i 
84 SPECTRUM AND APPEARANCE OF THE RECENT COMET. 
2 
bonic acid and carbonic oxide; at higher temperatures hydrogen 
predominated, as it does in metallic meteors. When examined 
with the spectroscope these gases gave a brilliant spectrum, in which 
the carbon lines quite eclipsed those of hydrogen, the brightest 
being three lines in the green, which Professor Wright says are 
precisely the same as the comet lines. In the extract from his paper 
on this subject which I have seen in the Reports of the British 
Association the wave lengths are not given, so that we are unable 
to see if they have exactly the same position as the average of all 
the’ measures of comets, for the different comets have given slightly 
different values of these lines. We may, however, take 1 as 
proven that the spectrum of the gases yielded by some meteors 8 
coincident with the comet spectrum ; and this is the strongest 
evidence that the substance is the same in both cases, and there 
fore probably derived from the same source. If in addition to this 
that there is very good reason for the supposition which is de 
generally accepted, that they have had a common origin. What 
that may have been is yet to be proven ; at present several theories 
are put forward. One makes meteors the fragments of a Shavit 
rp 
far removed from the attraction of the larger planetary pee 
that it obeyed the smaller and nearer centres, forming 
worlds revolving round the sun, so light and so far 
mass. 
2 tempest 
cementing together seems to have been done at a 
