THE 



AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SCIENCE 



[FOURTH SERIES.] 



Aet. XXXIII. — The New Spectrum; by S. P. Langley. 

 With Plate VII. 



The writer, (at the concluding meeting of the National 

 Academy of Sciences on April 18th,) remarked on the disad- 

 vantages in the matter of interest of the work of the physicist, 

 which he was about to show them, to that of the biologist, 

 which was concerned with the ever absorbing problem of life. 

 He had, however, something which seemed to him of interest 

 even in this respect, to speak of, for it included some indica- 

 tions he believed to be new, pointing the way to future knowl- 

 edge of the connection of terrestrial life with that physical 

 creator of all life, the sun. 



He had to present to the Academy a book embodying the 

 labor of twenty years ;• though at this late hour he could 

 scarcely more than show the volume with a mention of the 

 leading captions of its subject. What he had to say, then, 

 would be understood as only a sort of introductory description 

 of the contents of the work in question, which was entitled 

 " Volume I of the Annals of the Astrophysical Observatory 

 of the Smithsonian Institution." 



In illustration of a principal feature of this book, the 

 Academy saw before them on the wall an extended solar •spec- 

 trum,"* only a small portion of the beginning of which, on the 

 left, was the visible spectrum known to Sir Isaac Newton . 

 This was the familiar visible colored spectrum which we all 

 have seen and know something of, even if our special studies 

 are in other fields. 



* The references in this article are to the map in the present number (Plate VII). 



Am. Jour. Sci. — Fourth Series, Yol. XI, No. 66.— June, 1801. 



28 



3 1901* 



