. The establish- 

 ment of more observatories in arctic lands, and the strengthening 

 of those already formed, would be of far greater service to science, 

 and productive of greater gain to navigation and general useful 

 knowledge. Austria is willing to join in international establish- 

 ments of this kind. He refers to Sir J. C. Ross's Antarctic Expe- 

 dition as a model scientific voyage, and draws attention to the good 

 results of the economic expeditions wintering in the Spitzbergen 

 archipelago, and demoted to physical and meteorological observation 

 rather than to geographical discovery. The loss of the open weather 

 by long sledging expeditions destroys real scientific research. 

 Arctic research is of the highest importance to the knowledge of 

 nature's laws ; but independent series of observations (especially if 

 chiefly devoted to geography) have but little value, compared with 

 stationary observatories encircling the arctic lands, and working on 

 synchronous magnetic " term-days " and other agreed times and 

 periods, without which physical, astronomical, and meteorological 

 phenomena cannot be reduced to their natural laws. 



XXX. Proceedings of Learned Societies. 



ROYAL SOCIETY. 



[Continued from p. 151.] 



Mar. 2, 1876.— Dr. J. Dalton Hooker, C.B., President, in the Chair. 



'T'HE following paper was read : — 



" Preliminary Note on the Compound Nature of the Line 

 Spectra of Elementary Bodies." By J. JST. Lockyer, E.E.S. 



In a former communication to the Royal Society (Proc. vol. xxii. 

 p. 380, 1874) I referred briefly to the possibility that the well- 

 known line spectra of the elementary bodies might not result from 

 the vibration of similar molecules ; and I was led to make the 

 remark in consequence of the differences in the spectra of certain 

 elements as observed in the spectrum of the sun and in those 

 obtained with the ordinary instrumental appliances. 



I have now clear evidence that the molecular grouping of calcium 

 which, with a small induction-coil and small jar, gives a spectrum 

 with its chief line in the blue, is nearly broken up in the sun (and 

 quite broken up in the discharge from a large coil and jar) into 

 another or others with lines in the violet. 



I say " another " or " others," because I have not yet been able 

 to determine whether the last-named lines proceed from the same 

 or different molecules ; and it is possible we may have to wait for 

 photographs of the spectrum of the brighter stars before this point 

 can be determined. 



This result enables us to fix with very considerable accuracy the 

 electric dissociating conditions which are equivalent to the degree 

 of dissociation at present at work in the sun. 



I beg permission to append the following Letter from Prof. 

 Stokes, and my reply : — 



