110 Colours of Stars. 



examined and measured, and lines are found in all cases where 

 there is sufficient intensity of light. The conclusion drawn by 

 these observers is truly magnificent — that since the elements 

 most widely diffused throughout the stars, so far as they have 

 been examined, are among those most clearly connected with 

 the existence of life upon the earth, " these observations give a 

 basis of some probability to that which has heretofore been but 

 pure speculation — namely, that at least the brighter stars are 

 like the sun, the upholding and energizing centres of systems 

 of worlds adapted to be the abodes of living beings.'" A con- 

 clusion, to which it may fairly be added, that the diversity 

 everywhere traceable, amid general similarity, in the character 

 of the analyzed light of the sun and stars, would lead us to 

 infer no less diversity in the nature of the life, both vegetable 

 and animal, dependent upon it, And what an overwhelmingly 

 vast conception is that thus opened to us, though only by a 

 single glimpse, of the riches of creation ! 



" O Lord, how manifold are Thy works ! 

 In wisdom hast Thou made them all." 



We must return, however, to the matter in hand, as to which 

 another remark by the same observers is much to the purpose, 

 that the colours of the stars, though not the alleged variations of 

 those colours, receive an explanation from these researches; 

 the number of dark lines occurring in any part of the spectrum 

 weakening, of course, the colour of that particular space, and 

 giving prominence to the hues of the portions not similarly 

 interrupted. This explanation presupposes an identity in the 

 composition of all light otherwise than as it may be interfered 

 with by the existence of non-luminous bands denoting the 

 presence of certain elements. But there is no proof of this 

 hypothesis. It may be equally probable, as Smyth has sup- 

 posed, " that the light of some of the stars is absolutely of a 

 distinct nature, and radically of a different composition, to that 

 of the sun." And amid all the diversity of creation, there is 

 no antecedent impossibility in the idea that as our solar light 

 is compounded of three colours, other suns may exist in which 

 two of them, or one only, may be found. And though in the 

 solar spectrum and all others with which we are familiar, the 

 three primary tints preserve their relative rcfrangibility, and 

 consequent position, it by no means follows that other spectra 

 may not exist in all the boundless realms of creation, where 

 other arrangements and proportions might be found, and 

 possibly where colours may be developed hitherto unseen by 

 mortal eye. For though we can conceive none which are not 

 our three primaries, or modifications of them, yet as colour 

 seems to depend upon the adaptation of the undulations of 



