4 The Work of the Year. 



regard to Mr. Darwin, Dr. Thomson concludes that his geolo- 

 gical estimates of time, necessary to the postulates on which he 

 reasons, are entirely inconsistent with the chronology of the 

 sun, to which cosmical laws induct us. No doubt, upon the 

 basis thus hypothetically proposed, the researches now so ably 

 carried on in photo-heliography will add many curious and im- 

 portant facts, and our new views of the spectrum may aid still 

 further in revealing the chemical constitution of the luminous 

 atmosphere as well as of the denser fabric of the solar body. 

 The reduction of the phenomena of terrestrial magnetism to 

 something like an order of periodicity, affords another connect- 

 ing link between meteorology and the more strictly cosmical 

 departments of physics. The tabulated observations of mag- 

 netic disturbances indicate a close relationship between these 

 and the changes of weather on the earth's surface, both being 

 apparently subject to cyclical revolutions, embracing periods of 

 between ten and eleven years. There is now a stronger proba- 

 bility than ever that the magnetic needle will prove the true key 

 to meteorological law, and the weather predictions of Admiral 

 Fitzroy may be expected ere long to give place to bolder fore- 

 shadowings of atmospheric disturbance and alternations of 

 solar heat. But while resting in these, and hesitating to 

 draw the line between a fait aecomfli and a possibility of the 

 future, what a daily witness has the world now of the direct 

 value of researches and speculations in science ! " Hoist 

 drum," is the brief word by winch the mariner is warned, and 

 by obedience to which human lives and costly argosies are 

 saved from the grasp of the approaching storm : a grand vindi- 

 cation of those forbidding statistics to which meteorology has 

 been so long committed as a science of detail rather than of 

 general principles applicable to purposes of the highest use- 

 fulness and mercy. 



Chemistry is so little influenced in its progress by the 

 changes of the seasons, and the varying aspects of the heavens, 

 that its successive contributions to the stock of useful know- 

 ledge keep pace very closely with the march of time. Among 

 its numerous accomplishments two distinct modes of analysis 

 stand out conspicuously. Strictly speaking, the discovery of 

 Bunsen and Kirch off is not chemical, but actinic ; but its appli- 

 cations will immediately interest and concern the chemist, who 

 may now work conjointly with the astronomer, informing him 

 what are the constituent elements of those planetary and solar 

 masses, about the movements of which he is so ardently occupied. 

 The immediate result of the application of spectrum bands to the 

 identification of inorganic bodies, was the discovery of two new 

 metals, caesium and rubidium; then we were conducted by 

 the same method to an analysis of the source of light, and the 



